ancianita
ancianita's JournalUniversal Hydrogen celebrates today after the first successful flight of the hydrogen electric plane
Kroll spoke to the confidence achieved during flight: "During the second circuit over the airport, we were comfortable with the performance of the hydrogen powertrain, so we were able to throttle back the fossil fuel turbine engine to demonstrate cruise principally on hydrogen power. The airplane handled beautifully, and the noise and vibrations from the fuel cell powertrain are significantly lower than from the conventional turbine engine."
Connect has secured the first US order to convert 75 ATR 72-600 planes to Universal Hydrogen powertrains with the purchase rights for 25 more. With the first successful flight complete, Universal Hydrogen kicks off a two-year testing program that is expected to enable full certification for hydrogen electric passenger flights using the aforementioned ATR 72 planes by 2025. The flight also marks the Dash-300 flying test bed as the largest hydrogen electric plane to take flight, paving the way for more hydrogen electric conversions of existing aircraft.
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/23/03/04/0022253/universal-hydrogens-40-passenger-hydrogen-electric-plane-completes-maiden-flight
also, Slashdot's source: https://electrek.co/2023/03/02/universal-hydrogen-passenger-hydrogen-electric-plane-maiden-flight/
"Universal Hydrogen’s" Hydrogen Electric Plane Completes 1st Flight"
( the music is weird, but the video shows the nature of the reported test)
The ramifications for our flying without fossil fuel seem hopeful.
Garland is badass.
In addition, the United States became the first country to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the seven-member Joint Investigative Team (JIT) that is investigating Russian atrocities in Ukraine. The MOU, signed by the Attorney General, will facilitate the United States’ cooperation and coordination with the JIT members as we collect evidence and investigate Russia’s atrocity crimes. It also signals our resolve that Russia’s invasion will not undermine our collective commitment to uphold human rights and preserve a free and democratic society.
At the conference, the Attorney General also met with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Brink, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Kostin, EU Commissioner Reynders, Polish Minister of Justice General Ziobro, and Polish National Public Prosecutor Barski, regarding operational cooperation on Russian war crimes and illicit finance and to further discussions about how the U.S. can partner internationally on these issues.
In sum, this conference both signals our joint resolve that Russia’s invasion will not undermine our collective commitment to preserving a free and democratic world and charts the way forward for our practical work to achieve that goal.
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland and Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the with the seven-member Joint Investigative Team.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/readout-attorney-general-merrick-b-garland-s-trip-ukraine
While the boss of DeSantistan was in CA, Number 2 at Main Justice Visited Florida.
Lisa Monaco's visit was to do more than just what is reported on the DOJ website. .
She was here to remind FL that the DOJ is watching. Hell yeah. 
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/readout-deputy-attorney-general-lisa-monaco-s-trip-florida
The Deputy AG also announced that the Justice Department will be surging resources to respond to the increasing intersection of corporate crime and national security threats by adding over 25 new prosecutors to investigate and prosecute these violations. You can read her full remarks here.
While in Miami, the Deputy Attorney General and the department’s Director of the Office for Access to Justice (ATJ), Rachel Rossi, as well as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Markenzy Lapointe, met with leaders of the federal and state public defenders offices and indigent defense advocates to launch the Justice Department’s cross-country National Public Defense Day Tour in honor of the 60th anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright, guaranteeing the right to counsel to anyone accused of a crime. The meeting in Miami kicked off ATJ’s “six stops for the Sixth Amendment” to elevate the importance of and appreciation for public defense services.
In highlighting the significance of launching this tour in Florida, the Deputy AG recalled her experience working for Attorney General Janet Reno, a former Miami-Dade State Attorney, who as Attorney General convened a historic National Symposium on Indigent Defense in 1998 on the 36th anniversary of Gideon to highlight the role of the Justice Department in strengthening indigent defense services...
On her trip, the Deputy AG visited the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, where she met with U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe and his leadership team, as well as the prosecutors and professional staff of the office. She thanked them for their hard work and dedication. She also met with state, local and federal law enforcement leaders to emphasize the importance of the ongoing partnerships in tackling violent crime and other public safety challenges.
Finally, the Deputy AG visited Federal Correctional Institute Miami to meet the Warden and staff, review their operations...
DeSantis cannonballs into America's deep blue states for war on 'woke' ahead of 2024
Source: Washington Post
DeSantis will travel this weekend to California, where the Republican has already drawn the renewed ire of Gov. Gavin Newsom, a frequent critic taunting him ahead of his visit. “Welcome to the real freedom state,” Newsom, a Democrat, said in a statement to The Washington Post, predicting his GOP counterpart is “going to get smoked by Trump” in the Republican primary. DeSantis aides did not respond to a request for comment.
DeSantis has used his blue state trips to contrast them with Florida — using statistics that sometimes mask far more complicated debates — and present himself as a combatant against the “woke” left. The arguments he has advanced serve as a foundation for the presidential campaign many expect him to launch later this year, though DeSantis has not said publicly if he is running.
As he has sought to sharpen the contrast between Florida and blue states, DeSantis has been eager to highlight his state’s crime rate, to cast his economic policies as a magnet drawing people to Florida, and to highlight his state’s decision to keep children in school during the pandemic as a critical driver for student success. But those comparisons are often more nuanced than he would make them appear...
While Trump remains popular within the GOP base, DeSantis has become a familiar figure in Republican circles in California. DeSantis argues that his refusal to bow to the “oppressive biomedical security state” during the pandemic played a role in encouraging more Americans to move to Florida and he contends that his approach will ultimately produce better outcomes in student achievement than in states such as California, Illinois and New York, where schools were closed longer.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/03/03/desantis-blue-states-california-newsom/
A Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll of CA Republicans last week -- reported in POLITICO -- put DeSantis ahead of Trump by 17 points. The Koch network is funding DeSantis to win against Trump in the Republican primaries, and California is where DeSantis intends to gain his momentum for future primary wins.
As 2024 race begins, special counsel advances with focus on Trump lawyers
Source: Washington Post
The probes are led by special counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to insulate the work from political influence. Smith’s pace appears to be quickening as the 2024 presidential election starts to take shape, with Trump once again a candidate and President Biden — Garland’s boss — poised to seek a second term. Trump so far has two declared Republican opponents. Legal experts say that if Smith brings criminal charges against Trump, those charges would likely be pending when the GOP primary debates begin in August.
In recent weeks, the special counsel has issued a flurry of grand jury subpoenas to high-profile witnesses, including former vice president Mike Pence and former chief of staff Mark Meadows. Smith has also imposed strict deadlines for responses in what may be a push to reach internal charging decisions this spring, people familiar with the investigations said. Some of the requests for information, including of Corcoran, have triggered closed-door legal battles that could significantly complicate that time frame.
“Whenever prosecutors become fixated on the defense attorneys, that’s usually a good indication their underlying case is very weak,” Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement. “Every American has the right to consult with counsel and have candid discussions — this promotes adherence to the law. We will fight the Special Counsel on this point and all others that jeopardize fundamental American rights and values.”
A spokesperson for Smith declined to comment.
In the documents case, prosecutors are examining whether Trump or his aides mishandled classified information, flouted a subpoena seeking the return of classified documents or attempted to obstruct government efforts to retrieve those materials. The investigation of events surrounding the 2020 election seems broader, with Smith and his team probing the funding and organizing of fake-elector slates and the events leading up to the riot at the U.S. Capitol. A state-level investigation of 2020 election-related activities in Georgia is also underway, with charging decisions expected this spring or summer.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/03/03/trump-documents-jan6-investigation-lawyers/
The Ethics Free Zone that is the SCOTUS -- Senate MVP, Sheldon Whitehouse
No misconduct accountability, no ethics code, no process for ethics investigation and enforcement -- SCOTUS is the weakest of our three branches of government.
Americans only know when justices' conflict of interests and politics-adjacent misconduct is reported by investigative journalists.
MVP Senator Whitehouse: Time To Wake Up To The Looming Costs of Climate Upheaval
Economic collapse of spending and revenues begins with the negative inertia of climate deniers who take scientific and financial projections for unbelievable, dissmissable hyperbole.
Then when climate deniers face that reality, their inertia has already cost the rest of us in terms of inflation, shortages of goods and services due to damaged trade logistics and climate hit economies.
Then that suffering due to collapse gets made worse by media profiteers who exploit the climate deniers with misinformed local/national toxic politics that take the form of blaming presidents for "inflation" -- caused by events they denied, yet had been predicted in the 30-year projections of financial entities -- insurance cos, central bankers, asset managers, investment banks, economists, etc.
More proof (as if we need it) that stupidity is incurable.
More reasons why we must vote them out as if each election is our last election.
Lawrence O'Donnell March 1 -- Opinions of Andrew Weissman and Neal Katyal (video still up)
Start 11:58 re the mention of Stephen Dantuono's obstruction and resignation last DecemberMVP of the Senate, Whitehouse, Busts Out Koch's Anti-Woke Fossil Fuel Industry Scheme
Almost complete transcription...
"... what is happening out there and why this has happened.
The Republicans would like us to believe that some bizarre viral epidemic of "wokeism" has spread into America's great financial companies, into the investment advisers, into the banks, into all kinds of fiduciaries, and that that needs to somehow be excised.
That is not what has happened. That is preposterous magical thinking.
What has happened is that the long forecast dangers of climate change that scientists have been telling us about for years have now gotten so real and so immediate that they have hit the due diligence horizon ...When you owe somebody else a fiduciary duty... then you have to tell them the truth ... about risks and the risks associated with climate change, the risks caused by the fossil fuel industry's relentless emissions... now so real and immediate that they can't be denied by big institutions that have no real interest in climate change but are absolutely obliged to tell the truth as fiduciaries.
And so that fiduciary threshold has been crossed.
And the fossil fuel industry, which is used to bullying to get its way is now pushing this completely fake anti-ESG effort in order to try to undo what the free market and what real life and facts and fiduciary obligations are causing other industries to deal with.
One telltale clue here is that when they're done talking about "woke capitalism" and when they're done talking about anti-ESG stuff, when you actually look at what the objection is, what the specific thing is that they're pushing back against -- in the ESG, it's always the E.
It's never the S. It's never the G. It's not social stuff. It's not governance stuff. It's environmental stuff. And within that E for environmental stuff, it's E for emissions. That is always the 'graviman' of the complaint. So that tells you a lot about who's behind this, and who is pitching it tells you a lot about who is behind it because you have fossil fuel organizations like the Attorney Generals' association that is cranking up and turning out Republican attorney generals to push this theory. You've got the Republican state treasurers, often funded by the fossil fuel industry, and a group called the 'State Financial Officers Foundation, which has glommed the state treasurers together to try to push on this. You get state boards like the Texas Railroad Commission, again, heavily, heavily involved with the fossil fuel industry that are pushing all of this.
When you look at what it is, you can see that it's target is always fossil fuel emissions, and you can see that its proponents are always fossil fuel funded. That tells you why we are where we are.
The rule that the fossil fuel industry pushed through during the Trump administration, an administration that essentially did everything the fossil fuel industry wanted it to do, would have restricted the ability of investment professionals to deliver the products that customers actually want and prevent them from looking at environmental risk and social issues or governance. Again, this is really about the environmental piece.
The Biden rule just undoes that. Nobody has to do ESG stuff. That's dictated by customer demand. If you want to, and your customers are demanding that, and if you want to protect them from climate risk, well, there you go, you have to do it.
Another clue about the mischief here is who some of the propagators of this theory have been. One is the Heritage Foundation. The Heritage Foundation is a notorious climate denial group. It has received millions of dollars from the Koch brothers [actually, only Charles Koch himself] political enterprise, from Koch foundations and has plenty of fossil fuel ties. The Texas Public Policy Foundation, another group which is a front group for the oil and gas industry.
I've already mentioned RAGA [Republican Attorneys General Association], which is heavily fossil fuel funded, includes Scott Pruitt, who you may remember from EPA disgrace. They had such control over RAGA that they were able to get him, as the attorney general, to write a letter with the identical text from a fossil fuel company, send it in to the EPA under his own letterhead, under his own signature as attorney general, even though the entire text was written by a fossil fuel company.
So that's the kind of relationship with RAGA, which by the way also helped turn people out for the Jan 6 insurrection -- really, really high quality operation there.
The last group I'll mention is the Marble Freedom Trust. The Marble Freedom Trust is the 501 (c) (4) pop-up operation that magically appeared in Utah to be the recipient of a $1.6 BILLION slush fund gifted to it by a far right billionaire that put it into the hands of a guy named Leonard Leo, who I talked about here on the floor before who is the orchestrator of the scheme capture of the Supreme Court [puchased for $580 Million] and put it into special interest hands...
And the guy who delivered that money into the Marble Freedom Trust was also famous for his support for the Heartland Institute, which is really just an epic climate denial crowd, to the point where one of their more notorious acts was to put up a billboard equating climate scientists to the Unabomber. That is the quality of the debate about climate change that the Heartland Institute brought, and the billionaire who's teed up Marble Freedom Trust was the prime backer of all that, and indeed had his CFO go on the board of Heartland Institute and try to keep the thing afloat so that it could be moderately well managed....
So that's where we're at. These guys are deep into this anti-ESG push.
The dark money operation that I talk about on the floor all the time is behind this ESG thing, just the way it's behind the capture of the court, just the way it's behind the whole climate denial operation that's stymied progress on climate in this building...
So let us vote NO on H.J. Resolution 30. And let's do more than that, let's call this out as a phony op... a scheme run by the fossil fuel industry... that is not something we want to encourage in this country. We have enough of the public not being listened to ... let's put an end to it... "
Good morning. I'm a sucker for ish like this
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Gender: Do not displayHometown: New England, The South, Midwest
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Current location: Sarasota
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