WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — On a visit to New Zealand, FBI Director Kash Patel gave the country’s police and spy bosses gifts of inoperable pistols that were illegal to possess under local gun laws and had to be destroyed, New Zealand law enforcement agencies told The Associated Press.

The plastic 3D-printed replica pistols formed part of display stands Patel presented to at least four senior New Zealand security officials in July. Patel, the most senior Trump administration official to visit the country so far, was in Wellington to open the FBI’s first standalone office in New Zealand.

Pistols are tightly restricted weapons under New Zealand law and possessing one requires an additional permit beyond a regular gun license. Law enforcement agencies didn’t specify whether the officials who met with Patel held such permits, but they couldn’t have legally kept the gifts if they didn’t.

It wasn’t clear what permissions Patel had sought to bring the weapons into the country. A spokesperson for Patel told the AP Tuesday that the FBI would not comment.

US FBI Director Kash Patel visits New Zealand, immediately provides local officials with 3d printed, potentially operable firearms...

... which is a crime, that could carry up to a 3 year prison/jail sentence in NZ...

... and would also potentially be somewhere between a misdemeanor and a felony depending on where you are in the US, as 3d printed firearms are generally without serial numbers and are thus 'ghost guns', which are often illegal if unregistered, if not outright banned, though this differs from state to state and city to city.

(Oh also, I guess he is so concerned about properly investigating the death of Charlie Kirk that he is uh, personally looking for leads in New Zealand, or something.)

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — On a visit to New Zealand, FBI Director Kash Patel gave the country’s police and spy bosses gifts of inoperable pistols that were illegal to possess under local gun laws and had to be destroyed, New Zealand law enforcement agencies told The Associated Press.

The plastic 3D-printed replica pistols formed part of display stands Patel presented to at least four senior New Zealand security officials in July. Patel, the most senior Trump administration official to visit the country so far, was in Wellington to open the FBI’s first standalone office in New Zealand.

Pistols are tightly restricted weapons under New Zealand law and possessing one requires an additional permit beyond a regular gun license. Law enforcement agencies didn’t specify whether the officials who met with Patel held such permits, but they couldn’t have legally kept the gifts if they didn’t.

It wasn’t clear what permissions Patel had sought to bring the weapons into the country. A spokesperson for Patel told the AP Tuesday that the FBI would not comment.

US FBI Director Kash Patel visits New Zealand, immediately provides local officials with 3d printed, potentially operable firearms...

... which is a crime, that could carry up to a 3 year prison/jail sentence in NZ...

... and would also potentially be somewhere between a misdemeanor and a felony depending on where you are in the US, as 3d printed firearms are generally without serial numbers and are thus 'ghost guns', which are often illegal if unregistered, if not outright banned, though this differs from state to state and city to city.

(Oh also, I guess he is so concerned about properly investigating the death of Charlie Kirk that he is uh, personally looking for leads in New Zealand, or something.)

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — On a visit to New Zealand, FBI Director Kash Patel gave the country’s police and spy bosses gifts of inoperable pistols that were illegal to possess under local gun laws and had to be destroyed, New Zealand law enforcement agencies told The Associated Press.

The plastic 3D-printed replica pistols formed part of display stands Patel presented to at least four senior New Zealand security officials in July. Patel, the most senior Trump administration official to visit the country so far, was in Wellington to open the FBI’s first standalone office in New Zealand.

Pistols are tightly restricted weapons under New Zealand law and possessing one requires an additional permit beyond a regular gun license. Law enforcement agencies didn’t specify whether the officials who met with Patel held such permits, but they couldn’t have legally kept the gifts if they didn’t.

It wasn’t clear what permissions Patel had sought to bring the weapons into the country. A spokesperson for Patel told the AP Tuesday that the FBI would not comment.

US FBI Director Kash Patel visits New Zealand, immediately provides local officials with 3d printed, potentially operable firearms...

... which is a crime, that could carry up to a 3 year prison/jail sentence in NZ...

... and would also potentially be somewhere between a misdemeanor and a felony depending on where you are in the US, as 3d printed firearms are generally without serial numbers and are thus 'ghost guns', which are often illegal if unregistered, if not outright banned, though this differs from state to state and city to city.

(Oh also, I guess he is so concerned about properly investigating the death of Charlie Kirk that he is uh, personally looking for leads in New Zealand, or something.)

Ok, on a thread about how psychiatric hospitals are getting gobbled up by private equity, and treatment standards are plummetting, I say, that if you actually wanna stop this, you have to overthrow the government and abolish corporations, otherwise, you're complicit.

Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to get into a discussion about tacit vs explicit consent to be governed, or anything like that.

Here's the post url again:

https://sh.itjust.works/post/46618629

But uh, yeah, jawbone all you like, don't change nothin' in a fascist state.

So, then after a brief exchange, where I remind pele that his retort he tried on me last time I said something like that of 'Where are you from / You're not American', I remind him of the last time we danced that dance.

Here's that older exchange, for context:

https://sh.itjust.works/post/45775934/20923933

He then thanks me for that reminder, deletes my original comment, bans me from his comm.

Problem: He banned me for "rule 5, promoting violence".

Here's rule 5 on the sidebar:

Here's the instance rules:

Nothing about advocating violence.

I would also go so far as to say that uh, he intervened and made an uncivil comment.

... Am I... missing some hidden rules... somewhere?

Also... did I explicitly promote violence?

By saying:

"Overthrow the government. Abolish corporations."

???

Is it impossible to do many nonviolent things to pressure a regime to change, a major policy to be reworked, with a sufficient amount of people?

Anyway, yep, there we go, I submit this to the evaluation of fellow m@teys and any other interested passersby.

A pipeline leak in northwest North Dakota has spilled an estimated 20,000 barrels, or 840,000 gallons, of crude oil and produced water onto agricultural land, the Department of Environmental Quality said Monday.

The spill about 4 miles northwest of Stanley in Mountrail County involved emulsion, a mixture of crude oil and produced water that emerges from a well before they are separated, the department said. Produced water, also known as saltwater or brine, is a waste byproduct of oil production.

...

It is unknown how long the leak went undetected by Hess Corp., which owns the pipeline. Bill Suess, manager of the Department of Environmental Quality’s spill investigation program, said the company first became aware of a potential problem Sept. 2 when they “started getting an indication their numbers weren’t right” – 10 days before the spill was discovered and reported.

"They went in and did some tests. The tests came back negative,” said Suess. “And then on the 12th they found the dead vegetation.”

Hess discovered and reported the spill on Friday, according to the incident report.

The cause of the spill has not been identified beyond “equipment failure” and remains under investigation, according to Suess.

The leak occurred from a 6-inch carbon steel pipeline called a “flow line,” used to transport the oil, natural gas and produced water from a well to a treater unit where the products are separated.

Regulators are still investigating the extent of the spill underground, including possible groundwater impacts, Suess said.

...

“We don’t know yet how deep the impacts go,” said Suess.

Good thing the government of North Dakota isn't functionally bankrupt and the EPA will surely jump into action and farmers are currently having absolutely no labor nor financial problems.

Or uh, thoughts and prayers for all the ground water under all that farmland, I guess.

A pipeline leak in northwest North Dakota has spilled an estimated 20,000 barrels, or 840,000 gallons, of crude oil and produced water onto agricultural land, the Department of Environmental Quality said Monday.

The spill about 4 miles northwest of Stanley in Mountrail County involved emulsion, a mixture of crude oil and produced water that emerges from a well before they are separated, the department said. Produced water, also known as saltwater or brine, is a waste byproduct of oil production.

...

It is unknown how long the leak went undetected by Hess Corp., which owns the pipeline. Bill Suess, manager of the Department of Environmental Quality’s spill investigation program, said the company first became aware of a potential problem Sept. 2 when they “started getting an indication their numbers weren’t right” – 10 days before the spill was discovered and reported.

"They went in and did some tests. The tests came back negative,” said Suess. “And then on the 12th they found the dead vegetation.”

Hess discovered and reported the spill on Friday, according to the incident report.

The cause of the spill has not been identified beyond “equipment failure” and remains under investigation, according to Suess.

The leak occurred from a 6-inch carbon steel pipeline called a “flow line,” used to transport the oil, natural gas and produced water from a well to a treater unit where the products are separated.

Regulators are still investigating the extent of the spill underground, including possible groundwater impacts, Suess said.

...

We don’t know yet how deep the impacts go,” said Suess.

Good thing the government of North Dakota isn't functionally bankrupt and the EPA will surely jump into action and farmers are currently having absolutely no labor nor financial problems.

Or uh, thoughts and prayers for all the ground water under all that farmland, I guess.

A pipeline leak in northwest North Dakota has spilled an estimated 20,000 barrels, or 840,000 gallons, of crude oil and produced water onto agricultural land, the Department of Environmental Quality said Monday.

The spill about 4 miles northwest of Stanley in Mountrail County involved emulsion, a mixture of crude oil and produced water that emerges from a well before they are separated, the department said. Produced water, also known as saltwater or brine, is a waste byproduct of oil production.

...

It is unknown how long the leak went undetected by Hess Corp., which owns the pipeline. Bill Suess, manager of the Department of Environmental Quality’s spill investigation program, said the company first became aware of a potential problem Sept. 2 when they “started getting an indication their numbers weren’t right” – 10 days before the spill was discovered and reported.

"They went in and did some tests. The tests came back negative,” said Suess. “And then on the 12th they found the dead vegetation.”

Hess discovered and reported the spill on Friday, according to the incident report.

The cause of the spill has not been identified beyond “equipment failure” and remains under investigation, according to Suess.

The leak occurred from a 6-inch carbon steel pipeline called a “flow line,” used to transport the oil, natural gas and produced water from a well to a treater unit where the products are separated.

Regulators are still investigating the extent of the spill underground, including possible groundwater impacts, Suess said.

...

“We don’t know yet how deep the impacts go,” said Suess.

Good thing the government of North Dakota isn't functionally bankrupt and the EPA will surely jump into action and farmers are currently having absolutely no labor nor financial problems.

Or uh, thoughts and prayers for all the ground water under all that farmland, I guess.

The 30-year mortgage rate shot up the day after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates.

Hours after the Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday by 25 basis points, mortgage rates ticked up 9 basis points.

...

The Fed announced Wednesday that it would trim its key policy rate by a quarter of a percentage point, bringing it to the range of 4% to 4.25%. Around the time of the announcement, Mortgage News Daily, a website that posts daily updates on rates, crashed - possibly the result of people flocking to the site to see how mortgage rates reacted. The company told MarketWatch it was looking into why the site was down that afternoon.

Mortgage News Daily later reported that the 30-year rate went up by 9 basis points (0.09%) to 6.22% on Wednesday. On Thursday, it reported that the 30-year rate had gone up by 15 more basis points, to 6.37%.

In contrast, a report by Freddie Mac measuring weekly averages for the 30-year rate found that mortgage rates fell to the lowest level in 12 months on Thursday. That's because Freddie Mac's report gathered information prior to and after the Fed's decision was announced. The weekly report doesn't survey lenders, but is based on actual mortgage applications to lenders across the country that are sent to Freddie Mac.

... Mortgage rates aren't tied to the Fed's interest-rate moves. Instead, they typically fall in advance of a Fed rate cut, as MarketWatch has reported, because bond investors are trying to anticipate where the central bank will go. Mortgage rates are priced off the 10-year Treasury note BX:TMUBMUSD10Y by adding a spread.

Hence, the 10-year Treasury yield is a better gauge of how mortgage rates will move - and the 10-year yield was trending higher Thursday.

Mortgage rates have decoupled from the Fed's benchmark / targets, basically, because fiscal policy and the overall economic outlook are so bad that traditional monetary policy is no longer effective.

This is generally what economists would call 'a bad sign'.

Myself, I would go so far as 'a very bad sign.'

My condolences to anyone who confused their local new/used home salesperson with a qualified economist, if they told you, and you believed, something like 'Fed rate cuts will lower mortgage rates!"

The 30-year mortgage rate shot up the day after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates.

Hours after the Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday by 25 basis points, mortgage rates ticked up 9 basis points.

...

The Fed announced Wednesday that it would trim its key policy rate by a quarter of a percentage point, bringing it to the range of 4% to 4.25%. Around the time of the announcement, Mortgage News Daily, a website that posts daily updates on rates, crashed - possibly the result of people flocking to the site to see how mortgage rates reacted. The company told MarketWatch it was looking into why the site was down that afternoon.

Mortgage News Daily later reported that the 30-year rate went up by 9 basis points (0.09%) to 6.22% on Wednesday. On Thursday, it reported that the 30-year rate had gone up by 15 more basis points, to 6.37%.

In contrast, a report by Freddie Mac measuring weekly averages for the 30-year rate found that mortgage rates fell to the lowest level in 12 months on Thursday. That's because Freddie Mac's report gathered information prior to and after the Fed's decision was announced. The weekly report doesn't survey lenders, but is based on actual mortgage applications to lenders across the country that are sent to Freddie Mac.

... Mortgage rates aren't tied to the Fed's interest-rate moves. Instead, they typically fall in advance of a Fed rate cut, as MarketWatch has reported, because bond investors are trying to anticipate where the central bank will go. Mortgage rates are priced off the 10-year Treasury note BX:TMUBMUSD10Y by adding a spread.

Hence, the 10-year Treasury yield is a better gauge of how mortgage rates will move - and the 10-year yield was trending higher Thursday.

Mortgage rates have decoupled from the Fed's benchmark / targets, basically, because fiscal policy and the overall economic outlook are so bad that traditional monetary policy is no longer effective.

This is generally what economists would call 'a bad sign'.

Myself, I would go so far as 'a very bad sign.'

My condolences to anyone who confused their local new/used home salesperson with a qualified economist, if they told you, and you believed, something like 'Fed rate cuts will lower mortgage rates!

The 30-year mortgage rate shot up the day after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates.

Hours after the Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday by 25 basis points, mortgage rates ticked up 9 basis points.

...

The Fed announced Wednesday that it would trim its key policy rate by a quarter of a percentage point, bringing it to the range of 4% to 4.25%. Around the time of the announcement, Mortgage News Daily, a website that posts daily updates on rates, crashed - possibly the result of people flocking to the site to see how mortgage rates reacted. The company told MarketWatch it was looking into why the site was down that afternoon.

Mortgage News Daily later reported that the 30-year rate went up by 9 basis points (0.09%) to 6.22% on Wednesday. On Thursday, it reported that the 30-year rate had gone up by 15 more basis points, to 6.37%.

In contrast, a report by Freddie Mac measuring weekly averages for the 30-year rate found that mortgage rates fell to the lowest level in 12 months on Thursday. That's because Freddie Mac's report gathered information prior to and after the Fed's decision was announced. The weekly report doesn't survey lenders, but is based on actual mortgage applications to lenders across the country that are sent to Freddie Mac.

...

Mortgage rates aren't tied to the Fed's interest-rate moves. Instead, they typically fall in advance of a Fed rate cut, as MarketWatch has reported, because bond investors are trying to anticipate where the central bank will go. Mortgage rates are priced off the 10-year Treasury note BX:TMUBMUSD10Y by adding a spread.

Hence, the 10-year Treasury yield is a better gauge of how mortgage rates will move - and the 10-year yield was trending higher Thursday.

Mortgage rates have decoupled from the Fed's benchmark / targets, basically, because fiscal policy and the overall economic outlook are so bad that traditional monetary policy is no longer effective.

This is generally what economists would call 'a bad sign'.

Myself, I would go so far as 'a very bad sign.'

My condolences to anyone who confused their local new/used home salesperson with a qualified economist, if they told you, and you believed, something like 'Fed rate cuts will lower mortgage rates!"

Mods, if this is too offtopic, or potentially too incendiary a topic, I understand, I just do not know where else to post this.

Further, I fully agree with the sidebar rule here, let us please keep this civil and keep politics out of this to the greatest extent possible.

DISCLAIMER: Please, everyone and anyone, do not consider any of this discussion to be 100% confirmed fact, this is meant for reasoned consideration, not wild speculation nor justifying motivated reasoning of any kind or flavor.

Further: I do not endorse any political views of this guy, but I think his ballistic analysis is worth consideration.

Please at least watch this linked ~20 minute video.

The guy claims to be either a current or former USMC Scout Sniper, and while I cannot confirm this beyond a reasonable doubt... I also do not really have any reason to doubt that he is.

There is also a longer 2 1/2 hour livestream where this guy presumably goes into more detail, which he has linked on his YT vid page.

Essentially, the guy goes through 4 different camera angles.

He explains that the movement of Kirk's shirt is almost certainly not a result of any kind of body armor as is widely being speculated; instead, it is from how Kirk's lapel mic and earpiece and the wire for such were affixed to him.

He shows that the earpiece actually was captured flying off of Kirk's right ear, and that this is what caused the movement of Kirk's shirt.

But also... he believes that the shot did not come from from straight on.

He believes that the shot came from Kirk's right, and he believes that the wound which....featured the 'geyser' of blood coming out of Kirk's neck... he believes this was an exit wound, not an entry wound.

He believes that the entry would was somewhere on the right side of roughly Kirk's jaw, to behind or around his right ear, that the round traversed through Kirk from his right, to his left, and that it likely functionally killed him instantly either by obliteration of the lower brain, or severing of the spinal cord.

He also believes he may have captured a reflection of a muzzle flash, as well as potentially the muzzle flash itself... indicating a shooting position from Kirk's right... and that the currently most popular and widely accepted (?) idea that the shot came from 150 - 200 yards/meters away, basically from nearly directly in front of Kirk... cannot be the case.

Finally, be believes that the caliber used was not 30.06, that the visible wound is simply too small to indicate a 30.06, that it is more likely a lower caliber round.

At least this is inline with ... what I have been able to gather / opinionate based on the published image of what is supposed to be the weapon used in the incident.

Long story short, I think it is more likely that the rifle is not 'an older Mauser in 30.06' as officially described, but instead, more likely to be either a Remington 700 or Ruger American, a model from roughly the 80s - 90s - 00s, and that it is likely to be in caliber .270 or .243.

Hopefully I have linked this correctly, here is the start of a comment chain from myself, in another thread, a few days back, when I attempted to analyze the presented image of the weapon being claimed to be the weapon.

https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/21325405

If you would, please discuss in the most objective manner you are capable of.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/35891683

I have changed the original title of this post, as it is imo, thanks largely to discussion in this thread, with a lemmyusa mod, unnecessarily incendiary.

Original Title:

"lemmyusa.com is engaging in vote manipulation, suggest defederating unless it is addressed"

Mod Abuse:

https://lemmy.world/modlog/1432313?page=1&actionType=All

The instance has 3 active subs, it's unlikely the admins are not also the mods engaging in this.

Banning anyone who downvotes is a clear attempt to foster a chilling effect on dissenting opinions. The mods and admins of this instance are putting their thumb on the scales in order to make their ideas appear more positively received than they actually are.

Thanks for your attention to this.

I realize that doing a cross post here is... unorthodox, and this doesn't drectly involve my own interactions, and I am technically breaking a number of the rules of this comm...

... but I think this is worth the discussion and consideration of, and potential further investigation from this comm, which essentially functions as a de facto place for discussing things like this.

Further context / info I have been able to gather:

Here is a direct link to their own modlog.

https://lemmyusa.com/modlog

Their dedicated legal page:

https://lemmyusa.com/legal

Their described 'sidebar rules' appear to only be:

We're keeping it simple:

Be thoughtful, act responsibly, and treat others with respect.

No NSFW content.

Everything else seems to be in the Legal / TOS / Privacy Policy section.

My preliminary, most charitable interpretation of mod/admin activity here... is that they can and will essentially ban anyone who posts on their instance and is not a lemmyusa user, as any other user would not have agreed to their TOS.

???

Further, this instance appears to be hosting an account that is impersonating SatansMaggotyCumFart, a fairly well known, mostly parody/dedicated 'bit' account here on lemmy...

The profile description of their version of SMCF claims to be 'the only real profile!', and is using a clearly AI generated avatar/profile pic... and uh, to me at least, it seems very unlikely this is the actual SMCF.

UPDATE:

Ok.

After some conversation in this thread, I should add:

There is, and there was at the time this all started, a rule in the comm that much of these downvote bans took place in, which reads:

'No Serial Downvoting.'

Personally, I find this rather vague.

How many dowmvotes, in what timeframe, across how many comms/comments/posts, etc?

I am also still uncertain to what extent these actually are dedicated, persistent, serial downvoters, vs just a whole lot of randos seeing something on their feed and then downvoting it and moving on.

I get the intent behind trying to stem a mass wave of negativity, nobody likes a wave of mass downvotes and hostile comments...

But on the other hand, there should probably be a bit more clarity and specificity here, less heavy handed actions for less comitted and persistent behavior.

IMO, a balance has to be struck between allowing people to genuienly freely express their opinion via downvoting, but at the same time, there are clearly also cases where people or groups of people basically just downvote all comments or posts from a specific user or in a certain comm or pertaining to a certain topic, etc.

I myself am fairly confident I have managed to attract at least one person who downvotes all my posts/comments on their instance, simply because I am on their shitlist, apparently.

So ideally... we could maybe have a constructive conversation about that.

As to the SatansMaggotyCumFart profile on lemmyusa being an impersonatory account:

We've got one mod from lemmyusa here saying he really isn't sure, and personally blocked him, I think from his own user standpoint, not from the standpoint of himself as a mod.

IMO, the account still strikes me as likely another person, impersonating the actual user... I of course cannot be certain, but the profile still strikes me as very sus.

Finally, I am least personally going to strongly discourage any one reading this from popping in to lemmyusa and going out of your way to downvote every single thing on there simply because it is on that instance.

They are already in more or less lockdown mode, call that a win if you must.

I did not intend nor do I want this very post to act as an attack vector.

UPDATE 2

SatansMaggotyCumFart, the real one, has appeared in this thread and confirmed that the lemmyusa profile is indeed an impersonation, is not them.