Zorro
Zorro's JournalHow America Watches for a Nuclear Strike
Hundreds of satellites and spacecraft are keeping an eye on Russia’s nuclear forces from above. So far, they haven’t seen much to worry about.In late February, when President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia declared that his country’s nuclear arms were entering “special combat readiness,” America’s surveillance gear went on high alert. Hundreds of imaging satellites, as well as other private and federal spacecraft, began looking for signs of heightened activity among Russia’s bombers, missiles, submarines and storage bunkers, which hold thousands of nuclear warheads.
The orbital fleet has yet to spot anything worthy of concern, image analysts said. Echoing the private assessments, U.S. and NATO officials have reported no signs that Russia is preparing for nuclear war. “We haven’t seen anything that’s made us adjust our posture, our nuclear posture,” Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser to President Biden, told reporters on March 23.
But America’s atomic watchdogs have reason to continue looking, experts said. Moscow has long practiced using relatively small nuclear blasts to offset battlefield losses. And some military experts are concerned over what Mr. Putin might do, after setbacks in Ukraine, to restore his reputation for edgy ruthlessness.
If Russia were preparing for atomic war, it would normally disperse its bombers to reduce their vulnerability to enemy attack, said Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, a private research organization in Washington. But right now, he said, “none of that’s evident.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/05/science/nuclear-weapon-russia-satellite-tracking.html?unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuomT1JKd6J17Vw1cRCfTTMQmqxCdw_PIxftm3iWka3DJDm4fiP8eAoWG8EqKY7doY9Y6xXGESdZZN7lqXuFp1e5WeldkVwSsppqYldEZOSw-qoO1USU2w5fJF_gewAPdU1OYeq151aHt-FWPKiSxCvmIz31xJg829MFlaQz62HAXwqfGE_om2YZ-wf4mBJ98QT4AZ3aO6OL6SEkrYKXwZRHc6gA1We9YSGuTyYbas-RcBV0UXVHWT3p_4nI-7cdePr4UO6X5KR0meanukOlbSzwofMryWcpHF8WDnK5qsLXNtRWL1MOzov0yH6hRt77G2X2oqgYqJeM4BxGiIqBNE-D1rw&smid=url-share
Astronomers Find What Might Be the Most Distant Galaxy Yet
Is the object a galaxy of primordial stars or a black hole knocking on the door of time? The Webb space telescope may help answer that question.Astronomers have been leapfrogging each other into the past lately. Last week, a group using the Hubble Space Telescope announced they had discovered what could be the most distant and earliest star ever seen, nicknamed Earendel, which twinkled 12.9 billion years ago, only 900 million years after the Big Bang.
Now another international group of astronomers, pushing the limits of the biggest telescopes on Earth, say they have discovered what appears to be the earliest and most distant collection of starlight ever seen: a reddish blob usefully named HD1, which was pouring out prodigious amounts of energy only 330 million years after the Big Bang. That realm of time is so far unexplored. Another blob, HD2 appears almost as far away.
Astronomers can only guess what these blobs are — galaxies or quasars or maybe something else entirely — while they wait for their chance to observe them with the new James Webb Space Telescope. But whatever they are, astronomers say, they could shed light on a crucial phase in the cosmos as it evolved from pristine primordial fire into planets, life and us.
“I am excited as a kid who spots the very first firework in a magnificent and highly anticipated show,” said Fabio Pacucci of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. “This could well be one of the first glimmers of light to illuminate the cosmos in a show that ultimately created every star, planet and even flower that we see around us today — more than 13 billion years later.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/07/science/astronomers-distant-galaxy.html
Army General Fired, Loses a Star After 'Counterproductive' Leadership
Source: Military.com
One of the Army's top logistics officers was fired and demoted after an inspector general investigation found he conducted "counterproductive leadership behaviors," the service announced.
Maj. Gen. Duane Gamble, formerly a three-star general, was investigated over allegations of racist behavior during his time as deputy chief of staff for logistics, a position commonly referred to as the G-4.
That investigation found that Gamble did not discriminate on the basis of race, but he still received a general officer memorandum of reprimand, or GOMOR, over leadership issues, according to Cynthia Smith, an Army spokesperson. GOMORs are largely seen as automatic career killers for officers and are rarely handed out to top leadership. It's unclear whether Gamble will be able to retire at his previous three-star rank, which he earned in September 2019.
Smith noted that Gamble's subordinates were "satisfied with his leadership," despite it being "counterproductive."
Read more: https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/04/06/army-general-fired-loses-star-after-counterproductive-leadership.html
Sounds like he must have carried on like an asshole.
US: 2 posed as agents, gave gifts to Secret Service officers
Source: AP
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal prosecutors on Wednesday charged two men they say were posing as federal agents, giving free apartments and other gifts to U.S. Secret Service agents, including one who worked on the first lady’s security detail.
The two men — Arian Taherzadeh, 40, and Haider Ali, 36 — were taken into custody as more than a dozen FBI agents charged into a luxury apartment building in Southeast Washington on Wednesday evening.
Prosecutors allege Taherzadeh and Ali had falsely claimed to work for the Department of Homeland Security and work on a special task force investigating gang and violence connected to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. They allege the two posed as law enforcement officers to integrate with actual federal agents.
Taherzadeh is accused of providing Secret Service officers and agents with rent-free apartments — including a penthouse worth over $40,000 a year — along with iPhones, surveillance systems, a drone, flat screen television, a generator, gun case and other policing tools, according to court documents.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/us-secret-service-956062f32e02854112b7c52794d202b2
Something fishy here.
Backlash at Ted Cruz after he tells Fox News that Biden started war in Ukraine
Texas Senator Ted Cruz assigned baseless blame for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to President Joe Biden on Monday as the Trump-aligned segment of the Republican Party continues to insist that former President Donald Trump, who enjoyed a famously warm relationship with Vladimir Putin, would have prevented the war.
Mr Cruz made the comments on Monday evening on Fox News, speaking with the network’s Sean Hannity.
“Joe Biden caused this war with Ukraine. How did he do it? When he waived sanctions on Nord Stream 2, sanctions that I authored, that I wrote, that Donald Trump signed into law,” Mr Cruz charged.
He went on to falsely imply that the Nord Stream 2 project had been completed “to let Putin get his gas to Europe”. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline finished construction in September after Mr Biden waived sanctions at Germany’s request, but the pipeline itself never became operational, and may well never be used following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which has caused the project to fall into the sights of the White House.
https://news.yahoo.com/backlash-ted-cruz-tells-fox-165550077.html
What a disgrace to Texas and to the Senate.
First the Feds Fined Clinton. Now It Might Be Trump's Turn.
The FEC recently fined Hillary Clinton and the DNC for a violation that Donald Trump and the RNC seem guilty of on a whole other level.When it came out last week that the Federal Election Commission fined Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee for misreporting political payments in 2016 that funded the explosive Steele dossier, the news attracted plenty of media attention. The penalties themselves, however, had nothing to do with the actual content, creation, or distribution of that infamous document.
Instead, the FEC dinged the Democrats on a clerical issue. And the real loser might actually be Donald Trump.
By coincidence, the same day the Clinton news broke, a watchdog group sued the FEC for taking no action on its complaint alleging that Trump’s 2020 campaign committed the exact same clerical violation. In both cases, the campaigns allegedly reported payments to a pass-through that actually went to another entity, concealing the money’s true recipient and purpose from the public.
But there’s a big difference. The alleged Clinton and DNC shell payments totaled less than a million dollars, combined. The Trump campaign’s arrangement allegedly concealed nearly $800 million.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/first-the-feds-fined-hillary-clinton-now-it-might-be-donald-trumps-turn
Ron DeSantis's repulsive war on Disney will soon face a reckoning
The stench of presidential ambition around Ron DeSantis has grown so thick that it resembles Charlie Brown pal Pigpen’s visible cloud of filth, and key to the Florida governor’s hopes is finding a way to capture the political energies unleashed by Donald Trump.
DeSantis must accomplish this while carving out a distinct path from that of the former president, who might run again himself. DeSantis’s new war with Disney appears to fit the bill perfectly.
As a good report from NBC News chronicles, DeSantis’s fellow Republicans see this battle as key to burnishing his national anti-“woke” brand. DeSantis escalated his attacks on Disney amid its criticism of the law he signed limiting classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity.
But DeSantis’s war on Disney will soon face a reckoning. A big question is whether DeSantis will seek to revoke Disney’s state tax incentives as a weapon in the war over that measure, which opponents call the “Don’t Say Gay” law.
If so, that could alienate Republicans who are fine with a bit of performative culture-warring but want to keep corporations happy where it really counts, i.e., on their bottom line. If not, that could disappoint right-wingers who actively want Republicans to wield state power wherever possible to bring “woke” corporations to their knees.
https://wapo.st/36NhhsR
Republican excuses for rejecting Ketanji Brown Jackson are absurd
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, seems to be getting rave reviews from Republicans. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) said that she is “a person of exceptionally good character, respected by her peers and someone who has worked hard to achieve her current position.” Sen. Ben Sasse (Neb.) declared that she “has impeccable credentials and a deep knowledge of the law.” Obviously, Judge Jackson exceeds the standard that should apply to Supreme Court nominees: that they be well-qualified, possess an even temperament and sit within the judicial mainstream. Yet Mr. Graham, Mr. Sasse and other Judiciary Committee Republicans are vowing to oppose advancing her nomination when the panel meets on Monday.
The reasons they have concocted are not credible. Mr. Graham voted to confirm Judge Jackson to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the second-most powerful court in the country, less than a year ago. Yet Mr. Graham has suddenly concluded that she has a “record of judicial activism.”
Mr. Sasse complained that Judge Jackson “refused to claim originalism as her judicial philosophy.” In fact, the extent to which she embraced originalism made many liberals uncomfortable. “I believe that the Constitution is fixed in its meaning,” Judge Jackson said in her confirmation hearings. “I believe that it’s appropriate to look at the original intent, original public meaning, of the words when one is trying to assess because, again, that’s a limitation on my authority to import my own policy.” If that is not good enough for Mr. Sasse, he is committing to reject any Supreme Court nominee selected by a Democratic president. Perhaps that is the point.
Senators should not impose an originalism test or a living constitutionalism test or any other crude philosophical standard on judicial nominees. The correct way to interpret the Constitution is open to legitimate debate, each judge — even each originalist judge — is different, and presidents should generally get high-quality picks confirmed. Otherwise the federal judiciary would become more political and less effective.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/04/03/republican-excuses-rejecting-ketanji-brown-jackson-are-absurd/
Tesla's Sales Jumped in the First Quarter, Bucking Industry Trend Again
Source: New York Times
The electric carmaker maintained its momentum from last year even as larger automakers continue to struggle with parts shortages.
Tesla, the world’s leading electric car company, on Saturday reported a steep increase in worldwide sales in the first three months of the year as it overcame supply chain problems and moved closer to production levels on a par with established luxury carmakers like BMW and Mercedes-Benz.
Tesla said it delivered 310,000 vehicles from January through March, up from 185,000 cars during the same period in 2021, roughly in line with Wall Street’s expectations. The nearly 70 percent increase was in contrast with major carmakers like General Motors and Toyota, which reported big sales declines on Friday because of shortages of key components.
The increase in the first quarter builds on Tesla’s momentum from last year, when it nearly doubled sales, to just short of 1 million cars, and overtook Volvo and Subaru. Tesla has coped better with an industrywide shortage of computer chips because its mastery of software allowed it to substitute chips that were available for ones that are scarce.
The first-quarter sales were “a positive step in the right direction for the next step of the Tesla growth,” Daniel Ives and John Katsingris of Wedbush Securities said in a note on Saturday, though they acknowledged that some analysts had expected more.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/02/business/tesla-sales-electric-vehicles.html
I tried Trump's Truth Social so you don't have to
There is almost nothing I wouldn’t do for you, dear reader, and this week, in your behalf, I made a painful sacrifice: I joined Truth Social so you don’t have to.
I endured weeks on the waiting list for the Donald Trump-created, Devin Nunes-run attempt at a Twitter killer, and I suffered through a series of technical glitches. But eventually I gained access. As a result, I have come to be in possession of the following new pieces of information about the war in Ukraine:
Hunter Biden is involved in building and running biolabs in the country.
The CIA and National Institutes of Health are both “deeply involved” in the Ukrainian biolabs.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was set in motion by a CIA false-flag operation that was funded by George Soros.
The covid-19 pathogen originated not in China but in Shpyl’chyna, a village in Ukraine.
The bioweapons developed in Ukraine specifically target the “Abrahamic Bloodline.”
Neo-Nazis from Ukraine joined with the FBI to infiltrate the Capitol on Jan. 6 and participated in the insurrection.
Ukraine was planning to use drones to attack Russia with pathogens from the U.S.-funded bioweapons labs.
President Biden has been using Ukraine to launder money.
Ukrainian neo-Nazis controlled the Ukrainian city of Mariupol before Russians invaded.
Russia’s alleged war crimes were staged.
I also found many posts calling President Biden a pedophile (or a “groomer” in the new parlance of QAnon). I found badly photoshopped images of Vice President Harris in sexualized situations. I found ceaseless attacks on trans people, an edited video of a cat attacking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, attacks on Disney for opposing Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” legislation, references to satanic sacrifice by the “deep state,” a few racist epithets and endless accusations about Hunter Biden’s laptop and drug abuse.
https://wapo.st/3u3dQqs
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