Odds & Ends

In a shocking ruling that’s sailed under the media radar, the High Court of American Samoa ruled that since Samoa is an unincorporated territory of the US, the Second Amendment doesn’t apply there, so a near total gun ban can go into effect.

This article has more on the story and the complicated legal situation involving American territories, as well as what the Trump Administration can do to reverse this ruling, which they should do immediately.
 
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Plague in Russia? One dead, dozens quarantined
The world is watching Russia after a 28-year-old lab technician was exposed to and died of “pneumonic plague,” a strain of the Bubonic plague, at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia. Russia is responding strongly, closing and quarantining five different hospitals while more than 200 people remain under observation. Pneumonic plague spreads through droplets expressed by coughing, but Russian workers are wearing full hazmat suits, suggesting they may know something we don’t. Unlike in the 13th century, the Black Plague is now treatable and won’t spread like wildfire. Still, just years after COVID-19 and with fears of biological warfare running rampant, President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are watching carefully.
 
Satanic prayer opens city council meeting
An Ottumwa, Iowa, city council meeting opened Tuesday with a prayer to the devil. A former council member delivered the invocation. “Let us pray, dear Dark Father,” he said, calling for attendees to “embrace the Luciferian impulse to eat of the tree of knowledge” and urging the council to endorse “personal sovereignty.” The invocation concluded with a prayer used by The Satanic Temple of Iowa: “That which will not bend must break, and that which can be destroyed by truth should never be spared its demise. It is done. Hail Satan!” The audience shifted uncomfortably before Rick Bick, a pastor, stepped forward out of turn and said, “Let’s just reverse this curse that was put on our city. That ‘Hail Satan’ is not welcome here.” One council member reprimanded the pastor for interrupting proceedings. The meeting continued, attendees ironically reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
 
The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals issued two landmark rulings that could restrict how far the government can go in banning convicted criminals from owning guns. In the two cases (see details at the link), the court found that committing a violent crime can cost you your Second Amendment rights, but not a non-violent, non-gun-related crime.

Judge Paul Matey, a Trump appointee, wrote in the latter case’s ruling, “The Second Amendment is a primary protection against tyranny, a strong bulwark securing American liberty, and an indispensable means of defending the public good. So courts testing restrictions on these ‘most sacred’ and ‘necessary’ rights must consider the history and tradition of firearm regulations with care and rigor.”

In short, law enforcement isn’t a shotgun.
 
judging by the news, it’s hard to imagine that any federal spending goes to anything but fraud. Every day brings new examples, but here’s the most stunning so far:

The National Fraud Enforcement Center, which was just founded in April, announced that the first-ever nationwide tax fraud surge has “resulted in prosecutorial actions against 76 defendants in 45 days whose alleged crimes totaled an intended loss of $490 million.”

During the press conference, the agency’s head, Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald, revealed that criminals steal “hundreds of billions of dollars every year from the taxpayer;” and that “more taxpayer dollars go to fraudsters every year than to most federal departments and agencies, including the combined budgets of the Departments of Energy, Justice, and Interior.” Their combined budgets are as much as $102 billion.

Kyle Becker at Redstate.com notes that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimates that federal programs fraud costs taxpayers between $233 billion and $521 billion annually. And the GAO separately estimated losses due to tax fraud at $116 billion to $304 billion. Becker says that’s “enough money to cover the combined annual budgets of the Departments of Energy, Justice, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Education, and Labor, along with NASA, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Small Business Administration,” with “$26 billion left over.”

Definitely something to think about when a politician tells you that taxpayers just aren’t sending enough of their money to the government, which knows how to spend it more wisely than the people who earned it do.
 
Eye-Opening Investigation: Federal residents searched more than 40 Texas residences and seized laptops and other devices that were being used in a cyber scheme to let North Korean operatives falsely appear to be in the US so they could obtain remote jobs, access American corporate systems and make money to fund North Korea’s weapons program. Yes, out of TEXAS! Once again, fraud is everywhere, and to quote the Beatles, “Nothing is real.”
 
Stu Farish said:
Eye-Opening Investigation: Federal residents searched more than 40 Texas residences and seized laptops and other devices that were being used in a cyber scheme to let North Korean operatives falsely appear to be in the US so they could obtain remote jobs, access American corporate systems and make money to fund North Korea’s weapons program. Yes, out of TEXAS! Once again, fraud is everywhere, and to quote the Beatles, “Nothing is real.”
Click to expand...

I think it is possible and I wouldn't be surprised if all the fraud is being allowed on purpose as the reason that we need to go completely digital so uncle scam can keep us safe and to monitor every single transaction everyone makes.

Problem-Reaction-Solution
 
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Musk pledges SpaceX shares
In what appears to be a step toward the universal basic income that he believes is nearly inevitable in the age of AI and robots, Elon Musk has pledged to donate one SpaceX share to every child in America. The giveaway will take place next year (the shares are currently in a 366-day IPO lock-up) and, according to President Donald Trump, will be dispensed through Trump Accounts. Trump praised Musk’s promise as “exactly what was envisioned when we created TRUMP ACCOUNTS!” Musk’s move comes after he challenged AI company Anthropic to give directly to the people after it announced the Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, a “wholly owned entity dedicated entirely to the public benefit.” Anthropic announced the APBF will begin with 5% of the company’s shares, but ultimately nearly 20% of shares are “committed to the public good.”
 
Companies are pouring billions into new investments in blue states
Despite the Democrats’ penchant to fight and block President Trump at every turn, his MAGA agenda is bringing billions of dollars in new investments and jobs to the country’s bluest states. Some 2.4 million manufacturing jobs were saved in 19 Democrat-run states because of Trump’s tax incentives in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Since Trump’s return to office, approximately $670 billion in announced or completed investments have gone to states that voted for Kamala Harris. That does not include the $1 trillion in new investments in both red and blue states, including $500 billion from Apple in California, Oregon, Texas, and Kentucky. The $670 billion in just blue states is expected to create more than 400,000 direct jobs and one million indirect jobs. The numbers were released ahead of the midterm elections to demonstrate that Trump’s tariff, tax, and reshoring policies are working for all Americans and that the overall economy is heading in the right direction.
 
Ukraine completes the first recorded drone evacuation
A video released by Ukraine shows the world’s first case of an injured soldier’s evacuation by drone. The video portrays a soldier strapping himself onto the drone and flying at low altitude toward the pickup site. He was joyfully greeted by drone operators and medics, knowing the historic first this would be. Brigade command opted to use the technology “due to intense enemy drone activity and the presence of landmines, [making] evacuation using conventional unmanned ground vehicles impossible.” The drone, originally used as a bomber, was about twice the size of the soldier it was carrying and had been altered to ensure that it would fly without violently swaying or flipping. This marks a continuation of the improvement of drone technology that has been the hallmark innovation of the Russo-Ukrainian War and will likely redefine the battlefield in future conflicts.
 
Iranian “shadow fleet” is out of oil
One of Iran’s last consistent cash flows derived from dozens of oil tankers sitting in Asian waters. These tankers slowly sold the oil to China, but now the oil is all gone. The U.S. naval blockade has effectively cut off Iran from selling oil to China and the greater Asian market. The lack of oil revenue is a huge hit to the country’s economy and will further restrict the regime’s ability to fight. While Iran’s oil trade remains nonexistent, the rest of the Middle East has returned to normal levels of oil supply, even exceeding prewar levels. As of October 9, Iran’s oil reserves are down from roughly 125 million barrels at the beginning of the blockade to 866,000.
 
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