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- TODAY
- Panama Canal BOTG
- When John suggested that the Panama Canal is fed by ocean waters that do not vary (or are not rising due to Climate change) my husband a former navy guy from the Vietnam war who has crossed the Panama Canal in the 1960's twice, replied "it is fed by fresh water not sea water". I asked him more and found the way ships cross is through a series of lochs and a man-made lake called Gatun Lake in the middle. Gatun lake is at a record low level this year which is limiting the number of ships due to a slower process of raising the levels in each loch.
- The average vessel traffic has been 40 vessels a day but it is currently at 32, In February it will drop to just 18 per day. thus creating a more of a bottle neck situation.
- "The Panama Canal Authority (PCA) has been implementing various measures due to the prolonged dry season and insufficient precipitation in the Canal watershed. The PCA has reduced the daily transit capacity to about 32 vessels per day since July 30, 2023.Most recently, the PCA announced new limits that are likely to lead to fewer than 24 passages a day in November, and as of February 1, 2024, until further notice, the number of booking slots will be reduced to 18 per day.
- Trump
- 14th Amendment Section 3
- I believe that § 3 likely applies to the president. But it’s a close call.
- Also, don’t forget that SCOTUS could bypass this question entirely by finding some other threshold issue—for example, finding that only Congress may decide who’s barred from running for office. If SCOTUS decides the case based on an issue like that, the case may end with a whimper.
- Let me put some analytical meat on the bone and trace my reasoning.
- Step 1 – The Text: We start with the text being analyzed. Here’s § 3 of the 14th Amendment in its entirety:
- No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
- Step 2 – Identifying Operative Terms: As you can see, I’ve bolded the terms that I think need to be interpreted, the most important being “office” and “officer.” While it’s true that § 3 doesn’t mention the president by name, that won’t matter if “office” or “officer” are interpreted in a way that includes him.
- Step 3 – The Canons of Construction: Interpreting legal texts is a dark art. There are dozens of “canons” that guide this process. My friend and former law professor Bryan Garner (the American legal-writing authority) wrote an entire book about this with Justice Scalia (it’s called Reading Law). The dirty little secret is that these canons can often be at war with one another, and a crafty advocate can usually find at least one canon to support his or her position.
- I won’t lay out the relevant canons here; that’d be overkill. Suffice it to say that we must give each word its ordinary meaning unless the rest of the text suggests a special meaning; we have to harmonize the entire text instead of cherry-picking our favorite phrases; and adjacent words may affect each other’s meanings.
- Many people will cite the historical background that led up to the 14th Amendment, and try to ascertain the drafters’ intentions from that history. This is tricky, because courts are supposed to consider the text first and foremost (this is part of Scalia’s legacy). But originalists like Roberts and Alito don’t just want to give words their plain meaning—they want the words to have the same meaning they had when they were first written. Sometimes history sheds light on this, but it can be a blur. I won’t go there because I don’t think it’s necessary (and I’m not well-enough informed).
- Step 4 – My humble analysis: Section 3 applies to an “office” and “officer” of the United States. Does that include the president? Black’s Law Dictionary defines “ “officer” as “someone who holds an office of trust, authority, or command.” This seems broad enough to include the president. But we have to examine the whole text, not just a word or two.
- The text throws some curveballs. It presents a dichotomy between insurrectionists who served in the federal government and those who served in a state’s government:
- For state governments, it identifies three kinds of people: (1) legislators, (2) executive officers, and (3) judicial officers.
- For the federal government, by contrast, it identifies only two: (1) members of Congress and (2) officers of the United States.
- Is this difference meaningful? I’ve gone round and round on this, and I just don’t think so. In my opinion, the phrase “officer of the United States” merely condenses the term “executive or judicial officer” that the drafters used in the state context. If so—if “officer of the United States” includes “executive officer”—then I think we’re done. You’d have to split some mighty fine hairs to deny that the ordinary meaning of “executive officer” doesn’t embrace the president. Again, Black’s Law Dictionary defines “president” as “the chief political executive.” Then there’s the rest of the Constitution, which repeatedly refers to the president’s position as an “office.”
- Trump argues that the Constitution distinguishes between the president and “officers” elsewhere in its text, and argues that this distinction means that he could not have been an officer himself. He makes a plausible (if not hyper-technical) argument, but I think the plaintiffs have the better end of it. The RNC cites statements by Scalia and Rehnquist—from before they were judges—that side with Trump. It’s hard for me to defy those two titans of law, but their nonjudicial statements are not binding and in my opinion have little persuasive weight.
- I also have to consider the Absurdity Doctrine, which eschews interpretations that no reasonable person could approve. Here, it would arguably be absurd to bar all insurrectionists from ever holding office again, unless they revolted while occupying the most powerful office in the land—in which case they may continue running things. In my opinion, that just doesn’t sound reasonable.
- So while it’s a dicey issue, I conclude that § 3 applies to the president. But even if it does, there’s still a big question whether Trump engaged in an insurrection in the first place. I personally don’t see it. But the M5M all just assume that he engaged in an insurrection, and no talking head has the courage to suggest anything different. Their peer pressure is overwhelming
- The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article
- Section 5 The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
- The question in my mind is whether that authority is exclusive. I have no opinion on that, but I think a strong argument can be made that only Congress can decide. We shall see!
- Migrations Replacement
- Remember the FEMA Camps? - Well, now we know
- Biden
- Dinner with some friends who are in the medical field, [Biden]confirm Adrenochrome is available in powder form
- Ministry if Truthiness
- Remember when TikTok had to go?
- Transmaoism
- White House responds to Navajo Nation request to delay mission that would land human remains on the moon | CNN
- “The moon holds a sacred place in Navajo cosmology,” Nygren said in a Thursday statement. “The suggestion of transforming it into a resting place for human remains is deeply disturbing and unacceptable to our people and many other tribal nations.”
- Climate Change
- Scientists make alarming discovery after hearing bubbling sounds from deep within Arctic ice: ‘We decided to have a look’
- As detailed by ScienceAlert, “substantial” amounts of methane gas were found in half of the exploration wells drilled by dirty energy companies in Svalbard, the archipelago with the northernmost town in the world.
- “The drillers heard a bubbling sound coming from the well, so we decided to have a look, armed with rudimentary alarms designed for detecting explosive levels of methane — which were immediately triggered when we held them over the wellbore,” Thomas Birchall, the lead author of the study, told ScienceAlert.
- Trains Good, Planes Bad
- Alaska Depressurization Door Plug BOTG Joe
- If you haven’t heard, there was an Alaska Airlines plane, another troubled 737 MAX, that had a depressurization last night. After takeoff a door plug blew out.
- What is a door plug? Alaska removed an emergency exit door prior to delivery of the plane because essentially only 1 per 50 seats is required (it’s tied to evac minutes but 1 per 50 is a rough number) and the exits are heavy with rafts and require space in the cabin. Only one airline has the door installed there. One of the European low cost carriers.
- So the doors or plugs should never blow out because of the concave design. Here’s my theory. The plane which was only a couple of months old had pressurization problems reported prior to this. The doors are designed to be pulled outward by suction due to the lower pressure at altitude than the pressure maintained inside the plane for passenger comfort and oxygenation. My guess is during errant overpressurization or even underpressurization the plug door exceeded design tolerances and cracked in a critical spot causing it to fail.
- Alaska has grounded all their 737 MAX 9s. The smaller models don’t have the plug door.
- Conservative influencer asks United Airlines one tough question, and the answer could blow up US aviation... - Revolver News
- On July 29, a United plane was nearly totaled after a hard landing
- Who was flying that aircraft?
- Was the co-pilot a former flight attendant who was FIRED and then rehired through United’s DEI program despite being on a list to not return to United?
- Am I correct that this individual failed multiple trainings including simulator training?
- Am I also correct that United has covered up this DEI disaster and many others?
- Was the #2 at the Denver hiring center also onboarded through DEI? Did she or did she not change fail grades for DEI hires because “it makes the numbers look bad”?
- Did the instructor who failed this co-pilot ask corporate why they passed him?
- Red Sea
- Houthi heli video - gopro horizon leveler
- STORIES
- Conservative influencer asks United Airlines one tough question, and the answer could blow up US aviation... - Revolver News
- We need your help! Join our growing army and click here to subscribe to ad-free Revolver. Or give a one-time or recurring donation during this critical time.
- An anonymous source from the airline industry reportedly approached conservative pundit Ashley St. Clair with some unsettling information. Following this secret exchange, St. Clair has asked United Airlines a tough question. If her implications, backed by her source's revelations, prove to be true, it could be a bomb that rocks the entire aviation industry.
- Thanks to her source, Ashley is raising questions about a specific incident that took place last summer: a July 29th flight that ended with the airplane nearly totaled. She's inquiring about who was operating the plane because her source claims the co-pilot was actually an unqualified hire made under the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion movement. If true, could this DEI hire have played a role in the reckless incident?
- Here's what she said in her thread on X:
- On July 29, a United plane was nearly totaled after a hard landing
- Who was flying that aircraft?
- Was the co-pilot a former flight attendant who was FIRED and then rehired through United's DEI program despite being on a list to not return to United?
- Am I correct that this individual failed multiple trainings including simulator training?
- Am I also correct that United has covered up this DEI disaster and many others?Was the #2 at the Denver hiring center also onboarded through DEI? Did she or did she not change fail grades for DEI hires because ''it makes the numbers look bad''?
- Did the instructor who failed this co-pilot ask corporate why they passed him?
- As our airline industry falters, this issue is raising genuine concerns among many Americans. From outdated equipment to archaic technology to pilots dying suddenly and passengers losing their minds mid-air, American travelers are rightfully worried. Among those concerned Americans is a United States Senator, J.D. Vance. Here's what he had to say on X:
- The FAA has assured me the 737-MAX is safe '' last night's near catastrophe calls that determination into question.
- Pilots have filed safety complaints on these aircraft, many of which had just rolled off the production line, at a rate which is unbecoming of American aviation.
- My own family has flown on 737-MAX aircraft multiple times in the past year. Every American deserves a full explanation from Boeing and the FAA on what's gone wrong and on the steps that are being taken to ensure another incident does not occur in the future.
- The FAA has assured me the 737-MAX is safe '' last night's near catastrophe calls that determination into question.
- Pilots have filed safety complaints on these aircraft, many of which had just rolled off the production line, at a rate which is unbecoming of American aviation.'...
- '-- J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) January 6, 2024
- Meanwhile, Transportation Secretary Buttigieg is still on maternity leave'...
- The massively disruptive computer outage at the Federal Aviation Administration this week that caused thousands of cancelled or delayed flights has put Americans uncomfortably face-to-face with the technology behind US air travel '-- for at least the second time in a month.
- As the country once again picks up the pieces, beleaguered air travelers may be wondering why flying suddenly seems so vulnerable to devastating IT problems.
- The answer involves not just aging hardware and software, but also institutional failures that have made updating the technology more challenging, according to current and former industry officials, government reports and outside analysts.
- It seems as if pilots are getting sick and dying at an alarming rate.
- Revolver has delved into the ''diversity disaster'' unfolding in the airline industry, a situation that could potentially put both crew and passengers in danger. In an industry where expertise is without question a top priority, many are worried that skill is taking a backseat over gender and skin color. Revolver has pondered the same thing.
- The case of Damian Campbell and the near-collision incident in Austin, together with numerous other such incidents, raise troubling questions that deserve a deeper dive. Revolver News conducted an investigation into the matter in considerable depth. We spoke with several air traffic and FAA personnel, most of whom insisted on staying anonymous and off the record.
- While the disturbing decline in aviation safety is complex and multifaceted, we identified two major contributing factors that have received scant media attention. The first such factor is the likely contribution of disastrous COVID-era policies to the staffing shortage of many air traffic control rooms. The second factor is that aggressive affirmative action policies implemented during the Obama administration have resulted in a catastrophic collapse in the quality of controllers. In short, COVID policies have gutted the quantity of air traffic controllers, and diversity policies have gutted the quality of air traffic controllers, creating unprecedented danger for the aviation industry.
- Revolver calls what's happening in aviation a ''crisis of competency,'' where airlines are putting progressive policies above safety.
- The aggressive substitution of merit in favor of diversity has led to a so-called competency crisis, jeopardizing not only our ability to generate innovative technology but, in a more dire sense, our ability to simply maintain the proper functioning of various complex systems vital to our existence as a first-world civilization. Despite the superficiality of ''diversity'' as a matter of rhetoric, the reality of diversity as an ideological, cultural, and legal imperative is not merely cosmetic'--far from it.
- While a full treatment of this topic would run far outside the scope of this article, we have discussed elsewhere the manner and extent to which the affirmative action regime is embedded deeply into the law, economy, and every major institution in the country.
- While this article was being written, another ''airline disaster'' took place, this time involving Alaska Air and a window that blew out at 16,000 feet.
- ð¨#BREAKING: Alaska Airlines Forced to Make an Emergency Landing After Large Aircraft Window Blows Out Mid-Air '°'°ð'#Portland | #Oregon'°A Forced emergency landing was made of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 at Portland International Airport on Friday night. The flight, traveling'... pic.twitter.com/nt0FwmPALE
- '-- R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) January 6, 2024
- Sadly, there's so much more to the story about our faltering air industry. We encourage you to read the entire Revolver piece and get informed before you hop on your next flight. Here it is:
- Crash Landing: The Inside Scoop About How Covid and Affirmative Action Policy Gutted Aviation Safety
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- Pentagon didn't inform Biden, White House for days about Austin's hospitalization - POLITICO
- All officials and other people who spoke for this story were granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.
- Biden held a ''cordial conversation'' with Austin on Saturday night, per one of the U.S. officials. ''The president has complete trust and confidence in Secretary Austin,'' the official said. A National Security Council spokesperson echoed that sentiment, noting Biden ''is looking forward to [Austin] getting back to the Pentagon.''
- But the news of Austin's situation came as a shock to all White House staff as they were unaware the Pentagon boss was dealing with complications following an elective medical procedure, the officials said. National Security Council staffers were surprised it took the Pentagon so long to let them know of Austin's status. The Pentagon didn't make the information public until Friday evening, notifying Congress about 15 minutes before releasing a public statement.
- ''This should not have happened this way,'' said one of the U.S. officials. The NSC and Pentagon declined comment.
- In a Saturday statement after an earlier version of this story published, Austin said, ''I could have done a better job ensuring the public was appropriately informed. I commit to doing better. But this is important to say: this was my medical procedure, and I take full responsibility for my decisions about disclosure.''
- Chuck Hagel, the former senator who served as defense secretary during the Obama administration, said the Pentagon absolutely had to let the NSC know about Austin's condition and whereabouts. ''The NSC is part of your team, it's part of the family,'' he stated during a brief interview. ''The president has to know where his Cabinet members are at all times.''
- Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement that Austin ''must address promptly'' why the White House wasn't informed of his hospitalization for days. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), SASC's top Republican, called Austin's silence ''unacceptable'' and demanded a briefing on the matter.
- NBC News reports that Austin spent four days in the intensive care unit.
- On Friday evening, as many people were turning toward their weekends, DOD spokesperson Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder announced that Austin had been hospitalized since Jan. 1. His deputy, Kathleen Hicks, partially assumed some of his duties from Jan. 1 until Jan. 5, when he resumed his full duties, according to one senior DOD official.
- But Austin's hospitalization was a closely guarded secret, kept from even senior Pentagon officials and congressional leaders until just before the public statement, according to nine DOD officials and two congressional aides. Some Pentagon officials only learned of Austin's situation through Ryder's news release. One of the DOD officials said their office was told by Austin's aides that the secretary was working from home for the week.
- The delayed news four days afterward '-- and the fact he'd relinquished some of his duties as Pentagon chief '' was met with outrage by members of the press Friday. But the frustration extended beyond the fourth estate to the Pentagon's E-Ring and the halls of Congress.
- ''The vast, vast majority of leaders were unaware,'' said one U.S. official.
- Austin's hospitalization comes at a tumultuous time for the military, as U.S. forces face near daily attacks from Iran-backed proxies in the Middle East. On Thursday, U.S. forces killed the leader of a terrorist group in Iraq targeting American personnel in the Middle East. Austin, along with the president, approved the strike before his hospitalization, said the senior DOD official.
- There is no standard protocol for when to announce a defense secretary's hospitalization or temporary inability to do the job, said Brad Carson, formerly under secretary and chief management officer of the Army, though he added it could depend on the severity of Austin's condition. If Austin were incapacitated, Congress would surely want to know. But if he were still capable of making decisions, even under a doctor's supervision, ''I don't think Congress has to be notified in such cases.''
- Still, when Gen. Eric Smith, commandant of the Marine Corps, was hospitalized after a heart attack Oct. 29, for example, DOD put out a statement within hours.
- ''It is so out of character for DOD and clearly was made after a deliberate discussion of how this information should be handled,'' said Arnold Punaro, a retired Marine Corps major general and former staff director of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
- Hagel said DOD may have had a good reason to keep Austin's hospitalization quiet for a time, but he still said keeping mum for so long was the wrong call. ''You've got to always play it straight with the media. It's all about trust,'' he said. ''If I were incapacitated or in the hospital for any length of time, I would have instructed our people to be straight with the media and let the media know.''
- Across the river on Capitol Hill, congressional aides also expressed frustration that they had not been informed until Friday night. One aide said the relevant congressional committees were informed about 15 minutes before the Pentagon released the information publicly.
- The Pentagon Press Association called the failure to report Austin's condition and hospitalization ''an outrage.''
- ''The public has a right to know when U.S. cabinet members are hospitalized, under anesthesia or when duties are delegated as the result of any medical procedure. That has been the practice even up to the president's level. As the nation's top defense leader, Secretary Austin has no claim to privacy in this situation,'' the group said in a Friday statement.
- Ryder explained the delay Saturday: ''It was an evolving situation, in which we had to consider a number of factors, including medical and personal privacy issues.''
- Austin is known for his privacy and has often shunned the limelight as a four-star general and now as Pentagon chief. While he engages the press, he is averse to speaking with the media regularly, preferring to maintain his influence within the administration by staying out of the headlines. That strategy has worked well for him, as he's kept President Joe Biden's confidence and is viewed as a key figure in maintaining Western support for delivering weapons to Ukraine.
- While Austin remains hospitalized, the U.S. is working through options for responding to attacks by Iranian-backed militias across the Middle East, POLITICO reported this week.
- Several American destroyers are currently in the Red Sea, where they have shot down dozens of attack drones and ballistic missiles launched by Houthi rebels. In Iraq and Syria, U.S. ground forces have also fended off over 120 missile and rocket attacks.
- Paul McLeary contributed reporting.
- White House responds to Navajo Nation request to delay mission that would land human remains on the moon | CNN
- Navajo Nation calls for moon mission delay. Hear why
- Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.
- The White House has convened a last-minute meeting to discuss a private mission to the moon '-- set to launch in days '-- after the largest group of Native Americans in the United States asked the administration to delay the flight because it will be carrying cremated human remains destined for a lunar burial.
- If successful, the commercial mission scheduled to launch Monday '-- dubbed Peregrine Mission One '-- will be the first time an American-made spacecraft has landed on the lunar surface since the end of the Apollo program in 1972. But Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren said that allowing the remains to touch down there would be an affront to many indigenous cultures, which revere the moon.
- ''The moon holds a sacred place in Navajo cosmology,'' Nygren said in a Thursday statement. ''The suggestion of transforming it into a resting place for human remains is deeply disturbing and unacceptable to our people and many other tribal nations.''
- The private companies providing these lunar burial services, Celestis and Elysium Space, are just two of several paying customers hitching a ride to the moon on Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic Technology's Peregrine lunar lander. The uncrewed spacecraft is expected to lift off on the inaugural flight of the United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur rocket from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
- Celestis' payload, called Tranquility Flight, includes 66 ''memorial capsules'' containing ''cremated remains and DNA,'' which will remain on the lunar surface ''as a permanent tribute to the intrepid souls who never stopped reaching for the stars,'' according to the company's website.
- ''We are aware of the concerns expressed by Mr. Nygren, but do not find them substantive,'' Celestis CEO Charles Chafer told CNN.
- ''We reject the assertion that our memorial spaceflight mission desecrates the moon,'' Chafer said. ''Just as permanent memorials for deceased are present all over planet Earth and not considered desecration, our memorial on the moon is handled with care and reverence, is a permanent monument that does not intentionally eject flight capsules on the moon. It is a touching and fitting celebration for our participants '-- the exact opposite of desecration, it is a celebration.''
- Elysium Space has not responded to CNN's request for a comment, but the company's website describes its ''Lunar Memorial'' as delivering ''a symbolic portion of remains to the surface of the Moon, helping to create the quintessential commemoration.''
- ''I've been disappointed that this conversation came up so late in the game,'' John Thornton, Astrobotic Technology CEO, said. ''I would have liked to have had this conversation a long time ago. We announced the first payload manifest of this nature to our mission back in 2015. A second in 2020. We really are trying to do the right thing and I hope we can find a good path forward with Navajo Nation.''
- This isn't the first time Navajo Nation has expressed concerns about burials on the moon. In a December letter to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Nygren referred back to NASA's Lunar Prospector mission, which in 1999 deliberately crashed a spacecraft into the moon carrying the remains of former astronaut Eugene Shoemaker.
- ''At the time, Navajo Nation President Albert Hale voiced our objections regarding this action. In response, NASA issued a formal apology and promised consultation with tribes before authorizing any further missions carrying human remains to the Moon,'' Nygren said.
- While NASA is the primary customer on this mission, it's still one customer among many paying to put technology and cargo on Astrobotic's lunar lander.
- The space agency paid Astrobotic $108 million to develop the lander and carry science experiments to the moon, said Sandra Connelly, deputy associate administrator of NASA's science mission directorate in a Friday press call. The space agency also developed the Artemis Accords, a document that outlines what should and shouldn't be allowed on the moon that has been signed by the US and 32 of its allies.
- ''We recognize that some non-NASA commercial payloads can be a cause for concern to some communities, and those communities may not understand that these missions are commercial. They're not US government missions,'' said Dr. Joel Kearns, NASA deputy associate administrator for exploration.
- Peregrine Mission One marks the start of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, initiative, which allows the US space agency to outsource the launch and transport of its lunar cargo to private companies. The mission is at the dawn of the lunar economy, and the rules are still evolving.
- ''American companies bringing equipment and cargo and payloads to the moon is a totally new industry '-- a nascent industry '-- where everyone is learning,'' Kearns said. ''We take concerns expressed from the Navajo Nation very, very seriously.
- Nygren, who represents the roughly 430,000 enrolled members of the Navajo Nation, says the tribe is ''not opposed to scientific progress or space exploration'' but continues to hold ''profound concerns regarding the lack of oversight and regulation of non-NASA commercial payloads, particularly when such payloads include human remains.
- The Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Commercial Space Transportation is responsible for licensing all private space launches in the US. But by law, the office only has oversight in matters involving ''the public health and safety, safety of property, and national security and foreign policy interests of the United States.''
- ''The Federal Aviation Administration's role is statutorily limited to ensuring space flights do not pose a safety or national security threat to the United States,'' a Department of Transportation spokesperson told CNN.
- But the executive director for the Navajo Nation's Washington Office, Justin Ahasteen, calls that argument ''absurd.''
- ''They're essentially suggesting that you can send anything into space. Does that mean people can send drugs? Does that mean people can send hazardous material? The lack of oversight is, I think, really concerning for the nation,'' Ahasteen told CNN.
- The debate raises new questions at the dawn of a race to colonize the moon about who controls Earth's only natural satellite.
- ''No one, and no religion, owns the moon,'' Celestis' CEO told CNN. ''If the beliefs of the world's multitude of religions were considered, it's quite likely that no missions would ever be approved. Simply put, we do not and never have let religious beliefs dictate humanity's space efforts. There is not and should not be a religious test.''
- Ahasteen argues that Navajo Nation's intent isn't to claim the moon.
- ''We're saying be respectful. We're turning the moon into a graveyard and we're turning it into a waste site,'' Ahasteen said. ''At what point are we going to stop and say we need to start protecting the moon as we do the Grand Canyon?''
- Friday's meeting convened by the White House is scheduled to feature representatives from NASA, the FAA, the US Department of Transportation, and the Department of Commerce. But Navajo Nation officials have little hope that they will be able to stop Monday's launch.
- ''Based off of what we're seeing, and NASA are already having their pre-launch briefing, it doesn't look like they have any intention of stopping the launch or removing the remains,'' Ahasteen said.
- Netanyahu's Support for Hamas Backfired - Antiwar.com
- This article was extended and updated on 11/10/23, including to reflect the latest tolls of death and destruction in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
- On October 7th, a large group of armed Hamas fighters broke out of the Gaza Strip to launch an unprecedented attack '' by air, land, and sea '' against southern Israel. Thousands of rockets were launched, military bases as well as kibbutzim were targeted and briefly seized.
- During the operation, dubbed Al-Aqsa Flood, over a thousand people were slaughtered, including hundreds of military personnel and innocent civilians. In order to secure concessions such as the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by the Israeli authorities, more than 200 prisoners including some soldiers were taken back to Gaza to be used as bargaining chips amid Israel's then-impending relentless airstrikes.
- What could be behind such violence?
- Israel has occupied the Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem since their victory against neighboring states in the Six-Day War of June 1967 '' 56 years; longer than the Soviet Union occupied Eastern Europe. The so-called ''Palestinian Authority'' (PA) is trained and supported by Tel Aviv, London, and Washington, not the people. Essentially trustees in an Israeli prison, the PA is not a sovereign state of any kind. The people of Palestine live under foreign military occupation.
- Gaza, on the other hand, is a concentration camp which measures only 25 miles in length and five miles in width, making it one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Crammed inside the camp are 2.3 million Palestinians, including refugees from the initial ethnic cleansing campaigns at the establishment of the state of Israel in 1947''1948, along with their descendants.
- If the PA are trustees in the minimum security prison of the West Bank, Hamas, the armed Islamist militia which rules the Strip, are the worst gang that took over the maximum security prison when the warden and his men retreated to the outer perimeter.
- Since 2007, Israel has imposed a full blockade on Gaza from the air, land, and sea. Gaza is completely controlled by the Israeli military. For more than 15 years, food, potable water, electricity, medicine, building materials, etc. have been severely restricted by Tel Aviv. All the while, Palestinians besieged in the coastal enclave are routinely subjected to small as well as large-scale indiscriminate bombing campaigns.
- This recent terrorist attack in Israel which saw so many civilians killed '' including in crossfire with Israeli forces '' was in a sense, a prison break led by Hamas.
- This horrible attack was blatantly, if unintentionally, provoked by Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party and his ruling coalition full of extremist settlers and Jewish supremacists bent on the de jure annexation of the entire West Bank, or ''Judea and Samaria'' as they call it.
- Killing the Peace Process
- Beginning in 1979 at Camp David, Israel promised to begin the process to negotiate a sovereign state on the 22 percent left of Palestine after the war of 1947''1948 '' the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, occupied by Tel Aviv since 1967.
- By 1988, Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Leader Yasser Arafat, who headed the Fatah party, had recognized Israel within its 1967 borders. The Oslo Accords ''peace process'' began in 1993 and was supposed to implement this two-state reality.
- It was a sham. All the while, even though the Fourth Geneva Convention says that it is illegal for one nation to transfer their own civilian populations into land seized in war, and United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 says that Israel must withdraw from the occupied territories, hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jewish colonists or ''settlers'' have moved to the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, which they consider part of a future Greater Israel. This has effectively made a sovereign state there impossible.
- The Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who used to play along with the narrative of an eventual two-state solution, in the last decade officially canceled the illusion that he would ever let this occur.
- Netanyahu said in 2015 that, ''I think that anyone who is going to establish a Palestinian state today and evacuate lands is giving attack grounds to radical Islam against the state of Israel. Anyone who ignores this is sticking his head in the sand. The left does this time and time again. We are realistic and understand.''
- Netanyahu was then asked specifically whether he meant that a Palestinian state would not be established if he were reelected prime minister. He answered, ''Correct.''
- Even though he temporarily relented on official annexation of the Jordan river valley, Netanyahu still vowed in 2020 that ''Israel will retain security control on the entire area west of the Jordan River.'' In other words, from the River to the Mediterranean Sea, Palestine will never be free.
- This is why the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, joined by Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International, finally came out in 2021''2022, after the 40-year illusion of ''independence someday instead of freedom today'' had finally crumbled, and officially declared that Israel was an ''apartheid state.''
- Former President Jimmy Carter warned that if Israel did not let the Palestinians go, they would be stuck in this apartheid corner. So did former Prime Minister and Defense Minister Ehud Barak and former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Even Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, later Donald Trump's secretary of defense said the same.
- If the whites of 1960s Jim Crow Mississippi had said, ''we will not end segregation and our two-tiered 'rule of law,' but we will let northern Mississippi become an independent black nation someday instead,'' but then they never did that, that would be where Israel-Palestine is right now.
- Western liberals '' regulated by the Israel lobby '' have mostly just paid lip service to the two-state solution while Israel created ''facts on the ground,'' with the ever-expanding settlements relegating Palestinians to noncontiguous Bantustans cut off from each other by the massive separation wall and networks of checkpoints run by Israeli occupation forces.
- Hamas, Israel's Strategic Ally
- There is no reason to think Hamas is secretly controlled by Israel, but their seemingly antithetical interests are in fact closely aligned and serve each other's purposes. As Brian McGlinchey, Andrew Higgins, Robert Sale and others have exhaustively detailed, for decades, Israel has provided Hamas and its precursors with both direct and indirect financial support.
- Originally borne out of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the right-wing Islamist movement was seen by Israeli leadership as an instrument to undercut the dominant opposition to the occupation, Arafat's secular leftist and nationalist PLO.
- Beginning in the 1970s, Israel's backing of Hamas and its predecessor, Mujama Al-Islamiya, or the Islamic Center, ''was a direct attempt to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious alternative,'' a former senior CIA official told Sale.
- According to U.S. intelligence officials speaking with Sale, ''funds for the movement came from the oil-producing states and directly and indirectly from Israel.''
- In the early 1980s, the Islamist movement began radicalizing. This was precipitated by the rise of the Shi'ite militia Hezbollah in opposition to the Israeli invasion and nearly two-decade occupation of southern Lebanon, as well as the overthrow of the Shah Reza Pahlavi, the CIA-installed dictator in Iran, and the subsequent founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979.
- The group known today as Hamas, or the Islamic Resistance Movement, was officially founded in 1987 and flourished during the First Intifada, or violent uprising against the occupation in Palestine.
- Despite the group's refusal for many years to ever recognize Israel's ''right to exist,'' along with the PLO dropping that maximalist demand themselves, Israeli aid to Hamas continued apace.
- This is because, a U.S. official told Sale, ''the thinking on the part of some of the right-wing Israeli establishment was that Hamas and the other groups, if they gained control, would refuse to have anything to do with the peace process and would torpedo any agreements put in place.'' Indeed, Hamas condemned the PLO as traitors for going to the negotiating table with Tel Aviv in an attempt to work out a two-state solution.
- As Higgins later wrote in the Wall Street Journal,
- When it became clear in the early 1990s that Gaza's Islamists had mutated from a religious group into a fighting force aimed at Israel '' particularly after they turned to suicide bombings in 1994 '' Israel cracked down with ferocious force. But each military assault only increased Hamas's appeal to ordinary Palestinians.
- Fatah also cracked down on Hamas during the 1990s over their tactics including suicide bombings, which led to further clashes and bad blood.
- Following the Second Intifada, in which over 1,000 Israelis and 4,500 Palestinians were killed, Likud Party Prime Minister Ariel Sharon initiated a policy known as ''disengagement'' in the Gaza Strip. In the summer of 2005, Tel Aviv set about removing thousands of settlers and occupying forces.
- The Israeli army was redeployed in the areas surrounding Gaza instead. On the surface, this was made to look like a concession, but Likud's goal was to decisively kill the peace process and with it any hopes Palestinians had for a future state.
- Sharon's senior adviser, Dov Weissglass, bluntly told Haaretz almost two decades ago,
- The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process '... And when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this with '... a [US] presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress. '...
- The disengagement is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians. The disengagement plan makes it possible for Israel to park conveniently in an interim situation that distances us as far as possible from political pressure. It legitimizes our contention that there is no negotiating with the Palestinians. '...
- We educated the world to understand that there is no one to talk to. And we received a no-one-to-talk-to certificate. That certificate says: (1) There is no one to talk to. (2) As long as there is no one to talk to, the geographic status quo remains intact. (3) The certificate will be revoked only when this-and-this happens '-- when Palestine becomes Finland. (4) See you then, and shalom.
- Hamas achieved a plurality victory against Fatah '' by then led by Mahmoud Abbas in the wake of Arafat's death '' in the Palestinian territories' 2006 parliamentary elections. But before a coalition government could be instituted based on the results, George W. Bush and his neocon retinue '' displeased with the results of the democratic election they had encouraged '' attempted a coup, supporting Fatah against Hamas.
- As David Rose reported in Vanity Fair,
- [This outlet] has obtained confidential documents, since corroborated by sources in the U.S. and Palestine, which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war. The plan was for forces led by [Muhammad Dahlan, Fatah's long-time resident strongman in Gaza], and armed with new weapons supplied at America's behest, to give Fatah the muscle it needed to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government from power'...
- But the secret plan backfired, resulting in a further setback for American foreign policy under Bush. Instead of driving its enemies out of power, the U.S.-backed Fatah fighters inadvertently provoked Hamas to seize total control of Gaza.
- The Israelis have then used their control of the strip to justify the blockade and the rest of Tel Aviv's illegal collective punishment policies.
- Military Intelligence Director Amos Yadlin commented on June 13, 2007 that ''Israel would be happy if Hamas took over Gaza because the IDF could then deal with Gaza as a hostile state.'' He also dismissed Iran's influence over Hamas. ''As long as they don't have a port,'' it's something Israel can handle, Yadlin remarked.
- Ever since the siege was imposed, the fact that the Palestinians in Gaza voted for Hamas years ago is predictably trotted out to justify Israel's wars against the Palestinians trapped in the enclave. Gaza has no air defense, army, navy, or air force to speak of, but thousands of Palestinian civilians have been killed amid these canned hunts.
- But half of the population in Gaza '' approximately 1.15 million people '' are children who were no more than toddlers if they had even been born when Hamas won in 2006. Even then, the Islamists only won a plurality of the votes '' not a majority in any single district. The U.S.-Israeli-Egyptian-Fatah failed coup ended any power-sharing, there was never another election and popular sovereignty and collective guilt over bad opinions or votes are myths anyway.
- Likud Talking About Supporting Hamas
- As Israeli journalist Meron Rapaport and historian Adam Raz, among others, have extensively chronicled, this result of a divided and conquered Palestine, with Gaza under the control of Hamas terrorists, is exactly what Likud wanted:
- Likud spokesman Jonatan Urich, one of Netanyahu's media advisers, bragged that one of Netanyahu's key successes was disconnecting Gaza from the West Bank, both politically and conceptually. ''[Netanyahu] basically smashed the vision of the Palestinian state in these two places'... some of the achievement is related to the Qatari money reaching Hamas each month.''
- Netanyahu has previously dispatched high officials, such as Mossad chief Yosi Cohen, to Doha ''[begging] the Qataris to keep funneling money into Hamas'' as Avigdor Lieberman, the former defense minister put it.
- At times, this money would enter the Strip in suitcases full of millions of dollars at a time. As Haaretz's Amos Harel wrote back in November 2018,
- The criticism suffered by [Netanyahu] over the weekend was earned fair and square. The photos of $15 million in cash from Qatar entering the Gaza Strip in suitcases cast a ridiculous light on his repeated claims of being tough on Hamas. '...
- In reality, Netanyahu is conducting indirect negotiations with Hamas (though he and his government religiously refuse to confirm this). The Qatari cash, which will help preserve Hamas' hold on Gaza, could not have entered without his approval.
- From 2012-2018, Doha provided more than $1 billion to Hamas, hundreds of millions per year, with Tel Aviv's green light. Among other things, this money was used to fund education, healthcare, and aid '' including through the UN, pay government salaries and purchase fuel.
- Distel Atbaryan, former minister of information and current Likudnik member of the Knesset, defended the policy this way,
- Mark my words '' [Netanyahu] keeps Hamas on its feet so that the entire State of Israel won't become the 'Gaza envelope.' '... if Hamas collapses, [Abbas] is liable to control Gaza. If he will control it, voices from the left will arise advocating negotiations and a diplomatic settlement and a Palestinian state, including in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank].
- Later, she reiterated this point, ''[I]f Hamas crumbles, [Abbas] may rule [Gaza]. If he rules it, voices on the left will encourage '... a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria as well. '... [T]his is the real reason Netanyahu doesn't annihilate Hamas, everything else is bullshit.''
- Gershon Hacohen, a major general in reserves as well as an associate of Netanyahu, said, ''We need to tell the truth. Netanyahu's strategy is to prevent the option of two states, so he is turning Hamas into his closest partner. Openly Hamas is an enemy. Covertly, it's an ally.''
- Hacohen, elaborated further on the strategy, stressing that instead of taking out Hamas, ''[Netanyahu] prevented Abbas' plot to establish a united Palestinian state. We need to take advantage of the situation of separation between Gaza and Ramallah. This is a top Israeli interest, and it is impossible to understand the campaign in Gaza without understanding this context.'' Hacohen oversaw the ''disengagement'' policy in 2005.
- That same year, former Prime Minister Barak, Netanyahu's own former defense minister, presciently warned that Likud's strategy could blowback onto Israeli citizens, particularly those living near the besieged Gaza Strip. ''[Netanyahu's] strategy is to keep Hamas alive and kicking'... even at the price of abandoning the citizens [of the south] '... in order to weaken the PA in Ramallah.''
- Barak confirms that Netanyahu's goal was keeping the south ''on a constant low flame.'' The purpose was to support Hamas to weaken the PA and avoid any sincere negotiations toward a future Palestinian state. ''It's easier with Hamas to explain to Israelis that there is no one to sit with and no one to talk to. If the PA strengthens '... then there will be someone to talk to,'' he said.
- Also using an analogy about playing with fire, Prime Minister Netanyahu himself boasted to members of his party in the Knesset that he could reliably control the backdraft created by his strategy,
- Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas'... This is part of our strategy '' to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank'... It's impossible to reach an agreement with them '... Everyone knows this, but we control the height of the flames.
- Bezalel Smotrich, leader of Israel's Religious Zionist Party and the current Finance Minister was even more explicit. When asked by an interviewer about the danger of Hamas, Smotrich replied,
- The PA is a liability and Hamas is an asset. On the international playing field in this game of delegitimization, think about for a second, the PA is a liability and Hamas is an asset. It's a terrorist organization. Nobody will recognize it, nobody will give it status at the ICC [International Criminal Court] and nobody will let them push resolutions at the UN [causing us to] need an American veto. '...
- I'm not sure at all that given the current situation, given the current fact that the central playing field we're playing in is international, Abu Mazen (Abbas) is costing us serious [PR or political] casualties and Hamas in such a situation would be an asset. I don't think we need to be afraid of [Hamas].
- Likud MK Galit Distel Atbaryan approvingly wrote: ''We must say this honestly '' Netanyahu wants Hamas on its feet, and he is ready to pay almost any incomprehensible price for this. Half the country is paralyzed, children and parents are suffering from post-trauma, homes are blown up, people are killed, a street cat holds a nuclear tiger by the balls.''
- Yonatana Orich, who was a Likud campaign manager and an adviser to Netanyahu, agreed. ''[Netanyahu] succeeded in disconnecting between Gaza and Judea and Samaria, and effectively shattered the vision of a Palestinian state in these two areas. Part of the achievement is linked to the Qatari money that comes to Hamas every month.''
- Erez Tadmor, another Likud campaign adviser, wrote in support of the Prime Minister's policy:
- The preferred strategic reality for Israel is to maintain the split between Fatah and Hamas. The ideological fragmentation is inherent in the nature of the organizations. The geographic split is a consequence of PA rule in the Palestinian Authority and the Hamas coup in Gaza. This split between Abu Mazen's Palestinian Authority and Hamas's Gaza is optimal for Israel. This way we can hit Hamas in Gaza, and we are not required to retreat to the lines of Auschwitz due to the danger of a Hamas coup in [the West Bank].
- There is a reality that is even better than just a geographical split between [West Bank]-Fatah and Gaza-Hamas: the situation where Fatah controls [the West Bank] from a position of weakness in which its dependence on Israel is increasing, and Hamas controls Gaza from a position of weakness and its ability to harm Israel is limited. '... [T]his is exactly the situation we are in strategically in the Palestinian arena. The Palestinians are divided and weakened. Fatah is weak in the West, Hamas Weak in Gaza. Do you want better than this? Move to Tuscany, you will have a few years of peace until the barbarians arrive there too.
- The only thing that the brawlers who want to run and conquer Gaza at the cost of hundreds of deaths would have achieved if they had managed to impose their position was the worsening of Israel's strategic situation and not its improvement. You don't even understand what the Machiavellian Netanyahu achieved.
- An arrangement was made with Qatar, which began sending hundreds of millions of dollars to the Hamas leadership with Israeli approval. The insider told me that ''Bibi was convinced that he would have more control over Hamas with the Qatari money '-- let them occasionally fire rockets into southern Israel and have access to jobs inside Israel '-- than he would with the Palestinian Authority. He took that risk.
- This cavalier attitude was shared by commanders within Israel's apartheid army who were admonished by their lookouts that there was unusual activity near the border prior to the October 7 attack. As the Jerusalem Post reported,
- As questions remain about how Israel failed to thwart Hamas's assault, IDF lookouts told N12 on Monday that they had repeatedly warned their commanders of unusual incidents along the border, but were ignored.
- ''A day before everything happened, I saw people with maps,'' said one lookout to N12. ''They were looking at the fence and pointing at it. I told everyone: 'Listen, something is going to happen. I see them planning things.' I noticed that something was different on the front. I even told the person next to me in jest: 'Listen, they're going to storm our post.' It just looked different.''
- The lookout added that despite her warnings, her commanders ''discounted'' her concerns, telling her ''Hamas is just a bunch of punks, they won't do anything.''
- For decades the policies of the Arabian monarchs and neighboring Sunni Muslim states had been that they would not permanently normalize relations with Israel until the Palestinians finally got their independent state.
- But President Donald Trump's son in law Jared Kushner figured that the American people could afford the kings' price. Bahrain got F-16s, UAE was promised F-35s, Sudan got their debts rolled over onto American taxpayers and Trump ''recognized'' Morocco's theft of northern Western Sahara.
- All of this was in exchange for their abandoning the Palestinians and recognizing Israel under the so-called ''Abraham Accords.''
- Manama even signed defense cooperation and security agreements with Tel Aviv and Washington because, after all, the Accords are a thinly veiled foundation for a regional military coalition led by the US and Israel eyeing Iran. They were in the middle of negotiating with Saudi Arabia when the current round of killing broke out.
- Last month, Netanyahu even presented a map of ''The New Middle East'' to the UN General Assembly with Palestine, from the river to the sea, completely erased.
- ''There's no question: the Abraham Accords heralded the dawn of a new age of peace,'' Netanyahu announced. ''I believe we're on the cusp of a more dramatic breakthrough: a historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia.'' He continued, emphasizing
- [W]e must not give the Palestinians a veto over new peace treaties with Arab states. '... See, the Palestinians are only 2% of the Arab world. As long as they believe that the other 98% will remain in a war-like state with Israel, that larger mass, that larger Arab world could eventually choke, dissolve, destroy the Jewish state.
- So when the Palestinians see that most of the Arab world has reconciled itself to the Jewish state, they too will be more likely to abandon the fantasy of destroying Israel and finally embrace a path of genuine peace with it.
- By ''destroying Israel,'' of course Netanyahu just meant the Palestinians would have to give up their hope of ever getting their independent state or equal rights as citizens under Israeli sovereignty. Now that they know no one is coming to help them, they would finally just accept their utter defeat and permanent status as militarily occupied stateless and rights-less conquered people, he thought.
- In March, Smotrich even proclaimed that there is ''no such thing as a Palestinian people.''
- The Donald Trump and Joe Biden administrations, along with Netanyahu, also believed the Palestinians could be erased. They envisioned a Middle East where Washington's long-time Arab dictatorship vassals would all finally plant the Palestinians firmly under the bus, recognize Israel, and sign these phony peace deals in exchange for American arms as well as other favors.
- But before Israel began its latest war on Gaza, recent polling exposed that as a result of Israeli massacres and war crimes committed against the Palestinians, the Abraham Accords had become increasingly unpopular among the populace in Bahrain and the UAE.
- In July, with the support of the Joe Biden administration, Israel's security forces invaded and bombed the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, killing a dozen people including five children. Israeli bulldozers tore up the camp's roads, electricity, and water networks. 1,000 troops participated in the raid, along with Apache helicopters, drones, and 150 armored vehicles.
- Another point of contention in the region is Netanyahu's policies of setting records this year for settlement expansion and construction in illegal Jewish-only colonies, further eviscerating even the pretense of a future Palestinian state.
- Israeli forces and settlers have repeatedly desecrated the Al-Aqsa Mosque this year, Islam's third holiest site. During the holy month of Ramadan, worshipers within, including women and children, were viciously beaten. Members of Netanyahu's cabinet have also encouraged attacks against Palestinian Christians, which have escalated substantially.
- For Palestinians, prior to this month, this year was already one of the deadliest on record. Before the end of September, more than 220 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli forces, including over three dozen children. That figure included 187 people who were murdered in the occupied territories and another 37 killed '' mostly amidst a smaller bombing campaign '' in the Gaza Strip.
- And then October 7 and its aftermath came.
- The Netanyahu Doctrine was dead wrong. Peace in the region must be made with the Palestinians. But never again will any heads of state be foolish enough to believe Palestine and its people can be circumvented, erased or ignored.
- The day after the October 7th attack, Israeli journalist Tal Schneider railed against the failure of the Netanyahu Doctrine policy in the Times Of Israel,
- For years, the various governments led by [Netanyahu] took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank '' bringing [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group.
- The idea was to prevent Abbas '' or anyone else in the [PA's] West Bank government '' from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state.
- Thus, amid this bid to impair Abbas, Hamas was upgraded from a mere terror group to an organization with which Israel held indirect negotiations via Egypt, and one that was allowed to receive infusions of cash from abroad. '...
- One thing is clear: The concept of indirectly strengthening Hamas '-- while tolerating sporadic attacks and minor military operations every few years '-- went up in smoke Saturday.
- Slaughtering 'Human Animals'
- Since the October 7th attack led by Hamas, Israel has pummeled Gaza indiscriminately with thousands of bombs killing more than 11,000 Palestinians, including over 3,000 women and 4,500 children. Concurrently, in the West Bank, over 180 Palestinians have been killed by settlers and Israeli occupation forces including 44 children.
- On October 26, foreign ministers from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt along with Abraham Accords signatory states the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco published a joint statement condemning Israel's collective punishment against the Palestinians in Gaza. The diplomats implored the UN Security Council to implement a ceasefire immediately, as now more than half of all residential units in the enclave are said to have been obliterated.
- After 35 straight days of bombing, Mondoweiss reported,
- Israel ramps up its attacks on Gaza hospitals, where thousands are seeking refuge.260 people killed in Gaza in span of 24 hours.Several Gaza City hospitals are surrounded by Israeli forces and fear the worst.Water, food, and electricity shortages put more lives at risk as medical facilities on the verge of full shutdown.Amidst the high-scale devastation, Netanyahu tells Fox News, ''we don't seek to displace anyone.'' [Per the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 1.58 million people '-- about 65% of Gaza's population '-- have been internally displaced by the bombardment and ground invasion.]Israel announces daily four-hour ''tactical, localized'' pauses in bombardments of Gaza, denounced by U.N. special rapporteur as ''cynical and cruel.''U.S. indicates concern for diplomatic impact of its support of Israel, as diplomatic cables warn the country is losing the Arab public ''for a generation.''Death toll rises in the West Bank.The death toll of Palestinian civilians in Gaza may soon skyrocket, as Tel Aviv has cut off Gaza's food, water, electricity, and medicine while increasingly targeting hospitals with airstrikes and ground attacks.
- According to Al Jazeera, ''198 medical staff have now been killed, and 87 ambulances damaged. 21 out of 35 hospitals are out of service in Gaza, and 51 out of 72 primary medical care facilities are out of operation,'' as a result of the Israeli onslaught.
- As the outlet detailed on November 10th,
- Battles have intensified around several hospitals in northern Gaza, with some receiving direct hits and reports of casualties among patients and tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians sheltering at the facilities, as Israeli troops continue their advance.
- Gaza's Ministry of Health said on Friday that Israeli tanks have been closing in on at least four hospitals from all directions.
- The head of Al-Shifa Hospital, Muhammad Abu Salmiya, told Al Jazeera, ''This day was a day of war on hospitals.''
- ''The sick and wounded occupy all of the hospital's corridors, and we cannot perform surgical operations,'' Salmiya said.
- ''We cannot find a single bed to place victims on,'' he added about the situation in Gaza's largest medical facility. ''We are taking difficult decisions between who to save and who to let die '... as I speak to you I am standing in front of 100 dead bodies.''
- The White House's unconditional backing of this unprecedented Israeli mass murder and destruction campaign against Gaza threatens to drag Americans into a regional war with Hezbollah, Iran and their Resistance Axis allies including in Iraq and Syria, where U.S. forces illegally occupy a third of that war-torn country.
- The destruction of Washington's Global War on Terror and regime change wars of the last 20 years could be dwarfed by such a conflict.
- To put this in perspective, the American government's wars in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia during this century killed and caused the deaths of well over four million people.
- Washington should immediately cut all of its illegal military aid and ties with Tel Aviv, as well as cease its disgraceful diplomatic and propaganda cover. American forces should not be in harm's way to ''deter'' other actors from getting involved, nor to defend this merciless regime. The Israeli government, currently waging siege warfare against Gaza, slaughtering thousands of women and children, has declared the Strip is populated by ''human animals.''
- Tel Aviv is now waging its ground invasion, the American people must swiftly demand a lifting of the siege and a ceasefire.
- Connor Freeman is the assistant editor and a writer at the Libertarian Institute, primarily covering foreign policy. He is a co-host on the Conflicts of Interest podcast. His writing has been featured in media outlets such as Antiwar.com, Counterpunch, and the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. He has also appeared on Liberty Weekly, Around the Empire, and Parallax Views. You can follow him on Twitter @FreemansMind96.
- Scott Horton is director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of Antiwar.com, host of Antiwar Radio on Pacifica, 90.7 FM KPFK in Los Angeles, California and podcasts the Scott Horton Show from ScottHorton.org. He's the author of the 2021 book Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism, the 2017 book, Fool's Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan, editor of the 2019 book The Great Ron Paul: The Scott Horton Show Interviews 2004''2019 and the 2022 book Hotter Than The Sun: Time to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. He's conducted more than 5,900 interviews since 2003. Scott lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, Larisa Alexandrovna Horton.
- Author: Scott HortonScott Horton is editorial director of Antiwar.com, director of the Libertarian Institute, host of Antiwar Radio on Pacifica, 90.7 FM KPFK in Los Angeles, California and podcasts the Scott Horton Show from ScottHorton.org. He's the author of the 2021 book Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism, the 2017 book, Fool's Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and the editor of the 2019 book, The Great Ron Paul: The Scott Horton Show Interviews 2004''2019. He's conducted more than 5,500 interviews since 2003. Scott's articles have appeared at Antiwar.com, The American Conservative magazine, the History News Network, The Future of Freedom, The National Interest and the Christian Science Monitor. He also contributed a chapter to the 2019 book, The Impact of War. Scott lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, investigative reporter Larisa Alexandrovna Horton. He is a fan of, but no relation to the lawyer from Harper's. Scott's Twitter, YouTube, Patreon.View all posts by Scott Horton
- Hemp fibres 'better than graphene' - BBC News
- Image source, ThinkstockBy James Morgan
- Science reporter, BBC News, San Francisco
- The waste fibres from hemp crops can be transformed into high-performance energy storage devices, scientists say.
- They "cooked" cannabis bark into carbon nanosheets and built supercapacitors "on a par with or better than graphene" - the industry gold standard.
- Electric cars and power tools could harness this hemp technology, the US researchers say.
- They presented their work at the American Chemical Society meeting in San Francisco.
- "People ask me: why hemp? I say, why not?" said Dr David Mitlin of Clarkson University, New York, who describes his device in the journal ACS Nano.
- "We're making graphene-like materials for a thousandth of the price - and we're doing it with waste.
- "The hemp we use is perfectly legal to grow. It has no THC in it at all - so there's no overlap with any recreational activities."
- In countries including China, Canada and the UK, hemp can be grown industrially for clothing and building materials.
- But the leftover bast fibre - the inner bark - typically ends up as landfill.
- Dr Mitlin's team took these fibres and recycled them into supercapacitors - energy storage devices which are transforming the way electronics are powered.
- Conventional batteries store large reservoirs of energy and drip-feed it slowly, whereas supercapacitors can rapidly discharge their entire load.
- They are ideal in machines that rely on sharp bursts of power. In electric cars, for example, supercapacitors are used for regenerative braking.
- Releasing this torrent requires electrodes with high surface area - one of graphene's many phenomenal properties.
- Stronger than diamond, more conductive than copper and more flexible than rubber, the "miracle material" was the target of a £50m investment by UK Chancellor George Osborne.
- But while this carbon monolayer is the state-of-the-art material for commercial supercapacitors, it is prohibitively expensive to produce.
- Finding cheap, sustainable alternatives is the speciality of Dr Mitlin's former research group at the University of Alberta.
- They have experimented with all flavours of biowaste - from peat moss to eggs. Most recently, they turned banana peel into batteries.
- Image source, Oli Scarff / Getty
- Image caption, George Osborne invested £50m in graphene
- "You can do really interesting things with bio-waste. We've pretty much figured out the secret sauce of it," said Dr Mitlin.
- The trick is to tailor the right plant fibre to the right electrical device - according to their organic structure.
- "With banana peels, you can turn them into a dense block of carbon - we call it pseudo-graphite - and that's great for sodium ion batteries," he explained.
- "But if you look at hemp fibre its structure is the opposite - it makes sheets with high surface area - and that's very conducive to supercapacitors."
- The first step, he explained, "is to cook it - almost like a pressure cooker. It's called hydrothermal synthesis.
- "Once you dissolve the lignin and the semicellulose, it leaves these carbon nanosheets - a pseudo-graphene structure."
- By fabricating these sheets into electrodes and adding an ionic liquid as the electrolyte, his team made supercapacitors which operate at a broad range of temperatures and a high energy density.
- Direct comparisons with rival devices are complicated by the variety of measures for performance.
- But Mitlin's peer-reviewed journal paper ranks the device "on par with or better than commercial graphene-based devices".
- "They work down to 0C and display some of the best power-energy combinations reported in the literature for any carbon.
- "For example, at a very high power density of 20 kW/kg (kilowatt per kilo) and temperatures of 20, 60, and 100C, the energy densities are 19, 34, and 40 Wh/kg (watt-hours per kilo) respectively."
- Fully assembled, their energy density is 12 Wh/kg, which can be achieved at a charge time less than six seconds.
- "Obviously hemp can't do all the things graphene can," Dr Mitlin concedes.
- "But for energy storage, it works just as well. And it costs a fraction of the price -$500-1,000 a tonne."
- Having established a proof of principle, his start-up company Alta Supercaps is hoping to begin small-scale manufacturing.
- It plans to market devices to the oil and gas industries - where high-temperature operation is a valuable asset.
- His move to the US coincides with a change in regulatory attitudes - with signs that hemp could be making a comeback.
- In China the crop is widely cultivated, and in Canada, the industry for textiles is growing.
- "Fifty miles down the road from my house in Alberta there was an agricultural hemp processing facility. And all that bast fibre - it just sits in a high bay, and they don't know what to do with it," Dr Mitlin told BBC News.
- "It's a waste product looking for a value-added application. People are almost paying you to take it away."
- And if the technology really takes off - it could help economies, he argues.
- "It's a robust plant - you can even grow it in Alberta, Manitoba.
- "A lot of farmers would be thrilled to grow hemp."
- Chinese Scientist Discover New Protein to Permanently Enlarge Penis Length by up to 22%
- >Industry is rushing for more clinical studies and mass production>Anti-Lysyl Oxidase (LOX) Antibody is an antibody against Lysyl Oxidase (LOX) for use in Western Blotting, IHC(P).>We confirmed that Anti-LOX promoted penile growth, especially when combined with a VED force>Our previous study found that inhibiting LOX activity (Anti-LOX) promoted tunica albuginea remodeling by reducing collagen crosslinking, which finally increased penile length
- www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-38888-y
- www.merckmillipore.com/CH/de/product/Anti-Lysyl-Oxidase-LOX-Antibody,MM_NF-ABT112?ReferrerURL=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F
- Alaska Airlines grounds 737 Max 9 planes after section blows out mid-air
- By Thomas Mackintosh & Kathryn Armstrong BBC News
- Watch: Inside Alaska Airlines plane as part blows off mid-airA passenger plane lost a section of its fuselage in mid-air, forcing it to make an emergency landing in the US state of Oregon on Friday.
- The Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 returned to Portland 35 minutes into its flight to California after an outer section, including a window, fell off.
- Alaska said 177 passengers and crew were on board and it "landed safely".
- The airline said it would "temporarily" ground all 65 of its 737 Max 9 aircraft to conduct inspections.
- Boeing said it was aware of the incident and is "working to gather more information".
- The UK Civil Aviation Authority told the BBC it is "monitoring the situation very closely".
- Passenger Diego Murillo, who had been on his way to Ontario, California, said the gap was "as wide as a refrigerator" and described hearing a "really loud bang" as the oxygen masks dropped from above.
- He told KPTV: "They said there was a kid in that row whose shirt was sucked off him and out of the plane and his mother was holding onto him to make sure he didn't go with it."
- Listen: Alaska flight's distress call to air traffic controlAnnouncing the grounding of the 65 planes, Alaska Airlines' CEO Ben Minicucci said: "Each aircraft will be returned to service only after completion of full maintenance and safety inspections."
- Mr Minicucci praised the efforts of the six crew members on board the flight which had reached 16,000ft (4,876m) when it began its emergency descent, according to flight tracking data.
- Images sent to news outlets show the night sky visible through the gap in the aircraft's fuselage, with insulation material and other debris also seen.
- Oxygen masks deployed during the incident, which began at 16,000 feet shortly after take-offOther pictures show the seat closest to the affected section, a window seat that passengers said was unoccupied, leaning forward without its cushion.
- "My heart goes out to those who were on this flight - I am so sorry for what you experienced," Mr Minicucci said.
- "I am so grateful for the response of our pilots and flight attendants."
- 'We're an emergency'In an audio clip, the pilot can be heard talking to air traffic control requesting a diversion.
- "We'd like to get lower if possible," she asked. "We are an emergency. We are depressurised, we do need to return back. We have 177 passengers."
- According to photographs, the affected area was in the back third of the plane, behind the wing and engines.
- The section of fuselage involved appears to be an area that can be used as an additional emergency exit door by some operators of the aircraft type, but not by Alaska.
- The US Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) confirmed Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 "returned safely... after the crew reported a pressurisation issue".
- Boeing said a "technical team stands ready to support the investigation".
- The seat immediately next to the broken fuselage was said by passengers to be unoccupiedThe National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) confirmed it is investigating the incident.
- The Boeing 737 Max has been described as "the most scrutinised transport aircraft in history" after a series of safety issues and investigations.
- The Max was grounded in March 2019 for a year-and-a-half after two of the type crashed in similar circumstances, killing those on board.
- Aviation expert John Strickland said the Alaska Airlines incident is very different to those crashes, adding since the 737 Max came back into service it had "an enormous safety record".
- "While we know little evidence of why this section of the fuselage has come out - this has nothing to do with the aircraft being grounded for 18 months," he told BBC News.
- "But, it is natural Alaska Airlines is taking a cautious approach grounding its fleet and we will have to see what happens in the coming hours if any more directives are issued by Boeing and the American authorities."
- More recently, Boeing said it would increase the pace of 737 Max deliveries after resolving a supply error that required it to conduct lengthy inspections of new planes and its inventory, Reuters news agency reported.
- About 1,300 737 Max aircraft have been delivered to customers, Boeing data shows.
- Last month, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) urged airlines to inspect Max models for a possible loose bolt in rudder control systems.
- Were you on this flight? You can share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.
- Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:
- WhatsApp: +44 7756 165803Tweet: @BBC_HaveYourSayUpload pictures or videoPlease read our terms & conditions and privacy policyIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.
- Good Christian Fun | Two Friends, Three Mics | Podcastindex.org
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- 94.1 WIP parent company Audacy bankruptcy filing is imminent. How will Philly radio stations fare?
- Audacy, the parent company of 94.1 WIP, KYW NewsRadio 1060, and several other Philly radio stations, is preparing to file for bankruptcy within weeks, the Wall Street Journal reported.
- The Philadelphia-based radio company, which owns hundreds of stations nationwide, is grappling with $1.9 billion in debt while navigating an advertising slump. The company, which has a podcast partnership with The Inquirer, reported a $234.3 million loss in the third quarter of this year and skipped a debt payment in September. It also delayed a debt repayment of $18.9 million that had been due in December, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
- Audacy did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but CEO David Field issued a statement in October about the company engaging ''in discussions with our lenders.''
- ''We continue to drive progress across our key performance metrics, meaningfully advance our ad tech and product road map and enter new partnerships to enhance content, distribution and monetization opportunities,'' Field said.
- What does Audacy's bankruptcy mean for WIP and other radio stations?
- Audacy has already negotiated a bankruptcy plan with its lenders, who are expected to assume ownership of the company following the restructuring, according to the Wall Street Journal. As a result, the bankruptcy filing isn't expected to have much day-to-day impact on WIP, which recently agreed to a six-year deal that will extend the broadcast rights for Eagles games through the 2028 season, according to industry sources.
- Listeners probably won't notice immediate changes at KYW or the company's four other Philly stations: the New 96.5, 1210-AM WPHT, B101, and 98.1 WOGL.
- What's unclear is how much Audacy's impending bankruptcy and poor financial situation will impact talent.
- Last week, former WIP afternoon cohost Jon Marks cited the company's financial situation as one reason he opted to depart the station, despite the ratings success he's had with former Eagles defender Ike Reese. Marks told Crossing Broad that during contract negotiations, WIP made it clear it wasn't going to offer him a contract that paid as much as retired morning show host Angelo Cataldi or longtime sports talker Howard Eskin.
- ''After Angelo was gone, they said, 'Hey we're not paying people Angelo money anymore, we're not paying people Howard money, we're not paying people Anthony Gargano money.' '... They had, 'This is what we're willing to offer you,' '' Marks said, adding, ''I knew this was over a year ago. They knew they were only going to go a certain amount, and I knew that wasn't going to be enough.''
- Despite that, WIP is adding talent. Last week, NBC Sports Philadelphia Flyers host Ashlyn Sullivan was added as a part-time host, and former 97.5 The Fanatic afternoon cohost Hunter Brody has been filling in over the last month.
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- Alaska Airlines grounds Boeing 737-9 fleet after emergency landing in Portland
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- VIDEO - Despite US Supreme Court appeal, Trump certified as candidate on Colorado GOP ballot - ABC News
- It comes as the U.S. Supreme Court has taken up the 14th Amendment case.
- Former President Donald Trump is among the list of candidates certified by Colorado's secretary of state on Friday to be on the state's Republican primary ballot.
- That, despite the U.S. Supreme Court saying Friday it will consider an appeal by Trump's legal team of a Colorado Supreme Court ruling that declared him disqualified under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
- Friday Jan. 5 was the deadline for Secretary Jena Griswold to certify candidates to each political party's presidential primary ballots, which gives county clerks the go-ahead to print their ballots.
- Those clerks can begin mailing the ballots to military and overseas voters on Jan. 20, ahead of the state's March 5 primary election.
- Trump's certification comes amid a Colorado Supreme Court's ruling on Dec. 19 that held him ineligible to compete in the GOP primary because, the court found, he ''engaged in insurrection'' on Jan. 6, 2021.
- Former President Donald Trump greets the crowd at a campaign rally, Dec. 16, 2023, in Durham, N.H.
- The former president is able to remain on the certification list, however, because Colorado's high court placed a stay on its decision, pending an appeal filed by Jan. 4, which the Trump team did.
- The Colorado GOP appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 27 and Trump's attorneys appealed on Jan. 3, which effectively placed him back on the GOP candidate list.
- Unless the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the Colorado Supreme Court's ruling, Trump would remain on the list.
- The nation's high court on Friday said it would consider the appeal of Trump's disqualification from the Colorado GOP primary ballot, setting oral arguments for Thursday, Feb. 8.
- Ballots cannot be changed once they are printed, Griswold said, but Colorado does have procedures in place for candidates on the ballot who then drop out or become disqualified.
- The secretary has "broad rulemaking authority," according to Colorado code, so as to "avoid voter confusion."
- Griswold said she would not count the votes cast for Trump if he is ruled off the ballot after ballots are sent out and votes are cast for him.
- ''Once the ballots are printed, it's done that the ballots are what they are,'' Griswold said.
- Colorado would embark on enacting that procedure once they have guidance from the U.S. Supreme Court -- either a decision not to review the case or a ruling on the side of the Colorado Supreme Court.
- ABC News' Devin Dwyer contributed to this report.
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- VIDEO - US says ISIS could have carried out Iran bombing | The Hill
- The U.S.-designated terrorist group ISIS could have carried out the deadly bombing in Iran on Wednesday that killed more than 100 people, according to a senior U.S. official.
- ''It does look like a terrorist attack. The type of thing we've seen ISIS do in the past,'' said the official. ''And as far as we're aware, that's '... our going assumption at the moment.''
- Iranian officials have also blamed the bombing in the southeastern city of Kerman on a terrorist attack, without elaborating on who was behind it.
- Iran has for years battled ISIS, an extremist Islamic group that is avowedly anti-Iran and anti-Shia, primarily through proxies in Iraq and Syria. Though ISIS has suffered major losses at the hands of American forces and other groups, it still maintains sleeper cells across the Middle East.
- Top Stories from The HillSenate Democrats scoff at Biden's Israel arms saleTrump appeals Colorado ballot ban to Supreme CourtAttacks in Lebanon, Iran inject new volatility into Middle EastTrump's lawyer confirms his concern about Supreme Court ballot ruling The U.S. and Israel are locked in a tense shadow conflict with Iran across the Middle East amid the war in Gaza. But a strike on Iranian soil would be unprecedented and a major escalation in the region, which the U.S. is trying to prevent.
- Israel last month assassinated an Iranian general, but that was on Syrian soil. White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said Wednesday there is no indication that Israel was behind the explosion in Kerman.
- Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei condemned the attacks Wednesday and called for a harsh response against the assailants.
- The bombing killed 103 people and injured another 141, according to Iranian state-run media outlets.
- Crowds of people had gathered at the Martyrs Cemetery in Kerman to mark the four-year anniversary of the death of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was slain in a U.S. drone strike in 2020.
- There were two explosions Wednesday at the tomb of Soleimani, one just a couple hundred feet from the site and another more than half a mile away. Iranian officials believe the second explosion, which came 20 minutes after the first, caused most of the fatalities.
- Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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