Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle,

The Gaza war has accelerated cooperation between Global South behemoths resisting western-backed conflict. Together, the Russian-led BRICS and Iran-led Axis of Resistance can shape a US-free West Asia…

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a notable pit stop in the UAE and Saudi Arabia to meet, respectively, Emirati President Mohammad bin Zayed (MbZ) and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) before flying back to Moscow to meet Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. 

The three key issues in all three meetings, confirmed by diplomatic sources, were Gaza, OPEC+, and BRICS expansion. They are, of course, interlinked. 

The Russia-Iran strategic partnership is developing at breakneck speed, alongside Russia-Saudi Arabia (especially on OPEC+) and Russia-UAE (investments). This is already leading to stark shifts in defense interconnection across West Asia. The long-term implications for Israel, way beyond the Gaza tragedy, are stark.

Putin told Raisi something that was extraordinary on so many levels: 

“When I was flying over Iran, I wanted to land in Tehran and to meet you. But I was informed that you wanted to visit Moscow. Relations between our countries are growing rapidly. Please convey my best wishes to the Supreme Leader, who supports our relations.”

Putin’s reference to “flying over Iran” directly connects with four armed Sukhoi Su-35s flying in formation, escorting the presidential plane over 4,000 km (if measured as a straight line) from Moscow to Abu Dhabi, without any landing or refueling. 

As every stunned military analyst remarked, an American F-35 is capable of flying at best 2,500 km without refueling. Yet the most important element is that both MbZ and MbS authorized the Russian Su-35s escorts over their territory – which is something extremely unusual in diplomatic circles. 

And that leads us to the key takeaway. With a single move on the aerial chessboard, compounded with the subsequent clincher with Raisi, Moscow accomplished four tasks: 

Putin proved – graphically speaking – that this is a new West Asia where the US hegemon is a secondary actor; destroyed the neocon political myth of Russian “isolation;” demonstrated ample military supremacy; and lastly, as the start of Russia’s BRICS presidency approaches, showed that it retains all its crucial geopolitical and geoeconomic cards.    

Kill them, but softly 

The original five BRICS – led by the Russia-China strategic partnership – will open their doors to three major West Asian powers Iran, Saudi Arabia, and UAE on 1, January, 2024. Their accession to the multipolar powerhouse offers these countries an exceptional platform for broader markets, and is likely to accompany a flurry of investments and tech exchanges. 

The long-term, sophisticated game played by Russia-China is leading to a complete, tectonic change in the geoeconomics and geopolitics of West Asia.   

BRICS 10 leadership – considering that the 11th member, Argentina, for the moment, is a wild card at best – even has the potential, under a Russian presidency, to become an effective counterpart to the toothless UN. 

And that leads us to the complex interaction between BRICS and the Axis of Resistance.

At first, there were reasons to suspect that the bland condemnation of the genocide in Gaza by the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) was a sign of cowardice. 

Yet a renewed appraisal may reveal everything is evolving organically when it comes to the intersection of the Big Picture designed by the late Iranian Quds Force Commander General Qassem Soleimani with the meticulous micro-planning by Gaza’s Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who knows the Israeli mentality inside out and considered in detail its devastating military response. 

Arguably, the most incandescent focus of detailed discussions in Moscow these past few days is that we may be approaching the point where “a signal” will unleash a concerted Axis of Resistance response.

For the moment, what we have are sporadic attacks: Hezbollah destroying Israel’s communication towers facing the southern Lebanon border, Iraq’s resistance forces attacking US bases in Iraq and Syria, and Yemen’s Ansarallah concretely blocking the Red Sea for Israeli ships. All that does not form a concerted, coordinated offensive – yet. 

And that would explain the desperation within the Biden administration in Washington, complete with rumors that it needs Israel to finish Plan Gaza between Christmas and the start of January. Not only have the global optics of the Gaza assault become horrifyingly unsustainable, but most of all, a lengthier military campaign dramatically raises the likelihood of a “signal” to the Axis of Resistance. 

And that will result in the end of all the Hegemon’s elaborate plans for West Asia. 

The geopolitical goals of Zionism are quite clear: re-establish its self-constructed aura of dominance in West Asia and maintain steady control over US foreign policy and the military alliance. 

Depravity is a key component for accomplishing these goals. It’s so easy to bomb, shell, and burn ultra-soft civilian targets, including thousands of women and children, turning Gaza into a vast cemetery, while the White Man’s Burden Club urges Israeli occupation forces to kill them, of course, but more silently. 

Cue to toxic Atlanticist and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen offering bribes, in person, to Egypt’s and Jordan’s leaders – $10 billion to Cairo and $5 billion to Amman – as confirmed with Brussels diplomats. That’s the mind-numbing EU solution to stopping the Gaza genocide.  

All Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Jordanian King Abdullah bin al-Hussein would need to do is to “facilitate” the forced exodus and Final Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza to their respective territories. 

Because the eschatological goal of Zionism remains an undiluted Final Solution, whatever happens in the battleground. And, of course, as the 7 October Hamas-led Al-Aqsa Flood operation suggests, to destroy Jerusalem’s Islamic Al-Aqsa Mosque and build a Jewish Third Temple on top of its ashes.  

What happens when “the signal” comes 

So what we have is essentially Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Emigration-or-Annihilation plan – versus what veteran West Asia expert Alastair Crooke has memorably coined as “Sykes-Picot is dead.” That phrase means that Arab and Iranian inclusion in BRICS will eventually rewrite the rules in West Asia, to the detriment of the Zionist project.  

There’s even a strong possibility this time around that Israel’s certified war crimes in Gaza will be prosecuted, as Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslim-majority nations, with full BRICS support, form a Global South-recognized commission to take Tel Aviv and its armed forces to court.

Forget the tainted ICC, servile as it remains to the Hegemon’s Rules-Based Order. The BRICS will help usher international law back to the forefront of the global scene, as intended when the UN was born in 1945 before it was castrated.

The Gaza genocide is also forcing all latitudes along the Global South to be more inclusive – as in delving into the wisdom of our common, intertwined pre-modern history. Everyone with a conscience has been forced to dig deeply into oneself to find explanations for the Inexcusable. In this sense, we are all Palestinians now.  

As it stands, no power – the west because it refuses it; the BRICS and the Global South because they have not yet made their play – has been capable of stopping a Final Solution conducted by a racist, ethnocentrist ideology. 

Yet that also opens the startling possibility that no power will be strong enough to stop the Axis of Resistance when the “signal” comes to pull the curtain down on the Zionist Project. By that time, the Axis will have a supreme moral imperative, recognized, even urged, by populations globally.

So that’s where we are now: evaluating the incandescent symmetry between impotence and imperative. The deadlock will be broken – perhaps sooner than we all expect. 

That evokes a comparison with a previous deadlock. The current impasse between a perverse, trashy version of Hebraic “civilization” and emerging Islamic nationalism – let’s call it “civilizational Islam” – mirrors where we were in December 2021, when Russian-proposed treaties on the “indivisibility of security” were turned down by Washington. In hindsight, that was the last chance for a peaceful way out of the clash between the Heartland and the Rimland. 

The Hegemon rejected it. Russia made its play – and accelerated exponentially the decline of the Hegemon. 

The song remains the same, from the steppes of Donbas to the oil fields of West Asia. How can the multipolar Global South – increasingly represented by the expanded BRICS – manage a raging, fearful, out-of-control imperialist west staring into the abyss of moral, political, and financial collapse?  

Authored by Mike Fredenburg via The Epoch Times,

How many casualties has Ukraine suffered?

How many causalities has Russia suffered?

Answering these questions is critical to determining the best and most moral path forward for Ukraine and the United States.

Estimates of Ukrainians killed in action (KIA) range from a low of just over 30,000 to a high of over 400,000.

Obviously, these two estimates can’t be reconciled. And it really, really matters to the people of Ukraine which one is closer to the truth. While 30,000 deaths is tragic, anything approaching 400,000 KIA and the accompanying hundreds of thousands of causalities is a humanitarian catastrophe that makes talks of continuing offensive operations next year, or even believing in a stalemate, wishful thinking that will result in even more fruitless Ukrainian deaths.

Unsurprisingly, since the war began, the United States and its allies have unswervingly pushed the narrative that Russia is incurring far more casualties than Ukraine. This casualty narrative was critical to maintaining any plausibility that Ukraine could defeat a country that has four to five times more men of military age and that was recently rated as having the world’s most powerful military. Hence, given the need to maintain the plausibility of a Ukrainian victory, it isn’t surprising that NATO intelligence asserted that the battle of Bakhmut saw Russia losing at least five soldiers KIA for every one of Ukraine’s.

However, since the fall of Bakhmut to Russia, the failure of the much-hyped Ukrainian counteroffensive, and signs that Ukraine’s military is nearing collapse, we’re no longer hearing about five-to-one casualty rates. Still, the most recent estimates from United States and British officials claim that Russia has suffered 120,000 KIA while Ukraine has suffered “only” 70,000 KIA (more than the United States suffered in over 10 years of the Vietnam War).

But not everyone agrees with U.S./British casualty estimates for an army that started the war by mobilizing early 1 million men in arms and, over the course of the war, mobilized another estimated 1 million. Among the growing number of those who don’t agree is the former director of the Joint Operations Center at Supreme Headquarters Europe and one of the key leaders in achieving the legendary victory in the mass tank battle of 73 Easting, retired U.S. Army Col. Douglas Macgregor.

In a recent interview with myself, Col. Macgregor agreed that while estimates putting Russian KIA at as high as 50,000 to 60,000 are defensible, most estimates for Ukrainian KIAs are not.

In what many will undoubtedly find shocking given the countless stories disparaging Russia’s military skills and capabilities while uncritically fawning over Ukraine’s military prowess, Col. Macgregor puts Ukrainian KIA at over 400,000 out of the 2 million Ukraine has mobilized.

Col. Macgregor arrived at this shocking number using a wide variety of sources, including contacts within U.S. intelligence and contacts on the ground in Ukraine and Poland who have intimate knowledge of what’s really happening in Ukraine.

In particular, he noted that his U.S. intelligence contacts have expressed shock as to just how far from reality the narrative being pushed by the Biden administration is from what’s happening in Ukraine and its real war losses.

Likewise, Col. Macgregor’s Ukraine contacts relayed to him accounts of thousands of wounded Ukrainians being left to die on the battlefield, growing numbers of Ukrainian commanders and troops refusing orders to conduct suicide attacks against heavily fortified Russian positions, Ukrainian soldiers surrendering en masse to Russia, hospitals overflowing with Ukrainian wounded, and many other accounts that testify to horrendous casualty rates that contradict the narrative pushed by Western media.

Additionally, Col. Macgregor’s contacts have analyzed satellite imagery showing a massive expansion of Ukrainian cemeteries and countless tens of thousands of fresh graves. Other open-source intelligence analysis has also documented in detail Ukraine’s massive expansion of cemeteries that will soon allow Ukraine to reportedly bury 1.5 million more people. And a Russian analyst using death notices and other open-source intelligence has come up with Ukrainian KIA estimates of over 300,000.

But for Col. Macgregor, it’s the totality of the reports he has seen, his understanding of historical casualty rates, his personal military experience, and information from his sources that has brought him to the conclusion that Ukraine’s KIA is a magnitude greater than what’s commonly being reported.

These numbers, coupled with the fact the war could have been avoided had President Volodymyr Zelenskyy been knowledgeable and wise enough to understand that U.S./NATO promises of victory were completely unrealistic and couldn’t be relied upon, have led Col. Macgregor, who has fond memories of growing up in a Ukrainian immigrant neighborhood, to believe that the war is an absolute disaster for Ukraine that could have and should have been avoided.

“In humanitarian terms, this tragedy has resulted in the Ukrainian nation being destroyed in a war that never needed to be fought,” Col. Macgregor said.

While Col. Macgregor isn’t alone in calling out the war as being a total disaster for Ukraine, he’s one of just a few Western military experts willing to buck a narrative whose zealotry has assumed religious overtones. But is there evidence we can look at that lends support to his assessment? In short, the answer is “Yes!”

First and foremost, history tells us artillery-centric wars such as World War I and the Ukraine-Russia war produce massive amounts of casualties and KIA. Indeed, during the short period of time America fought the Germans in World War I, it suffered 318,000 casualties, including 53,000 KIA over a period of 120 days, and another 60,000 who died due to disease and accidents. Consequently, given the advances in real-time battlefield intelligence that have been made since World War I, very high casualty rates from artillery should be expected.

And because Russia not only started the war with up to a 10 to 1 advantage in artillery power, but continues to maintain its artillery advantage while producing up to seven times more artillery shells than all other NATO nations combined, it’s Russia that one would expect to be far ahead in terms of casualty ratios. Russia’s advantage in long-range strike capability, drone warfare, and electronic warfare only add to its ability to inflict disproportionate casualties.

While the above bespeaks of Russia’s potential to deal out disproportionate casualties, the average age of Ukrainian soldiers increasing over time from roughly 32.5 years to 43 years provides concrete evidence that Ukraine has suffered catastrophic casualties over the course of the war. From a statistical perspective, this huge increase in average age fits better with Col. Macgregor’s KIA numbers than those being commonly reported by Western media. Only with very large numbers of KIA or permanently wounded can you get such a large increase in the average age of active-duty Ukrainian soldiers.

Another ominous trend highlighting the desperation of President Zelenskyy’s government is the plan to radically increase the number of women serving in the military, despite the fact that women are at a severe disadvantage to men when it comes to close combat.

Then you have stories and anecdotes describing the life expectancy at the frontlines of Bakhmut being  hours and poorly trained Ukrainian troops being rushed into combat. These kinds of stories are legion, especially in independent or non-Western media. Combined with all the other signs, this makes a strong case that Col. Macgregor’s numbers aren’t only plausible, but also help explain why Ukrainian government actions are looking increasingly desperate.

Of course, Col. Macgregor recognizes that coming up with accurate casualty numbers in the middle of a war is extremely tough, and that his estimates could be off by many thousands.

Given the strong evidence that Ukraine is suffering country-destroying casualties, talk of a stalemate, much less of successful offensive territory-gaining operations, is more about face-saving than any realistic chance of Ukraine avoiding losing.

Hence, the only moral path forward for the United States is to tell President Zelenskyy it’s well past the time to sue for peace and that he must accept neutrality and the loss of the regions that seceded from Ukraine in 2014.

This is a bitter pill to swallow for Ukrainian nationalists and those in the United States who hoped Ukraine would do far more damage to Russia, but the alternative is accelerating Ukraine’s diminishing chances of remaining a viable nation-state, a whole lot more fruitless Ukrainian deaths, and peace terms substantially worse than those that can be negotiated today.

A recent investigation conducted by Breitbart Texas at Tucson International Airport, Arizona, has brought to light significant concerns regarding border security and migrant processing. While the rest of us have to wait in endless lines – and will definitely miss our flight if we’ve forgotten ID, migrants released by the Border Patrol were observed boarding U.S. flights without the standard identification required for most travelers.

Special TSA Screening for Migrants

The outlet reported that on a Friday afternoon at Tucson International Airport, migrants, having been released from Border Patrol custody, were seen in a “special” security line set up by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). This line catered exclusively to migrants, many of whom lacked any form of identification, a requirement typically enforced for U.S. citizens and legal international travelers.

These migrants carried manila envelopes containing a Notice to Appear, signifying their release from federal custody. Notably, these documents did not include photo identification, a standard requirement under TSA regulations for air travel.

According to Breitbart’s findings, while TSA regulations generally mandate government-issued photo ID cards for travel, there is a provision for “acceptable alternate identification for use in special circumstances at the checkpoint,” which appears to be the basis for the special line.

Increased Migrant Arrivals and Processing Challenges

The report highlights that the surge of migrants crossing into the United States has led to a flood of illegal migrants being released into the country to pursue asylum claims. The influx has overwhelmed Border Patrol facilities in Tucson, with numbers exceeding their designated holding capacity. The situation has obvious national security implications associated with the rapid processing and release of migrants.

According to a DHS Office of the Inspector General report cited in Breitbart’s investigation, in one case a migrant on the Terrorist Watch List was mistakenly released by the Border Patrol in Yuma, Arizona.

The source says capacity issues facing the Border Patrol and the need to quickly release the migrants pose a significant risk to national security. According to an investigative report by the DHS Office of the Inspector General, in April 2022, one migrant on the Terrorist Watch List was released by the Border Patrol in Yuma, Arizona. The report noted a series of failures by multiple DHS agencies resulted in the failure to conclusively determine that the migrant was on the Terrorist Watchlist, resulting in the release from custody.

The migrant and family members were later encountered attempting to board an aircraft by TSA security screening personnel at the Palm Springs International Airport. Despite the second encounter by DHS personnel, the migrant was ultimately able to travel to Tampa, Florida, and was not rearrested by ICE for more than two weeks. -Breitbart

Approximately 190,000 migrants were apprehended in November trying to enter the United States illegally.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

In 1966, Charlotte E. Keyes wrote a famous article for McCall’s magazine titled “Suppose They Gave a War and No One Came.” Special Counsel Jack Smith may be contemplating the same fate.

Putting the tongue-in-cheek title aside, the odds are that some people will come to any trial of President Donald Trump. After all, a lot of people have to come from the judge to the jurors and counsel. However, Smith has had an ominous week that could severely complicate his plans for convicting Donald Trump before the election. Moreover, a trial after the election could mean no trial at all.

Before this week, Smith found himself on the losing end of the schedule in Florida in his prosecution of Trump for his retention of classified documents.

Judge Aileen Cannon has scheduled a trial for May 20, 2024, but that could easily move with additional delays or appeals in the case.

I have always viewed that case to be the strongest against Trump, but the huge number of classified documents have (as predicted) slowed the prosecution. Despite Smith’s pushing for a pre-election trial, his structuring of the charges undermined that schedule.

Smith then pushed hard for a pre-election trial in the January 6th case in Washington where he seemed to have a supportive judge in Judge Tanya Chutkan who shoehorned the start just before the Super Tuesday elections.

Now, however, Judge Chutkan has been forced to stay the case indefinitely pending the appeal of the presidential immunity claim made by Trump. The matter is now before both the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court gave Trump until December 20th to respond to Smith’s request for an expedited review — leapfrogging over the D.C. Circuit.

Smith’s filing conveys priority, if not a necessity, in trying Trump before the election. The Supreme Court may not share that sense of urgency. Traditionally, the Supreme Court has preferred to wait to allow appellate courts to render decisions. Since a conviction will not make Trump ineligible to run for the presidency, the question is why the March date should short circuit the review process.

If the Supreme Court ultimately does not rule on the merits, the period for review would easily supplant the trial schedule since an appeal could be taken to the entire D.C. Circuit (en banc) and then to the Supreme Court.

That did not change the March 4 trial date, but it could well make that date unworkable if the appeals drag on.

Then to make the week complete, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in United States v. Fischer.  That case turns on the proper interpretation of the obstruction provision under Section 1512(c)(2).

Fischer was charged with obstructing an official proceeding of Congress and based solely on his trespass in the Capitol.

A ruling in his favor could effectively cut away half of the case against Donald Trump. Among the four counts brought by Smith, Trump is charged under 18 U.S.C. § 1512(k) (Conspiracy to Obstruct an Official Proceeding) (Count Two) and  18 U.S.C. §§ 1512(c)(2), 2 (Obstruction of and Attempt to Obstruct an Official Proceeding) (Count Three).

If those two counts fell to the wayside, Smith would be left with a count on conspiracy to defraud the United States (Count One) and conspiracy against rights (Count 4). Those counts contain other challengeable elements which would have to be appealed after any conviction.

At some point, the mad rush for a March trial will look illogical and gratuitous if key legal issues remain unresolved  and pre-trial motions and discovery remain incomplete in February.

The problem for Smith is that a trial after the election could mean no trial at all. If Trump is elected, he could give himself a preemptive self-pardon, though some disagree with this view. Moreover, the new Attorney General could scuttle or undermine the prosecution.

In other words, it is possible that Jack Smith might never see a jury in either case.

That would still leave the New York and Georgia cases, which are not subject to presidential pardons. However, those cases (particularly the one in New York) have their own challengeable elements.

None of this means that Trump is out of the woods. He will continue to face a daunting daisy-chain of civil and criminal cases around the country. Moreover, it is not clear how the schedule will shake out with both the D.C. Circuit and the Supreme Court giving expedited attention to the immunity question. He could still face at least one federal trial before election day.

However, Smith must be wondering if, assuming the schedule breaks in favor of Trump, he would be holding an empty sack come January 2024.

With the Russia-Ukraine war now approaching the two year mark (in February), Americans might need reminding that the conflict remains a highly dangerous situation which could at any moment escalate into a WW3 scenario. 

Zelensky’s visit to Washington this week was lackluster, and he left without securing what Kiev is hoping for – that Congress would quickly pass Biden’s $106 billion war funding request, which also includes defense funds for Israel. Of course, at this point Zelensky has complained publicly that the crisis in Gaza has taken the world’s focus off the need to defend Ukraine from Russia’s onslaught. 

Though headlines in the West barely took notice, Russia early Wednesday launched a significant ballistic missile attack on the Ukrainian capital, which authorities said injured at least 53 people, including six children, with severe damage to a number of buildings. 

But with Zelensky in Washington, making the rounds to the Oval office and the halls of Congress, the Kremlin issued a fresh warning saying that if Ukraine’s military is granted access to NATO airbases for sorties using western-made planes, in would respond while deeming Ukraine’s external allies as direct participants in the war.

The fresh warning was announced by Konstantin Gavrilov, head of the Russian delegation to the military security and arms control talks in Vienna:

“We already hear comments that, amid the significant destruction of Ukraine’s airstrip infrastructure, the F-16s handed over to Ukraine may carry out their missions from airbases in Poland, Romania and Slovakia,” he said during the OSCE Forum meeting on cooperation in security.

According to the diplomat, Moscow will view this as these countries’ participation in the conflict and will force Russia to resort to “response measures.”

Even though certain eastern European allies pledged F-16s long ago, it could still be a lengthy amount of time before Ukrainian pilots are fully trained, enough to be deployed in combat on the US-made warplane. 

Western officials have in recent months admitted that Russia has the upper hand, and that Ukraine’s summer offensive failed, but everyone is now putting in place their ‘long war’ strategies. The Kremlin’s new warning and threat also seems part of this longer term planning from Moscow’s perspective. 

1. Stoltenberg’s idiocy always proudly on display. NATO’s deployment of a missile defense system in Poland is of course purely “defensive.” Then he remembers himself. No, NATO isn’t planning on fighting a nuclear war with Russia on the European continent. https://t.co/xUNQSps26h pic.twitter.com/Sv1yYbiwIv

— George Szamuely (@GeorgeSzamuely) December 14, 2023

Russia has been taking notice of the US moving its F-16s to places like Romania, where its entirely possible they could eventually be used by Ukrainian pilots. This is what Russia fears, and it’s putting Washington on notice. 

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The National Rifle Association (NRA) sounded the alarm on a gun-control proposal from a federal regulatory agency that could “unjustly criminalize” Americans from selling a firearm.

In a statement Tuesday, the largest U.S. guns-rights group flagged that a rule proposed earlier this year by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosive (ATF) known as ATF2022R-17, which proposed amending and broadening the definition of when a person is deemed to have been “engaged in the business” of being a firearms dealer other than a gunsmith or pawn-broker.

It would expand the definition of a firearms “dealer” to anyone who “sells or offers for sale firearms, and also represents to potential buyers or otherwise demonstrates a willingness and ability to purchase and sell additional firearms,” according to the rule proposal. It would also include the definition would be broadened to include people who sell guns for services, property, or anything other than cash.

The proposal would create a “stand-alone definition of ‘terrorism,'” and would “clarif[y] what it means for a person to be ‘engaged in the business’ of dealing in firearms, and to have the intent to ‘predominantly earn a profit’ from the sale or disposition of firearms,” the rule’s summary stated on the Federal Register. The public comment period on the rule ended last week.

An NRA official, Randy Kozuch, told Fox News Tuesday that the rule would be “just another attempt to demolish our Second Amendment rights, with the potential to unjustly criminalize everyday Americans for engaging in lawful firearm transactions.”

“This rule blatantly disregards the recent NRA-backed Bruen ruling on the Second Amendment,” Mr. Kozuch added. “It also creates serious confusion among lawful gun owners who buy and sell firearms legally for various purposes, from collecting to self-defense.”

The NRA, in an earlier statement, said that the ATF doesn’t have “the resources nor the intent of handling the massive increase in” Federal Firearms Licenses that the proposed rule “would result if its terms were adopted.”

“Instead, the proposal is a transparent attempt to strong-arm Internet service providers, gun shows, technology platforms, and other facilitators to abandon any involvement in private gun sales with vague threats of ‘administrative action’ for non-compliance,” the statement added. “Meanwhile, the cartels, gang members, firearm smugglers, and violent sociopaths Congress had in mind when passing the law that supposedly enables the proposal will be entirely unaffected.”

“If the Biden administration were truly committed to combating crime, they would focus on enforcing existing laws and reform their soft-on-crime policies, targeting actual criminals instead of law-abiding American gun owners,” Mr. Kozuch continued.

On Dec. 7, a coalition of Republican attorneys general led by Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen wrote a letter to the ATF, saying the rule is unconstitutional and violates the Second Amendment.

“The proposed rule is unconstitutional, violating the Second Amendment by making any individual who sells a firearm without a federal license liable to civil, administrative, or even criminal penalties,” said a news release from Mr. Knudsen’s office.

The ATF has not publicly commented on the NRA’s recent critical statement. The Epoch Times has contacted the Department of Justice (DOJ), which oversees the ATF, for comment on Tuesday.

The ATF’s rule was proposed in August and was open to a comment period that lasted from Sept. 9 to Dec. 7. More than 350,000 people posted public comments on the Regulations.gov website.

Some people claimed that the rule would spark confusion for gun owners, namely those who collect firearms and competitive shooters.

Notably, a number of comments that supported the proposed ATF rule appeared to be the same text that was copied and pasted, albeit with different names attached. The Epoch Times has reached out to the Regulations.gov website, which is run by the U.S. General Services Administration, for comment on whether the repetitive comments will be accepted.

In June 2022, President Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which was backed by gun-control groups after a mass shooting at a school in Uvalde, Texas, that left about two dozen people dead.

When he signed it into law, the president said that “while this bill doesn’t do everything I want, it does include actions I’ve long called for that are going to save lives.”

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who backed the measure, said that the measure will also “save thousands of lives without violating anyone’s Second Amendment rights.” The NRA and similar groups, however, disputed that statement at the time.

The law was signed as the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a 6-3 landmark decision, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, that said there is a constitutional right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense purposes. At the same time, they struck down a longstanding New York state law that restricted the concealed carrying of firearms.

US sporting and outdoor products group Vista Outdoor warned in a letter to customers that ammunition prices are set to surge due to “an anticipated global shortage of gunpowder.”

Vista Outdoor confirmed the authenticity of the letter to Newsweek days ago. The increase of ammo and gunpowder prices is expected on Jan. 1. 

“Due to world events our suppliers have notified us of unprecedented demand for and an anticipated global shortage of gunpowder, and thus has increased our prices substantially,” Vice President of Sales, Sporting Products Brett Nelson said in the letter.

Nelson continued, “We must, therefore, raise our pricing to help offset those increases.”

Ammo and powder prices at Remington, Alliant Powder, CCI, Federal, SEVI-Shot, and Speer are set to rise in the coming weeks:

• Shotshell: 1-7 percent

• Rifle: 1-7 percent

• Handgun: 1-5 percent

• 22LR/Shorts: 1-5 percent

• WMR/HMR: 1-7 percent

• Primers: 5 percent

• Alliant Powder: 10 percent (limited availability).

The rise in demand for ammo and gunpowder comes as the Russia-Ukraine war nears the two-year mark while Israel is 1.5 months into a large-scale ground war with Hamas in Gaza. 

Here are the current retail prices for ammo scrapped off firearm websites by AmmoPricesNow:

9mm

22LR

.223

7.62×39

Is Vista Outdoor’s Nelson hyping up an ammo shortage to drive sales, or does his statement hold some truth?

Authored by Steve Cortes via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Bidenomics is failing America, infecting the land with a persistent and intensifying cynicism, despite attempts by the White House and a partisan press to impose misleading narratives on the electorate.

For example, the media rushed to heap praise upon last week’s modestly constructive jobs report. The actual numbers reveal a mixed bag – not a terrible report, but certainly not a parade-worthy one, either.

The 199,000 jobs added in November sits below the average for the year 2023, and far off the prior levels of 2021 and 2022. Regarding jobs added since Biden took office, the easy part is over, meaning the task of regaining the lost jobs resulting from the COVID panic is largely complete – and now net new job creation languishes.

Moreover, a sector analysis of this latest jobs report shows that 70% of the jobs were in either healthcare or government positions. More productive private sector jobs continue to lag, with manufacturing payrolls still flat in 2023.

In addition, even modestly positive economic data points cannot compensate for the harm inflicted upon workers for most of Biden’s tenure. Specifically, real wages – incomes adjusted for inflation – declined for a record 24 straight months, and recent small recoveries in real wages cannot come close to making workers whole.

The reality, as revealed by the data, proves that workers have toiled harder to get poorer under Biden, in real world terms – and they know it.

My organization, the League of American Workers, has commissioned a series of battleground state polls conducted by North Star Opinion Research. The most recent survey of Wisconsin canvassed an evenly split sampling of Biden and Trump 2020 voters in that Heartland swing state.

The crisis of confidence pervades the upper Midwest, where only 22% of Wisconsin likely voters think America is on the right track, and the clear main culprit for the despondency is the economy.

The economy remains the primary concern of battleground voters, regardless of partisan affiliation. For example, approval of Biden on the economy shows the president badly underwater, with only 17% strong approval vs. a whopping 47% strong disapproval. But among the independent Midwest voters we sampled, the results are just about as dismal, with a mere 19% strong approval for Biden on the economy among non-partisans. Even among self-described liberals, 23% disapprove of Biden on the economy.

Despite this widespread dissatisfaction, the president and his team insist on promoting the term “Bidenomics” to defend their radical agenda. Despite those efforts by the Democrats and a complicit legacy media, 37% of Wisconsin voters have not even heard the term. Among those who have, just 9% of voters in the state have a very favorable view of the phrase.

Reflecting the stressed budgets of parents grappling to deal with high inflation, only 5% of parents in Wisconsin with school-age children have a very favorable view of Bidenomics, vs. 40% with a very unfavorable view.

Swing state voters consistently blame the administration for this stifling inflation. On energy, for example, only 5% of Wisconsin citizens believe Biden’s agenda has lowered gasoline prices, while 51% blame his policies for raising prices at the pump.

These numbers reflect a bracing economic reality in America under Biden: Only the very top end of the economic ladder is doing well. For instance, a JP Morgan research report last week detailed that 80% of Americans have already burned through their increased savings from the lockdowns and government support payments.

Given current trends, by mid-year 2024, JP Morgan economist Marko Kolanovic projects “it is likely that only the top 1% of consumers by income will be better off than before the pandemic.”

So, there it is.

Great news for the top 1%, per usual from the supposed “progressives,” but a slog for everyone else. Americans are stressed, polarized, and losing faith in society’s future, even in the Heartland. A big driver of this pessimism flows from an economy that works only for a crony, credentialed ruling class.

Accordingly, into 2024, the candidates and activists who address this anxiety and propose workable populist conservative solutions to fix our economic woes will win hearts, minds … and votes.

This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

Steve Cortes is former senior advisor to President Trump, former commentator for Fox News and CNN, and president of the League of American Workers, a populist right pro-laborer advocacy group.  

Following the meltdown on Capitol Hill by “Ivy League” Presidents from Harvard, MIT and Penn, on Wednesday of this week Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt signed Executive Order 2023-31, effectively banning diversity, equity and inclusion bureaucracies in state institutions.

Standing in front of a podium which read “DEFUNDING DISCRIMINATION”, Stitt announced: “In Oklahoma, we’re going to encourage equal opportunity, rather than promising equal outcomes.”

“Encouraging our workforce, economy, and education systems to flourish means shifting focus away from exclusivity and discrimination, and toward opportunity and merit. We’re taking politics out of education and focusing on preparing students for the workforce,” he said at a press conference.

According to the Governor’s office, the order says that state agencies and institutions for higher education shall not utilize state funds, property, or resources to:

1. Grant or support diversity, equity, and inclusion positions, departments, activities, procedures, or programs to the extent they grant preferential treatment based on one person’s particular race, color, sex, ethnicity, or national origin over another’s;

2. mandate any person to participate in, listen to, or receive any education, training, activities, procedures, or programming to the extent such education, training, activity, or procedure grants preferences based on one person’s particular race, color, sex, ethnicity, or national origin over another’s;

3. mandate any person swear, certify, or agree to any loyalty oath that favors or prefers one particular race, color, sex, ethnicity, or national origin over another;

4. mandate any person to certify or declare agreement with, recognition of, or adherence to, any particular political, philosophical, religious, or other ideological viewpoint;

5. mandate any applicant for employment provide a diversity, equity, and inclusion statement or give any applicant for employment preferential consideration based on the provision of such a diversity, equity, and inclusion statement; or

6. mandate any person to disclose their pronouns.

Patrice Onwuka, director of Independent Women’s Forum’s Center for Economic Opportunity, commented: “As a nation, we strive for equality of opportunity to give every young person a chance at achieving their American Dream. Race, ethnicity, gender, and heritage should not be used to discriminate against any person. Yet, discriminatory DEI programming has done damage on college campuses—fomenting division between students, eroding free speech rights, threatening academic freedom, and bloating school bureaucracies, which in turn drives up tuition costs.”

Onwuka continued: “Furthermore, these efforts do not prepare young women and men for the diverse workforce that values aptitude, grit, and skill, not a sense of entitlement driven by victimhood. We applaud Governor Stitt and the state for taking leadership on removing discriminatory and divisive race-based programming and staffing from Oklahoma colleges and universities. Every student deserves a campus free from discrimination. Thankfully, legal protections already outlaw race-and sex-based discrimination, but this executive order guards against efforts to bypass those protections.”

David Safavian, general counsel for the American Conservative Union, commented: “For years, universities and government agencies, even those in red states, have become increasingly beholden to a coercive liberal agenda, often framed under the banner of DEI.”

He continued: “The transformation of these institutions has been exposed following the response by major universities in the aftermath of the October 7th terror attack by Hamas. Especially with that in mind, CPAC applauds Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt for acting through executive order today to take down DEI in all of Oklahoma’s government. Abolishing DEI bureaucracies and ending mandatory ‘diversity’ training and DEI hiring statements will ensure Oklahoma’s institutions can focus on the diversity of ideas, rather than shame-based political activism. Oklahomans can take pride in knowing that the content of their character will matter more than the color of their skin.”

Following the release, public universities reacted accordingly:

WINNING: Oklahoma @GovStitt has signed an executive order abolishing the DEI bureaucracy in all public universities. That makes Florida, Texas, Iowa, and Oklahoma. And we are just getting started. pic.twitter.com/fYXphLMQJ2

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) December 13, 2023

Executive Order 2023-31 can be read in full here. To rewatch the press conference, click here. 

Authored by Matt McGregor via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A 40-year record high of 100,000 nurses left their jobs in 2021, according to a study published in Health Affairs Forefront in April 2022.

The study noted that the exiting nurses were primarily younger, rather than the expected age group of above 50.

“A sustained reduction in the number of younger age [nurses] would raise ominous implications for the future workforce,” the study stated.

A report by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing published in October 2022 blames the losses on general trends such as retirement, a lack of education and training for replacements, and the rapid growth of an aging population that requires health care services.

Several nurses who spoke to The Epoch Times largely blame the exodus on the corporatization of health care and the vaccine mandates imposed on nurses.

The nursing shortage had long been a problem before COVID-19. When hospitals began operating like corporations instead of as a refuge for the sick, nurses became disillusioned with the occupation, nurse Irene Ricks told The Epoch Times.

Then, came the pandemic and, with it, a slew of new requirements.

“Not only were nurses having to take on a huge load of patients, but they were also being told to do things that they didn’t feel right about,” Ms. Ricks said. 

“Then, they were being told they had to be vaccinated or they would lose their job.”

The vaccine mandate “was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Ms. Ricks said. 

“It made nurses quit or retire in droves.”

A 2023 report by AMN Healthcare, which is the result of a January survey of 18,000 registered nurses nationwide, found that 30 percent of nurses said they’re likely to leave their careers because of the pandemic, up 7 percentage points from 2021. 

“The movement of nurses away from hospital employment may be the most damaging health care workplace impact of the pandemic,” the report states. 

A full 94 percent of respondents said there’s a “severe or moderate shortage of nurses” in their area.

“Nurses forever have gone into difficult places with deadly diseases, and people were happy and amazed at their sacrificial attitude to help people,” nurse Twila Brase, co-founder of the Minnesota-based Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom and founder of The Wedge of Health Freedom, told The Epoch Times.

“Yet, suddenly, the entire health care system turned on its head and said, ‘The biggest thing is to not take care of people but to comply. And we are willing to put patients at risk because if you don’t comply, you’re going to be terminated.’”

The nurses who were celebrated as heroes at the beginning of the pandemic were suddenly considered pariahs if they didn’t take the vaccine.

Some hospital systems imposed their own vaccine mandates, such as Houston Methodist in Texas, which announced a mandate in March 2021 and gave employees until June of that year to be fully vaccinated. By June 22, 2021, 153 employees either resigned or were fired.

A total of 1,400 employees at New York-based Northwell Health either resigned or were terminated for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine, according to Becker’s Hospital Review, a website tracking the termination of health care workers over the vaccine. The website includes a list of 55 hospitals and facilities that have fired more than 7,000 health care workers since 2021.

Ms. Brase said the vaccine mandate imposed on health care workers demonstrated the callousness of the corporate system.

“Nurses were essentially being forced to make life-or-death decisions as patients were reporting to them firsthand unusual symptoms that began after they took the injection,” Ms. Brase said.

“And yet hospitals wanted to get rid of them if they didn’t take this vaccine. It’s unreasonable. It’s unscientific.”

Noticing the reluctance within the health care industry to take the vaccine, the Biden administration imposed a vaccine mandate on health care workers on Nov. 5, 2021. 

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, stated that “in order to receive Medicare and Medicaid funding, participating facilities must ensure that their staff—unless exempt for medical or religious reasons—are vaccinated against COVID-19.”

The Supreme Court upheld the mandate in a 5–4 decision issued in January 2022. The decision meant that health care workers were given until March 15, 2022, to get fully vaccinated. 

In 2022, North Carolina nurse practitioner Staci Kay revealed to The Epoch Times what she believed to be vaccine injuries.

“I saw brain bleeds, seizures out of nowhere, cancer that just spread like wildfire, ischemic strokes, and I saw one person die horrifically from myocarditis,” Ms. Kay said at the time, noting that the issues “went unacknowledged by our physicians.”

On the outpatient side, she reported conditions such as brain fog, cognitive decline, joint pain, gastrointestinal issues, and neuropathy.

Ms. Kay started her own telemedicine practice after being fired for not submitting to what she described as illogical testing requirements for those who weren’t vaccinated.

Ms. Ricks said she suffered an injury after taking the first two doses of the vaccine. She said she didn’t make the connection to the vaccine until she discussed her symptoms with a co-worker, who said he was suffering the same symptoms.

“That’s when I knew something was going on,” Ms. Ricks told The Epoch Times. She predicts she’ll be suffering the side effects for the rest of my life.

In June this year, the Biden administration announced its plan to withdraw the vaccine mandate for health care workers. 

On Nov. 13, without comment, the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of a lawsuit filed in 2022 by four New Jersey-based nurses who challenged the constitutionality of New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s executive order requiring the vaccines.

Nurse Sandy Gardner wrote in an article published by the American Bar Association in July 2022 that “it’s difficult to ascertain exactly how much the vaccine mandate has affected the nursing shortage.”

“Nurses and other staff are also quitting their jobs due to burnout, COVID-19 safety concerns, and other reasons,” she said.

However, she supports the mandate for health care workers. 

“Vaccine mandates have proven over time that they work, as evidenced by requirements that school-aged children be vaccinated for certain diseases prior to enrolling in school,” Ms. Gardner wrote. 

“For the most part, the COVID vaccine mandate is working as time goes on. The longer the vaccine is out and is gaining a track record, the more people will get vaccinated.”

Formerly, a nurse had to practice for a year before being eligible, but that was reduced to six months, which resulted in nurses with little experience but higher salaries working in community hospitals where local nurses were paid less.

“There were travel nurses getting paid up to $6,000 to $10,000 a week, which was upsetting the staff, who would themselves quit and go become a travel nurse,” Ms. Ricks said.

Read more here…