You get a letter telling you that you are unfit to keep serving. It arrives with a deadline, too, sometimes less than a week, and it sets in motion a process that will decide whether you keep your career or not. Whether you get a severance check, a retirement, health care for your family, or nothing. Somewhere in that packet is a line about your right to consult a lawyer. In the Army, that line has led to the Office of Soldiers’ Counsel, a small unit of attorneys who exist for exactly this type of thing. A growing number of…
Watch full video on YouTube
Watch full video on YouTube
Watch full video on YouTube
Iran said mediators have been in touch with proposals on how to ease hostilities with the U.S. after several days of clashes, though tensions remain high after a threat by the Tehran-backed Houthi group to blockade Saudi Arabia. Esmail Baghaei, the Islamic Republic’s foreign ministry spokesman, said “ideas from some mediators have been conveyed” to Tehran, without giving further details. Tehran said its interior minister, Eskandar Momeni, is traveling to Pakistan on Monday. Qatar and Pakistan, the main intermediaries in the conflict, see a return to U.S.- Iran positions of pre- July 9 as a first step, according to semi-official…
Remember the First Gulf War? Persian Gulf War? Desert Storm and/or Desert Shield? They’re all the same war. Whatever we call it now, it was the war that expelled Iraqi troops from Kuwait, checked a decade of Saddam Hussein’s aggression toward his neighbors, and broke the specter of Vietnam that loomed over the U.S. military. U.S. troops had seen smaller actions before that time, but nothing like the scale and scope of a real “mother of all battles,” pitting Saddam’s Iraq vs. the United States and its UN-mandated coalition partners. “Yours is a society which cannot accept 10,000 dead in…
This article was originally published by Clifford F. Thies and John Elrick at The Mises Institute. “You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics.” — Robert Solow, 1987 The economy has been growing steadily since we started to recover from the 2020 pandemic and shutdown; the unemployment rate is and has been near the bottom of the range normally considered to be full employment; and, wages adjusted for inflation are the highest they’ve ever been. Nevertheless, the productivity slowdown observed by Robert Solow forty years ago seems to have returned, and surveys of consumer confidence are…
On Jan. 24, 1991, a U.S.-led international coalition won the first battle of Operation Desert Storm, the effort to free Kuwait after its invasion and annexation by Iraq, with the coordinated efforts of the Army and Navy. The Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate USS Curts had been in the area since the previous October as part of the Midway battle group out of its homeport in Yokosuka, Japan. The Perry-class frigates, while lightly armed, were small, fast and maneuverable, an asset in the shallow waters of the North Arabian Gulf, which was full of floating mines. The Curts had a shipboard…
Hazardous air quality caused by wildfires. Mudslides created by raging thunderstorms. Flash floods through inescapable slot canyons. The Great Outdoors often requires us to consider the threat of natural disasters — but this summer is exceptionally fraught for those seeking time in nature. Extreme weather has led to dangerous conditions for many national parks, leading to warnings to visitors, or closures of affected areas. Here are the closures you need to know about if you’re planning a national park vacation anytime soon. And no matter what public lands trips you might have planned, it’s a good idea to check on…
Advice columnists probably need to heed a little advice: Stay in your lane.It’s one thing to answer the question about what someone should do in a given situation. It’s another way to engage in pop psychology in an effort to try to score a political point while offering that advice, if for no other reason than you end up looking like a freaking idiot when you do. No, this isn’t just some random aside from the league leader in ADHD-fueled tangents. Oh no, baby, this is based on a real advice column in the Washington…
A bill aimed at stopping credit card companies from tracking firearm purchases is headed to the U.S. Senate after clearing the House with bipartisan support. The Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act (H.R. 1181) passed the House on July 14 by a 221-201 vote. According to the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA), the bill would prohibit payment networks from using special merchant category codes (MCCs) to identify purchases of firearms, ammunition, or other constitutionally protected items. The House passed the Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act, a gun purchase privacy bill. Supporters argue the measure is about protecting the privacy of…
Becoming an established luxury manufacturer takes more than just churning out some posh sedans with sumptuous seats, as a given brand needs to build an overall image that makes people think that they will look the business behind the wheel. That’s why the likes of Hyundai and Toyota developed their own bespoke luxury brands, since the motherships were too closely associated with affordability. Chrysler had established this reputation in the early to mid-20th century, though things had taken a turn in the latter stages of the century. In the late 1990s though, the marque was looking to make a comeback,…
Support us! GearJunkie may earn a small commission from affiliate links in this article. Learn More Forward-facing sonar has changed how a lot of anglers fish, and Garmin just gave its LiveScope lineup a substantial overhaul. The new LiveScope 2 ($2,000) and LiveScope 2 HD ($2,200) systems debuted ahead of ICAST 2026 with better image quality, wider coverage, and a much simpler installation. Both systems now connect directly to a compatible Garmin display and power source, eliminating the separate black box required by previous generations. For anyone who has rigged a boat with LiveScope, that hardware change alone is a…
The decline in violent crime across the United States is something that most of us are cheering, but for the gun control lobby it’s hardly cause for celebration. This is a movement predicated on the false premise that more guns leads to more crime, after all, and while there are still more than 1,000,000 gun sales taking place each month, homicides are dropping to rates not seen in a century or more. Presumably, at some point these declines will slow down and head in the wrong direction, and if the gun control lobby can’t point…
A Las Vegas mother says she did what she believed she had to do after two strangers ended up in her backyard and appeared to be trying to break into her home. According to News 3 Las Vegas, the incident happened around 9:20 p.m. last Monday in the 3900 block of Steinbeck Drive after two men fled a nearby vehicle crash and ran into a residential neighborhood. The first sign of trouble came from the homeowner’s 17-year-old daughter, Kaliyah Smith, who heard noises coming from the backyard. “I heard knocking on my wall because there’s a sliding door right there,”…
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Mike Waltz, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations, said Monday that the U.S. government would soon move to stop violent gangs in Haiti from making money off social media posts. Gang leaders in the troubled Caribbean country are prolific users of social media and have celebrated killings, issued threats and posted musings on various sites. Younger gang members also post music videos and wave cash they’ve earned in an effort to recruit children in the impoverished nation. Waltz called the practice “incredibly disturbing” and warned the U.S. would “shut that down” in the…
The United States’ air defenses are struggling to defend against attacks from Iran. The Pentagon reported that Tehran’s retaliatory strikes on a military base in Jordan killed two American service members, as air defenses failed to keep up. The US is becoming increasingly concerned that the Iranian military is improving its efficacy at penetrating its air defenses in the Middle East. Several media outlets have reported, citing anonymous officials, that air defenses appear to be struggling to keep up. This comes on the heels of a deadly missile and drone strike on a military base in Jordan on Friday, which…
I grew up backpacking with my very outdoorsy parents, but once they hit their 50s, they drew a line in the sand. They were happy to go on hiking adventures, but refused to sleep on the ground, which is entirely fair. Their backs and hips hurt, and they were over the idea of schlepping around 30-plus–pound packs. And it’s not just folks in their older years who want to skip camping. There are plenty of people of all ages who love the outdoors, but, for whatever reason, don’t want to sleep in a tent. Unfortunately, that rules out participating in…
The National Rifle Association will back Democrats, contrary to popular opinion. If they’re pro-gun, they’ll get the backing of the nation’s oldest civil rights organization. That’s all that should matter to them, after all. But the problem is that some people will say and do anything to get an endorsement, especially if it helps them get into office, and while guilt by association is a bad thing, in general, there is something to be said for judging a person by the company they keep. Just being in the room isn’t enough, but when you actively…
Gun rights advocates picked up one of their biggest courtroom wins in years Friday after a federal appeals court ruled that New Jersey’s ban on Modern Sporting Rifles (MSRs) and standard-capacity magazines violates the Second Amendment. The decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit could have major implications well beyond New Jersey. It arrives just months before the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear two high-profile challenges to so-called “assault weapon” bans out of Connecticut and Illinois. The case, Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs v. New Jersey Attorney General, centered on whether…
The Department of Veterans Affairs announced July 15 that it is proposing to significantly reduce the paperwork burden for veterans applying for disability compensation and for surviving family members applying for Dependency and Indemnity Compensation. If adopted, the changes would represent the most substantial simplification of the VA benefits application process in recent memory. The proposals, published in the Federal Register in June, target two of the most-used forms in the VA benefits system. VA Form 21-526EZ, the application for disability compensation benefits, would be cut from 15 pages to five pages. VA estimates that completing the streamlined form would…
