Authored by Michael Clements via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The time for a holder of a concealed carry firearm permit to determine how to interact with the police during a traffic stop or other situation is before law enforcement ever becomes involved, according to an official with the National Rifle Association.

“You’ve got to think ahead; you’ve got to prepare,” Glen Hoyer told seminar attendees during the NRA’s Annual Meetings and Exhibits in Indianapolis on April 16.

At the NRA’s annual meeting, he leads the seminar, “Armed Citizen: How to Interact with Law Enforcement.” The seminar aims to provide law-abiding firearms owners with information they need to make the process run as smoothly as possible.

He said the first step is for the gun owner to understand the mind of the police officer—who has one goal in mind.

“The officer’s No. 1 job, at the end of the day, is to go home to his family,” Hoyer said.

With that in mind, the officer will arrive ready to do what he or she needs to preserve everyone’s safety. It’s also important to realize that upon arrival, the officer will have limited information. So, he will do what he is trained to secure the scene, preserve evidence, and gather information, he said.

When firearms are involved in a possible crime, Hoyer said, people will be searched, handcuffed, and placed in a police car. This means the officer will use whatever force is necessary and legal.

“There is nothing personal; they are simply trying to secure the scene,” Hoyer said. “It’s a whole lot easier to apologize later.”

At the same time, it’s essential to know your rights and responsibilities under the law. Some states require a concealed carry license holder to immediately notify a police officer that they have a gun. Some only require answering truthfully if the officer asks, and some states don’t require notification.

“Know the law in your area,” Hoyer said.

In addition, he said it is essential to know your legal rights and to exercise those rights properly.

For example, under the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, a citizen can refuse to allow a law enforcement officer with no warrant to search their person or property. However, arguing, taunting, or belittling an officer will only heighten tension. Politely declining could have long-term benefits.

Read more here…

Gravity Industries showcased their Iron Man-like jetpacks at a field training exercise earlier this month in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Gravity worked with the Joint Prototyping and Experimentation Maritime program at Naval Surface Warfare Center to conduct multiple mock exercises with the jetpacks, including rapid transit from shore-to-sea and sea-to-shore missions. 

Each jetpack is powered by five micro jet turbines that generate about 1,000 horsepower.

In the video, two pilots maneuvered from ship to shore and shore to ship to demonstrate the impressive capabilities the jetpacks can one day give Tier 1 operators. 

The suit can run on jet fuel, diesel, or kerosene. Users can travel as fast as 80 mph and reach an altitude of 12,000 feet. However, both pilots in the video performed maneuvers at lower heights for safety purposes.  

In the near future, jetpacks will likely be deployed with special forces units on the modern battlefield. The Brits are already flying theirs around. 

Authored by Travis Gillmore via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Demand for California’s new downpayment assistance program overwhelmed the system and depleted its $300 million budget in less than 12 days, with applications put on pause effective April 7, according to the housing finance agency.

The legislator responsible for proposing the program responded optimistically to the news.

“It is incredible and inspiring to see that the launch of the California Dream for All program has already been so successful,” Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) said in a statement April 14. “The fact that it has helped more than 2,400 first-time homebuyers with their down payments in its first two weeks is terrific.

Designed to provide up to 20 percent of funding for low-income first-time home buyers, the “Dream for All” program was initiated with the passage of Assembly Bill 140 in 2021.

Resources are provided through the Dream for All Shared Appreciation Loan, in which the state provides a portion of the down payment in exchange for a share in the property.

The loan, in addition to a portion of the appreciated value of the home, will be repaid when the property is resold, according to the legislation.

The lowest eligible income for the program is $159,000 for several counties throughout the state, with San Franciscans and Silicon Valley residents in Santa Clara and San Mateo residents eligible if they make $300,000, the highest. Los Angeles’s limit is $180,000, and Orange County has the highest income limit in Southern California, at $230,000.

The original text written in 2021 proposed funding the project with $1 billion annually for 10 years. The proposal suggested the $10 billion invested would assist more than 150,000 Californians.

After legislative wrangling, the proposed amount later dropped to $500 million in 2022 and with the state facing a $25 billion budget deficit for the next fiscal year starting in July, Newsom decreased the allocation to $300 million for its introduction in 2023.

The funding gap leaves the program stalled awaiting further resources, according to legislators.

“While we are off to a strong start, we can’t truly make a difference in opening the doors to building generational wealth for Californians—especially those who historically have faced systemic barriers to homeownership—without sustained funding for the program,” Atkins said in the statement.

Read more here…

A Bloomberg report reveals that the Defense Department is increasingly worried about President Biden’s proposals to build massive wind farms across the mid-Atlantic region, as some of these areas are considered “highly problematic” for potential interference with military operations. 

The DoD shared the map with energy industry stakeholders and lawmakers late last year. It outlines four large sections of water off the coasts of North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, earmarked for potential wind farms. Areas in red are labeled “highly problematic.” Areas in yellow indicate that military officials need to conduct more research. 

“The initial assessment performed by DoD found compatibility challenges with wind turbines near Navy and Air Force training,” DoD spokesperson Kelly Flynn said in an emailed statement to Gizmodo. About 25% of the total planned offshore wind farms are impacted by the department’s graphic. 

“This assessment is the first step in the process and DoD will continue to refine the analysis and collaborate with the other stakeholders in order to promote compatible development in this location,” Flynn added.

The DoD’s opposition to the green project comes as the Biden administration wants to build 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power this decade — equivalent to 30 nuclear reactors.

Surprisingly, it appears the Biden administration didn’t consult with the military during the planning stage of these wind farms. 

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

In what appears to be an attempt to win back the audience that was angered over Bud Light after its endorsement deal with transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney, Anheuser-Busch launched a new patriotic advertisement with its most iconic image.

The advertisement, released Friday on social media, shows a Clydesdale horse—used for decades by Anheuser-Busch and Budweiser—walking past the Grand Canyon, New York City, and other landmarks. The clip didn’t make mention of Mulvaney or issue an apology.

“This is a story bigger than beer,” the narrator in the video says. “This is the story of the American spirit.”

The advertisement also shows an American flag being raised. And one of the flag-raisers is seen putting a hand over her heart as the narrator says the beer is “brewed for those who found opportunity in challenge and hope in tomorrow.”

pic.twitter.com/T3TVGEzIi0

— Budweiser (@budweiserusa) April 14, 2023

AB InBev, which owns Anheuser-Busch, is the world’s largest brewer and owns Budweiser, Bud Light, Michelob, Stella Artois, Beck’s, and a number of other brands. It owns about 630 beer brands in 150 countries.

In the midst of the controversy, country music singer John Rich, singer Travis Tritt, rocker Kid Rock, and others called for boycotts against Bud Light. A number of analysts and industry experts also questioned why Bud Light chose Mulvaney as a partner, saying the move would be repellent to the beer’s consumer base.

Some Bud Light and Anheuser-Busch distributors around the country have expressed alarm over the deal, with one report saying that a number of bars have refused to serve Bud Light. Country singer and Nashville bar owner John Rich, meanwhile, told Fox News earlier this week that his bar won’t sell the beer.

“We have temporarily closed our dealerships and are working on a solution to re-open them as soon as possible. But don’t worry. We aren’t going anywhere! US Auto’s affiliated loan servicing company (USASF Servicing LLC) is still open to accept your payments and assist in servicing your account. Please continue to make your payments as scheduled and reach out to us with any account questions,” a statement posted on the homepage of subprime car dealership US Auto Sales. 

The Georgia-based dealership with more than two dozen locations in the Southeastern US is working to re-open operations. 

US Auto Sales boasts on its website “no credit” is needed to obtain a vehicle. 

Vehicle financing has become the most challenging in more than a decade. According to Bankrate data, the average rate for a used car has reached 7.39%, the highest level since 2009. High borrowing costs and sky-high used car prices have sparked an affordability crisis. 

“US Auto Sales has regularly turned to bond markets to raise money from investors, packaging subprime auto loans into bonds known as securitizations for sale to institutional investors. It most recently sold a $233 million bond in June of last year,” Bloomberg said. 

Meanwhile, Capital One Financial Corp. recently exited its lending business for car dealerships due to mounting macroeconomic headwinds. 

Troubles for US Auto Sales come as the subprime auto loan market is sliding into turmoil as delinquencies hit a 13-year high. 

Several months ago, we told readers a “perfect storm” was brewing in the auto market, outlining “More Americans Can’t Afford Their Car Payments Than During The Peak Of Financial Crisis“… 

Authored by Jonathan Turley via jonathanturley.org,

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer  has revealed that there are not three but nine members of the Biden family that may have benefitted from suspected influence peddling efforts. For those of us who have long criticized the corrupt practices of the Biden family, the identity of these other family members is intriguing after the Committee secured new bank and financial records. Democratic members again insisted that there is no need to investigate such influence peddling.

The new information on the Biden family is due largely to the takeover of the House by the GOP. Previously, Democrats blocked efforts to investigate influence peddling by the Biden family for years.

After assuming control of the Committee. Comer sought suspicious activity reports sent by banks to the Treasury Department alerting of potential criminal activity in transactions involving President Biden’s family.

He stated on Monday that “We’ve identified six additional members of Joe Biden’s family who may have benefited from the Biden family’s businesses that we are investigating, bringing the total number of those involved or benefiting to nine.” Those are six names beyond the previously discovered payments to linked to at least three Biden family members and two associates from China in 2017.  That $3 million was wired Biden family associate Rob Walker in March 2017, who then allegedly divided and distributed the funds later.

There remains an “Unknown Biden” who received four payments in 2017 totaling $70,000.

The investigation into the Bidens has made many in the Beltway uncomfortable. Influence peddling has long been the favored form of corruption in this city, but few families seemed to have cashed into the extent of the Bidens.

I frankly do not understand the willingness of so many Democrats to cover for the Bidens. Democratic members have gone all in with censorship, but this is an effort to scuttle investigations into corruption that may have resulted in millions of dollars going to Biden family members.

The Biden family has long been associated with influence peddling to the degree that they could add an access key to their family crest. Influence peddling has long been a cottage industry in Washington. For decades, I have written about this loophole in bribery laws. It is illegal to give a member of Congress or a president even $100 to gain influence. However, you can literally give millions to their spouses or children in the forms of windfall contracts or cozy jobs.

James Biden has been remarkably (even refreshingly) open about marketing his access to his brother. Former Americore executive Tom Pritchard and others allege the Biden openly referenced his access to his brother and his family name in his pitch for clients. James has faced a wide array of litigation over allegedly fraudulent activities as well as a personal loan acquired through Americore before it went into bankruptcy.

Hunter worked with his uncle but also branched off on his own in the family business. While his father recently emphasized that his son was a hopeless addict, that defense stands in glaring contradiction to the fact that he maintained a multimillion-dollar influence-peddling scheme. The question is why foreign figures (including some associated with foreign intelligence) rushed to him international money transfers and complex deals worth millions from Moscow to Kyiv to Beijing.

However, the Biden most concerned may be the president himself. Joe Biden has repeatedly denied knowledge of Hunter Biden’s business entanglements despite numerous emails and pictures showing him meeting with Hunter associates. That includes at least 19 visits to the White House by Hunter’s partner, Eric Schwerin, alone between 2009 and 2015.

While emails on Hunter Biden’s laptop make repeated reference to his father as a possible recipient of funds derived from influence peddling. Indeed, in one email, Tony Bobulinski, then a business partner of Hunter, was instructed by Biden associate James Gilliar that the Bidens wanted to avoid such references: “Don’t mention Joe being involved, it’s only when u [sic] are face to face, I know u [sic] know that but they are paranoid.”

In discussing these deals, Joe Biden is referenced with code names such as “Celtic” or “the big guy.” In one, “the big guy” is discussed as possibly receiving a 10% cut on a deal with a Chinese energy firm. There are also references to Hunter paying off the bills of his father from shared accounts. From his board memberships to venture deals to legal fees to his art deals, Hunter Biden is a tour de force of alleged corrupt practices used in Washington.

Many Democrats and legal experts have objected that influence peddling is not a crime. However, it is corrupt and squarely within the oversight authority of Congress. Indeed, if it is not a matter for criminal charges, such congressional action may be the only way to force accountability for corrupt efforts to sell influence and access.

This is the visit that Washington policymakers and establishment Middle East “experts” have been dreading, and signals that the West’s proxy war to oust Assad is definitively over – at least in terms of the end of hawks and neocons’ longtime hope of seeing Assad overthrown…

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan landed in Damascus on Tuesday for the first time since the start of the war in 2011.

It’s also an image that many thought would never happen, and paves the way for a possible future visit of Assad to Saudi Arabia, where he could eventually meet directly with King Salman or crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The high-level visit comes just following last week’s “surprise” trip by Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad to the kingdom. Clearly, relations are fast being restored and rumors are that the next move is for Assad to be invited back into the Arab League.

According to a summary of Tuesday’s visit in regional news source Al-Monitor: 

Farhan was received by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The two discussed efforts towards finding a “political solution” to the Syria conflict that would “preserve Syria’s unity, security, stability, Arab identity, and territorial integrity.”

They also talked about the “return of Syria to its Arab fold and the resumption of its natural role in the Arab world,” according to a statement from the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Already the United Arab Emirates (UA) had resumed relations with Syria in 2018. Other regional countries now seem to be lining up to restore normal relations.

📷 | pic.twitter.com/YxjC766s5T

— Foreign Ministry 🇸🇦 (@KSAmofaEN) April 18, 2023

For example, Tunisia and Syria agreed to fully restore relations last week, after a three-day visit of Syrian FM Mekdad to Tunis.

This wave of thawed relations between Assad and Arab states was without doubt helped to a large degree by the China-brokered peace deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Syria is Iran’s closest ally in the Levant, and is also a hub of support to Lebanese Hezbollah. It’s likely to complicate the US-brokered Abraham Accords, and may hinder recognition between Saudi Arabia and Israel. 

Authored by Emily Miller via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Texas secretly gives its citizens’ incomes to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Documents show this has led to at least one person being monitored by the feds without a warrant through the federal gun background check system. The Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) told The Epoch Times that it has written contracts with ATF  for “sharing income information” for criminal investigations. The revelation may lead to oversight by the legislature.

Texas state Rep. Briscoe Cain, a Republican, is “deeply troubled” about this coordination with the state’s unemployment agency and federal government.

“My office will be looking into whether the Texas Workforce Commission is assisting the ATF in the Biden Administration’s mission to violate the constitutional rights of law-abiding Texans,” Cain told The Epoch Times after reviewing the emails obtained by Gun Owners of America (GOA) as part of its ongoing FOIA lawsuit.

This is the third part in an exclusive Epoch Times series on the ATF giving information on innocent suspects to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for daily monitoring through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). The FBI uses NICS as a database of people who are prohibited from possessing or buying guns.

Texan’s Income Exposed

In one of the documents, an ATF agent emailed the FBI that a person suspected of straw purchasing or firearms trafficking needed to be put into the gun background check database. The agent wrote that “per TWC,” the man’s “reported wage earnings with the State of Texas do not appear to supply the financial means to afford the firearms purchased.”

The ATF agent requested on Dec. 28, 2020, that the Texan’s gun purchases be monitored daily for 90 days. However, as previously reported, the FBI wrote to ATF that its agents could request an extension of the monitoring for as long as they wanted.

Texas’s role in the program was uncovered in the ATF’s ninth production of documents to GOA as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit. The 42 pages are more heavily redacted than the previous ones given to GOA. There are seven pages of blacked-out information before the source of the income of the person in Texas is shown as TWC.

“One would think that a pro-gun state like Texas would not be handing over gun owners’ confidential financial information to the federal government without a warrant or likely even without probable cause,” Rob Olson, an attorney for GOA, told The Epoch Times.

Second Amendment Sanctuary?

A spokeswoman for TWC said in a statement: “Federal and State law provides a path for sharing income information with a federal governmental agency if the federal agency can establish a purpose that is permissible under law and enters into a written agreement which sets forth legal requirements regarding allowable use and protection of the information.” She also said a warrant to release salary information is not required by law.

Read more here…

A Russian third-generation main battle tank seized by Ukrainian forces was left in a parking lot off Interstate 10 highway in Louisiana last week. Photos of the tank were posted on Reddit and shared with the military blog The War Zone.

Employees at Peto’s Travel Center and Casino in Roanoke, Louisiana, told the military website that someone had left the T-90A battle tank after the truck hauling it broke down.

“I’ve been here seven years,” assistant manager Valerie Mott told The War Zone on Thursday. She added, “I’ve never seen [a tank] here before.”

The extent to which the tank was demilitarized remained unclear. The War Zone reported that its machine guns had been removed, but there was no information if the main gun was sealed up to prevent future use. 

Both Mott and truck stop manager Cody Sellers are unaware of who left the tank, its origin, or its intended destination. 

Mott said whoever was hauling the tank returned to Houston to retrieve a new truck and asked if they could store it at the truck stop. 

According to one Twitter user “Naalsio,” a self-proclaimed OSINT expert, the tank in Louisiana “belonged to Russia’s 27th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade, 1st Guards Tank Army.”

They continued: “It was abandoned in Kurylivka, Kharkiv Oblast around 25 September 2022. It was captured by Ukraine’s 92nd Separate Mechanized Brigade, hence the yellow 9s on the tank while in Louisiana (this is the marking the 92nd puts on their equipment).”

It’s rather this T-90A that was captured in Kurylivka, Kharkiv Oblast in September 2022.https://t.co/hMLq76T1gY

Interesting that the tank is now in the US. pic.twitter.com/vnxwNiY7Cm

— Naalsio (@naalsio26) April 13, 2023

As for the owner of the tank, it continues to be a mystery:

“My opinion is this tank is probably owned by a private citizen or company. 

“It doesn’t seem likely the military would leave something like that unattended,” a spokesperson from US military base in Lousiana told The War Zone. 

So where’s the tank headed?