Comprehensive study of West Antarctic Ice Sheet finds collapse may be unavoidable
- By PanamaSteve
- OT Talk
- 0 Replies
The study is the first attempt to model the uncertain atmosphere and ocean processes that could doom the sheet's ice shelves, leading to considerable sea level rise.
The U.S. Antarctic Program research vessel Nathaniel B. Palmer works along the Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf in West Antarctica in February 2019.Alexandra Mazur / University of Gothenburg via Reuters file
Oct. 23, 2023, 10:00 AM CDT
By Evan Bush
The most comprehensive effort yet to predict how global warming will affect the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has found there is little humanity can do to stop its ice shelves from melting, which could collapse the sheet and raise sea levels by several feet in the coming centuries.
The report, published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Communications, is a full-throated warning that one of the worst sea-level rise scenarios scientists have cautioned about since the 1970s is most likely in progress and that little can be done to stop it.
The study is the first attempt to model the uncertain atmosphere and ocean processes that could doom the ice shelves, and it doesn’t factor all of the variables that could play a role in melting. Key questions remain unanswered, including how much melt our emissions to date will cause and how fast it is expected to happen.
“It appears we may have lost control of the west Antarctic ice shelf melting over the 21st century,” said Kaitlin Naughten, an ocean modeler with the British Antarctic Survey, who is the lead author of the new study. “West Antarctic ice shelf melting is one impact of climate change that we’re probably just going to have to adapt to, and that very likely means some amount of sea level rise we cannot avoid. Coastal communities will either have to build around or be abandoned.”
Coastal communities will either have to build around or be abandoned.
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet, near the southern tip of South America, is considered by scientists to be one of the most important potential contributors to sea level rise because of climate change. The marine ice sheet sits on bedrock below sea level, contains glaciers that flow toward the sea and is surrounded by floating ice shelves.
Outside researchers said the study represented an important advance in understanding the stresses a warming ocean will put on this critical ice sheet.
“There’s uncertainty in what the ice sheet will do, and there’s uncertainty in what climate it will feel,” said Eric Steig, the chair of the Department of Earth and Space at the University of Washington, who was not involved in the study. “It’s a really important paper because it’s the first to take a comprehensive view of the uncertainties in the climate part of the story.”
The study doesn’t make specific sea level rise predictions, but outside researchers have estimated in the past that the total collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet could contribute about 10 feet to overall sea level rise.
The melt process would likely take several centuries, Steig said. Other processes are contributing to sea level rise, including the melting of Greenland’s ice sheet, the loss of mountain glaciers and the expansion of ocean water due to warming. Researchers are scrambling to understand these complicated ice sheet dynamics and whether there are critical thresholds for runaway melt.
Without adaptation, 10 feet of sea level rise would likely submerge much of Miami and South Florida, make Baton Rouge, Louisiana, oceanfront property and inundate the Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook in New York City, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration maps that give rough estimates of sea level changes.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its 2021 report estimated that the sea level would rise 0.9 to 3.3 feet (0.28 to 1.01 meters), but said those numbers didn’t factor uncertain ice sheet processes like the ones being studied in this new paper. Naughten said her findings suggest those estimates are too low.
“I would personally double any number IPCC has. They’re fairly conservative,” said David Schneider, a polar scientist and climate modeler at the University of Colorado in Boulder, who was not involved in the new study. “I’d put an upper bound of 2 meters, at least, with a lot of uncertainty.”
The new study suggests that changes to ocean circulation caused by global warming allow more warm water to eat away at the ice shelves in the Amundsen Sea, accelerating melting. The ice shelves buttress glaciers within the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Those glaciers would likely see “irreversible retreat” — collapsing the ice sheet, the study says.
The scientists modeled how the system would respond in several climate scenarios, including the most aggressive emission reductions world leaders are considering. Nothing made a substantive difference over the next several decades.
Even if humans stopped all fossil fuel use today and shut off the faucet of greenhouse gas emissions, “it wouldn’t be an on-off switch” for the ice shelves, said Catherine Walker, a glaciologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, a nonprofit research organization in Massachusetts, who studies Antarctica and was not involved in the study. “The processes already in motion would carry the current setting through over several decades.”
The study is the most comprehensive modeling of future ocean conditions and how they will stress the ice sheet, but it’s a single model that should be replicated and expanded upon, experts say. The model doesn’t factor all the complexities of the melt out, including changes to snowfall or how the ice sheet’s geometry will change as it melts.
“This is a first effort, and there’s a lot of stuff that’s unknown and that they’ve left out,” Steig, of the University of Washington, said.
Steig said he would bet — based on his own research and from following other Antarctic scientists’ work for decades — that it will take hundreds or thousands of years for the effects of global warming to collapse the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
“Things are not looking great for Antarctica,” Steig said. But, this new study, which Steig said was novel, based on solid science and reputable, doesn’t give him more confidence in that bet. “It gives me the same level of uncertainty I already had.”
The next step for this line of research is to combine these findings with a detailed ice sheet model to see how it cracks and evolves.
“An extra piece to this puzzle is: How does the ice melt?” said Walker, of Woods Hole. “That’s a giant question and drives some of the largest uncertainties of sea level rise.”
This modeling research is also limited by a relatively short history of observational data from satellites, field science or weather stations that could help guide the model to a more accurate result. Incorporating more information about past climates could help researchers piece together what ice previously existed.
Peter Neff, a glaciologist, climate scientist and assistant research professor at the University of Minnesota who was not involved in the study, said its findings are “constrained” because there hasn’t been enough on-the-ice science near the Amundsen Sea Coast, which is known for its foul weather and remote location.
Neff is traveling to an area near West Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier — sometimes called the Doomsday Glacier — this January to collect the first modern climate-focused ice core from the Amundsen Sea coast area. Ice cores are long cylinders of ice drilled out of the surface. The internal chemistry of different layers of the ice can be analyzed to tell what climate conditions were like in the past.
“We want things to be grounded by observations,” Neff said, to prove the model can accurately represent the past and predict the future.
Scientists will go about gathering new data, reducing the uncertainty and providing a clear view of what’s to come with sea level rise. All of the researchers agreed: Much higher seas are coming and policymakers must prepare now.
“If we can plan ahead to reduce human suffering and save human lives, that’s better than closing our eyes when the ocean is on our doorstep,” Naughten, the study’s lead author, said.
The U.S. Antarctic Program research vessel Nathaniel B. Palmer works along the Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf in West Antarctica in February 2019.Alexandra Mazur / University of Gothenburg via Reuters file
Oct. 23, 2023, 10:00 AM CDT
By Evan Bush
The most comprehensive effort yet to predict how global warming will affect the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has found there is little humanity can do to stop its ice shelves from melting, which could collapse the sheet and raise sea levels by several feet in the coming centuries.
The report, published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Communications, is a full-throated warning that one of the worst sea-level rise scenarios scientists have cautioned about since the 1970s is most likely in progress and that little can be done to stop it.
The study is the first attempt to model the uncertain atmosphere and ocean processes that could doom the ice shelves, and it doesn’t factor all of the variables that could play a role in melting. Key questions remain unanswered, including how much melt our emissions to date will cause and how fast it is expected to happen.
“It appears we may have lost control of the west Antarctic ice shelf melting over the 21st century,” said Kaitlin Naughten, an ocean modeler with the British Antarctic Survey, who is the lead author of the new study. “West Antarctic ice shelf melting is one impact of climate change that we’re probably just going to have to adapt to, and that very likely means some amount of sea level rise we cannot avoid. Coastal communities will either have to build around or be abandoned.”
Coastal communities will either have to build around or be abandoned.
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet, near the southern tip of South America, is considered by scientists to be one of the most important potential contributors to sea level rise because of climate change. The marine ice sheet sits on bedrock below sea level, contains glaciers that flow toward the sea and is surrounded by floating ice shelves.
Outside researchers said the study represented an important advance in understanding the stresses a warming ocean will put on this critical ice sheet.
“There’s uncertainty in what the ice sheet will do, and there’s uncertainty in what climate it will feel,” said Eric Steig, the chair of the Department of Earth and Space at the University of Washington, who was not involved in the study. “It’s a really important paper because it’s the first to take a comprehensive view of the uncertainties in the climate part of the story.”
The study doesn’t make specific sea level rise predictions, but outside researchers have estimated in the past that the total collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet could contribute about 10 feet to overall sea level rise.
The melt process would likely take several centuries, Steig said. Other processes are contributing to sea level rise, including the melting of Greenland’s ice sheet, the loss of mountain glaciers and the expansion of ocean water due to warming. Researchers are scrambling to understand these complicated ice sheet dynamics and whether there are critical thresholds for runaway melt.
Without adaptation, 10 feet of sea level rise would likely submerge much of Miami and South Florida, make Baton Rouge, Louisiana, oceanfront property and inundate the Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook in New York City, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration maps that give rough estimates of sea level changes.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its 2021 report estimated that the sea level would rise 0.9 to 3.3 feet (0.28 to 1.01 meters), but said those numbers didn’t factor uncertain ice sheet processes like the ones being studied in this new paper. Naughten said her findings suggest those estimates are too low.
“I would personally double any number IPCC has. They’re fairly conservative,” said David Schneider, a polar scientist and climate modeler at the University of Colorado in Boulder, who was not involved in the new study. “I’d put an upper bound of 2 meters, at least, with a lot of uncertainty.”
The new study suggests that changes to ocean circulation caused by global warming allow more warm water to eat away at the ice shelves in the Amundsen Sea, accelerating melting. The ice shelves buttress glaciers within the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Those glaciers would likely see “irreversible retreat” — collapsing the ice sheet, the study says.
The scientists modeled how the system would respond in several climate scenarios, including the most aggressive emission reductions world leaders are considering. Nothing made a substantive difference over the next several decades.
Even if humans stopped all fossil fuel use today and shut off the faucet of greenhouse gas emissions, “it wouldn’t be an on-off switch” for the ice shelves, said Catherine Walker, a glaciologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, a nonprofit research organization in Massachusetts, who studies Antarctica and was not involved in the study. “The processes already in motion would carry the current setting through over several decades.”
The study is the most comprehensive modeling of future ocean conditions and how they will stress the ice sheet, but it’s a single model that should be replicated and expanded upon, experts say. The model doesn’t factor all the complexities of the melt out, including changes to snowfall or how the ice sheet’s geometry will change as it melts.
“This is a first effort, and there’s a lot of stuff that’s unknown and that they’ve left out,” Steig, of the University of Washington, said.
Steig said he would bet — based on his own research and from following other Antarctic scientists’ work for decades — that it will take hundreds or thousands of years for the effects of global warming to collapse the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
“Things are not looking great for Antarctica,” Steig said. But, this new study, which Steig said was novel, based on solid science and reputable, doesn’t give him more confidence in that bet. “It gives me the same level of uncertainty I already had.”
The next step for this line of research is to combine these findings with a detailed ice sheet model to see how it cracks and evolves.
“An extra piece to this puzzle is: How does the ice melt?” said Walker, of Woods Hole. “That’s a giant question and drives some of the largest uncertainties of sea level rise.”
This modeling research is also limited by a relatively short history of observational data from satellites, field science or weather stations that could help guide the model to a more accurate result. Incorporating more information about past climates could help researchers piece together what ice previously existed.
Peter Neff, a glaciologist, climate scientist and assistant research professor at the University of Minnesota who was not involved in the study, said its findings are “constrained” because there hasn’t been enough on-the-ice science near the Amundsen Sea Coast, which is known for its foul weather and remote location.
Neff is traveling to an area near West Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier — sometimes called the Doomsday Glacier — this January to collect the first modern climate-focused ice core from the Amundsen Sea coast area. Ice cores are long cylinders of ice drilled out of the surface. The internal chemistry of different layers of the ice can be analyzed to tell what climate conditions were like in the past.
“We want things to be grounded by observations,” Neff said, to prove the model can accurately represent the past and predict the future.
Scientists will go about gathering new data, reducing the uncertainty and providing a clear view of what’s to come with sea level rise. All of the researchers agreed: Much higher seas are coming and policymakers must prepare now.
“If we can plan ahead to reduce human suffering and save human lives, that’s better than closing our eyes when the ocean is on our doorstep,” Naughten, the study’s lead author, said.
Leading Republicans concede the party is now in ‘a very bad place’
- By PanamaSteve
- OT Talk
- 1 Replies
It usually falls to Democrats to say Republicans are a dysfunctional mess. Lately, some GOP voices have been willing to acknowledge reality on their own.
Oct. 23, 2023, 11:53 AM CDT
By Steve Benen
It’s easy to think of other modern instances in which the Republican Party had fallen on hard times. After Watergate, for example, the GOP’s reputation took a dramatic hit. After the 1998 midterm elections, Republican politics was in shambles as then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich resigned and his successor, Bob Livingston, was derailed by a sex scandal.
In the final two years of George W. Bush’s presidency, the party’s standing reached cringe-worthy depths, thanks to a combination of congressional corruption scandals, the war in Iraq, and an economic crash.
But it’s hardly a stretch to think today’s GOP has reached a new low. As ugly as Republican politics became in these earlier eras, the party at least had the capacity to elect its own leaders and bring legislation to the floor. As things stand, the GOP can’t even clear this low bar.
Indeed, some in the party have been surprisingly candid on this point. Ordinarily, it falls to Democrats to tell voters that Republicans are a dysfunctional mess. Lately, prominent GOP voices have been willing to voluntarily acknowledge this reality on their own. As a Washington Post analysis summarized:
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul appeared on ABC’s “This Week,” for example, and the Texas Republican conceded, “I have to say, and it’s my 10th term in Congress, this is probably one of the most embarrassing things I’ve seen.”
On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” ousted House speaker Kevin McCarthy used similar phrasing. When Kristen Welker asked for his response to concerns that it doesn’t appear that Republicans can govern, the Californian said, “Well, it’s embarrassing.”
Two days earlier, on Capitol Hill, a reporter asked the former GOP leader whether the Republican conference is “broken.” McCarthy replied, “We’re in a very bad place right now, yes.”
A day earlier, Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia appeared on Fox News, described her party’s conference as “broken,” and concluded, “We owe the American people an apology.”
The aforementioned Post analysis highlighted some related assessments.
But the acknowledgements of reality don’t change the fact that it’s difficult to imagine how and when GOP members will elect a new speaker, and it’s even tougher to envision how the party will explain to voters next year that it squandered the opportunity it was given last year.
Oct. 23, 2023, 11:53 AM CDT
By Steve Benen
It’s easy to think of other modern instances in which the Republican Party had fallen on hard times. After Watergate, for example, the GOP’s reputation took a dramatic hit. After the 1998 midterm elections, Republican politics was in shambles as then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich resigned and his successor, Bob Livingston, was derailed by a sex scandal.
In the final two years of George W. Bush’s presidency, the party’s standing reached cringe-worthy depths, thanks to a combination of congressional corruption scandals, the war in Iraq, and an economic crash.
But it’s hardly a stretch to think today’s GOP has reached a new low. As ugly as Republican politics became in these earlier eras, the party at least had the capacity to elect its own leaders and bring legislation to the floor. As things stand, the GOP can’t even clear this low bar.
Indeed, some in the party have been surprisingly candid on this point. Ordinarily, it falls to Democrats to tell voters that Republicans are a dysfunctional mess. Lately, prominent GOP voices have been willing to voluntarily acknowledge this reality on their own. As a Washington Post analysis summarized:
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul appeared on ABC’s “This Week,” for example, and the Texas Republican conceded, “I have to say, and it’s my 10th term in Congress, this is probably one of the most embarrassing things I’ve seen.”
On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” ousted House speaker Kevin McCarthy used similar phrasing. When Kristen Welker asked for his response to concerns that it doesn’t appear that Republicans can govern, the Californian said, “Well, it’s embarrassing.”
Two days earlier, on Capitol Hill, a reporter asked the former GOP leader whether the Republican conference is “broken.” McCarthy replied, “We’re in a very bad place right now, yes.”
A day earlier, Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia appeared on Fox News, described her party’s conference as “broken,” and concluded, “We owe the American people an apology.”
The aforementioned Post analysis highlighted some related assessments.
To be sure, the candor is welcome, and it’s certainly preferable to the lazy and half-hearted efforts we've seen of late to blame Democrats for the Republicans' chaos.
But the acknowledgements of reality don’t change the fact that it’s difficult to imagine how and when GOP members will elect a new speaker, and it’s even tougher to envision how the party will explain to voters next year that it squandered the opportunity it was given last year.
Putin Launches ‘New Evil Empire’ With North Korea and Hamas (MUST READ!)
- By PanamaSteve
- OT Talk
- 1 Replies
‘UNION OF TYRANTS’
Vladimir Putin’s pals have been boasting about Russia’s backing of Hamas; critics say they are one of a number of notorious anti-Western allies being used to distract from Ukraine.
A former deputy prime minister of Israel has told The Daily Beast that the world should see the Hamas terror attack on Israel, which killed at least 1400 people, as part of a larger conflict being stoked by the Kremlin.
“Putin—the real Hamas ally—has defined the lines of the big confrontation: Hamas, Iran, Russia, China on one side, and Israel, Ukraine and the United States on the other,” said Natan Sharansky.
Sharansky, who was a jailed dissident during the Soviet era before emigrating and moving into Israeli politics, said President Vladimir Putin was honing a “new evil empire” to take on the West.
Kremlinologists in Ukraine, Israel, and Russia told The Daily Beast about an increasingly dangerous global game being played by Putin as he tries to draw eyes away from his war on Ukraine.
Sevgil Musayeva, the editor-in-chief of Ukrainska Pravda, says there is a firm consensus in Kyiv that Putin played a role in the well-prepared Hamas operation. “The chief of the [Ukrainian] defense intelligence made it clear to us that the Kremlin had known about the attack on Israel by Hamas,” Musayeva told The Daily Beast. “Russia continued to bomb us in the east and south, killing hundreds of civilians but Ukraine disappeared from the top headlines. Even after Russia bombed the funeral in Groza village killing people from every second house, all the news focused on Israel and Hamas war, which obviously played into Putin’s hands.”
This week, Putin traveled to China where he met Xi Jinping and promoted one of his great fantasies; the “unification of the big Eurasia,” which would see countries led by long-time authoritarian leaders join together to form some kind of military, economic, and ideological anti-Western camp. Russia’s pro-Kremlin media rejoiced, celebrating the summit with China’s president. “The West is nervous; the Putin-Xi meeting makes Ukraine’s allies worried,” Komsomolskaya Pravda reported. The Kremlin’s TV propagandists bragged about the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel as if it were performed by the Russian army itself and boasted about future targets.
Former Russian lawmaker and KGB officer Gennady Gudkov told The Daily Beast that there was a serious risk for further disruption.
“Washington has to focus: Putin’s quickly creating a union of tyrants and dictators in the Middle East, North Korea, Africa to outplay the United States before the elections, using the old GRU and FSB tactics of distracting attention from the main theater of actions in Ukraine,” he said.
“Last week, I met with African democratic opposition. They warn: Putin’s Wagner has been staging military and non-military coups in Mali, CAR, Niger and now they are plotting to mess up more African countries. Putin supports terrorists in Lebanon, where we suspect GRU had been training Hamas before the attack.”
According to the chairman of the Nobel Prize-winning Memorial human rights organization, Putin’s strategy is as old as the Soviet-era books on military intelligence: The more violence and tragedies there are in U.S.- supported regions, the better it is for Moscow.
“In the mid-1970s, the Soviet GRU provided military training and weapons to the MPLA movement in Angola to support their fight against the U.S. partner, Portugal. One of the GRU agents bragged to me once that his students at GRU managed to mess around in six different countries,” Alexander Cherkasov told The Daily Beast. “Managed destabilization was Moscow’s biggest business starting from the Khrushchev era, Putin just copies the old strategy: sending spies to stage a coup in Montenegro in 2016, making friends with the Taliban, establishing bases in Syria and in Africa. The army’s special services always worked towards expansion, so this strategy is a direct continuation.”
The more the West grows weary of the war in Ukraine, the more Russian propagandists and pro-Kremlin bloggers celebrate all over Telegram. Pro-Kremlin analyst Marat Bashirov said they had threatened to keep President Biden pre-occupied until the next U.S. election: “Is Ukraine not enough for you? Here you have Israel. Is Israel not enough? Here is… the list is long. We have outplayed you but that is not clear to many, yet.”
On Oct. 9, the Ukrainian intelligence agency, GUR, warned the world of a provocation being cooked up by Moscow: the next step in Putin’s plan would “be fake accusations of the Ukrainian military allegedly selling Western weapons to terrorists,” the agency said. Sure enough, the GUR was right. The Kremlin's disinformation campaign against Ukraine began on the following day when major Russian media outlets reported—without foundation—that Ukraine was arming Hamas.
There was a time when Sharansky was in the upper echelons of Israeli public life that he almost believed Putin was going to be friendly to Israel, but “all the promises turned into lies,” he said. Putin wanted to demonstrate good relations with the Jewish community but “Syria and Iran were his cards to pressure the West, I wrote in my reports,” said Sharansky, who is based in Jerusalem. “I knew that when the moment to choose between Syria, Iran, and Israel came, he would not hesitate and sure enough, he armed Syria… Now Russia’s central ally is Iran.”
Putin called Benjamin Netanyahu only after he had talked with his allies in the Middle East after the Oct. 7 massacre of Israelis. “Bibi should have not answered the phone call from Putin because it was already clear that Putin was tight with Hamas,” Sharansky said. “Putin did not call to express sorrow, but to offer help with negotiations. Bibi said no help was needed. Our divided society, far left and far right, are united now, we have all agreed to fight and destroy Hamas. Only unity in the fight will wear down the Evil Empire.”
Vladimir Putin’s pals have been boasting about Russia’s backing of Hamas; critics say they are one of a number of notorious anti-Western allies being used to distract from Ukraine.
Anna Nemtsova
Published Oct. 23, 2023 4:36AM EDTA former deputy prime minister of Israel has told The Daily Beast that the world should see the Hamas terror attack on Israel, which killed at least 1400 people, as part of a larger conflict being stoked by the Kremlin.
“Putin—the real Hamas ally—has defined the lines of the big confrontation: Hamas, Iran, Russia, China on one side, and Israel, Ukraine and the United States on the other,” said Natan Sharansky.
Sharansky, who was a jailed dissident during the Soviet era before emigrating and moving into Israeli politics, said President Vladimir Putin was honing a “new evil empire” to take on the West.
Kremlinologists in Ukraine, Israel, and Russia told The Daily Beast about an increasingly dangerous global game being played by Putin as he tries to draw eyes away from his war on Ukraine.
Sevgil Musayeva, the editor-in-chief of Ukrainska Pravda, says there is a firm consensus in Kyiv that Putin played a role in the well-prepared Hamas operation. “The chief of the [Ukrainian] defense intelligence made it clear to us that the Kremlin had known about the attack on Israel by Hamas,” Musayeva told The Daily Beast. “Russia continued to bomb us in the east and south, killing hundreds of civilians but Ukraine disappeared from the top headlines. Even after Russia bombed the funeral in Groza village killing people from every second house, all the news focused on Israel and Hamas war, which obviously played into Putin’s hands.”
This week, Putin traveled to China where he met Xi Jinping and promoted one of his great fantasies; the “unification of the big Eurasia,” which would see countries led by long-time authoritarian leaders join together to form some kind of military, economic, and ideological anti-Western camp. Russia’s pro-Kremlin media rejoiced, celebrating the summit with China’s president. “The West is nervous; the Putin-Xi meeting makes Ukraine’s allies worried,” Komsomolskaya Pravda reported. The Kremlin’s TV propagandists bragged about the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel as if it were performed by the Russian army itself and boasted about future targets.
Former Russian lawmaker and KGB officer Gennady Gudkov told The Daily Beast that there was a serious risk for further disruption.
“Washington has to focus: Putin’s quickly creating a union of tyrants and dictators in the Middle East, North Korea, Africa to outplay the United States before the elections, using the old GRU and FSB tactics of distracting attention from the main theater of actions in Ukraine,” he said.
“Last week, I met with African democratic opposition. They warn: Putin’s Wagner has been staging military and non-military coups in Mali, CAR, Niger and now they are plotting to mess up more African countries. Putin supports terrorists in Lebanon, where we suspect GRU had been training Hamas before the attack.”
According to the chairman of the Nobel Prize-winning Memorial human rights organization, Putin’s strategy is as old as the Soviet-era books on military intelligence: The more violence and tragedies there are in U.S.- supported regions, the better it is for Moscow.
“In the mid-1970s, the Soviet GRU provided military training and weapons to the MPLA movement in Angola to support their fight against the U.S. partner, Portugal. One of the GRU agents bragged to me once that his students at GRU managed to mess around in six different countries,” Alexander Cherkasov told The Daily Beast. “Managed destabilization was Moscow’s biggest business starting from the Khrushchev era, Putin just copies the old strategy: sending spies to stage a coup in Montenegro in 2016, making friends with the Taliban, establishing bases in Syria and in Africa. The army’s special services always worked towards expansion, so this strategy is a direct continuation.”
The more the West grows weary of the war in Ukraine, the more Russian propagandists and pro-Kremlin bloggers celebrate all over Telegram. Pro-Kremlin analyst Marat Bashirov said they had threatened to keep President Biden pre-occupied until the next U.S. election: “Is Ukraine not enough for you? Here you have Israel. Is Israel not enough? Here is… the list is long. We have outplayed you but that is not clear to many, yet.”
On Oct. 9, the Ukrainian intelligence agency, GUR, warned the world of a provocation being cooked up by Moscow: the next step in Putin’s plan would “be fake accusations of the Ukrainian military allegedly selling Western weapons to terrorists,” the agency said. Sure enough, the GUR was right. The Kremlin's disinformation campaign against Ukraine began on the following day when major Russian media outlets reported—without foundation—that Ukraine was arming Hamas.
There was a time when Sharansky was in the upper echelons of Israeli public life that he almost believed Putin was going to be friendly to Israel, but “all the promises turned into lies,” he said. Putin wanted to demonstrate good relations with the Jewish community but “Syria and Iran were his cards to pressure the West, I wrote in my reports,” said Sharansky, who is based in Jerusalem. “I knew that when the moment to choose between Syria, Iran, and Israel came, he would not hesitate and sure enough, he armed Syria… Now Russia’s central ally is Iran.”
Putin called Benjamin Netanyahu only after he had talked with his allies in the Middle East after the Oct. 7 massacre of Israelis. “Bibi should have not answered the phone call from Putin because it was already clear that Putin was tight with Hamas,” Sharansky said. “Putin did not call to express sorrow, but to offer help with negotiations. Bibi said no help was needed. Our divided society, far left and far right, are united now, we have all agreed to fight and destroy Hamas. Only unity in the fight will wear down the Evil Empire.”
Anna Nemtsova
COVID Is Ramping Up for a Year of Deadly Surges (even though some think this is bs, it's good to know the other side of the story)
- By PanamaSteve
- OT Talk
- 0 Replies
HERE WE GO AGAIN
Scientists hope that by the end of 2024 COVID may become more flu-like but before that fading immunity means more killer waves are on the way.
Published Oct. 23, 2023 4:35AM EDT
COVID is back. But then, it never really left. And the respiratory disease’s late-summer resurgence might be a preview of an even bigger surge this winter.
Experts say the latest bump in infections, hospitalizations, and deaths in the United States and other countries, in the fourth year of the novel coronavirus pandemic, was inevitable three years ago—when anti-science extremists all over the world began politicizing the then-brand-new vaccines.
Vaccines that, with wide enough uptake, could’ve strangled COVID and ended the pandemic as early as 2021. Instead, vaccination rates in most countries stalled out well below the 90-percent threshold necessary to produce population-level immunity.
Disinformation-fueled politics kept us from ending the pandemic two years ago. And it’s still preventing us from ending it today. “We’re on an absolute collision course once again between public health messaging and politics,” said Irwin Redlener, the founding director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University and an adjunct professor of pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx.
That has left the planet with so-called “hybrid immunity:” a blend of vaccine-induced antibodies and natural antibodies from past infection that’s got a fundamental flaw. Antibodies from vaccines fade fast. And as vax-rates continue to slide, bigger and bigger gaps open in humanity’s hybrid immunity. “It is because this immunity also decays that we are observing resurgences,” said Edwin Michael, an epidemiologist at the Center for Global Health Infectious Disease Research at the University of South Florida who runs a complex simulation of COVID.
It’s these gaps COVID has exploited these past couple of years—and will continue to exploit for at least another year, according to experts. “The above pattern is also expected in 2024,” Michael said. Meaning the recent surge in infections almost certainly won’t be the last.
Many U.S. states don’t track COVID cases anymore, eliminating a major source of data that experts use to track trends as the disease spreads and evolves. But wastewater surveillance—basically, sampling sewage in order to measure the concentration of the virus—indicates the summer surge in the United States began in mid-July.
Over the next six weeks, the average concentration of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in American sewage spiked from 165 copies to 638—a fourfold increase. The spread has plateaued in recent weeks, hinting at a slowdown in transmission of the disease.
But hospitalizations lag behind infections, as it can take days or weeks for an infection to become life-threatening. The first week of September, weekly COVID hospitalizations spiked to 20,500 in the U.S.—a threefold increase over the most recent low, back in mid-June. COVID deaths in the U.S. likewise spiked in early September, peaking at more than a thousand per week. That’s double the June death rate.
The situation was similar in much of the world. The United Kingdom had a late-summer surge. So did Mexico. And while the recent spike in infections, hospitalizations and deaths is just the fifth- or fourth-worst COVID surge since the virus first made the leap from animals to people back in late 2019, experts warned that a more severe surge in infections and deaths is probably coming as the weather in the northern hemisphere cools and people crowd indoors.
Even that surge shouldn’t come anywhere close to matching the apocalyptic pathogenic waves that crashed over much of the world in January 2021 and again in January 2022. Our global immunity has gaps owing to dwindling vaccine uptake, but it’s still stronger than it was two years ago.
“Virtually the entire population has some level of immunity, either through vaccines, past infections or both,” Lawrence Gostin, a Georgetown University global health expert, told The Daily Beast. As a global population, humanity is reasonably well-protected. On an individual level, however, the risks are much different. “The risks faced by the elderly and other vulnerable populations remain significant,” Gostin pointed out.
If there’s a major reason to be hopeful, it’s that the SARS-CoV-2 virus seems to be behaving as many experts predicted it would—and evolving to become more transmissible but probably less severe. The increased contagiousness, usually resulting from changes to the virus’s distinctive spike protein—which the pathogen uses to grab onto and enter our cells—helps the virus to spread quickly from person to person, and find just enough people with weak immunity.
These unprotected souls become major incubators of the disease. Human laboratories for further viral mutations. But on the whole, these mutations are creating forms of the virus that sicken their hosts without necessarily killing them. “Let’s hope this continues,” Michael said.
From an evolutionary perspective, a nearly-perfect virus might be highly transmissible but come with a low risk of death to the host. That’s generally how the flu has evolved, and it’s why the human race usually weathers an annual flu outbreak with vaccines, rest, and chicken soup.
But James Lawler, an infectious disease expert at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, stressed that this evolution toward human-pathogenic coexistence isn’t unavoidable. “The notion that viruses inevitably evolve to become less pathogenic to humans is an unsubstantiated myth,” he said.
Redlener agreed. “The problem has always been that this [trend toward less severity] could change next week, if someone identifies some new, more virulent strain,” he said.
Still, if our luck holds, COVID could also become an annual, flu-like annoyance—and one that an individual can prevent with an annual booster for the best messenger-RNA vaccines. But probably not for a while, Michael told The Daily Beast. “There is a possibility that towards the end of 2024 the system will begin to resemble flu,” he said.
Unless and until that happens, experts’ advice is the same as always. Stay alert and stay up-to-date on your vaccines. As it happens, the latest booster shot just became available—and it works really well. “All of us are encouraged by the new booster,” Redlener said.
Scientists hope that by the end of 2024 COVID may become more flu-like but before that fading immunity means more killer waves are on the way.
David Axe
Published Oct. 23, 2023 4:35AM EDT
COVID is back. But then, it never really left. And the respiratory disease’s late-summer resurgence might be a preview of an even bigger surge this winter.
Experts say the latest bump in infections, hospitalizations, and deaths in the United States and other countries, in the fourth year of the novel coronavirus pandemic, was inevitable three years ago—when anti-science extremists all over the world began politicizing the then-brand-new vaccines.
Vaccines that, with wide enough uptake, could’ve strangled COVID and ended the pandemic as early as 2021. Instead, vaccination rates in most countries stalled out well below the 90-percent threshold necessary to produce population-level immunity.
Disinformation-fueled politics kept us from ending the pandemic two years ago. And it’s still preventing us from ending it today. “We’re on an absolute collision course once again between public health messaging and politics,” said Irwin Redlener, the founding director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University and an adjunct professor of pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx.
That has left the planet with so-called “hybrid immunity:” a blend of vaccine-induced antibodies and natural antibodies from past infection that’s got a fundamental flaw. Antibodies from vaccines fade fast. And as vax-rates continue to slide, bigger and bigger gaps open in humanity’s hybrid immunity. “It is because this immunity also decays that we are observing resurgences,” said Edwin Michael, an epidemiologist at the Center for Global Health Infectious Disease Research at the University of South Florida who runs a complex simulation of COVID.
It’s these gaps COVID has exploited these past couple of years—and will continue to exploit for at least another year, according to experts. “The above pattern is also expected in 2024,” Michael said. Meaning the recent surge in infections almost certainly won’t be the last.
Many U.S. states don’t track COVID cases anymore, eliminating a major source of data that experts use to track trends as the disease spreads and evolves. But wastewater surveillance—basically, sampling sewage in order to measure the concentration of the virus—indicates the summer surge in the United States began in mid-July.
Over the next six weeks, the average concentration of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in American sewage spiked from 165 copies to 638—a fourfold increase. The spread has plateaued in recent weeks, hinting at a slowdown in transmission of the disease.
But hospitalizations lag behind infections, as it can take days or weeks for an infection to become life-threatening. The first week of September, weekly COVID hospitalizations spiked to 20,500 in the U.S.—a threefold increase over the most recent low, back in mid-June. COVID deaths in the U.S. likewise spiked in early September, peaking at more than a thousand per week. That’s double the June death rate.
The situation was similar in much of the world. The United Kingdom had a late-summer surge. So did Mexico. And while the recent spike in infections, hospitalizations and deaths is just the fifth- or fourth-worst COVID surge since the virus first made the leap from animals to people back in late 2019, experts warned that a more severe surge in infections and deaths is probably coming as the weather in the northern hemisphere cools and people crowd indoors.
Even that surge shouldn’t come anywhere close to matching the apocalyptic pathogenic waves that crashed over much of the world in January 2021 and again in January 2022. Our global immunity has gaps owing to dwindling vaccine uptake, but it’s still stronger than it was two years ago.
“Virtually the entire population has some level of immunity, either through vaccines, past infections or both,” Lawrence Gostin, a Georgetown University global health expert, told The Daily Beast. As a global population, humanity is reasonably well-protected. On an individual level, however, the risks are much different. “The risks faced by the elderly and other vulnerable populations remain significant,” Gostin pointed out.
If there’s a major reason to be hopeful, it’s that the SARS-CoV-2 virus seems to be behaving as many experts predicted it would—and evolving to become more transmissible but probably less severe. The increased contagiousness, usually resulting from changes to the virus’s distinctive spike protein—which the pathogen uses to grab onto and enter our cells—helps the virus to spread quickly from person to person, and find just enough people with weak immunity.
These unprotected souls become major incubators of the disease. Human laboratories for further viral mutations. But on the whole, these mutations are creating forms of the virus that sicken their hosts without necessarily killing them. “Let’s hope this continues,” Michael said.
From an evolutionary perspective, a nearly-perfect virus might be highly transmissible but come with a low risk of death to the host. That’s generally how the flu has evolved, and it’s why the human race usually weathers an annual flu outbreak with vaccines, rest, and chicken soup.
But James Lawler, an infectious disease expert at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, stressed that this evolution toward human-pathogenic coexistence isn’t unavoidable. “The notion that viruses inevitably evolve to become less pathogenic to humans is an unsubstantiated myth,” he said.
Redlener agreed. “The problem has always been that this [trend toward less severity] could change next week, if someone identifies some new, more virulent strain,” he said.
Still, if our luck holds, COVID could also become an annual, flu-like annoyance—and one that an individual can prevent with an annual booster for the best messenger-RNA vaccines. But probably not for a while, Michael told The Daily Beast. “There is a possibility that towards the end of 2024 the system will begin to resemble flu,” he said.
Unless and until that happens, experts’ advice is the same as always. Stay alert and stay up-to-date on your vaccines. As it happens, the latest booster shot just became available—and it works really well. “All of us are encouraged by the new booster,” Redlener said.
Trump Wants to Revisit His Anti-NATO Fixation If Re-Elected. WHAT ALLIANCE?
- By PanamaSteve
- OT Talk
- 0 Replies
Trump Wants to Revisit His Anti-NATO Fixation If Re-Elected
WHAT ALLIANCE?Alex Nguyen
Breaking News Intern
Published Oct. 23, 2023 11:48AM EDT
Brendan McDermid/Reuters
Donald Trump, who was reportedly talked out of withdrawing the U.S. from NATO when he was in the White House, is still threatening to follow through on the idea should he win re-election, according to Rolling Stone. During his first term, Trump wanted to do away with the alliance part of the alliance, in which an assault on one member nation is considered an attack on all. A former administration official told Rolling Stone that, during his presidency, Trump repeatedly said that he wouldn’t be “starting World War III” to help out countries he deemed insignificant.Now on the campaign trail, he’s once again threatening to pull out of NATO if other members don’t ramp up their military spending. Sources told Rolling Stone that he is considering a “NATO on standby” policy.
Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton wrote in his memoir that Trump didn’t understand how NATO’s defense spending requirements worked, recalling he would get annoyed that member nations were supposedly not paying enough. These fears come as Trump has voiced frustration at American military aid to Ukraine.
The Dispiriting Truth About Why Many Evangelical Christians Support Israel
- By PanamaSteve
- OT Talk
- 0 Replies
For Christian Zionists, what happens to the Jews and Palestinians is, to put it very mildly, collateral damage.
Oct. 22, 2023, 5:00 AM CDT
By Sarah Posner, MSNBC Columnist
Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, American evangelicals have been especially vocal in backing Israel. Last week, 90 prominent pastors and other leaders issued “An Evangelical Statement in Support for Israel.” Citing “just war” tradition, the statement affirmed “Israel’s right and duty to defend itself against further attack.” Evangelical leaders around the country have expressed sympathy, as The New York Times reported, “for a country to which many of them feel intense spiritual, cultural and political connections.”
But evangelicals’ support isn’t simply driven by a theology that compels them to love the Holy Land, detached from its convulsive domestic and global political implications. For many “Christians Zionists,” and particularly for popular evangelists with significant clout within the Republican Party, their support for Israel is rooted in its role in the supposed end times: Jesus’ return to Earth, a bloody final battle at Armageddon, and Jesus ruling the world from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. In this scenario, war is not something to be avoided, but something inevitable, desired by God, and celebratory.
At the heart of Christian Zionism is not a love for Israel but rather Christian nationalism.
What happens to the Jews and Palestinians is, to put it very mildly, collateral damage. Christian Zionists are anticipating, and hoping for a war to end all wars, and a resulting Christian world that they claim will vanquish evil and bring peace. Only those who accept Jesus as their savior will benefit from these events that Christian Zionists claim the Bible predicts will happen. Nonbelievers — including Jews and Muslims — will not survive them.
John Hagee, the controversial Texas televangelist and founder of Christians United for Israel, an influential Christian Zionist advocacy group, long has been one of the most visible and powerful proponents of this ideology. On Oct. 15, Hagee preached at Free Chapel in Gainesville, Georgia, a megachurch pastored by televangelist Jentezen Franklin.
Speaking in front of a cartoonish mural that purported to depict the events in the Book of Revelation, Hagee maintained that the epic showdown at Armageddon, or the Mount of Meggido in Israel, will be “the most bloody battle ever recorded in the history of the world.” He claimed the Bible prophesied that for armies that “come against Israel” from China, Russia or Iran, “God is going to wipe them out.” After that, he predicted, “there will be 1,000 years of perfect peace, no presidential elections, no fake news, none of all of this nonsense.” Instead, there will be “one king, and one leader, Jesus Christ the Son of God. One law, it will be his law.”
Hagee was hardly alone in preaching about Israel’s role in the end-times in the wake of the outbreak of the war. The Trinity Broadcasting Network, a major hub for Christian Zionist televangelism, broadcast several programs discussing the war as part of end-times prophecy. Popular preacher Greg Laurie told congregants that the recent events were a “super-sign” that the “prophetic clock ticking is the regathering of the nation Israel into their homeland.”
At the heart of Christian Zionism is not a love for Israel but rather Christian nationalism. Christian Zionists maintain that the Book of Genesis says that God will bless those who bless Israel, and curse those who curse it. They insist that if America, as a country, does not “bless” Israel (that is, offer its government its unconditional support), God will curse America. Conveniently, those who Christian Zionists claim are insufficiently supportive of Israel are usually Democrats.
In his recent sermon, Hagee baselessly accused President Biden of “treason,” without specifying why. He also urged his audience to “vote for someone who at least loves America” and to “blame Biden for their [sic] corrupt betrayal of America and the American people.”
For Christian Zionists, the steady rightward shift of the Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s successive returns to office is not a cause for alarm — for Israel’s democracy or for the fate of the Palestinians — but a positive development. In this interpretation, settlers’ further control of the occupied West Bank, which they call by its biblical names Judea and Samaria, is a fulfillment of God’s plan for a Jewish return to Israel — one of a sequence of biblical prophecies that culminates in the Second Coming. White evangelicals “are the religious group most likely to express a very or somewhat favorable view of the Israeli government (68%),” according to a 2022 Pew Research Center poll.
Hamas’ unprecedented and horrific slaughter of Israeli civilians, including children, played directly into Christian Zionists’ singular conception of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
When Trump moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, even he admitted that most Americans, including Jewish Americans, opposed the decision. But Trump made the move for his evangelical supporters, who were ecstatic. Hagee claimed he had helped convince Trump by telling him at a White House dinner that Jesus is coming back to Jerusalem to “set up His throne on the Temple Mount where He will sit and rule for a thousand years of perfect peace.” The televangelist, who described the day as “nothing short of a divine miracle,” gave the benediction at the dedication ceremony.
Hamas’ unprecedented and horrific slaughter of Israeli civilians, including children, played directly into Christian Zionists’ singular conception of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In their minds, there is little or no distinction between Hamas terrorists and ordinary Palestinians who have been living under the Israeli blockade of Gaza or its brutal occupation of the West Bank. On the American right, even innocent Palestinians displaced by the war are the enemy.
This week, the Heritage Foundation called for the United States to reject any refugees from Gaza because “the Palestinian population has no interest in assimilating into American culture and governance, or in expressing loyalty to America or American allies.”
There is some evidence, fortunately, that younger evangelicals are less entranced with Israel’s role in end-times theology than their parents or grandparents. But for now, this crucial portion of the Republican electorate remains entrenched in the Christian Zionist mythology. And its menacing interference, with so many elected officials beholden to it, makes one of the bloodiest conflicts in the world even harder to resolve.
Oct. 22, 2023, 5:00 AM CDT
By Sarah Posner, MSNBC Columnist
Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, American evangelicals have been especially vocal in backing Israel. Last week, 90 prominent pastors and other leaders issued “An Evangelical Statement in Support for Israel.” Citing “just war” tradition, the statement affirmed “Israel’s right and duty to defend itself against further attack.” Evangelical leaders around the country have expressed sympathy, as The New York Times reported, “for a country to which many of them feel intense spiritual, cultural and political connections.”
But evangelicals’ support isn’t simply driven by a theology that compels them to love the Holy Land, detached from its convulsive domestic and global political implications. For many “Christians Zionists,” and particularly for popular evangelists with significant clout within the Republican Party, their support for Israel is rooted in its role in the supposed end times: Jesus’ return to Earth, a bloody final battle at Armageddon, and Jesus ruling the world from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. In this scenario, war is not something to be avoided, but something inevitable, desired by God, and celebratory.
At the heart of Christian Zionism is not a love for Israel but rather Christian nationalism.
What happens to the Jews and Palestinians is, to put it very mildly, collateral damage. Christian Zionists are anticipating, and hoping for a war to end all wars, and a resulting Christian world that they claim will vanquish evil and bring peace. Only those who accept Jesus as their savior will benefit from these events that Christian Zionists claim the Bible predicts will happen. Nonbelievers — including Jews and Muslims — will not survive them.
John Hagee, the controversial Texas televangelist and founder of Christians United for Israel, an influential Christian Zionist advocacy group, long has been one of the most visible and powerful proponents of this ideology. On Oct. 15, Hagee preached at Free Chapel in Gainesville, Georgia, a megachurch pastored by televangelist Jentezen Franklin.
Speaking in front of a cartoonish mural that purported to depict the events in the Book of Revelation, Hagee maintained that the epic showdown at Armageddon, or the Mount of Meggido in Israel, will be “the most bloody battle ever recorded in the history of the world.” He claimed the Bible prophesied that for armies that “come against Israel” from China, Russia or Iran, “God is going to wipe them out.” After that, he predicted, “there will be 1,000 years of perfect peace, no presidential elections, no fake news, none of all of this nonsense.” Instead, there will be “one king, and one leader, Jesus Christ the Son of God. One law, it will be his law.”
Hagee was hardly alone in preaching about Israel’s role in the end-times in the wake of the outbreak of the war. The Trinity Broadcasting Network, a major hub for Christian Zionist televangelism, broadcast several programs discussing the war as part of end-times prophecy. Popular preacher Greg Laurie told congregants that the recent events were a “super-sign” that the “prophetic clock ticking is the regathering of the nation Israel into their homeland.”
At the heart of Christian Zionism is not a love for Israel but rather Christian nationalism. Christian Zionists maintain that the Book of Genesis says that God will bless those who bless Israel, and curse those who curse it. They insist that if America, as a country, does not “bless” Israel (that is, offer its government its unconditional support), God will curse America. Conveniently, those who Christian Zionists claim are insufficiently supportive of Israel are usually Democrats.
In his recent sermon, Hagee baselessly accused President Biden of “treason,” without specifying why. He also urged his audience to “vote for someone who at least loves America” and to “blame Biden for their [sic] corrupt betrayal of America and the American people.”
For Christian Zionists, the steady rightward shift of the Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s successive returns to office is not a cause for alarm — for Israel’s democracy or for the fate of the Palestinians — but a positive development. In this interpretation, settlers’ further control of the occupied West Bank, which they call by its biblical names Judea and Samaria, is a fulfillment of God’s plan for a Jewish return to Israel — one of a sequence of biblical prophecies that culminates in the Second Coming. White evangelicals “are the religious group most likely to express a very or somewhat favorable view of the Israeli government (68%),” according to a 2022 Pew Research Center poll.
Hamas’ unprecedented and horrific slaughter of Israeli civilians, including children, played directly into Christian Zionists’ singular conception of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
When Trump moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, even he admitted that most Americans, including Jewish Americans, opposed the decision. But Trump made the move for his evangelical supporters, who were ecstatic. Hagee claimed he had helped convince Trump by telling him at a White House dinner that Jesus is coming back to Jerusalem to “set up His throne on the Temple Mount where He will sit and rule for a thousand years of perfect peace.” The televangelist, who described the day as “nothing short of a divine miracle,” gave the benediction at the dedication ceremony.
Hamas’ unprecedented and horrific slaughter of Israeli civilians, including children, played directly into Christian Zionists’ singular conception of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In their minds, there is little or no distinction between Hamas terrorists and ordinary Palestinians who have been living under the Israeli blockade of Gaza or its brutal occupation of the West Bank. On the American right, even innocent Palestinians displaced by the war are the enemy.
This week, the Heritage Foundation called for the United States to reject any refugees from Gaza because “the Palestinian population has no interest in assimilating into American culture and governance, or in expressing loyalty to America or American allies.”
There is some evidence, fortunately, that younger evangelicals are less entranced with Israel’s role in end-times theology than their parents or grandparents. But for now, this crucial portion of the Republican electorate remains entrenched in the Christian Zionist mythology. And its menacing interference, with so many elected officials beholden to it, makes one of the bloodiest conflicts in the world even harder to resolve.
🚨 🚨 Comer Releases Evidence of Direct Payment to Joe Biden - $200,000 😳
WASHINGTON—House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) today announced the committee obtained bank records revealing a $200,000 direct payment from James and Sara Biden to Joe Biden in the form of a personal check. In September, Chairman Comer issued three subpoenas for Hunter and James Biden’s personal and business bank records.
In 2018, James Biden received $600,000 in loans from, Americore—a financially distressed and failing rural hospital operator. According to bankruptcy court documents, James Biden received these loans “based upon representations that his last name, ‘Biden,’ could ‘open doors’ and that he could obtain a large investment from the Middle East based on his political connections.”
On March 1, 2018, Americore wired a $200,000 loan into James and Sara Biden’s personal bank account – not their business bank account. On the same day, James Biden wrote a $200,000 check from this same personal bank account to Joe Biden.
Chairman Comer released a video outlining this direct payment and the questions President Biden must answer for the American people.
In 2018, James Biden received $600,000 in loans from, Americore—a financially distressed and failing rural hospital operator. According to bankruptcy court documents, James Biden received these loans “based upon representations that his last name, ‘Biden,’ could ‘open doors’ and that he could obtain a large investment from the Middle East based on his political connections.”
On March 1, 2018, Americore wired a $200,000 loan into James and Sara Biden’s personal bank account – not their business bank account. On the same day, James Biden wrote a $200,000 check from this same personal bank account to Joe Biden.
Chairman Comer released a video outlining this direct payment and the questions President Biden must answer for the American people.
James Comer’s latest Biden accusation has one glaring flaw
- By PanamaSteve
- OT Talk
- 0 Replies
It might be easier to shrug off House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer’s latest anti-Biden dud if it weren’t part of a larger series of other duds.
Oct. 23, 2023, 10:24 AM CDT
By Steve Benen
It’s not exactly a secret that House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer’s crusade against President Joe Biden hasn’t gone especially well. After nearly a year of trying to uncover evidence of the Democrat receiving illicit payments before reaching the White House, the Kentucky Republican and his allies have come up empty.
It was against this backdrop that Comer tried to make a little news late last week. The Washington Times, an overtly conservative media outlet, reported:
The GOP-led Oversight Committee seemed quite excited about this, publishing a message via social media that read, “We have found a $200,000 DIRECT payment to Joe Biden.”
Well, sort of.
Based on the available information, Joe Biden — in his personal capacity, two years after serving as vice president — loaned his brother some money. Then, his brother paid him back. It’s why James Biden literally wrote on the check itself, “Loan repayment.”
That’s just not that interesting. Indeed, Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell on California noted online soon after, “[Comer] proves Joe Biden generously loaned his family money and they responsibly paid him back. Nice work, detective!”
A day earlier, Steve Bannon, a veteran of the Trump White House and a prominent far-right media personality, labeled the Oversight Committee chairman “Comer the Clown.”
Evidently, Republicans hoped the public would take the story seriously because James Biden repaid his brother after receiving money from a hospital company he was working with. But again, this appears quite anodyne: James Biden needed a loan; Joe Biden helped his brother; and James Biden repaid the loan six weeks later when he had the money. (The future president did not charge any interest.)
In other words, this latest pitch suffers from one glaring flaw: The story isn’t scandalous; it’s boring.
Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the ranking member of the Oversight panel, added in a press statement, “The more than 1,400 pages of additional bank records just show what these witnesses and thousands of prior pages of records have already established: that the President was not involved in and did not profit from his family members’ business ventures.”
It might be easier to shrug off Comer’s latest dud if it weren’t part of a larger series of other duds. It was, after all, just a month ago when the Kentucky Republican chaired his party’s first impeachment inquiry hearing, and there was a bipartisan consensus that the event was an embarrassing fiasco.
One senior Republican staffer described the proceedings as “an unmitigated disaster.” Another conceded that Comer and his staff “botched this bad.” Steve Bannon, meanwhile, slammed GOP members for being unprepared, while one of his guests said House Republicans “don’t know what they’re doing at all.”
It came on the heels of several related failures, with Comer making promises he couldn’t keep, holding hearings that undermined his own partisan efforts, and releasing ostensible “evidence” filled with factual errors.
Reflecting on the cascading debacles, a senior GOP aide told Politico, in reference to Republicans’ concerns, “People are just not happy.”
Team Comer’s latest misstep probably did little to change that.
Oct. 23, 2023, 10:24 AM CDT
By Steve Benen
It’s not exactly a secret that House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer’s crusade against President Joe Biden hasn’t gone especially well. After nearly a year of trying to uncover evidence of the Democrat receiving illicit payments before reaching the White House, the Kentucky Republican and his allies have come up empty.
It was against this backdrop that Comer tried to make a little news late last week. The Washington Times, an overtly conservative media outlet, reported:
The GOP-led Oversight Committee seemed quite excited about this, publishing a message via social media that read, “We have found a $200,000 DIRECT payment to Joe Biden.”
Well, sort of.
Based on the available information, Joe Biden — in his personal capacity, two years after serving as vice president — loaned his brother some money. Then, his brother paid him back. It’s why James Biden literally wrote on the check itself, “Loan repayment.”
That’s just not that interesting. Indeed, Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell on California noted online soon after, “[Comer] proves Joe Biden generously loaned his family money and they responsibly paid him back. Nice work, detective!”
A day earlier, Steve Bannon, a veteran of the Trump White House and a prominent far-right media personality, labeled the Oversight Committee chairman “Comer the Clown.”
Evidently, Republicans hoped the public would take the story seriously because James Biden repaid his brother after receiving money from a hospital company he was working with. But again, this appears quite anodyne: James Biden needed a loan; Joe Biden helped his brother; and James Biden repaid the loan six weeks later when he had the money. (The future president did not charge any interest.)
In other words, this latest pitch suffers from one glaring flaw: The story isn’t scandalous; it’s boring.
Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the ranking member of the Oversight panel, added in a press statement, “The more than 1,400 pages of additional bank records just show what these witnesses and thousands of prior pages of records have already established: that the President was not involved in and did not profit from his family members’ business ventures.”
It might be easier to shrug off Comer’s latest dud if it weren’t part of a larger series of other duds. It was, after all, just a month ago when the Kentucky Republican chaired his party’s first impeachment inquiry hearing, and there was a bipartisan consensus that the event was an embarrassing fiasco.
One senior Republican staffer described the proceedings as “an unmitigated disaster.” Another conceded that Comer and his staff “botched this bad.” Steve Bannon, meanwhile, slammed GOP members for being unprepared, while one of his guests said House Republicans “don’t know what they’re doing at all.”
It came on the heels of several related failures, with Comer making promises he couldn’t keep, holding hearings that undermined his own partisan efforts, and releasing ostensible “evidence” filled with factual errors.
Reflecting on the cascading debacles, a senior GOP aide told Politico, in reference to Republicans’ concerns, “People are just not happy.”
Team Comer’s latest misstep probably did little to change that.
3 reasons why the Chesebro plea deal is a win for both sides
- By PanamaSteve
- OT Talk
- 0 Replies
The Fulton County DA didn't make a deal because her case against Chesebro was weak; rather, she wisely decided to hold her cards for the bigger fish.
Oct. 20, 2023, 4:15 PM CDT
By Lisa Rubin
On Friday morning, Judge Scott McAfee was beginning the often arduous process of selecting a jury for what was supposed to be the first trial in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' sprawling indictment of those who allegedly tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
But around lunchtime, McAfee received news that not only changed his day but his next few months: Attorney Kenneth Chesebro, the alleged mastermind of the so-called fake elector scheme, had agreed to plead guilty to a single count of conspiracy to commit the filing of false documents.
Within minutes, social media exploded with hot takes, with some suggesting Chesebro’s plea is less an indicator of his guilt and more proof of the weaknesses of Willis’ case.
But as a former litigator with experience in white-collar defense and government investigations, I don't buy that, and here's why you shouldn't either.
First, trials are expensive for everyone involved — and that’s especially true of a trial expected to last five months or more. In addition to Chesebro’s own legal fees — and it’s unclear who, if anyone, other than Chesebro contributed to his legal defense costs — trying Chesebro to verdict would have been costly for the Fulton County DA's office too.
The difference is that the costs they would have incurred are not primarily financial, but ones of resources and strategy. A trial would have consumed the core case team for months while forcing others in the office to litigate pretrial motions and discovery issues with the remaining co-defendants.
More significantly, it would have given those co-defendants — including Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and Mark Meadows — a preview of the DA’s overall racketeering case.
Second, while many legal experts believe Chesebro would have been convicted at a trial, in part because his own legal memos would have been used as evidence against him, going to trial would not have been without uncertainty for the DA. Meadows’ bid to move the case to federal court is still pending in the 11th Circuit, which sought supplemental briefing in light of a recent opinion. The question of whether removal for one co-defendant means removal for all is also open. And that means that the DA's team could have tried Chesebro to a verdict, only to have that conviction overturned not because of the evidence but simply because the trial should have been in a different court. Ouch.
Third, Chesebro’s value as a witness against the top-tier defendants cannot be understated. Although Eastman is better known and more maligned for his later-stage advocacy that then-Vice President Mike Pence discount certain slates of electors, Chesebro was the alleged architect of the seven-state, fake elector strategy. And in that unpaid, self-appointed role, Chesebro worked with multiple co-defendants — from Giuliani and Trump campaign official Mike Roman to Georgia fake electors, three of whom are themselves defendants — to execute it.
Put another way, Chesebro, who allegedly devised the scheme, helps connect those who organized it and those who implemented it on the ground.
Make no mistake: I don't believe this was Chesebro's plan all along, even though demanding a speedy trial gave him some leverage he might otherwise have lacked. In fact, his lawyers, Scott Grubman and Manny Arora, put up a good fight, filing a slew of potentially case-ending motions. But ultimately, after fellow MAGA lawyer Sidney Powell pleaded guilty on Thursday, Chesebro was cornered. Being the sole defendant in a monthslong racketeering trial where he allegedly outlined the alleged crime in writing, several times over, was no one’s idea of a smart move.
And Willis? She’s much more interested in holding her cards and securing Chesebro's cooperation than in his serving time. So everybody wins. Everybody, that is, except several of the 16 remaining co-defendants.
Oct. 20, 2023, 4:15 PM CDT
By Lisa Rubin
On Friday morning, Judge Scott McAfee was beginning the often arduous process of selecting a jury for what was supposed to be the first trial in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' sprawling indictment of those who allegedly tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
But around lunchtime, McAfee received news that not only changed his day but his next few months: Attorney Kenneth Chesebro, the alleged mastermind of the so-called fake elector scheme, had agreed to plead guilty to a single count of conspiracy to commit the filing of false documents.
Within minutes, social media exploded with hot takes, with some suggesting Chesebro’s plea is less an indicator of his guilt and more proof of the weaknesses of Willis’ case.
But as a former litigator with experience in white-collar defense and government investigations, I don't buy that, and here's why you shouldn't either.
First, trials are expensive for everyone involved — and that’s especially true of a trial expected to last five months or more. In addition to Chesebro’s own legal fees — and it’s unclear who, if anyone, other than Chesebro contributed to his legal defense costs — trying Chesebro to verdict would have been costly for the Fulton County DA's office too.
The difference is that the costs they would have incurred are not primarily financial, but ones of resources and strategy. A trial would have consumed the core case team for months while forcing others in the office to litigate pretrial motions and discovery issues with the remaining co-defendants.
More significantly, it would have given those co-defendants — including Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and Mark Meadows — a preview of the DA’s overall racketeering case.
Second, while many legal experts believe Chesebro would have been convicted at a trial, in part because his own legal memos would have been used as evidence against him, going to trial would not have been without uncertainty for the DA. Meadows’ bid to move the case to federal court is still pending in the 11th Circuit, which sought supplemental briefing in light of a recent opinion. The question of whether removal for one co-defendant means removal for all is also open. And that means that the DA's team could have tried Chesebro to a verdict, only to have that conviction overturned not because of the evidence but simply because the trial should have been in a different court. Ouch.
Third, Chesebro’s value as a witness against the top-tier defendants cannot be understated. Although Eastman is better known and more maligned for his later-stage advocacy that then-Vice President Mike Pence discount certain slates of electors, Chesebro was the alleged architect of the seven-state, fake elector strategy. And in that unpaid, self-appointed role, Chesebro worked with multiple co-defendants — from Giuliani and Trump campaign official Mike Roman to Georgia fake electors, three of whom are themselves defendants — to execute it.
Put another way, Chesebro, who allegedly devised the scheme, helps connect those who organized it and those who implemented it on the ground.
Make no mistake: I don't believe this was Chesebro's plan all along, even though demanding a speedy trial gave him some leverage he might otherwise have lacked. In fact, his lawyers, Scott Grubman and Manny Arora, put up a good fight, filing a slew of potentially case-ending motions. But ultimately, after fellow MAGA lawyer Sidney Powell pleaded guilty on Thursday, Chesebro was cornered. Being the sole defendant in a monthslong racketeering trial where he allegedly outlined the alleged crime in writing, several times over, was no one’s idea of a smart move.
And Willis? She’s much more interested in holding her cards and securing Chesebro's cooperation than in his serving time. So everybody wins. Everybody, that is, except several of the 16 remaining co-defendants.
USC drops to No. 24 in the AP poll
- By Ryan Young
- Trojan Talk
- 8 Replies
I thought they might drop out entirely, honestly.
apnews.com
NCAA College Football Rankings: AP Top 25 Football Poll
The official page for the AP Top 25 college football poll, a tradition since 1936. Keep up to date and view the latest ranking updates each week.
apnews.com
Football Full story, breaking down the loss and Lincoln Riley's postgame comments
- By Ryan Young
- Trojan Talk
- 21 Replies
TrojanSports - Lincoln Riley talks big-picture perspective after last-second loss to Utah
Full breakdown of USC's 34-32 loss to Utah and Lincoln Riley's takeaways afterward.
USC.rivals.com
Tapes of Aussie Billionaire’s Bragging Pull Curtain Back on Trump Presidency
- By PanamaSteve
- OT Talk
- 0 Replies
Donald Trump told Anthony Pratt—a Mar-a-Lago member who crowed that his “superpower” is “being rich”—about his private calls with the leaders of Ukraine and Iraq.
Breaking News Reporter
Updated Oct. 23, 2023 9:32AM EDT / Published Oct. 22, 2023 10:07PM EDT
The third-richest man in Australia has a big mouth, according to reports.
Earlier this month, ABC News reported that Anthony Pratt ran around town telling approximately 45 other people—including three former Australian prime ministers—that Donald Trump had disclosed potentially sensitive information about American nuclear submarines to him.
On Sunday, a joint investigation by 60 Minutes Australia, The Sydney Morning Herald, and The Age revealed that Pratt boasted that Trump also told him about his private calls with foreign leaders, inadvertently disclosing non-public details about U.S. military operations. The Australian billionaire’s swaggering talk was captured in a series of secret recordings, some of which were aired in 60 Minutes’ Sunday broadcast.
More excerpts were published on Sunday night by The New York Times, which reported that the recordings highlighted the “transactional ethos of the Trump presidency,” which mixed personal business interests and public service in a seemingly unprecedented way.
“It hadn’t even been on the news yet, and he said, ‘I just bombed Iraq today,’” Pratt can be heard recalling in one recording.
“He said, ‘I just bombed Iraq today. And the president of Iraq called me up and said, “You just leveled my city,”’ Pratt says, in apparent reference to a conversation Trump had with Iraqi President Barham Salih. “And I said to him, ‘OK, what are you going to do about it?’”
According to Pratt, Trump also alluded to another call with a world leader—the notorious September 2019 conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that would eventually form the basis of Trump’s first impeachment. “Trump said, ‘You know, that Ukraine phone call? That was nothing compared to what I usually do,’” Pratt says. “He said, ‘That Ukraine phone call, that’s nothing compared to what we usually talk about.’”
Pratt has been interviewed by U.S. federal prosecutors pursuing criminal charges against Trump and is on a list of potential witnesses to be called to the stand in Trump’s trial next year, according to the Times. It was not immediately clear whether prosecutors were aware of the recordings prior to the publication of the media reports.
A Trump spokesperson told the Times that the information disclosed by Pratt in the tapes “totally lack proper context and relevant information.” In his own statement, Trump called Pratt “a member of the most successful club in the country, Mar-a-Lago, and from a friendly country in Australia, one of our great allies.”
“I don’t know him well but he seemed like a nice person,” Trump added.
Trump later made an about face in an angry post on his Truth Social network, calling Pratt “a red haired weirdo from Australia” and saying he never talked to the billionaire about submarines. Trump also bizarrely claimed the Times reporters never reached out to him for comment, though a statement from both him and his spokesman appeared in the story.
Pratt bought a Mar-a-Lago membership in the hopes of cozying up to Trump and his inner circle, including his then-lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who Pratt saw as “cool” and “someone I hope will be useful one day,” according to the tapes. Pratt says in one recording that he paid Giuliani $1 million to come to his birthday party—before the pandemic dashed those plans. Instead, Pratt adds, Giuliani “now… rings me once a week.”
In some excerpted recordings, Pratt speaks admiringly of Trump, comparing him to a “mafioso” with “incredible balls.” The billionaire appeared to think of Trump as a shrewd manipulator, knowing “exactly what to say and what not to say so that he avoids jail.”
“It’s not all just sort of like seat-of-the-pants shit,” Pratt muses at another point. “I think that him and Rudy are… plotting all this out.”
Elsewhere, however, Pratt acknowledges that Trump might just be looking to blow his audience’s hair back. “He just says whatever the **** he wants,” he says. “And he loves to shock people.”
In one recording, Pratt remembers an alleged incident in which Trump asked Melania to strut around in a bikini “so all the other guys could get a look at what they were missing.” The former first lady, according to Pratt, snapped back: “I’ll do that when you walk around with me in your bikini.”
AJ McDougall
Breaking News Reporter
Updated Oct. 23, 2023 9:32AM EDT / Published Oct. 22, 2023 10:07PM EDT
The third-richest man in Australia has a big mouth, according to reports.
Earlier this month, ABC News reported that Anthony Pratt ran around town telling approximately 45 other people—including three former Australian prime ministers—that Donald Trump had disclosed potentially sensitive information about American nuclear submarines to him.
On Sunday, a joint investigation by 60 Minutes Australia, The Sydney Morning Herald, and The Age revealed that Pratt boasted that Trump also told him about his private calls with foreign leaders, inadvertently disclosing non-public details about U.S. military operations. The Australian billionaire’s swaggering talk was captured in a series of secret recordings, some of which were aired in 60 Minutes’ Sunday broadcast.
More excerpts were published on Sunday night by The New York Times, which reported that the recordings highlighted the “transactional ethos of the Trump presidency,” which mixed personal business interests and public service in a seemingly unprecedented way.
“It hadn’t even been on the news yet, and he said, ‘I just bombed Iraq today,’” Pratt can be heard recalling in one recording.
“He said, ‘I just bombed Iraq today. And the president of Iraq called me up and said, “You just leveled my city,”’ Pratt says, in apparent reference to a conversation Trump had with Iraqi President Barham Salih. “And I said to him, ‘OK, what are you going to do about it?’”
According to Pratt, Trump also alluded to another call with a world leader—the notorious September 2019 conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that would eventually form the basis of Trump’s first impeachment. “Trump said, ‘You know, that Ukraine phone call? That was nothing compared to what I usually do,’” Pratt says. “He said, ‘That Ukraine phone call, that’s nothing compared to what we usually talk about.’”
Pratt has been interviewed by U.S. federal prosecutors pursuing criminal charges against Trump and is on a list of potential witnesses to be called to the stand in Trump’s trial next year, according to the Times. It was not immediately clear whether prosecutors were aware of the recordings prior to the publication of the media reports.
A Trump spokesperson told the Times that the information disclosed by Pratt in the tapes “totally lack proper context and relevant information.” In his own statement, Trump called Pratt “a member of the most successful club in the country, Mar-a-Lago, and from a friendly country in Australia, one of our great allies.”
“I don’t know him well but he seemed like a nice person,” Trump added.
Trump later made an about face in an angry post on his Truth Social network, calling Pratt “a red haired weirdo from Australia” and saying he never talked to the billionaire about submarines. Trump also bizarrely claimed the Times reporters never reached out to him for comment, though a statement from both him and his spokesman appeared in the story.
Pratt bought a Mar-a-Lago membership in the hopes of cozying up to Trump and his inner circle, including his then-lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who Pratt saw as “cool” and “someone I hope will be useful one day,” according to the tapes. Pratt says in one recording that he paid Giuliani $1 million to come to his birthday party—before the pandemic dashed those plans. Instead, Pratt adds, Giuliani “now… rings me once a week.”
In some excerpted recordings, Pratt speaks admiringly of Trump, comparing him to a “mafioso” with “incredible balls.” The billionaire appeared to think of Trump as a shrewd manipulator, knowing “exactly what to say and what not to say so that he avoids jail.”
“It’s not all just sort of like seat-of-the-pants shit,” Pratt muses at another point. “I think that him and Rudy are… plotting all this out.”
Elsewhere, however, Pratt acknowledges that Trump might just be looking to blow his audience’s hair back. “He just says whatever the **** he wants,” he says. “And he loves to shock people.”
In one recording, Pratt remembers an alleged incident in which Trump asked Melania to strut around in a bikini “so all the other guys could get a look at what they were missing.” The former first lady, according to Pratt, snapped back: “I’ll do that when you walk around with me in your bikini.”
