Sam Brinton was fired. It is likely that he will face charges.

Non-binary Biden nuclear official Sam Brinton fired after multiple luggage theft charges: reports

The Department of Energy has fired Sam Brinton, a top nuclear waste official who happens to be non-binary and has been accused in a string of luggage thefts, according to reports.

I’ve had security clearances in the past. The goal of a clearance is to reduce the risk of the person being given a secret from sharing it.

To this end when performing a background check they are looking to see how well you are able to keep your word. In short how trustworthy you are. They are looking for criminal acts which might just disqualify a person as a matter of policy and they are looking for illegal acts (drug use) that might be disqualifying.

Having established if you are trustworthy they next look into how easy would it be to compromise your integrity. A person that is a few thousand dollars in debt is unlikely to betray their country for those few thousand dollars. The same person in debt for the same amount to a lownshark might be willing to sell a little secret in exchange for keeping working kneecaps.

So debt load and who you are in debt to plays a part in whether they feel a person can be trusted. Trustworth is not the same as trusted.

They then look at things that might be compromising. Things that might embarrass you. I knew homesexuals that had security clearances. They were required to out themselves to their parents and family. This is so that no bad actor could say “if you don’t share this small secret with us we will out you to your wife/parents whatever”

In the same way they don’t want you to have any embarrassing secrets from your employer or family/community.

Finally the look for things that might indicate that you have bad judgement or that you do things that might allow you to say things while not fully cognitive. I.e. while drunk or stoned.

The fact that Sam is non-binary and into kink does not instantly disqualify him for a clearance. All of the criminal activity around him does.

For example consider the following exposure of Col. Donnelly and CPT Tenney.

🚨Military Sickness Exposed🧵🚨

Identity of @USArmy’s @PupRavage 🐶 is Col. Brian T. Donnelly (ret.) of INDOPACOM

Past @Mdarmyguard CO: 58th EMIB, 1100th TASMG

Posing in uniform w 🐶 mask👇

Engaged in 🐶-play sex w junior @USArmy officer – CPT Dayton Tenney, aka @adjutantpup pic.twitter.com/PlOzWBjQHM

— NOVA Campaigns (@NoVA_Campaigns) December 9, 2022

(H/T to a reader)

My issue with this pair is that there is a level of inappropriate behavior between a superior and his direct report.

In the same way I had no problem with Billy Clinton having sex in the oval office. I didn’t care if it was with his wife or some hooker the SS brought in. I had and have a problem with him having sex with an intern.

If the CEO of some firm had sex with an intern we would have seen him fired and lambasted. Billy doing it was a matter between he and his wife. We know that a CEO would be fired because a CEO for IIRC McDonald’s was fired for exactly this thing shortly after.

My parents brought their children into the world of “Duck And Cover”. They caught the last part of it in highschool. My generation grew up with the fear of nuclear war hanging over us.

Because my father was in the US Navy we lived near Navy bases my entire childhood except for six months while my father was deployed to Vietnam. I was born just miles away from a major navy base. We moved to a major navy training facility. We moved to Norfolk Va, The major navy port on the east coast.

Even when we lived in the boonies, we were still “just across the river” from a Naval Air Station.

My first “real” job was again in Norfolk. The building held a fallout shelter. (Which was so freaking empty and useless as to make my mother’s pantry look like an end of the world stockpile)

I went to University and was lived within 5 miles of a major target. I left University and was living just a mile off a major army post.

It was difficult to ever forget that at any moment we were only minutes away from nuclear annihilation. When Reagan got “won” the cold war, it felt like a great weight was lifted from my shoulders.

I’ve talked about how I and my next door neighbor friend, at 7 or so, had a serious conversation about what we would do when we were old enough to be drafted to go to Vietnam.

When we worried, it was about World War III or being drafted.

The other day I read that one of the gun control sites was blasting out how there had been over 600 mass shootings in 2022 so far. They got that number by including gang shootings AND setting the definition to include “killed OR wounded”.

Not what we think about when we think “mass shootings.” On the other hand, I’m not sure they included the mall shooting where the kid with the Glocked put 8 out of 10 rounds on target at distance within 15 seconds of the asshole opening fire.

My kids are high school age. The schools here spend way to much money on “preventing school shootings.” For some reason they spend more time thinking about keeping people out than in actual protection. Though they have finally figured out how to keep bad guys out. They just don’t let anybody into the building….

I asked my daughter for a song for us today. She provided me a song. It is about a school shooter. According to her it is well known amongst highschool students. School shootings are her generation’s “duck and cover”.

Measure 114

Federal judge issues ruling over Oregon’s strict gun law after police ask for more time

The police agencies tasked with enacting Oregon’s gun control law say they don’t have enough time or resources to create a permit-to-purchase system by the Dec. 8 deadline.

Judge says she’ll decide next week whether to delay new Oregon gun law

The new law requiring a permit to purchase a gun and banning high-capacity magazines was approved by voters in November, but faces multiple legal challenges.

Oregon Measure 114 delay would lead to ‘unnecessary deaths,’ attorney general argues

The attorney general’s office, in its response to the Oregon Firearms Federation’s lawsuit, argued large-capacity magazines that hold more than 10 rounds are not “arms” protected by the Second Amendment and the state’s new requirement for a permit to purchase a gun will withstand constitutional scru…

The four rules!!! Not one, not none!

A Minnesota man who said he was at ‘war’ with squirrels on his property was arrested after missing his target and shooting through his neighbor’s window

Local news reported that the man, identified as Michael James Powers, told police he shot at squirrels a few times in the last two years.

River Bluff teacher arrested after gun found in car

Horton is alleged to have told students in her class she always kept a gun in her vehicle.

There is another story of a teacher in jail after she left her purse behind in the school.  It was found, brought to the office where they looked inside to identify the owner and found a gun.  I don’t have the link to that story.

Foreign News:

Germany to tighten gun laws after suspected coup plot, interior minister says

Germany plans to tighten its gun laws in the wake of a suspected plot by a far-right group to violently overthrow the government and install a minor royal as national leader, its interior minister said in an interview published on Sunday.

Drop your gun: French hand over their unlicensed weapons to police

French gun owners were handing over their weapons at police collection points across the country this week as part of a campaign to round up unlicensed firearms, often heirlooms lying in attics or forgotten at the back of cupboards. Gun ownership in France is nowhere near as prevalent as in the Uni…

The ranting right is winning, from the US to Israel | Simon Tisdall

US Democrats and leftwing parties around the world have failed to come up with a compelling narrative to counter the lies and distortions of extremists

Slamming on SCOTUS

Is Samuel Alito the Biggest Sleazebag on the Supreme Court? A Brief Investigation

On Monday, the conservative justice joked about the KKK and about his colleague using a website that facilitates affairs.

I do way to much reading on my phone. I have kindle there, I have my news feeds there, I have my mailing lists there. What I don’t do is write articles from my phone. You think my grammar and spelling are bad when I use a keyboard? It is much worse when I try and write anything over a few words on my phone.

Sometimes I read the headline and dump the article into keep.google.com, sometimes it is just a few paragraphs and sometimes it is the entire article.

Because the media is so bent I’ve come to expect a certain level of biases in my feeds. For every positive article on guns, gun ownership, or gun policy I’ll have a dozen that tell me how evil I am for wanting to own a gun.

We saw the video of the mom protecting her child from a trash panda. I don’t want to be sticking my hands anywhere near a wild animals mouth and I certainly don’t want to spend the money to “Racoon proof” my chicken and garbage cans. It only took a few rounds before the threat was neutralized.

I’ve held a rifle in my hands as a bear took out a beehive not 200 meters from me, ready to protect family and friends and livestock. I’ve had a gun at the ready when an ex-boyfriend raged and yelled at my lady. He didn’t understand how close he was to death. If he was walking that line of “is deadly force needed” and never knew it.

Regardless, I expect anti-gun reterich everytime I read an article about gun control.

What continues to be indisputable is that our nation needs constructive, ideologically-free dialogues on reducing gun violence. Leadership from the judicial, law enforcement and medical communities are key players that must contribute to this discussion. Politician have demonstrated their impotence to make any positive headway on the issue.

Yep, another request for “reasoned dialog”. I.e. a place where anything that is added to the conversation regarding banning gun or gun ownership is allowed but anything that supports the right to keep and bear arms is deleted…

Except this isn’t that article. I had to go nearly to the end of the article to pull that blockquote out of context. Sheldon H. Jacobson, Ph.D. is actually having a conversation.

Banning assault weapons may be a good idea for their potential to inflict harm. Such a ban may also have other societal benefits that would justify it. However, arguing for a ban based solely on existing population risk reduction benefits extracted from the data appears to be more about political posturing than data-driven evidence-based analysis. 

Assuming (incorrectly) that all mass murders involved assault weapons, and assuming that all the associated deaths and injuries could have been avoided, this amounts to around 650 deaths over the past four years (2018-2021), fewer than the number of people who will die with or from COVID-19 over any two days this week.

What this data indicate is that an assault weapon ban carries with it a very small reduction in population risk. The issue up for debate is whether this reduction is sufficient to warrant banning them.

Give the full article a read, Sheldon seems to be somebody that things that an AWB is an over all good but can’t support it with the facts at hand.

What the data actually say about assault weapons

Regardless of her points on data driven bans of firearms, in the end it doesn’t matter. The lethality of a firearm nor its use by criminals does not make such a ban constitutional.

A new form 4473 was introduced this month. The ATF sent out an alert to SOME FFL dealers telling them to start using the new form. In this case the FFL must download the PDF from the ATF and print it at their own expense. The ATF does not have the new 4473 forms in the supply chain yet.

The e4473 has not yet been updated but the ATF claims it will be updated before FFLs are required to use the new 4473.

The new forms will be required in early 2023 (I remember February but my rememberer is not all that good.)

The first three pages of the new 4473 are included hear with markup showing the changes. There might be more changes in the seller section but I did not check those sections.

ATF Form 4473 Rev Dec. 2022

ATF Form 4473 Rev May 2020

ATF Form 4473 Rev. Oct 2016

ATF Form 4473 Rev. April 2012

Moore v. Harper is a case that was just heard by the Supreme Court regarding who has authority over regulations for federal elections.

The Elections Clause requires state legislatures specifically to perform the federal function of prescribing regulations for federal elections. States lack the authority to restrict the legislatures’ substantive discretion when performing this federal function.

As Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 78, the scope of legislative authority is governed by the commission under
which it is exercised. Here, that commission is contained in the United States Constitution, and it is federal law alone that places substantive restrictions on state legislatures performing the tasks assigned them by the federal Constitution. The most prominent discussion of the Elections Clause in the early republic occurred during Massachusetts’ 1820 Constitutional Convention.

— David H Thompson, Esq. Before the Supreme Court

This is of interest in terms of gun rights because the court is being asked to look at the intent of the Constitution, as written and when the bill of rights was ratified, 1791.

START OF QUOTE

Justice Kavanaugh: What about the historical practice over time, which has certainly developed in a way that state constitutions do regulate federal elections? What weight, if any, do we place on that?

Also, there are some federal statutes as well that are cited by the other side. I just want to make sure you’ve had a chance to
talk about those as well. So the —

Mr Thompson: Yeah.

Justice Kavanaugh: — historical practice in the states and those federal statutes.

Mr. Thompson: Your Honor, we think the way to think about this is consistent with the Court’s opinion in Bruen last term where it looked very focused on the time of the founding, 1791, obviously, we’re looking for the public meaning of the Constitution. As that founding generation passes away, Adams and Jefferson die on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, as we get out of the 1820s, there’s very limited information you can get as to the original public meaning of the Constitution.

But — so it can be a confirming — that subsequent history as in Bruen can be a confirming historical tradition that — that — but it can’t undermine what the text and the founding era history show to be the case.

Justice Kavanaugh: Thank you.

END OF QUOTE

This is great news for gun rights. This is another place where the Supreme court gets to say “Text, History and Tradition at the time of the ratification of the bill of rights.”

The key to this is that when the 14th amendment was ratified it did not change the meaning or understanding of the Bill Of Rights or the Constitution, it merely stated that the protections guaranteed under the Constitution extended to each Citizen and could not be violated by state law.

This case also means that more and more judges and courts will become better informed about how to use “Text, History and Tradition” of the constitution.

In Oregon we had some good news. Not great but good. As we’ve discussed in the past the way that cases proceed is through a a case being seen in a inferior court and then appealed upwards. There are two paths, the state and the federal paths. Under the state path there is the lower court, then the appeals court and then the State Supreme Court and finally the Supreme Court of the United States.

Under the federal path there is the District court and above them is a circuit court of appeals and above that is the US Supreme Court.

In Oregon the Oregon Firearms Federation and Gun Owners of America had filed suit in federal district court. In the US district court, Judge Karin Immergut denied the request by OFF to place a injunction on measure 114, or at least parts of it. OFF and GOA, having been around the block a few times, had also filed suit in state court.

Judge Raschio of the state lower court did grant the injunction. The DoJ of Oregon requested an expedited/emergency judgement on that ruling (A mandamus petition). The Oregon Supreme court heard and answered. They upheld the injunction put in place by Judge Raschio.

Upon consideration by the court.

Relators petition for a writ of mandamus is denied. Relators’ motion to stay the circuit court’s order dated December 6, 2022, which temporarily restrained defendants and defendants’ agents from enforcing Ballot Measure 114 (2022), as of 12:01 am. on December 8, 2022, is dismissed as moot.

This order is issued without prejudice as to the filing of any future petition for a ‘writ of mandamus or other motion in this court by any party in relation to any other rulings in the underlying proceeding.

— Signed Martha L Walters Chief Justice, Supreme Court [of Oregon]

IANAL so have no idea why it is dismissed as moot, just that it was.

Good things this way come.

Well it has been a good week for some court cases and a bad week for others.

Trying to figure out what is actually going on in different court cases has been a huge learning task for me.

So it is that time of week when y’all can let us know how we are doing and what you would like more of or less of.

Given my addiction to lever action rifles (at this time) I find myself amazed at the number of different calibers that are available in the lever action line.

So it is that horrible day when your SO says “Too much is too much! You have to reduce to two calibers and two only!”

What would you choose?

I’m thinking that I would take .45 Colt. I have pistols and rifles in that caliber. For the other caliber maybe 45-70. I want something that hits hard and can be used for taking large game. On the other hand having an AR-15 in 5.56 is also very very useful.

Anyway, let us know what you are thinking.