Powerful 3D-Printed Rifle Fires NATO Rounds

Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

A group of gunsmiths just 3D printed a bigger, better caliber rifle.

PrintedFirearm.com , a website devoted to 3D printing of guns, announced that one of its members successfully developed a lower receiver for a Colt CM901 rifle. The receiver for the CM901—which is considered to be a much stronger brother of the popular AR-15 assault rifle—was crafted on a XYZ Da Vinci printer, which normally costs around $500 – considered cheap in the 3D printer world. While they were not the first to 3D print a lower receiver, it seems as if Printed Firearm has taken an evolutionary step.

“This is the FIRST EVER 3d Printed AR-10 (CM901/LE901) lower receiver by JT,” reads a blog post on PrintedFirearm.com. “OH YES WE DID!!!!!!! Yes people its pure awesome sauce and it has been tested, fired with little to no issues.”

The CM901 has a similar design to the AR-15 but can fire a heavier and more powerful 7.62 millimeter round, which results in higher range and stopping power. The standard NATO rifle cartridge has a 7.62 mm diameter and a 51 mm case length.

The rifle is also a modular weapons system, which allows for multiple modifications, so it is also capable of firing lighter 5.56-millimeter rounds as well. (Read more from “Powerful 3D-Printed Rifle Fires NATO Rounds” HERE)

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California Governor Orders Mandatory Water Restrictions

1-salt-creek-beachCalifornia Gov. Jerry Brown ordered officials Wednesday to impose statewide mandatory water restrictions for the first time in history as surveyors found the lowest snow level in the Sierra Nevada snowpack in 65 years of record-keeping.

Standing in dry, brown grass at a site that normally would be snow-covered this time of year, Brown announced he had signed an executive order requiring the State Water Resources Control Board to implement measures in cities and towns to cut the state’s overall water usage by 25 percent compared with 2013 levels.

The move will affect residents, businesses, farmers and other users.

“We’re in a historic drought and that demands unprecedented action,” Brown said at a news conference at Echo Summit in the Sierra Nevada, where state water officials found no snow on the ground for the first time in their April manual survey of the snowpack. “We have to pull together and save water in every way we can.”

After declaring a drought emergency in January 2014, Brown urged all Californians to cut water use by 20 percent from the previous year. (Read more from “California Governor Orders Mandatory Water Restrictions” HERE)

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Facebook Accused of Tracking All Users Even If They Delete Accounts, Ask Never to Be Followed

bookA new report claims that Facebook secretly installs tracking cookies on users’ computers, allowing them to follow users around the internet even after they’ve left the website, deleted their account and requested to be no longer followed.

Academic researchers said that the report showed that the company was breaking European law with its tracking policies. The law requires that users are told if their computers are receiving cookies except for specific circumstances.

Facebook’s tracking — which it does so that it can tailor advertising — involves putting cookies or small pieces of software on users’ computers, so that they can then be followed around the internet. Such technology is used by almost every website, but European law requires that users are told if they are being given cookies or being tracked. Companies don’t have to tell users if the cookies are required to connect to a service or if they are needed to give the user information that they have specifically requested.

But Facebook’s tracking policy allows it to track users if they have simply been to a page on the company’s domain, even if they weren’t logged in. That includes pages for brands or events, which users can see whether or not they have an account.

Facebook disputes the accusations of the report, it told The Independent. (Read more from “Facebook Accused of Tracking All Users Even If They Delete Accounts, Ask Never to Be Followed” HERE)

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Hillary’s Accidental Drone Email About Decorating Reveals BIG New Problems

clinton_wide_eyed_afpBeing publicly proven a liar and a fool at the same time can’t be easy, but that’s what happened to Hillary Clinton on Tuesday.

The Associated Press published a story proving the former secretary of wasn’t telling the truth when she claimed she used a private email account and private server to conduct public business as a matter of “convenience” to avoid using two separate devices.

As the emails obtained by the AP show, Clinton used her iPad as well as a Blackberry to send her emails, that’s the liar part.

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That’s not all, though. The AP story notes that the State Department released a total of four emails in response to its request for documents relating to drone strikes and U.S. overseas surveillance programs over a four-year period. The secretary of state sent only four emails about the two most critical parts of the country’s war on terror in four years? . . .

The fool part shows that the woman who would be president actually answered an email from her chief of staff that included a news account of a U.S. drone attack in Pakistan in 2011 with a question of her own — and one that appears to be about decorations. (Read more from “Hillary’s Accidental Drone Email About Decorating Reveals BIG New Problems” HERE)

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New Chinese Bank Becomes Major Headache for U.S.

Photo Credit: Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty

Photo Credit: Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty

Another day, it seems, brings another new member to China’s latest big international initiative: a new development bank for Asia.

Russia became the latest country to announce it would join the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), to be based in Beijing.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov made the announcement on March 28 at an international forum in China, saying President Vladimir Putin himself had made the decision for Russia to participate, according to RIA Novosti.

Russia is the latest in a string of countries, including many of the United States’ closest allies in Europe and Asia, to announce plans to join the bank ahead of a March 31 deadline to become a charter member.

In recent days, Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, and South Korea have all said they intend to join the $50 billion bank, which would be used to fund infrastructure improvements, like new roads and rail lines, in Asia. (Read more from “New Chinese Bank Becomes Major Headache for U.S.” HERE)

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EPA Chief: Keystone Wouldn’t Be a ‘Disaster’ for Climate

epaBy Timothy Cama. The head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said the Keystone XL pipeline would not be disastrous for the climate.

Gina McCarthy’s comments on Monday came despite her agency’s position that low oil prices could mean that Keystone will have more of an impact on the climate than previously thought.

Politico’s Mike Allen asked McCarthy if Keystone would be a “disaster” for the climate.

“No,” McCarthy responded at an event Politico hosted, “I don’t think that any one issue is a disaster for the climate.”

Keystone’s climate impact was the focus of a letter the EPA sent in February to the State Department, which is evaluating whether to approve the Canada-to-Gulf Coast oil pipeline, which would carry oil sands from Alberta. (Read more from “EPA Chief: Keystone Wouldn’t Be a ‘Disaster’ for Climate” HERE)

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Canada Pushes Ahead With Alternatives to Keystone XL

By Bobby Magill. A decision on whether to allow the Keystone XL Pipeline to be built in the U.S. could come at any time, but there are myriad other projects on the table designed to do exactly what Keystone XL was designed to do: transport Canadian tar sands oil to refineries.

Those pipelines, both in the U.S. and Canada, are being designed to move the oily bitumen produced from the tar sands to refineries in Texas and eastern Canada, and to ports on the Pacific Coast where the oil could be shipped to Asia.

Combined, the pipelines would be able to carry more than 3 million barrels of oil per day, far in excess of the 800,000 barrels per day that TransCanada’s Keystone XL is designed to carry. (Read more from this story HERE)

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3D Printed 10/22 Rifles Are a Reality

Photo Credit: Guns Save Lives

Photo Credit: Guns Save Lives

The world of 3D printing is evolving at a breakneck pace. What started out a couple of years with basic, single shot firearms that were not very practical has turned into technology would could revolutionize the gun industry.

In this case, a 3D printed 10/22 (based on Ruger’s popular rifle) has been printed and fired with factory parts/accessories. The folks over at PrintedFirearm.com have documented the whole process for the world to see. In fact, this project was actually started back in 2013, but there is now renewed interest in the project . . .

These early prints were done in 2013 but with all the recent hype about 3d printed Ruger 10/22 Rifles being printed we wanted to confirm that yes its possible and we’ve done it before.

(Read more from this story HERE)

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Russian Analyst Urging Attacks on Major U.S. Landmarks

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

By Su-Lin Tan. A Russian geopolitical analyst says the best way to attack the United States is to detonate nuclear weapons to trigger a supervolcano at Yellowstone National Park or along the San Andreas fault line on California’s coast.

The president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems based in Moscow, Konstantin Sivkov said in an article for a Russian trade newspaper on Wednesday, VPK News, that Russia needed to increase its military weapons and strategies against the “West” which was “moving to the borders or Russia”.

He has a conspiracy theory that NATO – a political and military alliance which counts the US, UK, Canada and many countries in western Europe as members – was amassing strength against Russia and the only way to combat that problem was to attack America’s vulnerabilities to ensure a “complete destruction of the enemy”.

“Geologists believe that the Yellowstone supervolcano could explode at any moment. There are signs of growing activity there. Therefore it suffices to push the relatively small, for example the impact of the munition megaton class to initiate an eruption. The consequences will be catastrophic for the United States – a country just disappears,” he said.

“Another vulnerable area of ​​the United States from the geophysical point of view, is the San Andreas fault – 1300 kilometers between the Pacific and North American plates … a detonation of a nuclear weapon there can trigger catastrophic events like a coast-scale tsunami which can completely destroy the infrastructure of the United States.” (Read more from “Russian Analyst Urging Attacks on Major U.S. Landmarks” HERE)

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Russian Tanks and Fighters Enter Eastern Ukraine, Says Kiev

By Damien Sharkov. 22 Russian tanks crossed into Ukraine’s separatist-held eastern territories over the weekend, as pro-Moscow forces continue to seep into Ukraine’s war-stricken Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Donetsk’s local pro-government officials reported yesterday.

In a statement published on Donetsk’s regional government website, the deputy head of Ukraine’s anti-separatist military operations in Donetsk and Luhansk Valentin Fechev, condemned the “cynical lies” of pro-Russian fighters who have accused Ukraine of violating the ceasefire between the two sides, and instead gave a recent recap of Russian violations.

Fechev told the regional government website that 22 tanks had crossed from Russia via the border town of Gukovo, into Ukraine’s Luhansk region, heading toward the city of Sverdlovsk for maintenance. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Spokesman for Missouri State Auditor Found Dead 1 Month After Boss Killed Himself

Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

The spokesman for the Missouri auditor was found dead Sunday from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, just a month after the suicide of his former boss, GOP gubernatorial frontrunner Tom Schweich.

Jefferson City police said Monday that Robert “Spence” Jackson was found dead Sunday evening at his home in the capital city. A police statement said Jackson’s death is being investigated as a suicide.

Jackson had been the spokesman for Missouri Auditor Tom Schweich, who shot himself to death on Feb. 26 at his home in the St. Louis suburb of Clayton. Jackson had remained as the office spokesman after Schweich’s death.

The 44-year-old Jackson also had previously served as the spokesman for former Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt.

Jackson was a strong critic of Schweich’s political adversaries, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Schweich killed himself Feb. 26 at his home in Clayton minutes after telling a reporter that Republican state Chairman John Hancock had started an anti-Semitic “whispering campaign” against him. (Read more from “Spokesman for Missouri State Auditor Found Dead 1 Month After Boss Killed Himself” HERE)

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U.S. Signed Agreement with Mexico to Teach Immigrants to Unionize

Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

The federal government has signed agreements with three foreign countries — Mexico, Ecuador and the Philippines — to establish outreach programs to teach immigrants their rights to engage in labor organizing in the U.S.

The agreements do not distinguish between those who entered legally or illegally. They are part of a broader effort by the National Labor Relations Board to get immigrants involved in union activism.

The five-member board is the agency that enforces the National Labor Relations Act, the main federal law covering unions. In 2013, Lafe Solomon, the board’s then-acting general counsel, signed a “memorandum of understanding” with Mexico’s U.S. ambassador. The current general counsel, Richard Griffin, signed additional agreements with the ambassadors of Ecuador and the Philippines last year.

“Those are the only countries that the NLRB has MOUs with,” said spokeswoman Jessica Kahanek.

The agreements are substantially similar, with several sections repeated verbatim in each one. All three documents state that the No. 1 outreach goal is “to educate those who may not be aware of the Act, including those employees just entering the work force, by providing information designed to clearly inform [that nation’s] workers in the United States of America their rights under the Act and to develop ways of communicating such information (e.g., via print and electronic media, electronic assistance tools, mobile device applications, and links to the NLRB’s web site from the [country’s] web sites) to the … workers residing in the United States of America and their employers.” (Read more from “U.S. Signed Agreement with Mexico to Teach Immigrants to Unionize” HERE)

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