Our readers know there’s yet to be a quick solution to the US pilot shortage, which may linger until 2032. Current data shows a staggering 17,000-pilot gap. This shortfall can be attributed to several factors:

• Early retirements spurred by the pandemic.

• The unyielding retirement age of 65.

• A dwindling number of pilots from the military.

• The unappealing prospect for civilians to embark on a pilot career. 

Airlines can only train 1,500 to 1,800 pilots a year. The deficit has triggered all sorts of flight disruptions, with the latest from American Airlines. 

However, South Korean researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (KAIST) developed “Pibot,” a life-sized humanoid robot that can fly planes and understand complex flight controls. 

Flight news website Airways Magazine explains more about Pibot’s capabilities:

As the world continues to adapt to the growing trend of Artificial Intelligence (AI), South Korean scientists have unveiled a humanoid robot capable of piloting an aircraft.

Named Pibot, the life-sized robot, measuring 160 cm tall and weighing in at 65 kg, is capable of gripping the controls, memorizing aircraft manuals, and even responding to emergency situations. It is fitted with multiple cameras capable of monitoring the aircraft’s systems and operational conditions.

Currently under development by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (KAIST), researchers utilized Al chatbots such as ChatGPT to create ways for PiBot to learn the pilot manuals for various aircraft. The robot can then be changed onto an alternative airframe by clicking the type. It can also memorize worldwide Jeppesen aeronautical navigation charts, an impossible task for its human equivalent.

PiBot can also communicate with air traffic control (ATC) and other humans on the flight deck, meaning it can operate via a Captain or First Officer. This has been done using Voice synthesis. By plugging the robot into the aircraft, it can communicate directly with the airframe.

Airways Magazine explained the humanoid pilot has already demonstrated it can control an aircraft safely. 

While it’s clear a robo-pilot is not something the US Federal Aviation Administration would clear anytime soon — it might catch the agency’s attention amid the worst pilot shortage ever. 

US airlines have been quietly lobbying Congress to allow them to use just one pilot in the cockpit instead of two. But with an increasing number of pilot deaths — some even in mid-air — one has to wonder: Is the FAA open to considering a mix between human and robot pilots in the cockpit? 

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

In all the media and regime frenzy over the January 6 riots and the Pentagon Leaker in recent months, it is interesting to examine the contrast between how the regime treats “crimes” against its own interests, and real crime committed against ordinary private citizens. 

Witness, for example, how the Biden administration and corporate media have treated the January 6 riot as if it were some kind of military coup, demanding that draconian sentences be handed down even to small-time vandals and trespassers. Regime paranoia has led the Justice Department to ask for a 30-year sentence for Enrique Tarrio, a man who was convicted of the non-crime of “seditious conspiracy” even though he wasn’t even in Washington on January 6. In recent months, Jacob Chansley, the “QAnon Shaman,” received a sentence of three-and-a-half years, even though prosecutors admit he did nothing violent. Riley Williams was given three years for simply trespassing in Nancy Pelosi’s office. Members of the Capitol Police force have been lionized in the media as great protectors of “sacred” government buildings, and any threat to the property or persons of Washington politicians has been equated with an assault on “democracy.” 

Yet, had these supposed insurrectionists inflicted these same actions against an ordinary private individual, there’s a good chance the perpetrators would not even be arrested, let alone given years of prison time. Consider, for example, the mobs that ransack private businesses in American cities, stealing tens of thousands of dollars of merchandise while police and prosecutors consider it all to be low priority.  Violent crime and property crime surge in many areas of the United States, with violent crime rising 30 percent in New York City in 2022. Unsolved murders in the US are at a record high. Meanwhile, progressives and social democrats are looking for ways to reduce criminal penalties against violent criminals. Police departments often devote only tiny portions of their budgets to homicide investigations, and if your property is stolen, odds are good you can forget about ever seeing it again. 

The situation is quite different when it comes to protecting the state, its agents, and its property from any threat. During urban riots, such as those which occurred in Ferguson, Missouri and Minneapolis, Minnesota, the police went to great lengths to protect themselves and government property. If you were just a private shopkeeper or ordinary citizen, however, you were on your own. At the Uvalde School shooting in 2022, hundreds of law enforcement officers from all levels of government chose to protect themselves rather than the children who were being murdered inside. When Uvalde parents demanded the police act, the police attacked the parents. 

We find similar phenomena at the federal level. There are, of course, special federal laws against violence perpetrated against federal employees. Ordinary taxpayers receive no such consideration. Note how federal agencies move to arm themselves to the teeth while also seeking to disarm the private-sector. Federal agents will spare no expense finding someone who put his feet up on Nancy Pelosi’s desk, but it’s another matter entirely when we’re talking about serious violent crime against regular people.  Federal agents, of course, allowed 9/11 to occur right under their noses, they refused to investigate known rapist Larry Nasser, and shrugged off reports about the man who would end up slaughtering children at a high school in Parkland, Florida. Contrast this with how long the federal government has been conniving to get revenge on Julian Assange for merely telling the truth about US war crimes.  

Naturally, law enforcement officers rarely face any sanctions for their failures to bother themselves with private property, life, or limb. The federal courts have made it clear that law enforcement officers are not obligated to actually protect the public. In other words, the taxpayers must always pay taxes to hold up their end of the imagined “social contract” or face fines and imprisonment. But the other side of that “contract,” the state, has no legal obligation to make good on its end. This, of course, is not how real contracts work. 

The state’s fastidious devotion to protecting itself, compared to its casual concern for the safety of mere taxpayers, illustrates an important principle of state behavior. In his essay The Anatomy of the State, Murray Rothbard notes 

We may test the hypothesis that the State is largely interested in protecting itself rather than its subjects by asking: which category of crimes does the State pursue and punish most intensely—those against private citizens or those against itself? The gravest crimes in the State’s lexicon are almost invariably not invasions of private person or property, but dangers to its own contentment, for example, treason, desertion of a soldier to the enemy, failure to register for the draft, subversion and subversive conspiracy, assassination of rulers and such economic crimes against the State as counterfeiting its money or evasion of its income tax. Or compare the degree of zeal devoted to pursuing the man who assaults a policeman, with the attention that the State pays to the assault of an ordinary citizen. Yet, curiously, the State’s openly assigned priority to its own defense against the public strikes few people as inconsistent with its presumed raison d’etre.

This double standard has been repeatedly on display in recent years as the regime has increasingly been consumed with paranoia over threats to itself—propagandistically termed “threats to democracy”—while attention given to real crime against private citizens is apparently not a priority at all. 

In a rapid shift in private aviation among millionaires, cent-millionaires, and billionaires, Textron Inc.’s Cessna Citation, the most popular and most flown private jet in the US, which held that record for 15 years, has just been dethroned. 

Bloomberg reports new monthly flight data from the Federal Aviation Administration shows Brazil’s Embraer Phenom 300, a medium-sized jet that seats around nine passengers, had 360,000 takeoffs and landings at US airports in the 12 months through August, 1,200 more than the Citation Excel family of jets. 

Brian Foley, a private aviation consultant, said the biggest reason behind the surge in popularity of the Phenom 300 is fuel efficiency, which burns one-third less than the Citation Excel. He said cheaper fuel costs offset the Phenom 300’s smaller cabin space.

For some context, at cruising speed, the two Pratt & Whitney turbofans of the Citation Excel burn around 225 gallons per hour of Jet A fuel. 

Meanwhile, the Phenom 300 is around 158 gallons of Jet A fuel per hour. 

Even though Phenom 300s are being flown more, Cessna still dominates private jet deliveries. 

Textron told Bloomberg, “One of every three business jets worldwide is a Cessna Citation, and product upgrades like these continue to give customers new reasons to choose us for our proven performance, leading technology and unmatched cabin experience.” 

Despite the ‘climate change’ cheerleading, private jet demand soared to new heights in recent years, though mounting macro uncertainty and the highest interest rates in two decades led to a cooling in private jet flights earlier this year. 

Authored by J. Peder Zane via RealClear Wire,

The Democrats have an ace in the hole in their relentless war on the Constitution – conservative America’s reverence for the concept of the rule of the law.

Only their steadfast commitment to this traditional ideal explains why conservatives are allowing   Democrats to flagrantly corrupt our judicial system to destroy their opponents and protect themselves. For all their huffing and puffing, conservatives have effectively taken a let the system play itself out attitude while Democrats nakedly politicize that system through their partisan indictments of former President Trump and their Potemkin Village probes of the Bidens. These are not statements of opinion. These are facts.

Part of me is glad that so many legal analysts have spilled so much ink exposing these charades. But we degrade our country and ourselves when we treat this unspeakable behavior with anything other than horrified contempt. Every good-faith critique normalizes and legitimizes this profoundly un-American conspiracy.

Viewing the obvious forest rather than the tangled trees, the cases against Trump are a continuation of the deceitful effort by Democrats and their deep state allies, especially in the DOJ, to annihilate their chief political opponent. That effort began even before his election when Hillary Clinton’s campaign manufactured false claims that Trump had conspired with Vladimir Putin to steal the 2016 election. When that sham was exposed, they almost immediately made Trump only the third president in the country to be impeached for asking Ukraine’s leader to look into the Biden family’s influence-peddling schemes. They set aside almost every rule and order of business by rushing to impeach him once again after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. While that was going on, Democrats insistently rained down other bogus concerns – that he was violating the Emoluments Clause because wealthy foreigners continued to stay at his hotels, that his alleged mental instability made him unfit – to remove him from office.

The hypocrisy is beyond belief: The party that assails Republicans for questioning the integrity of the highly irregular 2020 election spent years and vast government resources to undo the results of 2016.

The charges Trump now faces are part of the ongoing campaign by Democrats to subvert the rule of law to delegitimize what they see as the greatest threat to their power.

In the meantime, Democrats are blatantly using the criminal justice system to protect President Biden. It is now beyond dispute that Biden lied to the American people when he said he never discussed foreign business with his son Hunter and when he claimed during his final 2020 debate with Trump that Hunter’s laptop, which contained evidence of those corrupt dealings, was a “Russian plant.” Has a candidate ever peddled more consequential falsehoods?

In fact, the president was not only aware of his son’s influence-peddling schemes, whose sole selling point was the connection to his vast power. He was an active participant through phone calls and meetings with clients. Irony does not capture the deviousness of the Democrats’ decision to impeach Trump for asking Ukraine to look into this corruption.

The cover-up of the Bidens’ conduct is equally disturbing. The U.S. attorney in Delaware assigned to the case, David C. Weiss, is a former colleague of Biden’s late son Beau. Although the tax avoidance charges involved are straightforward, Weiss spent more than five years allegedly looking into them – allowing the statute of limitations to run out on millions of unreported earnings Hunter generated in 2014 and 2015. Note that even as the president calls on Americans to pay their fair share, neither he nor his allies have demanded that Hunter pay his.

Indeed, we only know about Weiss’ corruption because of two courageous IRS whistleblowers. In response, Weiss quickly struck a deal with Hunter to settle the matter, crafting a sweetheart deal that would have let him off the hook with a slap on the wrist. All might have been forgiven but for the presiding judge, who rejected the deal last month as “not standard” and potentially unconstitutional.

In response to this scandal, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Weiss as special counsel to look into the mess. This move is beyond brazen – Weiss is now apparently in charge of probing his own misconduct. The goal is obvious: Protect the president, and let the statute of limitations run out on other alleged crimes while shutting down any questions about the “ongoing investigation.”

The arrogance is jaw-dropping; the lawlessness is in plain sight. Democrats are not even trying to hide their malfeasance – which is part of their method. If they can make us accept their authority to twist the system so that it is no longer a means of justice but a tool of their political power, then their possibilities are unlimited.

Imagine if the roles were reversed: What if Republican prosecutors had indicted a former Democratic president, who was also the party’s leading candidate in the next election, in four separate cases on 91 questionable charges while a GOP-controlled Department of Justice simultaneously protected its sitting-president boss, who was seeking reelection, by slow-walking a probe of his family’s alleged crimes?

The corporate media would be in high dudgeon about this assault on the Constitution and the streets would be filled with left-wing protestors who would make the BLM riots, the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, and the harassment of Supreme Court justices in response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade seem mild.

Here’s the conundrum. While no one wants conservatives to start engaging in direct action, their passivity is allowing Democrats to weaponize the government. On the one hand, I admire their faith in our system. Even Trump, for all his barking, has largely submitted to his gross mistreatment.

But our system is shattered. The rule of law is now more concept than fact. Where’s the outrage?

J. Peder Zane is a RealClearInvestigations editor and columnist. He previously worked as a book review editor and book columnist for the News & Observer (Raleigh), where his writing won several national honors. Zane has also worked at the New York Times and taught writing at Duke University and Saint Augustine’s University.

In a classic move by those on the left — democrats, socialists, and everyone in between with seemingly no grasp of what sparks inflation — championed the Biden administration’s move in 2021 to increase food stamp spending by the most in history, hiking benefits by an average of 27%. 

In 2022, the Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) spending hit a record high of $119 billion, a sixfold increase over the last two decades. In 2019, taxpayers were on the hook for $4.5 billion per month on food stamp benefits. By December 2022, monthly food stamp spending soared to $11 billion. 

According to findings from the government watchdog Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA), previewed by Fox News, the administration’s massive expansion of food stamp benefits could be responsible for a 15% spike in grocery store prices. 

FGA called Biden’s rush to increase SNAP benefits an “unlawful expansion—which bypassed Congress—will cost taxpayers $250 billion over the next decade and has heavily contributed to soaring grocery prices.”  

“Congress should repeal President Biden’s unlawful food stamp expansion and ensure this type of executive overreach cannot happen again. In doing so, Congress could save taxpayers more than $193 billion over the next decade,” it added. 

The good news is the emergency allotments expired earlier this year, but food stamp spending remains $8.6 billion in March. The Congressional Budget Office estimates SNAP spending will cost taxpayers nearly $1.1 trillion over the next decade. 

“USDA cooked their books to hike food stamp benefits by 27% — the largest permanent increase in program history. And they bypassed Congress to do it,” said Jonathan Ingram, Vice President of Policy and Research at the Foundation for Government Accountability.

Ingram noted, “Data show the Biden administration’s overreach led to massive spikes in grocery prices. They’re feeding inflation, not stopping hunger.”

The index for food at home (groceries) has skyrocketed ever since Biden increased SNAP benefits. 

As food inflation soared, Biden’s officials, seemingly detached from economic reality, pointed the finger at food companies for raging food inflation. 

Remember this?

If FGA is correct, this is another sign that ‘Bidenomics’ has been a disaster for low/mid-tier consumers drowning in inflation. 

It’s one giant EBT party…

Authored by Samantha Flom via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has launched two new COVID-19 fraud strike forces, the department said Wednesday in announcing the filing of criminal charges against 371 people in relation to the theft of more than $836 million in pandemic relief funds.

“The Justice Department has now seized over $1.4 billion in COVID-19 relief funds that criminals had stolen, and charged over 3,000 defendants with crimes in federal districts across the country,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.

“This latest action, involving over 300 defendants and over $830 million in alleged COVID-19 fraud, should send a clear message: The COVID-19 public health emergency may have ended, but the Justice Department’s work to identify and prosecute those who stole pandemic relief funds is far from over,” he added.

The charges are the result of a COVID-19 fraud enforcement sweep that took place nationwide from May through the end of July.

According to the DOJ, of the 371 defendants charged, 119 either pleaded guilty or were convicted at trial, and more than $57 million in court-ordered restitution was imposed.

The sweep involved a total of 718 law enforcement actions, including 117 civil matters yielding more than $10.4 million in judgments.

Many cases involved charges related to pandemic unemployment insurance benefit fraud and fraud against the Small Business Administration’s two largest pandemic programs: the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loans.

Together, prosecutors and law enforcement worked to secure the forfeiture of more than $231.4 million.

Announcing the results at a roundtable meeting of senior DOJ, law enforcement, and Office of the Inspector General officials, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said the department was also launching two new strike forces to assist in its ongoing crackdown on pandemic-related fraud.

“The law enforcement actions announced today reflect the Justice Department’s focus—working with our law enforcement partners nationwide—on bringing to justice those who stole from American businesses and families at a time of national emergency,” Ms. Monaco said. “The two new strike forces launched today will increase our reach as we continue to pursue fraudsters and recover taxpayer funds, no matter how long it takes.”

According to the Associated Press, it is possible that more than $280 billion in pandemic relief funds was stolen by fraudsters, while another $123 billion was wasted or misspent.

The attorney general established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force in May 2021 to help prevent, investigate, and prosecute cases of COVID-19 fraud. In September 2022, the DOJ added to those efforts by launching three strike force teams at the U.S. attorney’s offices in the Eastern and Central Districts of California, the Southern District of Florida, and the District of Maryland.

The new strike forces will operate out of the U.S. attorney’s offices for the District of Colorado and the District of New Jersey.

“I applaud the hard work of our prosecutors around the country,” said Michael C. Galdo, acting director of COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement. “However, this announcement is not a victory lap. Our mission is not complete.

“We know from our investigative partners that identifying those who committed pandemic relief fraud and recovering stolen funds is difficult work. But the Justice Department, including our strike forces, U.S. attorneys’ offices, and the Criminal and Civil Divisions, is committed to using our criminal, civil, and forfeiture tools to hold these fraudsters accountable.”

Sex workers – who frequently face financial discrimination, losing access to payment apps and banking apps such as PayPal, Venmo and CashApp due to their profession – began using cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin as an alternative for payments, which bypass traditional banking systems and avoid service fees from platforms such as OnlyFans.

According to data by the Free Speech Coalition, 2/3 of sex workers have lost access to a bank account or financial service, with 40% having an account closed within the last year, Wired reports.

“I just want to sell titty pictures,” said Allie Eve Knox, a professional dominatrix and fetish performer. “I never wanted to be an expert in financial discrimination.”

🖕 pic.twitter.com/21WPZJUSbB

— Allie Eve Knox (@allieeveknox) August 23, 2023

After starting out in sex work in 2014, Knox, like others in the field, has become something of a financial pariah. The first to ban her were the payment apps—PayPal, Venmo, and CashApp—which prohibit the sale of adult content as policy. But then Knox lost her bank account too. It took a week to recover her money.

Nine years on and 30-plus bans later, Knox is jaded: “I don’t want to have to know how to run money to different places. I don’t want to deal with any of this bullshit.” -Wired

Another sex worker, Allie Rae, an ICU worker by training, began posting on OnlyFans when her husband was placed on work furlough. After a short period of time, she was making nearly $500,000 per month more than her day job – but she says she quickly ran into trouble.

After her OnlyFans account was discovered by her employer, she was fired. She also found that realtors shunned her, lenders refused to extend a mortgage and accountants ghosted her. Rae eventually established a corporation to run her business through, however no major bank would open a business account.

POV: You just picked me up, now where we going? pic.twitter.com/CwYCRHhCvG

— The Allie Rae ®️ (@MrsAllieRae) August 24, 2023

“Left and right, it’s been a struggle,” she told the outlet. “I was very naive—I didn’t understand the magnitude of the discrimination.”

In short, in a world that embraces the gig economy, where YouTubers and Instagram influencers can become millionaires, sex workers have found themselves in a peculiar form of exile.

Crypto: false hope

Given the systemic discrimination throughout the banking sector, many sex workers have turned to cryptocurrencies as a means of both storing wealth and accepting payment. For a while, things were great. Digital currencies allowed customers to pay discreetly without supplying personal information, while sex workers now had a way to bypass the banking system entirely.

Knox, for example, began accepting crypto in 2014 – holding up a QR code through which viewers could tip her in crypto.

Another sex worker, former escort-turned-porn star Lira Roux, told the outlet that she began to accept crypto in 2015 at the request of clients. Initially, she would exchange the crypto for dollars, however when new laws came into effect – after which many adult-friendly advertising sites were barred from accepting regular money – she began to pay for ads with crypto too.

“By and large, crypto is useful for people that aren’t being taken care of properly by the government,” Roux said. “For sex workers, who aren’t well-served by banks, it becomes a useful option.”

Now, thanks to regulatory scrutiny which has gone into overdrive since the collapse of crypto exchange FTX, sex workers are ‘bumping up’ against limitations – and are finding that ‘decentralized’ crypto is no more detached from the banking system than traditional currency – as sex workers are finding it increasingly difficult to convert crypto into dollars. Typically, this is done via an exchange, which then allows one to withdraw to a traditional bank account. Sex workers are now being banned from crypto exchanges.

“You get on an exchange for as long as you can, until they shut your ass down,” said Knox. “You quickly [run out of exchanges], so you sit on a lot of useless money. The whole ‘crypto is permissionless and censorship-resistant’ thing is a bunch of bullshit.”

In the US, full-service sex work (also known as prostitution) is illegal in every state but Nevada, but pornography and online sex work are legal under the First Amendment. Irrespective of this distinction, banking access has been a problem for the entire sex work community since at least the 1960s, says Mike Stabile, director of public affairs at the FSC, and has only become more acute.

The issue was exacerbated a decade ago by a program launched by the Obama administration, under which banks were warned that a collection of industries posed an “elevated risk” of fraud, including pornography. Now known as Operation Chokepoint, the initiative was found by investigators not to have constituted a deliberate attempt to disrupt disfavored businesses, but is nonetheless said to have led banks to sever ties with the adult sector.

…

(Knox suspects she has ended up on a blacklist at Plaid, a provider of technology plumbing to large crypto exchanges like Gemini, Kraken, and Robinhood, leading to the repeated bans. Freya Petersen, spokesperson for Plaid, says no such list exists, but that all firms that wish to use its services are subject to a standard risk assessment process, factoring in the industry in which they operate.) -Wired

When banks blacklist sex workers, they rarely justify their actions. In one case, porn star Alana Evans, president of the Adult Performance Artists Guild (APAG) was told by Wells Fargo that her account – opened in the mid-1990s, would be closed as part of “ongoing reviews” related to the bank’s responsibility to “manage risks.”

After being a customer since 1993, and NEVER GOING NEGATIVE ONCE, @WellsFargo sent me this letter today.

After 30 years, they are closing my accounts.

What is going on? I’m being removed for being a sex worker.

In one week, I’m fired from a vanilla job AND losing my bank pic.twitter.com/siYgb5EDlr

— Alana Evans XBIZ BEST MILF CAM Winner!! (@alanaevansxxx) September 2, 2022

The industry lockout means that sex workers can’t enjoy the convenience factors provided by Venmo or other payment platforms, and forces them to rely on OnlyFans and Fansly, which handle payouts but not before taking a sizable chunk of their income.

Given this environment, many sex workers turn to friends or spouses (or pimps) to act as a custodian of their finances, exposing them to potential abuse.

“One of the ways traffickers control victims is by controlling their finances,” said Jessica Van Meir, founder of MintStars, an adult-friendly NFT subscription platform, and a PhD candidate at Harvard specializing in women’s informal labor. “The irony is that banks exclude sex workers largely for fear of liability for sex trafficking, but by discriminating against sex workers, they put them at higher risk of sex trafficking.”

How fucked is that?

Submitted by Gun Owners of America,

The disastrous consequences of the Republican-backed Bipartisan Safer Communities Act keep adding up.

The law, passed last year through a compromise between Democrat Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas, encouraged the Biden administration to pass universal background checks via executive order and more.

Now, the latest gun control comes in the form of funding cuts for school hunting and archery training programs, just in time for the new school year.

The Department of Education cut off this funding due to the agency’s interpretation of a provision in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act that bans taxpayer funds from being used towards “training in the use of a dangerous weapon.” The Department of Education seems to think that Hunting and Archery meet that qualification.

Ironically, Senator Cornyn wrote to the Department of Education this month expressing concern over the interpretation of this provision.

The writing is on the wall.👏

The Biden administration’s ultimate goal is to reduce participation in hunting and shooting sports, both by halting the use of cheap traditional ammunition on public lands and by cutting funding to our schools. https://t.co/rRgOSMewie

— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) August 21, 2023

While the Republicans who helped introduce and pass this legislation remained confused about the outcome, Gun Owners of America has been diligently warning members of Congress about the consequences of passing new gun control.

When Congress passes ambiguous laws, it allows anti-gun administrations such as the Biden administration to step in and interpret as they please.

According to the International Hunter Education Association, Hunter Education courses certify over half a million students annually. Their website details that hunting-related injuries have decreased drastically because of this education.

It’s obvious that the Biden Administration has a vested interest in cutting these programs from schools. Any program that could create responsible, law-abiding gun owners goes against their anti-gun agenda.

This is why Gun Owners of America is working diligently in Congress to introduce legislation that repeals exactly these type of anti-gun laws.

We worked with Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado to introduce the Shall Not Be Infringed Act. This act specifically repeals the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, as well as other gun control measures passed by the 117th Congress.

Just recently, we secured a major victory for veterans, stopping the VA from disarming veterans simply because they use a fiduciary to manage their finances, overturning a Clinton-era rule.

And that’s just the start. We’re fighting every day for your rights on Capitol Hill and throughout the courts nationwide.

*   *   *

We’ll hold the line for you in Washington. We are No Compromise. Join the Fight Now.

Authored by Mary Gillis via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Transgender surgeries nearly tripled in the United States between 2016 and 2019, with breast and chest procedures accounting for 56.6 percent of all operations, results of a study published Wednesday in the JAMA Network Open show.

Close behind was genital reconstruction, making up 35.1 percent, followed by facial and cosmetic procedures at 13.9 percent. The greatest number of procedures overall were undergone by women, 19- to 30-year-olds, people with private insurance, and people with higher incomes. Most procedures occurred in the West and were performed in urban teaching hospitals.

When divided into subgroups, breast and chest procedures comprised more of the surgical interventions in younger patients. Genital procedures were higher in older patients.

About 15 percent of the over 48,000 respondents examined indicated mental health or addiction problems, including drug and alcohol abuse, depression, and psychosis.

“These findings suggest that there will be a greater need for clinicians knowledgeable in the care of transgender individuals with requisite expertise to perform gender-affirming procedures,” the study authors wrote.

What Are the Dangers of Transgender Surgery?

Transgender surgeries do not come without potential dangers. Evidence concerning regret rate, long-term medical complications, effects of hormonal therapy, and the link between surgeries and depression and suicide rates require further study.

Side Effects 

A 2021 study found reoperations due to long-term complications following breast augmentations do happen. Implant ruptures, capsular contractures (an immune response to breast implants resulting in scar tissue), and aesthetic problems can occur anywhere from 30 days to 5.5 years after surgery.

According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, side effects of reconstructing male genitalia to female genitalia, known as transfeminine bottom surgery, include the following:

• Bleeding.
• Infection.
• Poor incision healing.
• Hematoma.
• Nerve injury stenosis of the vagina.
• Inadequate vaginal depth.
• Urinary tract injury.
• Abnormal connections between the urethra and the skin.
• Painful intercourse.

Suicide Risk and Attempts

A study published in PLOS One highlighted the alarming rates of suicide and suicide attempts in people who underwent sex-reassignment surgery. Experiment results by researchers in Sweden found people who underwent sex reassignment were 4.9 times more likely to attempt suicide and 19.1 times more likely to die of suicide than the controls.

“Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population,” the authors wrote. “Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism, and should inspire improved psychiatric and somatic care after sex reassignment for this patient group.”

Updated Recommendations

Hormone therapy is recommended and sometimes required for some patients before breast and chest surgery.

However, evidence supporting hormone therapy for transgender individuals is inconclusive.

The Tavistock Centre in London, characterized as a clinic for young people facing gender identity difficulties, is slated to close by the end of 2023 after an independent review (pdf) cited a lack of conclusive evidence supporting routine recommendations of hormone therapies such as puberty blockers, among other complications in running the clinic.

The clinic closure comes on the heels of Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare’s 2022 updated recommendations. Board officials concluded there was insufficient scientific evidence on “gender-affirmative” care, calling for caution and restraint in hormonal interventions for minors.

“The update to the Swedish treatment guidelines represents an impressive step toward safeguarding the growing numbers of gender dysphoric youth from medical harm arising from inappropriate gender transition,” health officials wrote in the recommendations.

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has told reporters on Friday that in a legal sense, Wagner group doesn’t exist. This came as he announced a new presidential decree signed by President Putin on the same day, which stipulates that all Russian paramilitary fighters will be required to swear an oath to the Russian flag and nation.

Fighters, including from Wagner, must pledge “their loyalty to the Russian Federation… strictly follow their commanders and superiors’ orders, and conscientiously fulfill their obligations,” according to the new decree.

The decree was described as aiming to form “the spiritual and moral foundations for the defense of the Russian Federation” and applies to all mercenary outfits which are “contributing to the execution of tasks given to the armed forces.”

And there was this, according to The Moscow Times: 

Asked about the future of Wagner, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday that “legally the Wagner private military group does not exist.”

Private military companies are officially outlawed in Russia.

This fresh decree appears aimed squarely at Wagner fighters, given it also comes just two days following the jet downing which took Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s life (something still being verified as Russian investigators examine DNA).

This week there have been reports of Wagner mercenaries leaving Belarus in droves, while there are elsewhere conflicting reports they’ve been allowed to stay.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has meanwhile commented on the whole Prigozhin matter in a newly published interview. He revealed that he personally told Yevgeny Prigozhin to “watch out” for threats to his life. Apparently this happened not long before the plane crash. And more:

Mr Lukashenko said that the Wagner leader had never asked him for security guarantees. “I don’t have to ensure Prigozhin’s safety… the conversation was never in that vein.”

Lukashenko also denied that Putin was behind the killing of the Wagner leader: 

A close ally of Mr Putin, the Belarusian president said that he believed the plane crash was “just too rough and unprofessional a job” for the Russian leader to be involved. “I know Putin: he is calculating, very calm, even tardy,” Lukashenko said. “I cannot imagine that Putin did it, that Putin is to blame.”

Putin appeared cheery after Russian media reported Prigozhin was dead, opening remarks at an event with a broad smile.

“Devotion to the homeland and loyalty to the military oath is what unites all participants of the special military operation,” he said. https://t.co/aworTOa4Ow

— POLITICOEurope (@POLITICOEurope) August 24, 2023

This is something which the Kremlin itself said on Friday, calling Western assertions that Putin was behind the assassination of Prigozhin “absolute lies”. But it should also be noted that the death of he and his top commanders aboard the same plane happened two months to the day of the June 23-24 mutiny and armed ‘march on Moscow’.

All of this does appear to be President Putin engaged in some serious post-mutiny house cleaning and muscle-flexing.