A federal appeals court has ruled that a district judge lacked the authority to throw out the 2017 court-martial conviction of former Army soldier Bowe Bergdahl for desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. Bowe Bergdahl left his post in Afghanistan in 2009 and was held by Taliban-allied fighters for about five years before a 2014 prisoner swap. He had his conviction vacated in 2023 by U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton. On Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated that decision and ordered the case dismissed, concluding that only military tribunals…
Lately, Facebook has been filling my feed with leftist jackwagons saying really stupid stuff. Granted, some of this has turned out to provide fodder to write about, so I guess it’s not all bad. Still, I’d like a little less of the anti-gun echo chamber in my feed. Luckily, for once, Facebook provided. It’s a really good explanation of just how dumb gun-free zones actually are.I mean, isn’t that what anti-gunners seem to think happens? A couple of heavily armed men approach, nefarious intentions obvious, but then they see the gun-free zone sign and suddenly…
A federal judge has upheld a multimillion-dollar jury verdict, effectively awarding a U.S. Army veteran $6.6 million in damages stemming from a 2019 encounter with Los Angeles Police. The veteran, Slade Douglas, 49, was successful in his case after U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong rejected a bid by the city and two Los Angeles Police Department officers to throw out the verdict, according to Courthouse News Service. The jury had found that officers unlawfully detained Douglas in August 2019, after a call he made to a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) crisis line set off a chain of events…
Annually, Walk the Talk America has conducted an important survey. This year’s “Guns AND Mental Health Survey” rolled out on Sept. 1 and runs until Sept. 30. Consider taking it. Every year since they’ve been conducting these surveys, we’ve been supportive of them. While WTTA is not a “professional” survey company, that does not mean that the work that they’re doing isn’t meaningful. As their team gathers more data, the better enabled they are to help aid gun owners when it comes to potentially harmful policy. This year’s survey runs for a month and we…
In a scene reminiscent of Star Wars, the U.S. military’s Joint Task Force – Southern Border (JTF-SB) carried out a futuristic technological mission last week. U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) used a high-energy laser system pointed to the sky over the U.S.-Mexico border to disable and ultimately down several drones linked to the Mexican drug cartel. Mexican drug cartels are a powerful, highly organized criminal enterprise that control the multi-billion-dollar global drug trade with deep influence across Mexico and other international markets. Besides narcotics, cartels generate massive profits through human smuggling, extortion, illegal mining, fuel theft, and other black-market economies. Former…
More than 250,000 new veterans have reportedly enrolled in health care so far this year with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The VA said in a statement Tuesday that more than 1.4 million veterans who joined VA health care this year have had or scheduled medical appointments, including more than 300,000 mental health appointments and more than 12,000 emergency care visits. The VA calculates new health care enrollment when a veteran’s Form 10-10EZ is approved and assigned a priority group. The Veterans Health Administration and Defense Health Agency hosted the Immersive Health Care Technology Demo Day at the…
Rebound Health is expanding virtual PTSD treatment for people who may have difficulty getting specialized care, including service members and veterans. The company combines video therapy with an application offering exercises, education and support between appointments. It treats PTSD connected to military service and other forms of trauma. “It’s not a science gap or a clinical gap,” co-founder and CEO Raeva Kumar told Military.com in an interview. “It’s an access and operational gap that we’re solving.” A Company Shaped by Personal Experience Kumar worked in digital health before receiving a PTSD diagnosis herself. She contacted 22 therapists before finding one…
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Prepping has never been more expensive, especially when it comes to stockpiling food. Ongoing conflicts in the Middle East are pushing up the price of energy, droughts and heat waves are killing crops, and data centers are making water more and more scarce. All of this means that food is going to keep getting more expensive. Fortunately, you can still get a lot of emergency food for a reasonable price if you’re willing to search and to buy things in bulk. You’ll also need to be willing to eat some of the basics: rice, beans, pasta, and so forth, but…
In an ideal world, we wouldn’t need prisons. We wouldn’t even need laws. People would understand what they should and should not do, and everything would be grand. We don’t live in that world, though. We live in this one, and so some people deserve to go to prison for a long time. When they don’t, we often find that the bad actors don’t stop trying to victimize other people.That’s what happened in one home in Rochester, NY. The bad guy decided to keep victimizing people. The armed citizen decided otherwise.A Rochester, New York, homeowner…
Marriage isn’t easy. And the military can make it even harder. Some military marriages can withstand the strain. Others can’t and end in divorce. Mine was one of those marriages that didn’t make it. After a 13-year marriage, I divorced my then-active duty husband following the one-year legal separation required by the state. More than a decade later, I still live in an area with a dense military population, and many of the military spouse friends I had before my divorce are still my friends now that I’m no longer one myself. So with this perspective, what have I learned…
The Firearms Policy Coalition is an interesting organization. On one hand, they do amazing work challenging gun laws, even allegedly having a special printer just for printing them out. It’s fantastic, even if it’s not entirely true. I honestly don’t care, because the work is what matters, not the marketing. They’re also the group most likely to tell an anti-gunner to perform anatomically improbable sexual acts upon their own person, and do it in style.I like that.I also like the press release they put out recently.Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced today that its legal team…
A U.S. Army veteran who self-deported to South Korea last year has been pardoned for the crimes that led him to leave the country. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, on Friday pardoned Sae Joon Park, a 57-year-old who was born in South Korea and had lived in the U.S. since he was 7, erasing two convictions he had in the state. She also pardoned five other individuals in the state. “Today, I am granting clemency to six individuals who have displayed positive changes in their lives and will dedicate themselves to bettering their communities—they earned their second chance…
Graphite is a powerful commercial spyware product capable of entering a smartphone without its owner clicking a link, opening an attachment or knowingly downloading anything. Developed by Paragon Solutions, the technology has been connected to surveillance targeting journalists and immigration activists in Europe. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also holds a $2 million contract with Paragon, raising questions about how American authorities may use the technology. How Graphite Secretly Compromises Phones Graphite belongs to the same category of commercial surveillance technology as Pegasus, the better-known spyware developed by NSO Group. Both are classified as mercenary spyware, meaning private companies develop…
Last week, the ATF confirmed the agency was the target of a cyber attack. That’s not good, even if the system penetrated was about the targets of investigations, rather than gun purchase records or anything of the sort. Still, it happened. The ATF admitted it, but would not confirm if the ransomware outfit known as Qilin was responsible. That’s still up in the air.However, Qilin did release a bunch of data that it claims it got from the hack, and sure enough, they’re the targets of past investigations.A likely Russian-speaking cybercriminal gang on Monday leaked…
More than half a century after the F-15 Eagle first took off, the Pentagon is preparing to spend as much as $131.23 billion keeping the legendary fighter in production, upgrading the aircraft in service and supporting flights around the world. The Boeing Co. received the massive contract Monday for the F-15 Eagle Crest program, according to the Department of War contract announcement. The agreement covers all portions of the aircraft, including the maintenance of every part needed to keep it functional. Government-operated depot maintenance capabilities are intended to preserve critical F-15 weapons system capabilities for the Air Force, Air National…
A wave of public backlash is pulling Flock’s license plate reader cameras off streets nationwide. But in many communities, surveillance isn’t ending and cameras are actually just changing brands. As cities cancel their contracts with Flock Safety, more are hiring Axon instead. They are another law enforcement technology company that installs cameras that scan and track passing vehicles much as Flock cameras do, and they lack the public attention that Flock has received over the course of the past few months. That trend has even reached the Florida Department of Transportation. They ordered all license plate readers removed from state…
As someone who was raised as the son of a police officer, I feel a pain upon any officer’s death in the line of duty. I remember when someone I looked up to, Officer Randy Brown, was killed in the line of duty when I was a child. That comes back every time. I don’t give cops a pass, but I do respect the job they do, and I mourn them being killed, which is what happened to an officer in Las Vegas recently.Now, people are asking questions about how the killer was armed, but…
