Articles by Herschel Smith

From the clownish behavior of the generals simping for the Woke crowd, to the obscene pullout of Afghanistan, to the lower PT standards of all branches of the military, to the recycling of female candidates for Ranger school, to Marine Corps officer candidates who have to use GPS to pass the land navigation course, to the rusting ships, to the crashing ships at sea, and on it goes.  How could it get any worse?

She, along with a ten other Marines, a Soldier and a Sailor, was killed by the enemy doing exactly what you see in this picture – helping the innocent.

She was 23; she was 2-years old when the attacks of 911 started the path down to where she found herself that day in service to her nation.

All that makes the following unbearable.

Nicole Gee, 23, was one of 13 service members who died in a suicide blast at Kabul Airport in 2021 alongside 170 desperate Afghans seeking to leave the beleaguered country.

…

Gee’s body was first flown to her hometown of Roseville, California for a ceremony.

But her family was told they would be responsible for taking her body to her final resting place at Arlington National Cemetery, Florida Representative Mills claimed.

Honoring Our Fallen, a nonprofit which helps the families of fallen American service members, paid for the family to move Gee’s remains to Virginia using a private jet.

Mills’ office said the option for the defense department to decline to pay for the transportation of her body was allowed by a change to last year’s National Defense Authorization Act.

It states the secretary of Defense may provide a fallen service member’s family ‘a commercial air travel use waiver for the transportation of deceased remains of [a] military member who dies inside a theater of combat operations.’

Republican politician Mills said the Defense Department should pay for transporting the bodies of those who have died serving their countries and not their families.

‘Typically, our fallen heroes are flown back home for a solemn service and then laid to a final rest at Arlington Cemetery with the utmost respect and honor,’ he told Fox News.

‘It is an egregious injustice that grieving families were burdened to shoulder the financial strain of honoring their loved ones.

So now in the middle of the obscene surrender and pullout, a woman (who shouldn’t have been in combat anyway) died, and the family has to sustain the burial cost if they want her buried at Arlington.

Who with any sense would enlist in or seek a commission in the U.S. military today?

Well, this is extremely disappointing.  I have several boxes of this sitting around.  Ammo manufacturers need to understand that exploding bullets don’t jive with hunting.

Here are some better performers: Hornady LeverEvolution and Remington CoreLokt.

I’ve told Wisco he needs to keep better control over his pets.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen this dance Swans do before.  It’s seems well choreographed.

I guess if you’re shy, you’re shy.  Being around other shy dogs doesn’t suddenly make you not shy.

Dogs will be dogs.

@kimberlyclark78 #dukehasapooladdiction #everydayshouldbesaturday #iwasnothappy ♬ original sound – Kimberly Clark

This lion took on the wrong guys at the wrong time.

Source.

At summary judgment, the district court found that the two challenged provisions in the Rule exceeded the statutory jurisdiction and authority of the ATF and vacated the entire Rule per the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(C). The district court rejected a stay pending appeal but granted a seven-day administrative stay to allow the ATF to bring an emergency appeal.

Because the ATF has not demonstrated a strong likelihood of success on the merits, nor irreparable harm in the absence of a stay, we DENY the government’s request to stay the vacatur of the two challenged portions of the Rule. “[V]acatur . . . reestablish[es] the status quo ante,” Defense Distributed v. Platkin, 55 F.4th 486, 491 (5th Cir. 2022), which is the world before the Rule became effective. This effectively maintains, pending appeal, the status quo that existed for 54 years from 1968 to 2022.

The ATF is likely correct, however, that the vacatur was overbroad. The district court analyzed the legality of only two of the numerous provisions of the Rule, which contains an explicit severability clause. See 87 Fed. Reg. at 24730. Where a court holds specific portions of a rule unlawful, severance is preferred when doing so “will not impair the function of the [rule] as a whole, and there is no indication that the regulation would not have been passed but for its inclusion.” K Mart Corp. v. Cartier, Inc., 486 U.S. 281, 294 (1988); see also Sw. Elec. Power Co. v. EPA, 920 F.3d 999, 1033 (5th Cir. 2019) (vacating only challenged portions of a rule). Because the agency has shown a strong likelihood of success on its assertion that the vacatur of the several non-challenged parts of the Rule was overbroad, we STAY the vacatur, pending appeal, as to the non-challenged provisions.

We sua sponte EXPEDITE the appeal to the next available oral argument calendar. To allow time for additional proceedings as appropriate, this order is administratively STAYED for 10 days.

I’m not sure what all of this means, but according to the decision, throwing out the entirety of the new frame and receiver rule would have vacated several non-challenged provisions.

It’s good to see, however, that the Fifth Circuit doesn’t believe the ATF can win on the challenged provisions of the new rule.

Glenn Reynolds.

WELL, GOOD: Judge strikes down Arizona law limiting filming of police.

Note that the First Circuit has held that taking photos and video in public is a right that is sufficiently “clearly established” that those who violated it can’t claim qualified immunity.

Note that it’s not just free speech. There’s also a due process right to record the police.

If they don’t want you to film them, they have something to hide.

For cops to claim they shouldn’t be filmed would be like me, a professional engineer, saying that I have a right to perform calculations and designs and no one has a right to review them, nor should I be held accountable for them.

That sort of immature thinking is reserved for little children who get caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

Good.  This was always going to happen, it should be sooner rather than later.

They’ll get a good dose of the facts now, including the pesky one on the FBI refusing to allow the ATF to examine the weapons allegedly used in the Las Vagas shooting.

If they do any research at all, they’ll find out that the Las Vegas shooting was a rolling gun battle all the way down main street, not a shooting from a hotel window.  That whole event is full of things the FedGov doesn’t want you to know.

And by the way, never forget that Donal Trump gave you the bump stock ban, and the corollary empowered ATF who now feels no compunction about making up law out of whole cloth – because Trump gave them permission to do it.  Donald Trump owns the bump stock ban and the current ATF.  It’s his.  It belongs to him.  It has his name on it.

I do wish that my name could be on this brief as a petitioner, but I never felt compelled to own a bump stock – until now so I could be on that brief.

Here is the brief.

Via Ken, this ridiculous report comes as a result of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

DALY CITY, Calif. (KGO) — A Bay Area man is devastated to learn the prosthetic foot he was crafting for a one-legged eagle in Pennsylvania won’t be put to use. The golden eagle named Aura was put down at the order of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Nam Duong’s Daly City workshop makes a very specialized product for animals.

“Some call me the chicken feet maker!” He laughs.

After tinkering with 3D printing during the pandemic making masks toys, it was his love of animals and wanting to help others, that inspired Duong to turn his hobby into a prosthetics business called Pet1stProsthetics on Etsy to help more than just chickens.

“Ducks and I do help a lot of dogs, turkey, I did peacock I did goat, a finch…” he rattles on while showing off a boot made for a cat.

During the pandemic, Duong crafted hundreds of 3D-printed legs for animals in need across the country. He now also has clients around the globe in places like Japan and Europe.

Most recently, it was a request from 2,800 miles away in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania that held special significance.

“I saw it was an eagle and I was so anxious, I said this is my first one!” He beamed.

Aura the Golden Eagle, who is in the same family as our country’s national bird, the Bald Eagle had been found in a field in need of care. She was brought to the Pocono Wildlife Rehab and Education Center.

Being able to save the life of an Eagle and improve the time it had left would be a cool thing, yes?

Katherine Huler, the organization’s founder and current Director of Educational Programming says the bird was underweight.

“She would not have survived that much longer out in the wild, certainly not without being fed.”

It’s believed one of Aura’s talons got caught in a trap and was severed right below the ankle. After being seen by three doctors, her rehabbers at the nonprofit center say she was completely healed and thriving.

“Never once tried to bite, never one tired to talon. She was just incredibly soft and acceptive,” says co-executive director Susan Downing. Videos sent to ABC7 News of Aura show her calmly being bathed and interacting with humans.

Aura who was estimated to be 3 to 5 years old was on track to become an educational animal. Duong was hired to make a prosthetic as a finishing touch.

But there is no situation so bad, so dire, so ugly and desperate, that it cannot be made far worse with the presence of the FedGov.

“She’d walk without so much as a limp.” Says her rehab team.

All seemed on track until the nonprofit center received a letter from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, indicating Aura had to be euthanized because of her amputated leg.

“The order itself was received at around 1 p.m. last Thursday, and states to euthanatize immediately.

That could have resulted had we refused to cooperate with the federal order,” says Janine Tancredi, Co-Executive Director of the center.

That very night, Aura was put down much to the devastation of the rebab center… and Duong.

“I almost wanted to cry, honestly, it’s not right.” He said.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife sent ABC7 News a statement answering how the service determines if a bird should be euthanized or not.

The law states in part that euthanization must happen if a bird can’t feed itself, or move without inflicting additional injury… if it’s blind or have injuries requiring amputation.

We need federal laws for that, you see, because someone knows better than raptor center experts what needs to be done with birds of prey.

Also you see, this dovetails with the way King George sees the world.  We need to be licensed to drive on the king’s highways, we must be licensed and follow all of his rules when hunting the royal forests, we cannot enter prohibited lands (like parks or BLM) to hunt them because they are the exclusive royal forests, and finally, the royal birds belong to the king – only he can decide whether they live or die.

And upon the evolutionary perspective (which I don’t share), we’re just animals.  It’s a short hop and a skip to the FedGov deciding if its subject, like you and me, are any use to the king anymore and need to be euthanized.

When light is darkness and darkness is light.  And when your only goal is to illegally harass gun and ammo stores because you’re a communist.

And the winner is clear if the firearm and cartridge are the only concerns.  The loser is clear if your shoulder is the issue.

Outdoor Life.

Here are four examples of scam websites that were still live within the last few days: federalammunitions.com, shopremingtonammo.com, remingtonammos.com, and winchesterammosales.com.

Ammo scams aren’t the only scams out there.  For example, shotmarlinfirearmsusa.com is a scam web site.  I seem to be able to pick them out of a crowd and haven’t been taken by any of them yet.  But there’s a first time for everything.

Be diligent, and if you get wind of any scam sites, report them in the comments.