#dettelbach

[vintagegermany]

Dettelbach, Germany 1900

[dertaglichedan]

Trump to Appoint Kash Patel as Acting ATF Director Next Week Amid Gun Owner Concerns

President Donald Trump is expected to appoint Kash Patel, the newly sworn-in director of the FBI, as the acting head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Sources familiar with the matter indicate that Patel could be sworn in as acting director of the ATF as early as next week, while continuing to serve as FBI director.

The move follows a series of changes within the Department of Justice, including the recent firing of the ATF's general counsel Pamela Hicks by Attorney General Pam Bondi, who criticized the agency for allegedly targeting gun owners. Patel's appointment comes amidst ongoing scrutiny and proposed budget cuts to the ATF by congressional Republicans. The ATF, which has more than 5,200 employees and a budget of approximately $1.6 billion, is responsible for investigating gun crimes, including those involving pistol braces.

Patel, confirmed by the Senate with a 51-49 margin, replaces Marvin Richardson as the acting director of the ATF. He succeeds Steven Dettelbach, who served under former President Joe Biden. Patel, known as a Trump loyalist, will now lead two major agencies within the Department of Justice.

[darkeagleruins]

ATF Director Steve Dettelbach giggles as he receives an 80% AR-15 lower receiver as a retirement gift—potentially violating several federal & D.C. laws.

An agent jokes that the 80% is untraceable & unregistered.

We really can't make this up

[bighermie]

The Second Amendment Foundation is delighted with the a 2-1 ruling by a Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel that the Biden administration’s “final rule” on pistol braces is “likely illegal” because the government violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) by adopting the rule without meaningful opportunity for public comment.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives—under Joe Biden’s hand-picked director Steve Dettelbach—violated the APA. Writing for the majority, Fifth Circuit Judge Jerry Smith observed, “(P)laintiffs establish a substantial likelihood of success on the merits. The ATF incorrectly maintains that the Final Rule is merely interpretive, not legislative, and thus not subject to the logical-outgrowth test. The Final Rule affects individual rights, speaks with the force of law, and significantly implicates private interests. Thus, it is legislative in character. Then, because the Final Rule bears almost no resemblance in manner or kind to the Proposed Rule, the Final Rule fails the logical-outgrowth test and violates the APA.”

“This is a significant win for gun rights,” noted SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, “because the arguments in this case are essentially the same as we are making in our own challenge of the pistol brace rule.”

SAF’s case is known as SAF, et.al. v. ATF, et. al and is joined by Rainier Arms, LLC and two private citizens, Samuel Walley and William Green. They are represented by attorney Chad Flores at Flores Law in Houston, Texas. SAF has already won a preliminary injunction in that case.

“This ruling,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut, “is a serious setback for the Biden administration’s gun control agenda. As the court noted, the Final Rule was not the logical outgrowth of the original proposed rule, and therefore must be set aside. Thanks to this ruling, we can jump start our own case with very good prospects for success.”

[eugenesisland]

"(Dettelbach) looks like the type of guy you’d expect Golden Corral to send to your table after you complained about a roach in the coleslaw."

[royaltrouble]

Memorial to people killed by gun violence is removed from ATF headquarters : NPR

Memorial to people killed by gun violence is removed from ATF headquarters : NPR Attorney General Merrick Garland looks at an exhibit titled the Faces of Gun Violence while on a tour led by Steve Dettelbach, director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, at ATF headquarters on April 23, 2024, in Washington, D.C. The display has now been taken down. Anna Moneymaker/Getty…

[trendingnewsbnd]

ATF Director Dettelbach to Step Down 2 Days Before Trump’s Inauguration

[partisan-by-default]

A.T.F. Braces for a Likely Rollback of Its Gun-Control Efforts

The A.T.F., under its Biden-appointed director, Steven M. Dettelbach, has been more proactive on gun control than at any time in its recent history. It has pushed through rules to curb the proliferation of the untraceable homemade firearms known as ghost guns, clamped down on devices that make firearms deadlier and regulated unlicensed firearms sellers who operate at gun shows or online.

That earned praise from gun control groups and drew the enmity of Republicans, including President-elect Donald J. Trump. He is almost certain to pick a proponent of gun rights as director or simply leave the job vacant, as previous presidents have done, leaving the small and embattled bureau rudderless and vulnerable.

But the biggest threat, in the view of Mr. Dettelbach, may come from the Republican-controlled Congress, which is threatening to cut the budget for the federal agency. Its core function is fundamentally apolitical, joining with local enforcement to trace weapons used in crimes and dismantle trafficking rings by providing intelligence and technical assistance.

[bobguz]

BREAKING NEWS: Jim Jordan Confronts ATF Director Over Bryan Malinowski R At today's House Judiciary Committee hearing, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) questioned ATF Director Steven Dettelbach about the deadly raid on Bryan Malinowski. ...

[newstfionline]

Monday, February 26, 2024

Chief enforcer of US gun laws fears Americans may become numb to violence with each mass shooting (AP) The head of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives says he fears that a drumbeat of mass shootings and other gun violence across the United States could make Americans numb to the bloodshed, fostering apathy to finding solutions rather than galvanizing communities to act. Director Steve Dettelbach’s comments to The Associated Press came after he met this past week with family members of some of the 18 people killed in October at a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston, Maine by a U.S. Army reservist who later took his own life. He said people must not accept that gun violence is a prevalent part of American life. “It seems to me that things that we used to sort of consider memorable, life-altering, shocking events that you might think about and talk about for months or years to come now are happening with seeming frequency that makes it so that we sort of think, “That’s just the one that happened this week,’” he said. “If we come to sort of accept that, that’s a huge hurdle in addressing the problem.”

Smartphones and children (NYT) The evidence that smartphones damage children’s mental health has continued to grow in recent years. Feelings of loneliness and sadness began rising more than a decade ago, around the same time that smartphones and then social media became ubiquitous. The amount of time that teenagers spend socializing in person has declined on the same timeline. So has the number of hours they sleep. Academic research points in a similar direction. Many studies have found a correlation between the amount of time that teens—especially girls—spend on smartphones and the likelihood that they will be depressed or have low self-esteem. There is still much that researchers don’t understand about digital technology, and some smartphone use is clearly necessary and healthy. But the notion that smartphones are beneficial or harmless to mental health on the whole—an argument that technology executives sometimes make—looks much weaker than it once did.

One of the world’s biggest cities may be just months away from running out of water (CNN) Alejandro Gomez has been without proper running water for more than three months. Sometimes it comes on for an hour or two, but only a small trickle, barely enough to fill a couple of buckets. Then nothing for many days. Gomez, who lives in Mexico City’s Tlalpan district, doesn’t have a big storage tank so can’t get water truck deliveries—there’s simply nowhere to store it. Instead, he and his family eke out what they can buy and store. Mexico City, a sprawling metropolis of nearly 22 million people and one of the world’s biggest cities, is facing a severe water crisis as a tangle of problems—including geography, chaotic urban development and leaky infrastructure—are compounded by the impacts of climate change. Years of abnormally low rainfall, longer dry periods and high temperatures have added stress to a water system already straining to cope with increased demand. Politicians are downplaying any sense of crisis, but some experts say the situation has now reached such critical levels that Mexico City could be barreling towards “day zero” in a matter of months—where the taps run dry for huge swaths of the city.

U.S. rice exports to Haiti have unhealthy levels of arsenic, study finds (Reuters) U.S. rice exports to Haiti, which account for the bulk of supplies of the country’s key food staple, contain unhealthy levels of arsenic and cadmium, heavy metals that can increase risks of cancer and heart disease, according to a recent study by the University of Michigan. Haiti is among the United States’ top buyers of rice, alongside Mexico and Japan, and cheap imports are more affordable than local options in the Caribbean nation, the poorest state in the Western Hemisphere. According to the study, average arsenic and cadmium concentrations were nearly twice as high in imported rice compared to Haitian-grown product, with some imported samples exceeding international limits. When researchers ran the study in 2020, they found that Haitians on average consumed 85 kg (187 lb) of rice per year, compared to 12 kg in the U.S., putting especially young Haitians at far greater risk of developing related health complications.

Two years on, Europeans have lost faith in a Ukrainian victory (France Inter) As the war in Ukraine enters its third year, results of a survey suggest that only one European out of ten thinks that Ukraine will come out of this war with a victory. The figure is a terrible message for Ukrainians: only 10% of Europeans think Ukraine can still win the war against Russia. This does not mean that their opinion has shifted in favor of Russia: on the contrary, the majority of the continent still largely support the Ukrainian cause. But the accumulation of bad news for the Kyiv army has had an effect on Europeans. This figure appears in a survey commissioned by the European Council on Foreign Relations, an independent think tank, and was made public on the eve of the second anniversary of the Russian invasion. This war will enter its third year, and public opinion is legitimately questioning a conflict with a heavy cost in human lives, and also a heavy cost in military and financial support. According to the survey, most people in Europe now believe that the war will end with a compromise, albeit one that is still to be defined.

Surging bills, fewer showers: India’s Bengaluru reels under water shortage (Reuters) Bengaluru is facing an acute water shortage this year, months before peak summer, forcing many residents in “India’s Silicon Valley” to ration their water use and pay almost double the usual price to meet their daily needs. Weak southwest monsoon rains have dented groundwater levels and reduced water levels in the Cauvery River basin reservoirs that feed the southern Indian city, which is home to roughly 14 million people and thousands of IT companies and start-ups. That is making residents of the city pay surging prices for water tankers even before the onset of peak summer. And the situation could get worse in the months ahead. “The worry now is that despite paying, the tanker vendors won’t show up due to scarcity of ground water,” said another Bengaluru resident.

As Lebanon teeters on the edge, a war with Israel would be catastrophic (Washington Post) Wages for Lebanon’s soldiers have fallen so low that many now have second jobs driving for Uber or working as parking valets. A GoFundMe campaign has been launched to support the country’s emergency response services. Angry depositors in Beirut have attacked the headquarters of a major bank with fireworks because it wouldn’t release their savings. Even before the Israel-Gaza war, Lebanon was in economic crisis: Since 2019, the country’s gross domestic product has fallen by 50 percent, and poverty now plagues 80 percent of the population. A wider war, long feared amid ongoing skirmishes between Israeli forces and Iranian-backed Hezbollah along Lebanon’s southern border, would be catastrophic. The signs of disintegration are everywhere. The country has been without a president for a year, and a functioning government for almost two, and the currency has lost more than 90 percent of its value since 2019.

U.S. Returns to the Position That New Israeli Settlements Are Illegal (NYT) Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on Friday that the American government now considers new Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories to be “inconsistent with international law,” marking a return to a decades-long U.S. position on the contentious subject. Mr. Blinken spoke at a news conference in Buenos Aires, after Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, made an announcement on Thursday indicating thousands of new residences would be added to settlements. Mr. Blinken said he was “disappointed” at the announcement. In Washington, John F. Kirby, a White House spokesman, reiterated that stance in comments to reporters. “This is a position that has been consistent over a range of Republican and Democratic administrations,” he said. Over many years, settlements have proliferated across the West Bank, Palestinian territory that is occupied by Israel, without the United States pushing for any legal action. About 500,000 residents now live in the occupied West Bank and more than 200,000 in East Jerusalem.

Sanitation Crisis in Gaza Spreads Disease (NYT) In a sprawling tent encampment in Gaza, the Israeli bombs fall close enough to hear and feel. But daily life is also a struggle against hunger, cold and a growing sanitation crisis. A lack of sufficient toilets and clean water, as well as open sewage, are problems that displaced Palestinians have struggled with since the early days of Israel’s assault on Gaza. For two months after Salwa al-Masri, 75, and her family fled to the city of Rafah, at the southernmost tip of Gaza, to escape Israel’s military offensive, she said she would walk 200 yards to reach the nearest bathroom. If she was lucky, younger women in line would let her jump ahead. Other times, she might wait up to an hour to use a dirty toilet shared with thousands of other people. Gazans, already facing hunger and thirst as a result of Israel’s more than four-month siege of the territory, say they have tried to cut back on eating and drinking even more to avoid an uncomfortable and unsanitary visit to the toilet.

US, British forces carry out more strikes against Houthis in Yemen (Reuters) U.S. and British forces carried out strikes against more than a dozen Houthi targets in Yemen on Saturday, officials said, the latest round of military action against the Iran-linked group that continues to attack shipping in the region. The United States has carried out near daily strikes against the Houthis, who control the most populous parts of Yemen and have said their attacks on shipping are in solidarity with Palestinians as Israel strikes Gaza. The strikes have so far failed to halt the Houthis’ attacks, which have upset global trade and raised shipping rates.

[docholt0000]

PROSECUTE DIRECTOR DETTELBACH AND AGENTS OF THE ATF FOR CRIMINAL ACTIONS AGAINST THE AMERICAN PEOPLE THAT ARE COVERED UNDER THE CONSTITUTION !!!

ABOLISH THE ATF FOR ITS TERRORISTIC ACTIONS AGAINST CITIZENS COVERED BY THE CONSTITUTION !!!

IMPEACH BIDEN FOR MISUSE OF POWER !!!

https://youtu.be/D4K2D1qrmzY?si=D_E3v6xiXfrCH6qN