Free Republic

With six months to go until the presidential election, America's NATO allies are planning to boost their defense spending ahead of the potential disruption of a second Donald Trump presidency. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is preparing a funding plan to try to insulate the 75-year-old military partnership from any changing political realities that might affect the alliance, according to Oana Lungescu, who until last year was the longtime lead NATO spokesperson for Stoltenberg. "It is important to have predictability both for allies and for Ukraine," Lungescu told CBS News. "This [plan] relieves the U.S. of some of its organizational...

Democrats with deep knowledge of the Biden campaign acknowledged former President Donald Trump’s significant chances of completing the greatest political comeback in American history. Democrats are right to be concerned. In March, Trump beat the odds and won five victories that firmly kept him on a path to reclaim the White House: Clinched Republican presidential primary Received a reduced bond amount, from $454 million to $175 million Completed a Truth Social merger and launched a public offering Won a ruling by Judge McAfee to appeal an order denying the disqualification of Fani Willis Endorsed Ohio candidate Bernie Moreno, who then...

On June 13th, 2023, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to overturn the proposed rule of the BATF, which is set to make the possession of pistols with a pistol brace installed a federal felony, punishable with up to a $10,000 fine and or ten years in prison. The vote was almost entirely on party lines, passing 218 to 210. Two Democrats voted for the resolution, and two Republicans voted against it. On Thursday, June 22nd, 2023, the Senate voted against H.J. Resolution 44 by a razor-thin margin of 50 to 49. Three Senators, who were considered possible swing votes,...

After having ruled pistol braces to be legal accessories for a decade, the ATF has issued a rule many, if not most pistol braces, will be considered contraband, which makes a pistol into a short-barreled rifle. Under the theory of “constructive possession”, possession of a banned pistol brace and a pistol the brace will fit could be enough for arrest and conviction of possession of a short-barreled rifle, with penalties of up to a $10,000 fine and or up to ten years in prison. Under the Supreme Court decision United States v. Thompson/Center Arms Co., the possession of parts that...

At the NRA Annual Meeting in Indianapolis, One-Shot Systems was offering pre-orders to the public for the new, improved version of their highly successful, non-attached pistol stabilization system. The product has been in use, particularly in the US military and with law enforcement agencies, for a decade. The improved design is now being offered to the general public. The early versions were built for the Special Forces community. The product has been continuously improved and is now in use at over a hundred agencies, including the Secret Service and U.S. Border Patrol. The concept of a solid rest to stabilize...

Read more: https://www.ammoland.com/2023/03/firearms-policy-coalition-loses-bid-to-block-the-pistol-brace-rule/#ixzz7xVrKln7l Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Follow us: @Ammoland on Twitter | Ammoland on Facebook FPC claimed the ATF exceeded its statutory jurisdiction and violated the Administrative Procedures Act (APA). Judge O’Connor disagreed with FPC’s conclusion. The Judge believes that the ATF has the ability and authority to determine what a rifle is. The Court claims that the term “rifle” is ambiguous.

More than half the wage earners currently working in the hospitality business are planning to quit by Jan. 1, according to new research.. Restaurants struggling to hold onto their employees are about to hit by a major setback, according to new research. A survey of 13,659 wage earners by the online job marketplace Joblist revealed that 58% of restaurant and hotel employees intend to quit their jobs by the end of the year, stoking what the researchers have dubbed The Great Resignation. If the pattern set by earlier quitters persists, a fourth of the workers will leave the hospitality industry...

The Biden administration painted a grim picture of the U.S.’s ongoing bout with COVID-19 on Monday as officials grow increasingly concerned with the nation’s current trajectory despite key silver linings in the push to vaccinate Americans. Over the last week, the U.S.’s daily case count has jumped to around 60,000, representing a 10 percent rise in the seven-day average. Coupled with rising hot spots in states such as New Jersey and Michigan, it prompted a new warning from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky that a fourth surge and “impending doom” could be in the offing...

(Billing Code: 4410-FY-P) DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives Docket No. 2020R-10W Objective Factors for Classifying Weapons with “Stabilizing Braces”; Withdrawal of Guidance AGENCY: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, Department of Justice. ACTION: Notice; withdrawal. SUMMARY: The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (“ATF”) is announcing the withdrawal of a notice and request for comments entitled “Objective Factors for Classifying Weapons with ‘Stabilizing Braces’,” that was published on December 18, 2020. DATES: The withdrawal is effective [INSERT DATE OF PUBLICATION IN THE FEDERAL REGISTER]. ADDRESSES: This Notice also will be made available on...

Long-time leaders of the anti-abortion movement are gritting their teeth after Donald Trump’s comments about women being punished for abortions. Many conservatives are fuming over the GOP frontrunner’s remarks, which he later walked back. The comments ignored decades of conservative doctrine on abortion, while creating a sound bite that Hillary Clinton is already using to attack the GOP. Despite what they see as a blunder, anti-abortion leaders overwhelmingly say they will unequivocally support Trump if faced with what they describe as a nightmarish choice between him and Clinton this November. “If it’s between those two, I can’t trust Mr. Trump...

Video- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNMLO18kl98 Recently a Colorado police officer contacted the BATF to inquire about the legality of firing a pistol from the shoulder when equipped with a Sig SB15 brace. It doesn’t come as a surprise to me that the ATF said it’s perfectly legal to shoulder the “not-a-stock” device when attached to a pistol. I knew it was legal to shoulder the SB15 when it first hit the market as I had researched it years ago when AR15 pistols became popular and people were shouldered the stumpy extension tubes and firing them as if they were really short stocked rifles....

If you thought last week was as cold as you could bear it, brace yourself. Forecasters say the worst is yet to come, and this winter could be the harshest since the Thames froze over more than three centuries ago. Temperatures for December are the coldest on record, with the average reading close to minus 1c – almost six degrees below normal. And with forecasters warning that this winter’s ‘mini ice age’ might last until mid-March, this winter could be the worst since 1683-84 when a fair was held on the Thames.

WASHINGTON – Breast cancer surgeon Kathryn Wagner has posted a warning in her waiting room about a different sort of risk to patients' health: She'll stop taking new Medicare cases if Congress allows looming cuts in doctors' pay to go through. The scheduled cuts — the result of a failed system set up years ago to control costs — have raised alarms that real damage to Medicare could result if the lame-duck Congress winds up in a partisan standoff and fails to act by Dec. 1. That's when an initial 23 percent reduction would hit. Neither Democrats nor newly empowered...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plan to cut deep into education funding includes shortening the K-12 school year by a week – the first time in the history of the state, experts say, that the school year has been sharply reduced, rather than lengthened. But that measure, among others, is being offered because the current economic crisis “is probably the most challenging budget situation the state has ever faced,” the administration says. “Most other industrialized countries are in excess of 200 days a year, and today we go 180 days. This proposal would whack that to 175 days,” said state schools Superintendent...

Markets braced for the worst By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (Filed: 15/05/2006) Global markets are bracing for turmoil today after an ominous slide in the US dollar and a slump in equity and bond prices late last week sent tremors through the global financial system, evoking memories of the 1987 crash. Emerging economies have led the sell-off as investors recoil from risky assets, pummelling stocks and bonds in Turkey, Hungary, Iceland and much of Latin America. The currencies of Brazil, Mexico and South Africa all suffered their sharpest falls in two years as foreign funds rushed for the exits. In New York,...

Shape-shifting car will brace for impact 15:34 10 May 2006 NewScientist.com news service Tom Simonite A car that can anticipate a side-on impact and subtly alter its body shape to absorb the force of the crash is being developed by researchers in Germany. The car will use hood-mounted cameras and radar to spot a vehicle on course for a side-on collision. Once it realises an impact is imminent it will activate a shape-shifting metal in the door. This reinforces the bond between door and frame, which is normally a weak spot, and distributes the force of the blow more safely....

Brace for shock at pump Gas prices may reach highest level in history By NELSON ANTOSH and JENALIA MORENO Aug. 21, 2003, 10:42PM The highest gasoline prices in history appear to be just down the road. Dwindling supplies in the face of increased demand threaten to push pump prices over the national record set last mid-March, when markets were shaken by the prospects of a war with Iraq. On Thursday, the markets "went ballistic," says Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for the Oil Price Information Service in Lakewood, N.J. That means the highest pump prices ever seen are just a...

PORTLAND - Both police and protesters are planning for a possible raucous day Thursday when President Bush visits for a fund-raiser on the University of Portland campus. Portland police are coordinating security with the U.S. Secret Service and a White House advance team, hoping to avoid some pitfalls that led to major police clashes with demonstrators a year ago at a money-raiser for Sen. Gordon Smith in Portland. Meanwhile, local activists are making plans of their own as they gear up to protest his appearance. Bush is expected to spend less time in Portland compared with last August, when his...