US Lawmaker Slams Pro-Israel Lobby: ‘I Don’t Give a F*** About AIPAC’
Sputnik – 07.11.2023
A congressional lawmaker from Wisconsin recently took the gloves off in an interview with US media about the influence of the Zionist group in Washington politics.
US Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) sharply criticized the influence of the pro-Israel lobby in US politics on Monday, singling out the role of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
“It’s time to call them out for what they are – a front group for conservative policy here in the US – instead of being afraid of them,” said Pocan in an interview with US media.
“I don’t give a f*** about AIPAC – period. I think they’re a cancerous presence on our democracy and politics in general, and if I can be a surgeon, that’s great.”
The statement represents the latest salvo in an ongoing feud between Pocan and the historically influential lobbying group. Last month, AIPAC accused Pocan and several Democratic members of the US House of “trying to keep Hamas in power” in a post on the X social media platform.
The accusation came after several lawmakers voted against a bill expressing unconditional support for Israel’s military action in Gaza (Pocan was not among them). Nine Democratic lawmakers were joined by US Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) in opposing the bill, with Massie stating opposition to the bill’s support for sanctions and implied future commitment of US troops in the conflict.
I condemn the barbaric attack on Israel and I affirm Israel’s right to defend itself.
However, I will not be voting for House Resolution 771 today because:
1) It calls for sanctions on a sovereign country. Sanctions are a prelude to war and hurt the citizens of the country more…
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) October 25, 2023
Pocan responded on the platform, posting “AIPAC is good at not telling the truth… We just don’t support killing kids, which it seems you do.”
At least 4,100 minors and 10,022 people in total have been killed in Israel’s ongoing attacks on the besieged Gaza Strip over the last month, according to latest figures provided by officials.
Additionally, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed 155 people in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, territory illegally occupied by Israel under international law since 1967.
Pro-Israel lobbying groups like AIPAC have helped make Israel the single largest recipient of US foreign aid since World War II, procuring as much as $3.9 billion in yearly assistance for the country.
Criticizing Israel and the influence of the pro-Israel lobby has proven taboo in US politics. US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), one of only three Muslim members of US Congress, was denounced as antisemitic after criticizing the influence of Zionist lobbyists in 2019. The incident saw her attract criticism from prominent members of her own party, including Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Chelsea Clinton, daughter of former US President Bill Clinton.
Omar was again castigated after a post on social media criticizing Israel in 2021. Omar shared recordings of a threatening voicemail she received in response to public criticism against her at the time, including threatening messages such as “Muslims are terrorists” and one caller saying he hopes her campaign volunteers “get what’s f***ing coming to you.” Public treatment of Muslim officials such as Omar and fellow Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), the only Palestinian member of US Congress, has prompted discussion of the role of Islamophobia and Orientalism in public life.
Orientalism is prejudice against people from the Middle East and Middle Eastern culture. The term was popularized by Palestinian scholar Edward Said in his 1978 book “Orientalism,” which argued that domination of the region is fueled by Western contempt and stereotypical assumptions about the Arab world.
A recent study by researchers at Brown University found that as many as 3.8 million people have been killed amidst US-backed military action in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and other countries in the 21st century. US interference in the region has been ongoing for decades, and includes a CIA-backed coup in Iran in 1953, US funding of Mujahideen forces in Afghanistan since the late 1970s, and continued US military support for Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories.
Jim Jordan Announces Investigation into DOJ For Spying on Congressional Staffers
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | November 7, 2023
Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan, who serves as the House Judiciary Committee Chairman, has issued demands to five major tech companies. The prominent lawmaker insisted AT&T, Alphabet – the parent company for Google, Apple, Verizon, and T-Mobile, release information potentially exposing surveillance tactics endorsed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) against congressional representatives and their staff.
We obtained an example of the letters for you here.
The call for transparency comes on the heels of revelations that six-year-old subpoenas had facilitated the department’s breach of personal phone and email accounts for numerous lawmakers and their official aides.
The account framing the current plight was provided by Jordan, who propounded that the DOJ’s intervention strategically targeted the very congressional individuals scrutinizing the agency’s mishandling of the Russia collusion investigation.
Jordan’s theory postulates that such actions tampered with the squarely drawn lines of both the Constitution’s principle of separated powers and Congress’s independent oversight of federal agencies.
Conveying his objections through letters to the tech CEOs, Jordan stated: “The Justice Department’s efforts to obtain the private communications of congressional staffers, including staffers conducting oversight of the Department, is wholly unacceptable and offends fundamental separation of powers principles as well as Congress’s constitutional authority to conduct oversight of the Department. This revelation also follows news that the Department issued subpoenas to obtain the private emails and records of congressional staffers on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence who were conducting oversight of the Justice Department’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation.”
An additional point of contention for Jordan was the DOJ obtaining private emails and records from staffers with the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, who had been examining the Department’s Crossfire Hurricane” investigation. In Jordan’s view, “These revelations strongly suggest that the Justice Department weaponized its law-enforcement authority to spy on the entities seeking to hold it accountable.”
These troubling revelations expose a disturbing overreach of surveillance, a flagrant violation of privacy, and a stark shakeup of the checks-and-balances system, propelling the call for corporate accountability and congressional autonomy into the spotlight.
NATO ally warns US about ‘tarnished reputation’ – media
RT | November 7, 2023
Türkiye has told the US that its stance on the Israel-Hamas conflict has both tarnished its reputation and put the entire world community in a tough spot, Hurriyet reported on Tuesday.
According to the Turkish daily, Ankara conveyed that message during a meeting between Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday, which concerned the current crisis in the Middle East.
The sit-down came amid heightened tensions between Türkiye and Israel, Washington’s key ally in the region, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently accusing the Jewish state of “war crimes” in Gaza and denouncing its ground assault as “an open, vicious massacre.”
Israel maintains that it has no intention of harming the civilian population in the Palestinian enclave, stressing that its main objective is to defeat Hamas, which launched a surprise attack on the country on October 7.
Hurriyet claimed that Fidan and his delegation “clearly explained” to Blinken what was happening in Gaza, and that the US vow to stand by Israel while refusing to call for a ceasefire, was “putting everyone in trouble.”
“You are also putting your own image in trouble because you are seen as the patron of the crimes committed by Israel,” the delegation reportedly said.
Following the meeting, the two sides did not issue a joint statement or hold a joint press conference. Speaking to reporters, however, Blinken said that he had a very “productive” conversation with Fidan, including about the need to “significantly expand humanitarian assistance” to Gaza and avoid escalating the conflict.
His remarks came after US President Joe Biden called for a humanitarian “pause” in hostilities. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later signaled that his government was open to “little pauses” in the fighting.
After Hamas attacked Israel last month, the latter responded with air and missile strikes on Gaza while announcing a “complete siege” of the enclave. To date, the fighting has claimed the lives of more than 10,000 Palestinians, and more than 1,400 Israelis.
Meanwhile, Politico reported on Monday that a group of low- and mid-level US diplomats had urged the Biden administration to condemn Israel’s bombing of civilians and demand a ceasefire. They reportedly argued that failure to do so “contributes to regional public perceptions that the United States is a biased and dishonest actor.”
U.S. Out of Africa Now!
By Brad Pearce | The Libertarian Institute | November 7, 2023
On October 26, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) forced a debate and vote on the U.S. military presence in Niger. The Senate overwhelmingly voted to keep our troops in that troubled country. There has been an increased focus on Africa due to widespread instability and a contest between superpowers for the continent. The presence of U.S. troops puts Americans in danger while failing to solve any of Africa’s problems.
During the Cold War era, the United States mostly relied on “soft power” in Africa, but U.S. military presence has continued to increase over the past 30 years. It is time to acknowledge that the U.S. military presence in Africa is a failure, bring our troops home, and replace violence with diplomacy and commerce. It is the right thing for America and the best thing for Africa.
Prior to the advent of the Global War on Terrorism, U.S. military actions in Africa were primarily evacuating American nationals in times of crisis, something which they did on many occasions due to frequent volatility. The first major U.S. deployment was the United Nations Operation in Somalia, which has transformed into one of the longest conflicts in American history while failing to make Somalia secure. The U.S. footprint has continued to expand; currently the largest U.S. base in Africa is in the small Red Sea nation of Djibouti, while there is also an enormous and expensive drone base in Agadez, Niger in the central Sahel. Further, the United States trains troops around the continent, having commandos deployed to at least 22 African nations in 2022.
When U.S. troops were first permanently deployed to Africa following 9/11 there were no known transnational terrorist organizations on the continent. The United States got a better excuse for its presence after the Islamic Courts Union took control of Somalia in 2006. The ICU were then expelled by an Ethiopian-led invasion, leaving in their wake an offshoot known as Al-Shabab which later pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda. Following the Ethiopian invasion, the United Nations authorized the African Union Mission in Somalia [ANISOM] which the United States has supported since it began in 2007 with a large air and ground presence.
Radical Islamic terrorism did not spread across Africa in earnest until the 2010s, when it was greatly spurred by U.S. and NATO actions across North Africa and the Middle East. Most notably, when a NATO coalition overthrew Libya’s longtime leader Gadaffi in 2011 fighters he had been employing looted his armory and returned to their home countries, restarting dormant rebellions. The war in Syria began around the same time, and ultimately led to the Islamic State and Al Qaeda gaining a great deal of power and territory in the Middle East. This was simultaneous to the increasing popularity of drone warfare within the Obama Administration, who saw it as a “cheap” way to conduct counter-terror operations throughout the Muslim world. When they were chased out of some of their strongholds by airstrikes, Al Qaeda and the Islamic State expanded rapidly in West Africa, giving the United States yet more of a justification to increase its military presence in the region, most notably in Niger.
For a time, the presence of U.S. combat troops in West Africa was such a well-kept secret that when four U.S. servicemen were killed in an ambush in Niger in 2017, multiple prominent legislators in charge of overseeing the U.S. military, including noted warmongers Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and the late Senator John McCain (R-AZ), acknowledged that they were not aware there were U.S. troops in the country. One exception to this was Representative Charlie Dent, who told CNN’s Chris Cuomo:
“With respect to Niger, I serve on the appropriations committee. I oversee military construction projects. We have a presence there. Not just there, but within that whole Lake Chad region, supporting local troops to support fight Boko Haram, support operations in West Africa and the operation in Mali. So we have all sorts of people in that region fighting a very dangerous foe, and ISIS in West Africa, especially.”
This is a stunning insight into the lack of thought the United States was putting into its military presence in Africa at the time—the civilian leadership in charge of overseeing military activity were unaware of the military’s presence in West Africa. The only oversight from Congress related to spending the money, which at the time included the construction of the Agadez drone base.
Persistent failure in Africa has not deterred U.S. policy makers from continuing the same strategies. Writing for The Intercept, journalist Nick Turse reports that in 2002 and 2003 the U.S. State Department reported just nine terrorist attacks in all of Africa, whereas in 2022 there were 2,737 in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger alone. The source for these statistics is the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, run by the U.S. Department of Defense which released a devastating report in early 2023 about security in the region following 20 years of heavy U.S. counter-terror involvement. The report states that terrorism fatalities across Africa rose by 48% in 2022 alone; the report notes the irony that terrorism has spiked since the Mali coup, for which poor security was used as a justification, but doesn’t mention the fact that there was almost no terrorism at all before the United States got involved in counter-terror operations in the region.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the training programs which are a key component of U.S. Africa policy have a proven track record of overthrowing the very governments they are meant to prop up. At least 12 coups by U.S. trained personnel have occurred since 2008, as of August 2023. A 2022 study showed that U.S. training makes soldiers more supportive of one-party states and less interested in preserving human rights. Following training, they see the value of reducing conflict within a state by taking sole power and also have been trained in skill sets conducive to conducting successful coups. Don’t worry though, AFRICOM commander General Michael Langley has full faith and confidence in our “curriculum” of telling them “please don’t do coups.”
Nowhere in Africa has U.S. troop presence achieved its goals. After 20 years, Africa has much more terrorism and fewer democratic governments. Both of those things are supposed to be key American objectives. The most important thing for the United States to have a productive future in Africa is to shed the Global War on Terror. Abukar Arman, a Somali geopolitical analyst and former diplomat, argued earlier this year that, “so long as U.S.’ policy toward Africa remains one driven by counter-terrorism and is implemented by AFRICOM drones that are accountable to no one, there will never be a sustainable strategic partnership with key countries such as Somalia.” He is correct that both the men running U.S. Africa policy and the machines which they use are drones and neither are producing desired results.
The U.S. Senate has shown that it intends to continue zombie policies by voting to stay in Niger and put our troops at unacceptable levels of risk without the potential of achieving any goals. The only wise path forward is to end our African terror war and engage with African nations as genuine partners in commerce and development.
Let’s Not Forget the U.S. Mass Killings of Children
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | November 7, 2023
While some American mainstream commentators express concern about the large death toll among children in Gaza, we mustn’t forget that when it is the U.S. government — and, specifically, the U.S. national-security branch of the government — that is killing large numbers of children, most U.S. mainstream commentators go into silent mode or, even worse, play supportive roles in such killings.
Who can forget the 1990s, when U.S. officials were killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children, with nary a concern expressed by U.S. mainstream commentators? Oh, sure, it’s true that those killings were being inflicted by economic sanctions, rather than bombs, but so what? The Iraqi children were just as dead. What difference does it make whether a child is killed by sanctions instead of bombs?
The official mindset toward the mass numbers of Iraqi children being killed by the U.S. government was perfectly reflected in the infamous response that Madeleine Albright gave in 1996 to Leslie Stahl of Sixty Minutes. Stahl pointed out that half-a-million Iraqi children had been killed by U.S. and UN sanctions, more than the number killed at Hiroshima as a result of the U.S. government’s targeting of the civilian population, including children, of that city with a nuclear bomb. Stahl asked Albright, “Is the price worth it?” Albright replied, “We think the price is worth it.”
Albright was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. As such, she was the official spokesperson for the U.S. government to the world. She was serving in the Clinton administration. No one within the government criticized her statement and there was little, if any, condemnation among U.S. mainstream commentators. That’s because her callous statement undoubtedly reflected the mindset of both her cohorts in the U.S. government and the mindset of the government’s loyal supporters in the mainstream press. That mindset was a classic example of Hannah Arendt’s term “the banality of evil.”
What was the “it” to which Albright was referring? The “it” was regime change, a U.S. foreign-policy concept that has been at the center of the U.S. national-security state ever since this governmental structure was brought into existence after the Second World War.
U.S. officials decided that they wanted to get rid of Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, and replace him with another U.S. stooge. But Saddam refused to budge. Thus, the purpose of the sanctions was threefold: (1) to induce Saddam to resign, after which the deadly sanctions would be lifted; (2) induce the Iraqi people to rise up in a violent revolution against Saddam’s government, which would produce more massive deaths; or (3) incite a coup in which Iraq’s national-security establishment assassinated or otherwise removed Saddam from power and replaced him with a U.S.-approved puppet.
According to a review at National Catholic Reporter of Joy Gordon’s excellent 2012 book Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions, “UNICEF documented the deaths of 500,000 children under 5 from dysentery and malnutrition (Gordon says the latest figure is 880,000). All three U.S. administrations — Bush, Clinton, Bush — whenever challenged on its responsibility for an epidemic or a famine, simply blamed Hussein.”
How could they blame Saddam Hussein? They said that all he had to do to stop the killings of the Iraqi children was resign. U.S. officials made it clear that once he resigned, they would lift their deadly sanctions and, therefore, no more Iraqi children would have to die. Therefore, in their twisted and perverted logic, they said it was Saddam, not U.S. officials who were imposing and enforcing the sanctions, who was actually responsible for the deaths caused by the sanctions.
A 2003 article entitled “Sanctioned Genocide” stated:
The U.N. humanitarian reports on the blockade’s effects on Iraqi children tell a grisly tale. In December 1995, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization reported 567,000 Iraqi children had died as a direct consequence of economic sanctions. In March 1996, a World Health Organization study released found the blockade had caused a six-fold increase in the mortality rate of Iraqi children under age five. UNICEF reported in October 1996 that 4,500 Iraqi children under five were dying every month as a result of sanctions-induced starvation and disease.
Two high UN officials, Dennis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck resigned their posts because they did not want to be part of what they labeled as genocide. In a 2021 interview, Halliday stated:
This completely undermined the water treatment and distribution system of Iraq, which depended on electricity to drive it, and drove people to use contaminated water from the Tigris and the Euphrates. That was the beginning of the death-knell for young children, because mothers were not breast-feeding, they were feeding their children with child formula, but mixing it with foul water from the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers.
In addition, these conflicts introduced a new weapon called depleted uranium, which was used by the U.S. forces driving the Iraqi Army out of Kuwait. That was used again in southern Iraq in the Basra area, and led to a massive accumulation of nuclear debris which led to leukemia in children, which took three, four, or five years to become evident.
When I got to Iraq in 1998, the hospitals in Baghdad, and also of course in Basra and other cities, were full of children suffering from leukemia. Those children, we reckon perhaps 200,000 children, died of leukemia. At the same time, Washington and London withheld some of the medicines and treatment components that leukemia requires, again, it seemed, in a genocidal manner, denying Iraqi children the right to remain alive.
It’s worth mentioning that prior to the U.S. killing of Iraqi children as a way to get regime change in Iraq, Saddam Hussein had been a partner and ally of the U.S. national-security state during the 1980s. That was when U.S. officials were helping Iraqi forces to kill Iranian citizens in Iraq’s war of aggression against that country. See my articles “Where Did Iraq Get Its Weapons of Mass Destruction” and “Where Did Iraq Get Its Weapons of Mass Destruction, Part 2.”
Of course, Iran is pertinent to this discussion because while U.S. officials no longer target the people of Iraq with deadly sanctions, they continue to target people in other nations, including children, with death by sanctions. Iran, along with Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, Russia, China, and other targets of regime change, come to mind, with nary a concern expressed by most U.S. mainstream commentators.
Bernie Sanders and the Zionist narrative
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | November 7, 2023
Whenever politicians appear to distance themselves temporarily from the mainstream narrative on Israel, one would do well to be prudent before deciding where their loyalties truly lie, and let the alignment with Zionism reveal itself in due course.
“I don’t know how you can have a permanent ceasefire with an organisation like Hamas which is dedicated to turmoil and chaos, and destroying the state of Israel,” said US politician Bernie Sanders in an interview with CNN. If there is no ceasefire, how can Sanders argue for a humanitarian pause? And what is humanitarian about a lull that provides temporary relief before Israel embarks on the next phase of its murderous bombing campaign in Gaza? Is it “hope”, which Sanders has the audacity to mention as being the ambiguous construct to be given to the Palestinians by the international community, always within the context of the two-state compromise?
The Zionist narrative, which the world promotes even as calls for a ceasefire increase, forms the premise of Sanders’s comments. In 2021, he penned an op-ed in the New York Times that called for the recognition of Palestinian rights and lives while upholding Israel’s “absolute right to live in peace and security”. Israel’s so-called rights are rooted in its colonial framework; Sanders’s attempt at equivalence between the colonised and the coloniser is evident even in the language used: the humanitarian versus the political.
In 2019, Sanders suggested that the US should curb its military aid to Israel based on its treatment of Palestinians in Gaza. “I think it is fair to say that some of that should go right now into humanitarian aid,” Sanders added while speaking at J Street’s national conference.
During a presidential debate in the same year in Atlanta, Sanders embarked on another contradiction: “It is no longer good enough for us to be pro-Israel, I am pro-Israel, but we must treat the Palestinians with the dignity they deserve.” Being pro-Israel is being pro-colonialism, for the simple reason that Israel is a colonial enterprise that thrives upon the dispossession of the Palestinian people.
There is nothing about Israel which is not connected to the Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestinians known as the 1948 Nakba, the ethnic cleansing that has never ended.
Now that Israel has given the world a view of what the Nakba looks like, this time complete with precision strikes that have killed over 10,000 civilians but failed to take down Hamas, what is Sanders truly advocating? What humanitarian pause does he envisage, for example, given that Israel is dropping bombs on hospitals in Gaza? One hundred Israeli doctors have signed a petition calling for Israel to bomb Al-Shifa Hospital, claiming that it harbours Palestinian resistance groups.
What is humanitarian about the humanitarian pause that Sanders claims to want, when the underlying message is a green light for Israel to destroy Gaza under the pretext of destroying Hamas? Considering the aftermath of the bombing, which Israel is already hinting at, what is Sanders’s stance over Netanyahu’s plans for Israel’s possible physical re-occupation of Gaza “for an indefinite period” under the pretext of the colonial security narrative?
There is no way that Sanders can gloss over Israel’s colonial violence, not even with rhetoric about humanitarian pauses. Besides the fact that Sanders’s statement was too little, too late, it would benefit Palestinians if fewer people jumped on the adulation bandwagon for statements that look at the colonised through a colonial humanitarian lens.
US House Panel Says Disinformation ‘Pseudo-Experts’ Targeted Political Speech Online
Sputnik – 07.11.2023
WASHINGTON – US government officials used a government-linked group of disinformation pseudo-experts to launder the censorship of political speech online, the US House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government said in an interim report.
The Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) – a group of purported disinformation academics led by the Stanford Internet Observatory – worked with US government officials to monitor and censor online speech ahead of the 2020 presidential election, the report, released Monday, said.
“This interim staff report details the federal government’s heavy-handed involvement in the creation and operation of the EIP, which facilitated the censorship of Americans’ political speech in the weeks and months leading up to the 2020 election,” the report said. “This pressure was largely directed in a way that benefited one side of the political aisle: true information posted by Republicans and conservatives was labeled as ‘misinformation’ while false information posted by Democrats and liberals was largely unreported and untouched by the censors.”
The House Weaponization Subcommittee released the report in conjunction with the House Judiciary Committee.
The EIP worked with the US Department of Homeland Security and other US government agencies to bypass First Amendment protections for speech through the consortium of disinformation “pseudo-experts,” the report said.
The EIP was created at the request of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the report said. US government officials would submit misinformation reports to EIP analysts, who would then recommend censorship actions to tech companies, the report added.
An “untold number” of US citizens across the political spectrum were impacted by the censorship of true information, jokes and opinions, the report said.
The House committees’ investigations into the weaponization of the federal government and violations of civil liberties remain ongoing, the report said. There is “more to come,” Judiciary and Weaponization panel chair Jim Jordan also said in a statement via social media platform X.
The American people deserve to know whether they were targeted by the US government and affiliated disinformation pseudo-experts, Jordan added.
US, Israel to open second front in Lebanon
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | NOVEMBER 6, 2023
The announcement late Sunday night by the US Central Command [CENTCOM] headquartered in Doha about the arrival of an Ohio-class American nuclear submarine in its “area of responsibility” presages a significant escalation of the situation around the Palestine-Israel conflict.
It is very rare that the use of these submarines is publicised. CENTCOM provided no additional details but it posted an image that showed an Ohio-class submarine in Egypt’s Suez Canal. Interestingly, CENTCOM also separately shared an image of a nuclear-capable B-1 bomber operating in the Middle East.
Taken together, these US deployments, coming on top of the formidable presence of two aircraft carriers and warships hundreds of advanced jet fighters, are with an eye on “the other side of the equation,” as Secretary of State Antony Blinken quaintly described Hamas, Hezbullah, and Iran during his latest visit to Tel Aviv on Friday.
In a related development, perhaps, the CIA director, William Burns arrived in Israel on Sunday for urgent consultations. The New York Times reported that the US is “looking to expand its intelligence sharing with Israel.”
Arguably, the most charitable explanation for the deployment of a US nuclear submarine, which form part of the Pentagon’s “nuclear triad”, near the war zone is that the Biden Administration is preparing for an Israeli escalation into Lebanon to draw out Hezbollah, which may in turn trigger an Iranian reaction.
In his speech on Friday, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrullah seemed to anticipate precisely such a turn of events when he warned the US explicitly of consequences that couldn’t be any different from the catastrophic American involvement in Lebanon’s civil war in the early 1980s. Ironically, this is also the 40th anniversary year of the suicide bombing of the barracks housing US forces in Beirut International Airport in October 1983 in which 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers were killed forcing a US withdrawal from Lebanon.
Clearly, the locus of the US strategy in the present Middle situation may be shifting from diplomacy, which has lost traction. Blinken’s desperate attempts to address the mounting international criticism of Israel’s horrific war crimes by diverting attention to a “humanitarian pause” in the fighting has been unceremoniously shot down by Netanyahu.
The point is, after bombarding Gaza and its people with artillery and bombs, the Israeli army moved in on Friday. So far, it has reportedly advanced to the outskirts of Gaza City but not entered the Hamas stronghold. Fierce urban fighting is expected when it does.
Equally, the Biden administration’s clumsy attempt to promote a vague outline for a post-war Gaza that might include a combination of a revitalised Palestinian Authority, a peacekeeping force, etc. has been met with a distinct lack of enthusiasm at Blinken’s meeting in the weekend in Amman with the Arab foreign ministers – from Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates – who instead demanded an immediate ceasefire, while Blinken said the US would not push for one.
Blinken travelled to Ramallah from Amman where the head of the Palestine Authority Mahmoud Abbas apparently gave him short shrift saying that the PA would only be ready to shoulder full responsibility for the Gaza Strip in the framework of a “comprehensive political solution” that would include the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza — and, furthermore, that security and peace can only be achieved by ending the occupation of the territories of the “State of Palestine,” and by recognising East Jerusalem as its capital. The meeting lasted for less than an hour and ended without public statements.
Meanwhile, China and the UAE (by the way, Israel’s Abraham Accords partner) have since called for a closed-door meeting of the UN Security Council in another attempt to seek an immediate ceasefire, which the Biden Administration will certainly oppose. Suffice to say, the Biden Administration feels boxed in and the only way out is for something to give way through the exercise of coercive means.
The US is watching with frustration as new regional equations are appearing among Muslim nations. The foreign ministers of Iran and Saudi Arabia held another phone conversation today. The OIC later announced that an extraordinary summit will be held in Riyadh on November 12 at the request of the current chairman, Saudi Arabia, to discuss Israel’s attacks on the Palestinian people.
As the death toll in Gaza crosses 10,000, feelings are indeed running high in the Muslim world. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said today that “all the evidence and indications show the direct involvement of the Americans in running the war” in Gaza. Khamenei added that as the war goes on, the reasons behind the US’s direct role would become more explicit.
The Fars News Agency, which is close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, also disclosed that Khamenei held a “recent meeting in Tehran” with the Head of Hamas political bureau Ismail Haniyeh where he told the latter that Tehran’s support for the resistance groups is its “permanent policy.”
Evidently, Tehran no longer sees a problem in acknowledging its dealings with the resistance groups. This is a paradigm shift indicative of the shift in the power dynamic, which the US and Israel seem to have decided to counter through use of force where diplomacy failed to make headway to isolate Iran.
The Chief of the Israeli General Staff, Herzi Halevi, said on Sunday during a meeting in the Northern Command, “We are ready to strike in the north at any moment. We understand that it can happen… We have a clear goal of restoring a significantly better security situation at the borders [with Lebanon], not only in the Gaza Strip.”
No power on earth can stop Israel in its tracks now. Its existence is inextricably linked to this war which will ensure abiding US commitment to its security as a key template of American global strategies for the foreseeable future. Therefore, Israel’s best chance of survival lies in expanding the scope of the war in Gaza into Lebanon — and possibly even into Syria — shoulder to shoulder with the Americans.
There is no question that the location of the US nuclear submarine to the east of Suez is an attempt to intimidate Iran from intervening, as Israel, with US backing, proceed to open a second front. The Israeli authorities have announced evacuation of people from settlements located in a zone up to five kms from the border with Lebanon.
A prolonged war of indeterminate timeline is set to begin in the Middle East. The Middle East that emerged after World War II is breaking loose and drifting away into the chronicles of history. As the call of the jihad begins, there is no knowing how the 80-year old American president will respond.
No, this won’t turn into a world war. It will be fought in the Middle East itself, but its outcome will decisively impact the making of a new world order.
Iran FM says Tehran received new message from Washington on Gaza
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian
Press TV – November 6, 2023
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian says Tehran has received a new message from Washington claiming that the US seeks a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, but they continue to support Israel’s genocide in the Palestinian territory in practice.
The minister, who was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a Monday meeting between Iranian and Iraqi heads of governments in Tehran, said, however, that the message did not correspond to what the US has done in practice in Gaza where it has supported the Israeli crimes against the civilians.
“The Americans … delivered a message to us in the past three days (claiming) that they are after ceasefire and have carried out efforts in this regard,” said Amir-Abdollahian, but “they, however, back mass killing and genocide” of people in Gaza.
“We hope that the US will soon change its policy and stop supporting the occupying party,” he said.
The US had sent similar messages to Iran, a country with influence over resistance groups in Palestine, since the Israeli aggression on Gaza started on October 7, according to statements by Amir-Abdollahian and other authorities.
Amir-Abdollahian also commented about reports suggesting that his US counterpart Antony Blinken had arrived in the Iraqi capital Baghdad earlier on Monday while wearing a bullet-proof vest out of fears that he could be targeted because of his support for the Israeli carnage in Gaza.
“This is the reality about the US role in the region,” said the diplomat.
Resistance groups in Iraq have launched attacks on US military bases in the Arab country in response to Washington’s offering of direct and open support for the Israeli attacks on Gaza.
Those groups and peers in other countries of the region have warned that such attacks on US interests could expand if Israel does not stop its brutal aggression against Gaza.
Gaza health authorities said on Monday that the number of people killed in 31 days of Israel attacks had exceeded 10,000 with children accounting for nearly half of the death toll.
What Message Does US Tomahawk-Carrying Submarine Send Amid Gaza War?
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 06.11.2023
An Ohio-class guided missile submarine arrived in the Middle East on Sunday, as per a social media post by the US Central Command.
The Ohio-class guided missile submarine (SSGN) – depicted entering the Suez Canal northeast of Cairo by the US Central Command – is one of the four US underwater craft of this type converted to fire Tomahawk cruise missiles rather than nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles.
Per the US press, each SSGN sub can carry 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles, which is 50% more than a US guided-missile destroyer and nearly four times what the US Navy’s newest attack submarines are equipped with.
The Tomahawk cruise missile can strike targets precisely from 1,000 miles away and has been used in combat more than 2,300 times by the US and its allies. Most recently, US Navy warships and subs fired 66 Tomahawk missiles at Syrian government facilities in 2018.
According to the US press, the heavily armed submarine sends “a message of deterrence” to Israel’s “regional adversaries, as the Biden administration “tries to avoid a broader conflict amid the Israel-Hamas war.”
The deployment of the submarine is triggering concerns, as per the DC-based think tank Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. The crux of the matter is that the US has already amassed a huge military force in the Middle East over the unfolding Gaza war.
The think tank particularly refers to:
· two aircraft carrier strike groups, with roughly 7,500 personnel on each;
· two guided-missile destroyers;
· nine air squadrons (deployed in the Eastern Mediterranean and Red Sea region);
· 4,000 troops dispatched to the region, with another 2,000 on standby, in addition to roughly 30,000 troops already stationed in the region.
These figures do not include “several dozen” commandos deployed to Israel in order to “actively help the Israelis to do a number of things,” as per Christopher P. Maier, an assistant secretary of defense.
On top of that there are US top military advisers on the ground in Israel to work out strategies to defeat Hamas together with the Israel Defense Forces.
“The United States is barreling toward another war in the Middle East,” Jon Hoffman, a policy analyst in defense and foreign policy at the Cato Institute, wrote for RS on Monday. “The conflict between Israel and Hamas is rapidly escalating across the region and risks dragging the United States directly into the fray.”
Kansas Energy Freedom Now!
By Sherri Lange | Master Resource | November 3, 2023
Nixing the Mandates in Kansas: Representative Carrie Barth (R-Dist 5) and former House Energy and Environment Chair, Dennis Hedke, reach astounding consensus on Energy Resolution: 180 to 1. There will be no energy “victims” in this state.
I don’t believe I am the typical politician. I don’t care about a political career or political threats. I care about doing the right thing.
I care about people. Period! (- Rep Carrie Barth in an email, October 9 2023)
Carrie Barth (R-Kansas, District 5) and Dennis Hedke, unapologetic supporter of the U.S. Constitution, acclaimed author of The Audacity of Freedom (2011), geophysicist, and former member Kansas House of Representatives (former Chair of the House Energy Committee), have drafted a clean and accurate Resolution for the Republican Party. This passed with overwhelming support. It appears to acknowledge that wind is not a good corporate citizen.
Representative Barth in an email:
Our Constitution of the United States gives the power to the people and states, not a dictator movement to control people. The “Green Agenda” is a joke. What they call green energy of wind and solar is anything but green other than it takes a lot of money to mine, build and construct, maintenance for the units, along with remediation when blades break off and the turbines catch on fire. It takes more green money from there to then build transmission lines that take people’s green land when eminent domain is used. Then people see transmission line tariffs on their energy bills. Oh, and wait, your rates never go down even though the energy industry tells you how cost effective it is.
I would refer to wind and solar as “brown or black energy”. They are unreliable and cause brownouts and blackouts. This hurts people, it hurts businesses, and even the ground under them turns brown.
Dennis Hedke added in an email:
The United States of America, and now by default, the rest of the world, have been seriously misinformed since the SCOTUS made a very serious error in 2009, via Massachusetts v. EPA. They allowed the EPA to falsely transform the innocent, trace atmospheric gas, CO2, into a pollutant. Nothing could possibly be further from the truth. As a result, Trillions of Dollars have been wasted, people in 3rd and 4th World countries have been deprived of the most fundamentally necessary power to turn on the lights, and be released from poverty and join the rest of the civilized world.
Excerpts from the Resolution follow:
Kansas Republican Party Resolves to Support Candidates and Legislative Intent to Protect Kansans from Unreliable and Foreign-Sourced ‘Renewable’ Wind and Solar Energy
For your easy reference:
- CO2 is not a dangerous gas, nor a pollutant, to be avoided and scare mongered.
- The Kansas Republican Party Platform opposes efforts to force communities to engage in sustainable development guidance from the federal government or the United Nations, which are actively attacking our local communities in an effort to implement the Paris Climate Agreement
- Kansas is not to be victimized by lobbyists guiding KS into blackouts and profiteering from subsidies, and alliances with the UN Global Agenda
- Kansas (Republican Party) supports alternative energy, while continuing to support oil and gas reserves within the State
- Kansas will prefer reliable and affordable energy above all
- Kansas (Republican Party) will reject the “UN Agenda 2030 “Sustainable Development Goals” to guide their investments in Kansas, even rewarding executives and directors with additional bonuses and stock options for implementing the global climate plan”
- Kansas (Republican Party) will reject energy projects that are obvious land grabs, funding foreign companies with taxpayer-funded grants and tying up valuable Kansas farmland for decades with projects that no company is ultimately held responsible for decommissioning at the end of their useful lives, even violating property rights of farmers affected by the projects
- Kansas (Republican Party) opposes so called Cap and Trade schemes
The resolution concludes:
Whereas irrefutable evidence demonstrates that ill-health effects to mankind and the environment are occurring due to the side effects of industrial scale wind installations. These occurrences are widespread, wherever these installations have been constructed;
Therefore, be it resolved, the Republican Party of Kansas, in view of the preponderance of evidence, will support candidates and legislative intent regarding energy policy that will serve to provide protection to our citizens security, physical health, financial health, access to reliable energy and property rights across all Kansas counties.
Of worthy note is that the CLINTEL declaration is referenced; nearly between 1600 and 2000 professionals and scientists indicate that climate change has always been with us, and the world is NOT on fire, or drowning, or otherwise careening to imminent disaster as some would have us believe. Climate change fear has been the false driver of the wind and solar proliferation, a universal clear economic and environmental disaster.
Some note that renewables policy can be termed Energy Vandalism. We concur: See this link for more detail on the nearly universally accepted articles in Kansas.
Article XIII of the Kansas Republican Party Platform States:
Kansas leaders should not be allowed to arbitrarily deny permits to build new power and energy-producing plants. Carbon dioxide, one of the most common gases on earth, should not be declared a pollutant nor used as an excuse to deny the construction of new power plants. We oppose so-called Cap and Trade legislation. We oppose efforts to force communities to engage in sustainable development under guidance from the federal government or the United Nations.
Comment
This is the first time we have seen a legislative body, organize, and nearly 100% agree, that climate change, which it always does and has done, should not be a driver for energy policy. It is the first time we have seen in such a document, a clear rejection of industrial wind and solar profiteers, and references to the irrefutable evidence of harm to the environment, people, and a clear intention to go forward with reliable, responsible, and cost-effective energy policy, while respecting property rights.
Kudos and respect to the two co-sponsors. Game changer.
Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States: “The power of a bold idea uttered publicly in defiance of dominant opinion cannot be easily measured.” (Lange: It most certainly can be documented and appreciated.)
————————–
ADDENDUM ONE
Quotes from Clintel (There is no climate emergency)
ADDENDUM TWO
Additional excerpts from the Resolution
Article XIII of the Kansas Republican Party Platform States:
XIII. ENERGY
We support an energy policy which creates a strong State economy with affordable and reliable energy. Kansas residents must be considered first when developing new, potentially expensive technology.
We encourage the development of alternative energy supplies, while continuing to support the oil and gas industry within the state. Ever increasing energy prices are creating new avenues for entrepreneurs and existing companies to develop new sources of energy. New developments in wind, solar, biofuels, and geothermal energy sources show real promise for clean, inexpensive, renewable energy for future generations. Increasing energy sources will inevitably create a more market-based system which ultimately lowers utility prices for consumers.
Kansas leaders should not be allowed to arbitrarily deny permits to build new power and energy-producing plants. Carbon dioxide, one of the most common gases on earth, should not be declared a pollutant nor used as an excuse to deny the construction of new power plants. We oppose so-called Cap and Trade legislation. We oppose efforts to force communities to engage in sustainable development under guidance from the federal government or the United Nations.
A report on the energy declaration, indicates this is a nonpartisan issue:
…. the energy producer is already allowing ESG rhetoric and the UN Agenda 2030 “Sustainable Development Goals” to guide their investments in Kansas, even rewarding executives and directors with additional bonuses and stock options for implementing the global climate plan.
This is not only a direct violation of the Republican party platform, but an attack on all citizens in the State, as we are seeing with recent reports that the supposed “green” Panasonic plant is actually an energy hog that caused Evergy to request a rate increase on customers in order to supply power to the plant.
The “green energy” project is also responsible for stalling efforts to transition the Lawrence power plant from coal to natural gas, due to the demands of traditional energy sources necessary to power the supposed “renewable” energy plant.
This is not a partisan issue. It’s a money and land grab issue, funding foreign companies with taxpayer-funded grants and tying up valuable Kansas farmland for decades with projects that no company is ultimately held responsible for decommissioning at the end of their useful lives, even violating property rights of farmers affected by the projects.
This resolution will protect Kansas from outside special interest groups by holding all legislators accountable for reliable, affordable energy that stays in our state to benefit our citizens.
ADDENDUM THREE
A conversation with Kansas Rep Carrie Barth and Former Chair of Energy and Environment House, Dennis Hedke. We asked Barth and Hedke to further explain the resolutions’ evolution, and possible resonances.
Conversations with Rep Carrie Barth (R-Dist 5) and former House Energy and Environment Chair, Dennis Hedke, Kansas: How did the exceptional resolution re mandate sanity and “exit renewables”, evolve?
Kansas, which ranks fourth in the U.S. for wind power, (is) the biggest wind energy-producing state to mandate light mitigation.
Wind turbines haven’t just exploded in numbers, they’ve grown ever taller. Since 2016, 400 new turbines have gone up in Kansas with rotor hubs taller than the Statue of Liberty.
The state now has between 3800 and 4,000 turbines, with hubs between 210 and 400 feet high.
It is clear that the pushback against the tyranny of renewables is accruing and accelerating. In August 2023, Robert Bryce again updates his files on rejected projects in the US. Kansas appears “ready able and willing,” to grab the mandates out of energy policies, leaving the door open to more affordable and reliable power.
(Recently, in the last ten days)….”local governments in Illinois, Ohio, and Iowa have rejected or restricted wind and solar projects. Those moves bring the total number of rejections or restrictions in the Renewable Rejection Database to 574.”
Kansas legislators of the Republican Party have as noted in this blog, created an Energy Resolution of outstanding clarity. The push for reliable and affordable energy is on. No herd mentality here.
Question: Lang to Rep Carrie Barth: How did you become enlightened re climate misinformation? Was this gradual, and is there a single source that sped your learning? (See Barth’s two page submission to the Senate Local Government Committee.)
Answer: When door knocking last summer as a new candidate running for Kansas House of Representatives District 5, I met a constituent on her fourth-generation farm porch. She shared with me about what is going on in Southwest Douglas County, Kansas, that was affecting her and her neighbors with the Florida based energy company signing leases in the area for wind turbines.
Keep in mind, I live in SW Douglas County and this was the first time I was hearing about it. She shared with me concerns about her property rights, concerns about health, concerns about crops and livestock, concerns about wildlife, concerns about noise, and how she wants to keep this land for her kids and their kids. She spoke through tears as her way of life her family has worked hard for could permanently change if an industrial Commercial wind complex were approved in Douglas County.
I listened intently to her. She had done her research, she had been talking with her neighbors, and she shared with me highly unethical business practices the energy company was using where multiple individuals have completed affidavits that have already been filed with Douglas County and the Kansas Attorney General’s office. We ended the conversation with a hug and she asked me to help save our county and to do something about it. I left there knowing I had to help.
Through my education I’ve learned growing up, climate change has been around since the beginning of time regardless of the size of population as about every 100 years our climate shifts. So I started to dig in to learn more on why people decided to think differently. And I started to follow the money as the science and history is already there.
Not only is there wind trying to come into my county, we also have a 3,000 acre solar industrial complex trying to plop right in the middle of our agriculture zoned county that also bleeds into Johnson County, KS. I started reading a lot and talking with anyone that had experience in wind and solar energy. After I was elected where I beat an incumbent and took office January 2023, I started asking questions, reading our House Rules, and talking with anyone who would listen to me about the problem we have not only in Douglas County, but across our state.
I proposed a budget proviso during session that was an independent third-party study on the health and environmental effects of wind turbines, solar arrays, hydrogen hubs, and transmission lines. It would be the first study of its kind that I am aware of. It passed the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Budget Committee but failed the House Appropriations Committee with only eight votes in support of it.
When they say follow the money, it’s true! There were energy lobbyists everywhere during this time. I was told by a fellow legislator they believe 50-75 lobbyist were hired to combat my budget proviso. People from all over Kansas, Republicans and Democrats showed up at the Capitol for the Appropriation Committee Budget meeting in support of the proviso wearing red shirts filling the room to observe what was happening and hear what was said.
You might be wondering, why would the energy industry be so afraid of people finding out the results of an independent study? Doesn’t everyone want to know the truth? The energy lobbyist and their attorney, along with their hired expert, like to tell me and others that they don’t understand why we are worried about our health and environment. They say wind and solar are safe and effective and are low cost. Because of my budget proviso, I received emails and calls from people all over the state of Kansas telling me the issues they have.
Other states learned of my proviso and they reached out to me. I even connected with people from Canada and the issues are ALL THE SAME! The evidence and data is clear! This is why I believe the resolution passed by the GOP delegates 180-1 votes.
Question to Rep. Barth: “To what extent do you think this Kansas Republican decision can impact other US legislators?”
Answer: The Resolution states the GOP party will support candidates that support legislative intent aligned with this resolution. Which means our Federal Republican candidates and elected positions will be held to this same standard as our state elected officials at all levels, including county elected Republicans. I have even shared our Kansas GOP Energy Resolution with other states so that they can do the same.
Question to Dennis Hedke (Geophysicist and former House Chair of Energy and Environment)
What is your background so we can understand the evolution that led to this remarkable achievement for the Republicans in KS?
Answer: I have been studying the issues surrounding the blatant misguided policymaking related to Energy, then Climate, since the Carter presidency, just after graduating from the University of Virginia, School of Engineering & Applied Science, M.S. Diploma in Materials Science. I wrote Carter a letter, and of course got no response. I had graduated from Kansas State University with a B.S. in Geophysics before leaving for Charlottesville. I was born and raised in Manhattan, KS, and moved to Miami, FL, to take my first job out of college in the spring of 1979.
Ronald Reagan moved the needle in the Right direction for 8 years, but then we got Bill Clinton, and of course Al Gore, one of the biggest liars in world history. We have been paying for his misguided malfeasance ever since.
We moved to Texas for a job change for me, as Exploration Manager for a small independent oil and gas exploration company in 1999. I was seething while seeing the very bad things in the making regarding ‘Global Warming’. We returned to Kansas in 2003/4, where I joined another small independent, as Geophysical Manager.
Fast forward to 2009, and I found myself inside the Kansas Capitol, as an unpaid lobbyist, fighting to resist the Legislature’s temptation to foist upon Kansan’s, Renewable Energy Mandates. I (we) lost that fight, and I knew it was going to be a disaster for all kinds of reasons, policy-wise and every-otherwise. I had run for a seat on the State Board of Education in 2008, and narrowly lost because the outgoing Republican seat holder endorsed my Democrat opponent. I ran a very clean race, and people in the party noticed.
In 2010, Sam Brownback won the Governor’s race, and the District 99 Representative was called to be Brownback’s Insurance Commissioner, this creating a vacancy in the Kansas House, which I was appointed to fill on January 24th, 2011. I became the Chairman of the House Energy & Environment Committee January 2013, and held that position until I left office, after 3 terms, ostensibly June 2016.
I and many allies forged a battle against the mandates, and moved Kansas into ‘Voluntary’ discretion in creation of power delivery to Kansan’s, in April, 2015.
That’s my answer as to how some things got into motion between myself and Carrie. Six years after I left office, she was elected to her seat. She is a real Firebrand and is dedicated to helping Kansas get back on track with Energy Policy. She is a tireless worker, and I deeply appreciate what she has done already in her first year as a legislator.
She had heard about me, and she reached out to me for some advice and guidance.….which brings us to today.
Question: I think you mentioned a serious “error” that allowed the EPA to falsely label the innocent, trace atmospheric gas, CO2, into a pollutant. You are adamant that this decision resulted in the fact that:
(Hedke) Trillions of Dollars have been wasted, people in 3rd and 4th World countries have been deprived of the most fundamentally necessary power to turn on the lights and be released from poverty and join the rest of the civilized world.
Also: The Kansas Legislature, ruled by Republicans in the 2009 Session, made a serious error in forcing Power Companies to deliver Mandated Renewable Energy. This happened under the purported agreement to allow a single coal-fired power plant in Holcomb, KS to justifiably expand its deliverability of Electric Power to the Grid. Only, it didn’t happen. It didn’t happen because the Secretary of the Kansas Department of Health & Environment, Rod Bremby, denied a Permit to expand the plant, due solely to politics related to ‘Global Warming’.”
The Resolution passed by the Republican Party of Kansas contains very specific language and intent to right the multitude of wrongs that Kansas Legislators conducted in 2009, and which served to spread the Mandate Mentality across America. It remains to be seen if the current body of Legislators will have the political will to hold the line, and in fact push back, where necessary and appropriate.
Question: A lot of readers will be wondering how you and Rep Barth achieved a 180-1 vote for this very clear resolution. Given that KS has a pro wind record of placing wind factories in the State, even with a Republican House and Senate, is there a catalyst for this resolution at this time and at this place? Was a lot of lobbying needed, or was this more evolutionary, organic in nature due to the fast paced media pieces on changing perspectives of “renewables and climate”?
Answer: Former Chair, Dennis Hedke:
I perceive much of the reason for the success was due to the fact that the Committee reviewing the Resolution is heavily conservative. They had to present it to the Republican Party Delegates, which are probably also more conservative leaning.
The Legislators, Carrie excluded, are a lot more squishy, caring more about holding on to their seats, than acting with resolve and principle.
There may be some renewed pressure on Legislators to resist the absolutely ridiculous reasons for being ‘green’. That remains to be seen. Many of them simply forget that “The Truth Will Set You Free”.
I forgot to answer your question about cost of electricity. My bills range from about .13/kwh to .14/kwh.
Prices have increased by about 55% since wind power has been replacing coal and natural gas, commencing around 2011.
Thank you for your interest. Dennis.
Thank you again Former Energy Chair Hedke, and Rep Carrie Barth.
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Newly Released FBI Docs Shed Light on Apparent Mossad Foreknowledge of 9/11 Attacks
By Whitney Webb | MintPress News | May 17, 2019
NEW YORK — For nearly two decades, one of the most overlooked and little known arrests made in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks was that of the so-called “High Fivers,” or the “Dancing Israelis.” However, new information released by the FBI on May 7 has brought fresh scrutiny to the possibility that the “Dancing Israelis,” at least two of whom were known Mossad operatives, had prior knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center. … continue
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