Glock Adjusts

American  Thinker 

On March 30, 2024, I posted Blue gun grabbers go after Glock. It was the story of 13 blue Democrat Attorneys General who sent a letter to Glock in support of Chicago’s lawsuit against the company over “Glock switches,” add-on devices that allow fully automatic fire.  Glock markets the G18, an automatic version of the semiautomatic G17, but only to the military and law enforcement.

Graphic: Glock 17, Author

On February 23, 2025, I posted The Glock switch distraction, which outlined the issues relating to Glock switches. It explains how anti-liberty/gun cracktivists are trying to use the issue to negate the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), which prevents nuisance suits against gun makers.

Graphic: Glock Switch, ATF, Public Domain

On October 18, 2025, I posted Newsom blocks Glock, a report on California’s ban on Glock and similar handguns. A blatant violation of the Second Amendment, sure to be eventually overturned, it’s an attempt by Newsom to throw red meat to the Democrat base as a prelude to a 2028 presidential run.

Chicago’s suit and similar blue efforts are continuing attempts to get around the PLCAA. Newsom’s Glock ban is likewise an attempt to encourage other blue states to ban Glocks, among the most popular handguns made. A successful ban of any make or model of commonly owned handgun could open the floodgates to banning them all, particularly if the Supreme Court were packed or otherwise overrun by leftists.

In response, Glock, which has long marketed a wide range of models across all calibers, has announced it is discontinuing most of them:  

G17 – Gen4, G17 MOS – Gen4 | Gen5, G17L – Classic | Gen3, G17L MOS – Gen5, G19 – Gen4, G19 MOS – Gen4, G20 – Gen3 | Gen4, G21 – Gen3 | Gen4, G21SF, G22 – Gen3 | Gen4 | Gen5, G22 MOS – Gen5, G23 – Gen4, G24, G26 – Gen4, G27 – Gen3 | Gen 4 | Gen5, G29 – Gen3 | Gen 4 | Gen5, G29SF, G30 – Gen3 | Gen 4 | Gen5, G31 – Gen3 | Gen4, G32 – Gen3 | Gen4, G33 – Gen3 | Gen4, G34 – Gen3 | Gen4, G34 MOS – Gen4 | Gen5, G35 – Gen3 | Gen4, G35 MOS – Gen4, G36, G36 FGR, G37 – Gen3 | Gen4, G38, G39, G40 MOS – Gen4, G41 – Gen4, G41 MOS – Gen4 and G49

Glock explains—sort of:

In order to focus on the products that will drive future innovation and growth, we are making a strategic decision to reduce our current commercial portfolio. This streamlined approach allows us to concentrate on continuing to deliver the highest-quality and most relevant solutions for the market.

Every Glock still in the hands of wholesalers and dealers will remain in circulation and will likely be quickly sold, as new Glock models -- the “V Series” -- will reportedly begin to ship in December 2025. Remaining untouched are the G43, G43X, and G48.  Why those models? They’re slimmer overall than the G17, G19, and similarly configured models.  The three remaining models, excellent concealed carry guns with narrow slides, don’t accommodate Glock switches. Those discontinued do. Glock is redesigning the V series to foil Glock switches and any future attempts to convert Glocks to automatic fire.

Graphic: Glock 43X, Author

Does this mean Glock is not going to service older models? No. Glock has always serviced everything they’ve ever made, and Glock has, from time to time, discontinued models that weren’t selling well or replaced them with updated designs.

Is Glock going out of business? No. This is surely a business decision to streamline manufacturing and to focus on updating hot-selling designs. Standards like the G17, G19, and similar models aren’t going away. Rumors suggest the V Series models will have improved slides, improved triggers, and other enhancements that can only increase profits.

At Bearing Arms, Kerry Slone suggests other potential motivations:  

Could this calculated move also be intended to poise themselves in a positive and proactive light for those inside the current Administration as helping to “reduce crime” in major cities? This certainly would not hurt them in the event that based on well-documented problems with Sig’s P320 being suspended or banned by DoD units and law enforcement agencies. After all, you never know if another Modular Handgun System competition will be announced by the new SecWar. 

For the short term, Glock will have fewer models to offer, but what will surely be positive reviews of the V Series guns, and continuing publicity, will ensure profitability. Folks like to buy new, improved guns. Anti-liberty/gun cracktivists will continue to violate the law and Constitution, but they’ll eventually be nullified and Glock will continue as the leader in handgun technology, the company everyone else copies.

Podcast and entertainment thread for Oct 27

 

Here's to a peaceful week.

These Are the People Democrats Want to Tax You to Pay for

Townhall 

“Oh, no, poor people are going to lose their health insurance,” cried the left-wing pundit on MSNBC. Which pundit? Does it matter? They’re Lego pieces of idiocy, each interchangeable with the other, as original thought occurs to none of them. Drones don’t think, and they do not need to be given orders – they know their role and are obedient.

The problem with conformity, however, is that you’re never challenged. No guest on MSNBC has faced anything beyond one-upping the person who spoke before them for at least a decade. None of those people would dare go on Fox, the Jamie Raskins, Eric Swalwells, and Jasmine Crocketts of the world do it once and act like they were paratroopers dropped behind enemy lines the night before D-Day (who then lecture us about how they represent everyone).

This cowardice leads to mental atrophy, which leads to a more insulated existence, which leads to more atrophy – morbidly obese people who grow into their couches do not do so overnight, they roll through several sets of remote-control batteries first.

This is where Democrats are now: fat flesh woven into the fabric of a couch, bag of Doritos in hand, and no mental calorie burn to be found. “Can you believe Donald Trump tore down the White House?!?!?!” screams the moron outside the White House with the historic structure in full view behind them. “How disgusting,” reply stupid people, willfully ignorant of the fact that the East and West Wings are not actually “the White House,” but very late additions to the White House complex and the House itself has been, and will remain, untouched.

You can’t even see the “wings” from the ground, so to whine about changing something that has already been changed 3 times in its just over 100 years as going to “ruin the look of the White House” is beyond stupid. It’s not functional, but it will be. That Rachel Maddow has you in a lather over this is a testament to your conformity, not your intelligence, but your lack of it.

The same can be said for the government shutdown and what Democrats claim to be fighting for. They’ll tell you they are concerned about poor people losing their health care, but we aren’t talking about poor people. They’re fighting for rich people.

The left-wing Kaiser Family Foundation has a helpful chart to show who has paid what and what they would pay if the enhanced subsidies Democrats wrote to expire at the end of the year (they could have made them permanent, but didn’t because they wanted to use the for leverage in a moment like this). The higher you go up the income ladder, the more money we’re talking about.

CNN’s Tom Foreman reports the “hardest hit,” and the people who’d really take any kind of his, are wealthy people making $85,000 and higher. Have you noticed how you haven’t heard a single Democrat talk about ending the subsides for the rich in order to keep them for the poor?

Weird, right? Why are we subsidizing the rich? Because they’re Democrat donors. 

Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat Minnesota Senator, gave the game away when she posted to social media, “Early retirees like Bill and Shelly will see their health insurance premiums increase nearly 300%—from $442 to $1,700 per month if Congressional Republicans refuse to extend the enhanced tax credits. That's an extra $15K a year families can't afford.”

Sounds horrible, doesn’t it? But what about that “early retirees” part?

When you click on the story from CNBC, you learn the gall of the Galls (that’s Bill and Shelly’s last name, you can’t make this stuff up). It opens with the curious, “Bill and Shelly Gall say they’d be rich if it weren’t for their medical bills.” They would? How much did they spend? Turns out “upwards of $20,000 on health-care expenses and insurance premiums in 2023 and in 2024, largely due to chronic health issues and emergency eye surgeries. The couple is on pace for a slightly smaller sum this year, if they’re lucky, Bill said.”

Ok, $20k is nothing to sniff at, but it’s over 2 years and involves chronic conditions and emergency surgery, so it doesn’t really seem like all that much. Then, CNBC reports that, without subsidies from you and me, their costs for premiums would go from $442 per month to $1,700. That’s a big increase, especially for retirees who you assume are on a small fixed income, right?

Well, not so much.

It isn’t until paragraph 25 of the story that “progressive” Senator Amy Klobuchar posted for the express purpose of eliciting sympathy for the Galls that you discover that they’re rich. Remember, they’re “early retirees,” he’s 61 and she’s 60. You have to assume their house is paid off and they have very few other bills – the picture of them looks like a selfie taken somewhere like the Mediterranean.

CNBC reports, “The couple had a modified adjusted gross income of about $123,000 in 2023 and $136,000 in 2024, mostly from pensions and some from individual retirement account withdrawals, according to their tax returns.”

These people are raking in six figures in retirement, have a pension and 401(k) (along with God knows what else), and they want you and me to subsidize their health insurance because…reasons. Just imagine the sense of entitlement someone must have to have that kind of income AND look to suckle the government teat like a parasite. And this is the best story that Democrats could come up with to make their case?

They shut down the government so rich white liberals could continue to get subsidies of your money, some of which they break off and give to Democrat candidates, and pretend they’re doing it for the poor. If they cared about the poor, really cared, this deal not only would have been cut already, it never would have expired. But this is about their friends, their funders, their true base: white suburbanites with more money than sense and no sense of decency or shame.

Sorry, Gall family, pick up your own damn check. You chose to retire early, go back to work, or maybe take on less vacation. We’re $38 trillion in debt, and you won’t be around when that bill comes due doesn’t matter to you, but it matters to everyone else.

These people, along with illegal aliens, are who Democrats are the party of now. Rich “Karens” with inflated waist lines to match their sense of entitlement.

We always knew that was the case, but Democrats at least used to try to deny it. Now, thanks to their cowardice and need for safe spaces, they’ve mentally grown into the couch to the point that they don’t realize how crazy – how stupid – they sound to normal people. Make sure your friends notice.

The More Disturbing the Dirt, the Better Democrats Like Their Dirtbags

Townhall 

Am I shocked by the myriad scandals of Graham Platner, the cosplay workin’ man running for the Democrat nomination for Maine senator, a guy with more baggage than the third wife of a Middle Eastern emir? Absolutely not. Sure, he has a Nazi tattoo and a history of training Antifa terrorists – who of course don’t exist because Antifa isn’t a thing, even though he seems to think it is. Platner also has some controversial critiques regarding African American tipping habits; regardless, here’s another tip—bet that if he gets nominated, he still wins the votes of all the black people in Maine, both of them. The party poobahs are scared because he’s a nut who’ll likely lose in the general, and they’ve dropped a bunch of other revelations obtained in what had to be the world’s easiest opposition research gig, but none of that matters. What matters is that he really, really hates Donald Trump, and that’s enough for his party’s base. He’s their man, polling at 58 percent in the primary, and I am whatever the opposite of being surprised is.

The Democrats are having some serious candidate selection problems, but their solution is to march ahead with whatever psychopath they’ve anointed, regardless. They’re going to keep doing it because it’s working, at least in blue areas. In a few weeks, we’re going to have a mayor of New York City who is both a communist and a jihadist. The other day, he had a meet and greet with an unindicted co-conspirator from the first World Trade Center bombing. Oh well, who cares? Free buses and take that Trump! All the bad stuff that’s come out about him makes them like him even more.

How about Jay Jones, the guy running for chief law-enforcement officer of the Commonwealth of Virginia, who wants to murder Republicans and watch their children die? Oh, and he might be indicted himself for scamming his way out of his community service sentence, which he received as a sweetheart deal after being caught driving 116 mph. He’s still competitive in his race – in fact, I bet he gets into office on the votes of people who stick “Hate Has No Home Here” signs in their front yards. I guess hate does have a home there.

And it’s not like he apologized. It’s not like he changed. He – and Democrats in general – think the big problem with his bizarrely onanistic murder fantasies is that he got caught; he’s like a teenage girl mad that her parents found out she was smoking dope by reading her diary. His entire explanation seems to consist of “Well, yeah, I said those things, but, you know, Trump.” And the Democrats are buying it. “Sure, he may be a homicidal sociopath with a proven track record of corruption, but he’s our homicidal sociopath with a proven track record of corruption, and he really hates Donald Trump!”

Hey, I guess Democrats can’t paint anyone all black if they detest the Bad Orange Man enough. To the Democrats, these aren’t bad things. These are reasons to vote for him.

This phenomenon means creepy candidates in blue areas winning office, but in purple places, normal people are going to be disgusted. The freaky weirdos might be able to win the nomination, but they will have problems in the general with normal people who don’t see these problems as a net plus, like the left does.

Graham Platner, the worst former Marine since Lee Harvey Oswald (whose politics and love of political violence he shares), is running against Susan Collins, the luckiest woman in the universe. She’s a Republican who’s been elected to the Senate from the state of Maine again and again, and she seems to have this uncanny ability to draw the very worst possible opponents. The nomination is not a shoo-in for Platner, even though he has the support of such luminaries as Bernie Sanders, AOC, and the rest of the Commie Cadre Caucus. No, Chuck Schumer – the master of the barbecue grill – has convinced Maine governor Janet Mills to run. Maybe he bribed her with Geritol; she is pushing 113 years old. So, it’s basically the communist against the crustacean.

It’s fun to laugh at the Democrats and how they are picking certifiable sociopaths who you wouldn’t want to make a sudden move around. They are also tripping over their own garbage narratives. The Dems were making enormous hay out of a bunch of thicc Republican incels who made lame Hitler jokes on their text chain, holding this up as proof positive that every single Republican sincerely aspires to uphold the principles of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, aka the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Then this rich guy’s son, who’s been larping as a hicklib straight outta “Yellowstone,” gets bombed and dances to Miley Cyrus in his undies on video, revealing his Nazi tattoo. This blows the REPUBLICANS ARE NAZIS!!! theme right out of the water, at least for normal people.

But not for the Democrats. They don’t care. If only we could harness the energy from the centripetal force (or is it centrifugal –hey, I went to a unionized public school) generated from the 180° U-turn by the people who last week wailed HITLER! HITLER! HITLER! and this week, are explaining that getting Fuhrer-friendly ink on your pecs doesn’t mean you’re a Nazi. Why, who doesn’t have a totenkopf etched into his epidermis? A skull and crossbones tattoo could happen to anybody, unless they have ever watched a World War II movie. Maybe it’s just his way of raising awareness of osteoporosis.

Herr Platner’s current excuse is that it was all a big mistake, that he didn’t know what the symbol he paid money to have drawn on his body, and has worn for 20 years, was. What he is really saying is that “No, I’m not a Nazi, I’m just an idiot. I’m a borderline clinical moron who had a guy permanently mark me with a symbol that I neither knew nor understood. I am smart, and if this Senate thing doesn’t work out, I can always go work at MIT as a particle physicist.”

Now, we conservatives understand that Democrats don’t believe in anything. They don’t care if Platner is an idiot, and they don’t care if he’s a Nazi. They certainly don’t care if he’s a communist, which he also admitted to being. All they want is power, and what drives them is a hatred of Trump. The reason they hate Trump –as well as us – is simple. We deny them the respect, obedience, and power they crave. They’re mad at us because we won’t give in and let them run our lives. We tell them “No,” and if their parents had done the same, they wouldn’t be Democrats to begin with.

So, we’re not shocked. We don’t expect any better of them. Accusations of hypocrisy, while useful for instructing normals, are a waste of our time. You can’t call them “hypocrites” because if you’re a hypocrite, you actually have to believe in the principle you’re violating. They believe in nothing. They’ll say “Nazi’s are bad” today, and that “Nazis are no biggie” tomorrow, and it doesn’t matter to them. All that matters is that they win while expressing their hatred for Donald Trump and those of us who deny them the power they believe they hold by divine right.

More troubling is the fact that it’s not merely happening on the fringe of the Party. The Party is nothing but fringe. There is no left wing of the Democrat Party; there’s just the Democrat Party. Even an alleged moderate, like Abigail Spanberger (D- Stepford), can’t bring herself to disendorse her homicidal ticket mate. She’s a radical who thinks male sex offenders should walk around waving their junk in kids’ locker rooms, and that you should be able to perform an abortion up until birth, when, presumably, Jay Jones will take over responsibility for killing the kid.

This is a real problem for the Democrats, but also for America. You have the Republican Party, and you have a bunch of murderous lunatics calling themselves a political party, and it’s not clear what we should do about it in the long run. However, it’s clear what we should do about it in the short term. We should get out there and work to make sure that none of these creatures ever gets any kind of power. You people in Virginia, New Jersey, and in every other weird venue that is having an off-year election, put down whatever you are reading this on and go out there and vote for the No Psychopaths Party.

Feminist Cancer Spreading - Holly-Weird !

🎭 𝐖𝟑𝐏 𝓓𝓐𝓘𝓛𝓨 𝓗𝓾𝓶𝓸𝓻, 𝓜𝓾𝓼𝓲𝓬, 𝓐𝓻𝓽, 𝓞𝓟𝓔𝓝 𝓣𝓗𝓡𝓔𝓐𝓓

 

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USTR Jamieson Greer Provides Background on U.S-China Trade Discussions

Conservative  Treehouse 

United States Jamieson Greer is a very solid member of the Trump trade team.  Having learned at the knee of former USTR Robert Lighthizer, you can see the stability of thought in the consistency of approach.

USTR Greer outlines the ongoing discussions between the U.S. and China on the framework of a stable trade relationship.  Against a myriad of geopolitical chess moves on the economic and trade front, Greer and Treasury Secretary Bessent play key roles in executing the Trump Doctrine.

In the background of the President Trump and Chairman Xi meeting, we can see the broad contours of President Trump’s strategy toward both the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the China-Canada trade relationship.

If President Trump can formulate a strong, actionable and enforceable free trade agreement with Chairman Xi, it will undercut the ability of Canada to assemble cheap component goods not available in the U.S. manufacturing equation for total cost of goods.  This puts Trump in an even stronger position heading into the 2026 USMCA (CUSMA) dissolution phase.

Additionally, despite the mainstream thoughts to the contrary, putting distance between Russia and China is not averse to the interests of Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, who would strategically prefer to do business with the ‘west’ over Beijing.  However, China does not want to see their Biden-created tentacle weakened in Russia.

China retains a vision of a global financial market option beyond the dollar, and Xi plays that long-term strategy game with Putin quite effectively.  It is only President Trump who holds the key to weakening that strategy, and Chairman Xi likely reminds everyone -through his emissaries- that they can wait out the Trump administration.

During the ASEAN conference, again we see President Trump drawing heavily on the personal factor as a part of his strategic influence operation to push distance between southeast Asia and Beijing.  Cunning Panda can undoubtably see that play, however, culturally they may underestimate the strength of the dynamic.  President Trump leverages the world’s biggest market with a smile.  The world’s biggest sellers want and need to keep that smile on the face of their #1 customer.

Jamieson Greer, like Scott Bessent, outwardly show their respect for this intrapersonal dynamic that President Trump uses in these negotiations, and it is very interesting to watch the recipients of President Trump’s praise remain positioned to receive it.

President Donald Trump is a friendly dealmaker, until he is not. Southeast Asia understands this dynamic very well.

It is a pleasure to watch the U.S. economic team circle the concentric interests into alignment and then stand back and let the closer finish the deals.

Good stuff.

Federal Grand Jury Charges Man with Threatening Federal Agent, Wife

Townhall 

A federal grand jury has charged two men with knowingly transmitting threats to injure a U.S. Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation officer and his wife.

Court documents say that Frank Andrew Waszut allegedly posted a video on Instagram that identified and displayed photographs of an ICE deportation officer who resides and works in the Northern District of Georgia. 

With those images on the screen, Waszut said: “And he’s an ICE agent. This is him unmasked . . . . So, go ahead and make him famous. And if you see this [expletive] out in public give him the cell block one treatment. You know, catch him when he’s alone.” “Cell block one treatment” allegedly refers to subjecting a detainee to physical violence.

Similarly, Anthony Patrick Noto allegedly posted a comment on Instagram under the picture of the same deportation officer’s wife, with Noto saying: “Anybody wanna test the sites [sic] on their new A-R? There’s a pretty good target right there!” “A-R” refers to a semiautomatic rifle.

“Federal agents deserve to perform their duties free of harassment from keyboard warriors and other agitators,” said U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg. “Threatening law enforcement officers and their families is not only illegal—it’s disgusting. My office will ensure that anyone who threatens a federal agent in North Georgia, or who hides behind a computer screen to intimidate that agent’s immediate family, is found, arrested, prosecuted, and held accountable.”

Noto, 63, of Ronkonkoma, New York, was taken into federal custody and arraigned on his federal indictment. Waszut, 41, of Knoxville, Tennessee, is currently in the custody of state law enforcement officials in Texas, where he has been charged for making separate terroristic threats against Republican lawmakers there. Both defendants were indicted by a federal grand jury on September 23, 2025.

“Threats of violence against law enforcement officers and their families are not only reprehensible, but also a direct attack on the safety and integrity of our justice system,” said Paul Brown, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta. “These charges serve as a clear reminder that threats of this nature will not be tolerated and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Members of the public are reminded that the indictments only contain charges. The defendants are presumed innocent of the charges, and it will be the government’s burden to prove the defendants’ guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at trial.

This case is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Brent Alan Gray and Eric White are prosecuting the case.

For further information, please contact the U.S. Attorney’s Public Affairs Office at USAGAN.PressEmails@usdoj.gov or (404) 581-6185. The Internet address for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia is http://www.justice.gov/usao-ndga.

President Donald Trump's administration has prioritized deporting illegal immigrants. 

More than 2 million illegal immigrants have either been deported to chosen to self-deport within the first 250 days of Trump's latest presidency, according to the Department of Homeland Security. 

In October, the federal government arrested an illegal alien who allegedly placed a $10,000 bounty on a federal agent. 

Portland Police Deliver a Very Unhappy Night to the Anti-ICE Crew - and More May Be Coming

RedState 

The Trump team has turned its attention to the problem of the anti-ICE actions in Portland outside the ICE facility, and there's been a court battle over the question of deploying the National Guard to help. 

The Portland Police Bureau has been criticized for their failure to deal with many of the issues in the area. We covered how anti-ICE agitators were "beaming spotlights" into the eyes of federal agents, and then running behind the PPB for cover, and how federal agents had a talk with them about that. 

The Trump pressure and the attention may have finally helped get some action from the PPB because they finally raided the anti-ICE encampment near the ICE facility. Frontlines also said that one of the officers mentioned the incident involving journalist Brandi Kruse, where Kruse says she was hit by one of the anti-ICE people. 

The police raided one of their supply tents and told them they could not be blocking the sidewalk. You can see they have a fire there and hear the conservatives who have also been out in numbers in the area responding, "USA, USA," in appreciation of the police move. 

Warning for graphic language in the following videos: 

The police said they would now be enforcing jaywalking and other ordinances, as Nick Sortor and Frontlines reported. If people blocked traffic, they would be enforced as a disorderly persons offense. This change did not make the anti-ICE crew happy at all. Watch as they melt down. 

You can see the mess they have there all over the sidewalk, and one of them actually pleads with the police to help them move the stuff so she can leave. 

The Post Millennial's Katie Daviscourt noted the PPB took someone in black bloc into custody. 

We will note they are still out there protesting, despite being curtailed. But now, they may face some actions that they weren't facing before from the police. We'll keep an eye on how the PPB goes about enforcing what they said. 

However, it does sound like some great movement in a positive direction. 

Shutdown: Food Stamp Benefits Set to Expire for 42 million Recipients

Conservative  Treehouse 

I had no idea the number of people receiving supplemental food assistance was over 40 million.

With the federal government shutdown continuing, several media reports now say federal food assistance payments will likely lapse on November 1st.

WASHINGTON – More than 40 million low-income food stamp beneficiaries are expected to receive less help with grocery bills — or no help at all — in the coming days.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is threatening to withhold billions of dollars in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) contingency funding, which Congress has already allocated for emergency scenarios, if the government shutdown stretches into November.

There is between $5 billion and $6 billion currently in that fund, experts say. That’s not enough to cover the estimated $8 billion in SNAP benefits due out next month, but it would allow for partial payments to help low-income Americans defray food costs.

On Friday, however, USDA released guidance saying it won’t use those funds to cover SNAP benefits if the government shutdown extends beyond Oct. 31 — a move that appears designed to maximize the pressure on Senate Democrats to support a GOP spending bill to reopen the government.

In a memo, first reported by Axios, the USDA said the reason is simple: The contingency fund was designed to respond to unforeseen events, like natural disasters, and the current shutdown doesn’t qualify because it was manufactured by Democrats. To spend the money on SNAP benefits during such an event, the USDA argues, would be illegal. (read more)

Russia Claims to Have New 'Invincible' Missile - Is It, Though?

RedState 

Russia - again - claims to have a doomsday weapon. Once it was the "Tsar Bomba," a massive thermonuclear weapon, the most powerful ever built, with a yield of 50-55 megatons of TNT. Now it's a cruise missile, one that Vladimir Putin himself describes as "invincible."

Putin claims, as well, that they have made "a successful test" of the weapon, and are working to deploy it. 

Moscow carried out a successful test of its new “invincible” nuclear-capable cruise missile, with the Kremlin now working to deploy the doomsday weapon, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday.

Putin hailed the test in a video released by the Kremlin while dressed in military fatigues, with the strongman calling on his top general to start preparing the Burevestnik missile for potential use.

“We need to determine the possible uses and begin preparing the infrastructure for deploying these weapons to our armed forces,” Putin instructed.

The video (see below) only appears to show the launching of the missile, which apparently launches vertically with a rocket booster, like the American Tomahawk, before changing to level flight mode.

Little is known about the Burevestnik missile, which NATO code-named Skyfall.

Putin previously touted the weapons as his “invincible” missile, capable of bypassing all current and future missile defense systems. He also claimed that the nuclear-armed has a nearly unlimited range and an unpredictable flight path, making it impossible to intercept.

Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff of Russia’s armed forces, claimed the latest test showed the missile was capable of flying for 15 hours and covered a distance of about 8,700 miles, easily capable of reaching New York City or Washington D.C.

If that's accurate, then yes, the missile could reach the American coast. 

But is it really that capable? Russia, in general, and Vladimir Putin in particular, have been known to play fast and loose with facts. And the test video only shows the launch; it's unclear if one missile was tested, or several.

This missile has been in development for some time, and previous tests were less than optimal.

The head of the Russian nuclear agency said Monday that the five scientists killed last week in a rocket explosion at a missile test range had been developing “new weapons,” according to a report.

The accident occurred Thursday during tests on a liquid-propellant rocket engine at an arctic naval range on the coast of the White Sea in Nyonska run by state nuclear company Rosatom.

US experts have said the blast could have been related to testing of the Burevestnik cruise missile, known by NATO as SSC-X-9 Skyfall, which President Vladimir Putin touted earlier this year.

That's right: By "less than optimal," we mean "explodes at an inappropriate moment." The whole point of a missile like this, after all, is to have it explode on the target - not on the test pad. Especially not when highly-trained rocket scientists are nearby - we're assuming they really were rocket scientists, since they were described as scientists by the Russian nuclear agency, and they were working on a rocket. Elementary logic, you know?

Some skepticism is in order here. Russia hasn't traditionally done cutting-edge technology all that well. But accuracy by volume, they do very well, and whatever they may be doing with fancy advanced cruise missiles, they seem to have plenty of the traditional kind around, along with a lot of artillery. They may not be able to hit Washington with those, but they have shown that they can sure cause Ukraine a lot of problems.