At Miss Universe pageant, Myanmar's contestant urges the world to speak out against the military junta, pleads "our people are dying". I recall the Myanmar ambassador to the UN doing something similar, hope he's alright now
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/miss-universe-pageant-myanmars-contestant-pleads-our-people-are-dying-2021-05-17/
Japan, US, France hold military drill eyeing China presence | Dozens of Japanese, American and French troops have continued to hold their first-ever joint drills on Japanese soil
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/japan-us-france-hold-military-drill-eyeing-china-77708599
Ireland: Cyberattack on nation's hospital IT infrastructure expands to include Department of Health. Politicians refuse ransom request amid threat to reveal private patient data and continued shutdown of critical systems
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/department-of-health-hit-by-cyberattack-similar-to-that-on-hse-1.4566541
Long working hours are a killer, WHO study shows "Drawing on data from 194 countries - said that working 55 hours or more a week is associated with a 35% higher risk of stroke and a 17% higher risk of dying from ischemic heart disease compared with a 35-40 hour working week."
https://www.reuters.com/world/long-working-hours-are-killer-who-study-shows-2021-05-17/
Secretary Haaland Announces $150 Million to Create Public Parks, Expand Recreation Opportunities in Urban Areas
http://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/secretary-haaland-announces-150-million-create-public-parks-expand-recreation
Biden admin's expanded child tax credit set to benefit 88% of children starting in July
https://apnews.com/article/business-government-and-politics-30ee1e01b70578c5bde238f50d82e839
New York City Subway Returns to 24-Hour Service
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/nyregion/nyc-subway-full-service-24-hours.html
Gaza's "Health Ministry" = Hamas. But sure, take their word for it and don't inform your readership who's giving you these numbers.
FBI links Albuquerque triple homicide to Aryan Brotherhood
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/553812-fbi-links-albuquerque-triple-homicide-to-aryan-brotherhood
Chinese businessman with links to Steve Bannon is driving force for a sprawling disinformation network. Guo Wengui, living in self-exile in New York City, is at the center of a digital web pushing election and covid-19 lies.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/05/17/guo-wengui-disinformation-steve-bannon/
Statement from President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. on the Child Tax Credit
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/05/17/statement-from-president-joseph-r-biden-jr-on-the-child-tax-credit/
Firing squad death penalty reintroduced in South Carolina
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/south-carolina-death-penalty-firing-b1848790.html
A Colorado hunting guide charged with participating in the Jan. 6 pro-Trump terrorist attack at the U.S. Capitol will likely be placed on 24/7 house arrest — instead of remaining free while his case is pending — because he violated the conditions of his release by hunting and murdering a mountain lion.
https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/colorado-suspect-in-u-s-capitol-riot-faces-house-arrest-after-mountain-lion-hunt
Supreme Court sides with oil companies in Baltimore case
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/553854-supreme-court-sides-with-big-oil-bid-to-undo-ruling-keeping
Andrew Wiggins had career highs in field goal percentage (47.7%), 3PT percentage (38.0%), True Shooting percentage (56.8%), 3PT field goals made (140), and total blocks (70) this season.
Julius Randle finishes the regular season shooting 41.1% from 3 with 160 makes. Last season he shot 27.7% from 3. In his first 6 seasons in the NBA he made 168 total three pointers.
"Is Congressman Matt Gaetz among their 'other men' your client mentions in plea deal?" - Joel Greenberg attorney Fritz Scheller will not answer whether lawmaker is among the "other men" Greenberg told DOJ he introduced to a minor and who then also paid her for sex.
https://twitter.com/PaulaReidCNN/status/1394335026213539841
Money meant to help Americans pay for essentials during the pandemic ended up juicing the profits of one of the most controversial corners of the financial sector.
https://bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-payday-loan-lenders/
Only 0.3 percent of the vaccine doses administered globally have been given in the 29 poorest countries, home to about 9 percent of the world's population."
https://nytimes.com/2021/05/15/world/americas/covid-vaccine-patent-biden.html
For those with insect phobias, the return of the 17-year cicada hatch in the U.S. promises a season of fear and anxiety.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-17/the-people-living-with-severe-cicada-anxiety
Pretty extraordinary that the Justice Department under President Trump approved searches for two of his personal attorneys while he was in office for what it said was their participation in two unrelated criminal schemes.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.559603/gov.uscourts.nysd.559603.14.0.pdf
In a statement of offense accompanying a scam PAC fundraiser's guilty plea today, DOJ says it considers "5X MATCHING!" language to be a "material misrepresentation"
https://twitter.com/lachlan/status/1394336043609071616
https://thedailybeast.com/this-fake-trump-group-is-trying-to-get-your-money-by-pretending-its-the-trump-campaign
Fight against Southern California wildfire continues, arson suspects detained | A wildfire burning in the parched brush of the Santa Monica Mountains grew to 1,325 acres Sunday, while about a thousand residents remained under mandatory evacuation orders and others prepared to leave under a warning, authorities said. There is no containment. | Arson investigators with the fire department and the Los Angeles Police Department identified one individual who was detained and released. Investigators then detained a second suspect and were questioning them Sunday evening, according to a statement from fire department spokesperson Margaret Stewart.
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/2021-05-Palisades-Fire-Santa-Monica-16182356.php
The lowest seeded team in NBA history to go on to win the championship was the sixth-seed Houston Rockets in 1995. The Lakers will have to pull off an unprecedented feat to defend their title.
The Mets currently have on the IL their top 3 starters (deGrom, Carrasco, Syndergaard), their best reliever (Lugo), their starting 2nd baseman (McNeil), 3rd baseman (Davis), centerfielder (Nimmo), and right fielder (Conforto), and their best defensive bench players for IF (Guillorme) & OF (Almora).
This was just unsealed. In the last weeks of the Trump administration, William Barr's Justice Department tried to illegally and unconstitutionally use a secret grand jury subpoena to illegally and unconstitutionally unmask @NunesAlt, a Devin Nunes parody account. Twitter fought the order. "It appears to Twitter that the Subpoena may be related to Congressman Devin Nunes's repeated efforts to unmask individuals behind parody accounts critical of him."
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.224281/gov.uscourts.dcd.224281.3.0.pdf
You know, it's time...
For you to stop...
All of your scrolling...
https://nationalgeographic.com/science/article/endless-scrolling-through-social-media-can-literally-make-you-sick-cybersickness
President Joe Biden's administration is working to equip schools across the country to serve as vaccination sites to help inoculate children from COVID-19 more quickly and ease the burden on parents.
https://mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article251403413.html
Spurred on by the Arizona recount, Trump supporters in a small town in New Hampshire are now latching on to an audit of a race for state representative seat.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-maga-fans-are-trying-to-hijack-a-small-town-new-hampshire-ballot-audit
That's exactly a situation that's unfolded in Washington. For four months, the FBI and reporters have posted silent, eerie, looping security footage of an "unknown individual" in a hoodie and Nike Air Max Speed Turfs, walking the nighttime streets of Capitol Hill — in an alley, then out, stopping, then gone. Authorities believe this person placed pipe bombs at both the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee headquarters on the evening of Jan. 5. There are urgent ads with grainy screengrabs of the person around the city asking for information, and escalating rewards alongside direct-to-camera appeals. "No arrests have been made," Washington police Chief Robert Contee said Wednesday during a congressional hearing. "No suspects have been identified." | There still is no way of knowing if the explosives had anything to do with the attack on the Capitol, or if it was a horrific coincidence; there aren't any known suspects.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katherinemiller/rnc-dnc-pipe-bombs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWweVx9aO1U
California won't lift mask requirement until June 15 to give public time to prepare and ensure virus cases stay low.
https://twitter.com/ZekeJMiller/status/1394362038902796292
Mayoral candidate Dianne Morales years ago participated in a $300 bribe of a city inspector who offered to make her $12,500 water bill go away
https://thecity.nyc/2021/5/16/22439168/dianne-morales-water-meter-bribe-probe
Pelosi has a bit more wiggle room with her caucus. With Republican Rep. Stivers' retirement, Democrats now have an eight member majority, 219-211.
Sheikh jarrah are being evicted because after a court battle that's been going on for years. The original Jewish owners had to flee after the 1948 war and when Jordan took over control of the area they let whoever wanted live there. The courts said that the Palestinians had to pay rent to the rightful owners and the Palestinians refused so that's why they are being evicted. Not because Jews hate Palestinians and just felt like kicking them out.
Nearly 500 bodies found buried in sand on banks of Ganga in Prayagraj
https://www.indiatvnews.com/news/india/bodies-found-buried-in-sand-river-ganga-banks-prayagraj-uttar-pradesh-704966
Good: Biden administration approved $735 million arms sale to Israel
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/biden-administration-approved-735-million-arms-sale-israel-sources-2021-05-17/
The idea that Trump even has any power to negotiate on this is infuriating. He's not president, ARREST HIM ALREADY.
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/553926-trump-house-democrats-close-to-deal-on-deutsche-bank-subpoenas
Important to note that Friday, May 14, two days after Gov. DeWine announced the Vax-a-Million or Shottery, Ohio saw the highest daily vaccination rate in 3 weeks, with more than 25,000 people receiving a dose.
https://apnews.com/article/ohio-voter-registration-coronavirus-pandemic-health-7cbd774f36d3bff5aedc11e42519fb5f
Mark Regev, senior Netanyahu adviser: "We're sharing it with the US government; we already have. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before all the relevant senior officials in the United States see the evidence."
They're Vaccinated and Keeping Their Masks On, Maybe Forever | Face coverings have been a political flash point for more than a year. But now, the backlash is directed at people who don't plan to take them off. | He has used this safety protocol for the past 14 months. It did not change after he contracted the coronavirus last November. It didn't budge when, earlier this month, he became fully vaccinated. And even though President Biden said on Thursday that fully vaccinated people do not have to wear a mask, Mr. Glickman said he planned to stay the course. In fact, he said, he plans to do his grocery run double-masked and goggled for at least the next five years. Even as a combination of evolving public health recommendations and pandemic fatigue lead more Americans to toss the masks they've worn for more than a year, Mr. Glickman is among those who say they plan to keep their faces covered in public indefinitely. For people like Mr. Glickman, a combination of anxiety, murky information about new virus variants and the emergence of an obdurate and sizable faction of vaccine holdouts means mask-free life is on hold — possibly forever.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/nyregion/vaccinated-masks-cdc.html
The Biden admin is putting Black America at the center of the solution for climate change by expanding electric vehicle power stations into Black neighborhoods and pouring funds into HBCU renewable energy research.
https://thegrio.com/2021/05/16/black-america-biden-climate-change-agenda/
IL at some this season: Cody Bellinger Corey Seager Dustin May Corey Knebel Gavin Lux Joe Kelly AJ Pollock Tony Gonsolin Edwin Rios Brusdar Graterol Zach McKinstry David Price Scott Alexander Caleb Ferguson Tommy Kahnle #Dodgers are only 1GB of best record in NL
https://twitter.com/BlakeHarrisTBLA/status/1393971864301572100
Noé Ramirez has been DFA'd to make room for RHP Hunter Strickland
https://twitter.com/JeffFletcherOCR/status/1393966666711764993
Ynoa broke his right hand when he punched the dugout after exiting yesterday's start. He'll miss at least a couple months
https://twitter.com/mlbbowman/status/1394383332562153474
Missouri, currently enjoying a $1 billion budget surplus, says it can't afford Medicaid expansion and illegally and unconstitutionally cancelled a ballot initiative overwhelmingly approved by its own voters
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22440101/missouri-medicaid-expansion-joe-biden
President Biden has released his tax returns on this belated tax day. With this release, the President has shared a total of 23 years of tax returns with the American public.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Biden-Joseph-R.-2021-Annual-278.pdf
VP and Second Gentleman
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Harris-Kamala-D.-2021-Annual-278.pdf
Starting at the bottom of page 7, Maricopa County goes into detail of how the people doing this audit don't even understand the basics of how ballots are tabulated
https://maricopa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/68972/20210517-Response-Letter-to-Senate-President-Fann---FINAL#page=8
The Supreme Court agrees to hear Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health, a challenge to Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban. This may well mark the beginning of the end of Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court has sat on Dobbs since September 2020. There was clearly a battle behind the scenes between the justices over the decision to take this case. It is an extraordinarily ominous sign for reproductive rights that the anti-abortion faction apparently won out. Because there is no split in the lower courts, the only plausible reason for the Supreme Court to take up this case is to overturn the rule (set out in Roe and Casey) that states may not enact a total ban on abortions at any point before viability, which Mississippi wants to do. If the Supreme Court authorizes Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban, it will have to overturn the central holdings of Roe and Casey. By doing so, the court may effectively greenlight total bans on abortion. Reproductive rights advocates have been dreading this day for a long time. SCOTUS is poised to create a constitutional right to concealed carry AND overturn Roe soon. I had also expected the conservative justices to erode Roe and Casey before overturning them outright—authorize laws that shutter clinics under a bogus pretext, greenlight bans on abortions due to fetal disability, etc. But again, nope: They seem ready to end Roe head-on. To be clear, the Supreme Court is only poised to overturn Roe because of Amy Coney Barrett. Roberts sided with the liberals in a 5–4 abortion decision last summer (albeit begrudgingly and with qualifications). With Barrett's confirmation, the court flipped against Roe and Casey.
https://supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/051721zor_6537.pdf
____________________________________
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/05/17/fact-sheet-biden-administration-accelerates-efforts-to-create-jobs-making-american-buildings-more-affordable-cleaner-and-resilient/
FACT SHEET: Biden Administration Accelerates Efforts to Create Jobs Making American Buildings More Affordable, Cleaner, and Resilient
May 17, 2021 • Statements and Releases
Energy, GSA, and EPA Announce New Programs to Electrify Buildings, Invest $30M in America's Workforce, and Save Consumers Money
Today, the White House convened leaders from across the Administration to announce new federal investments in building energy efficiency and electrification, as well as new opportunities to modernize homes and businesses which will create good-paying, union jobs.
National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy, Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) Chair Brenda Mallory, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, General Services Administration (GSA) Acting Administrator Katy Kale, and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan met today with building sector leaders, including developers and owners, labor unions and trade organizations, public housing authorities, and heat pump manufacturers. The meeting advances President Biden's goal of modernizing and upgrading the nation's residential and commercial buildings to be affordable, resilient, accessible, energy efficient, and electrified.
In his first 100 days in office, President Biden took sweeping steps to build a new American infrastructure and clean energy economy that will create millions of new jobs. The President issued an Executive Order announcing bold targets to achieve a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035 and put the United States on an irreversible path to a net-zero economy by 2050. And the Department of Energy rebooted the efficiency standards program to save consumers money through energy efficient appliances and equipment. The President recognizes the opportunity that retrofitting and modernizing our nation's existing buildings presents, which is why his American Jobs Plan American Jobs Plan promises to build, rehabilitate, and retrofit more than two million homes across the country while also improving our nation's federal facilities. This effort will create new domestic manufacturing opportunities for electric heating and cooling technology, invest in research and development to spur smart building advances, and forge collaborations that will enable buildings to be powered by clean electricity.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/31/fact-sheet-the-american-jobs-plan/
Additionally, independent analysts at the Coalition for Green Capital and Rewiring America issued a report today that shows how the Clean Energy Accelerator proposed in the American Jobs Plan could be used to drive an electrification program to secure energy bill savings of up to $750 per year for nearly 12 million American households (75 percent of which are low- to moderate-income). At the same time, the report found that the program, working through the Accelerator, could create nearly 700,000 good-paying, local jobs in every region in the country, while also driving down greenhouse gas emissions from households by up to 40 million metric tons a year by 2030, which is the equivalent of taking more than eight million cars off the road. The report also estimates that advancing the Clean Energy Accelerator could catalyze tens of billions in private sector co-investment through this program, and that 90% of investment delivered through the proposal would directly benefit low-to moderate-income households.
https://www.rewiringamerica.org/rewiring-communities-report
The findings of this report underscore the importance of today's announcements from the White House addressing a series of concrete actions to modernize and electrify our buildings, invest in America's workforce, and drive innovations of the future.
Investing in America's Workforce and Creating Jobs
Announcing $30M investment in the American workforce. Constructing, retrofitting, and electrifying America's buildings is only possible with a strong, skilled, diverse, and growing workforce. DOE announced it is expanding its support for organizations – including unions, trade associations, and educational institutions – that prepare people to join the workforces of the future, and support career pathways for a diverse, qualified, and well-paid workforce that can support the development/construction of high-performance buildings. Through technical assistance and funding awards, DOE will fund up to $30M of these efforts with workforce development and job-creation leaders.
Launching New Federal Performance Standards to Lead by Example
Announcing New Federal Building Performance Standards. CEQ is launching an interagency Federal sustainability effort with GSA, DOE, and EPA to develop the first-ever building performance standards (BPS) for the federal government. The BPS will establish metrics, targets, and tracking methods to reach federal carbon emissions goals. The performance standards will identify progressive performance milestones as well as the resources that agencies need to meet them.
Establishing New Partnerships to Kickstart Demand for High-Performance Buildings
The Biden Administration is dedicated to working with the private sector, labor unions, building and home owners, and manufacturers in the building industry to electrify and modernize new and existing buildings. Additionally, the Administration will support city, state, and tribal governments through expanded partnerships to develop new tools and resources to make buildings more energy efficient, affordable, and healthy. These partnerships will include:
- Launching the low-carbon buildings pilot. Through the Department of Energy's Better Buildings Initiative and in coordination with Housing and Urban Development, DOE is announcing the first 55 commercial, industrial, and multifamily organizations to participate in the Low-Carbon Buildings Pilot program, which will share lessons learned for real world pathways to low and no emission buildings.
https://betterbuildingssolutioncenter.energy.gov/challenge/special-initiatives/low-carbon-pilot
- In partnership with the Advanced Water Heating Initiative, DOE is launching a new initiative to increase market adoption of high-efficiency, grid-connected Heat Pump Water Heaters in residential and commercial buildings – which are two to four times more efficient than conventional water heaters – in homes across the country.
- Committing to new and expanded EPA partnership programs. EPA is launching new residential and commercial sector partnerships to accelerate efficiency and electrification retrofits with a focus on underserved residential households through the ENERGY STAR Home Upgrade program, accelerate building electrification through an advanced ENERGY STAR certification for new residential buildings, and recognize commercial buildings through a new zero-carbon commercial building certification. It will also launch a new Greenhouse Gas tool linked to its Portfolio Manager tool.
Accelerating Domestic Manufacturing, Innovation, and Affordability of New and Existing Buildings
- Announcing a new national research initiative focused on innovating clean and efficient building heating and cooling systems. Today, DOE will launch the Initiative for Better Energy, Emissions, and Equity (E3 Initiative), putting $10M toward accelerating the research and adoption of heat pump technologies. As part of the E3 Initiative, DOE will launch a Cold Climate Heat Pump Technology Challenge to accelerate the development of high performing cold climate heat pump technologies. Another important component will be new research efforts partnering National Laboratories and manufacturers to accelerate the development of lower to no global warming potential refrigerants that can be quickly commercialized.
https://www.energy.gov/eere/buildings/energy-emissions-and-equity-e3-initiative
- Releasing a national grid-interactive efficient buildings roadmap. Today, DOE is releasing the Grid-interactive Efficient Buildings (GEB) Roadmap, with 14 recommendations to better integrate buildings with solar and wind power through smart operation of electricity demand and storage. Smart buildings allow consumers to have more choice over building operations and provide the ability to manage energy loads and reduce energy bills. Over the next two decades, national adoption of GEBs would create savings of $100–200 billion across the electric power system and could decrease emissions in the power sector by 6% per year.
https://www.energy.gov/eere/buildings/grid-interactive-efficient-buildings
Releasing a blueprint to integrate GEB Technologies into Energy Savings Contracts. GSA is releasing a blueprint to integrate grid-interactive technologies into federal building renovation and improvement projects, particularly using energy savings, and utility energy savings contracts. The blueprint puts practical guidance and tools into the hands of building operators to help them integrate GEB technologies into current and future performance contracts.
Announcing new ENERGY STAR standards to advance heat pump technology and fast chargers for electric vehicles. If all heat pumps, central air conditioners, and electric water heaters sold in the U.S. met the new ENERGY STAR standards, the energy cost savings would grow to $11 billion a year, and 255 billion tons of annual greenhouse gas emissions would be avoided. These new standards will increase American households' and businesses' access to affordable heating, cooling, water heating, and transportation options.
###
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https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/05/17/readout-of-president-joseph-r-biden-jr-call-with-prime-minister-benjamin-netanyahu-of-israel-4/
Readout of President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel
May 17, 2021 • Statements and Releases
The President spoke today with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. The President reiterated his firm support for Israel's right to defend itself against indiscriminate rocket attacks. The President welcomed efforts to address intercommunal violence and to bring calm to Jerusalem. He encouraged Israel to make every effort to ensure the protection of innocent civilians. The two leaders discussed progress in Israel's military operations against Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza. The President expressed his support for a ceasefire and discussed U.S. engagement with Egypt and other partners towards that end. The two leaders agreed that they and their teams would remain in close touch.
____________________________________
And today, Treasury and the IRS announced that, starting in July, the American Rescue Plan will deliver critical tax relief to middle-class and hard-pressed working families with children. The first monthly payment of the expanded Child Tax Credit will be made on July 15th to 39 million households, covering more than 88 percent of children in the United States. These payments will be made on the 15th of each month unless the 15th falls on a weekend or holiday, allowing families who receive the credit by direct deposit to plan their budgets more effectively. Eligible families will receive a monthly payment of up to $300 per month for each child under the age of 6, and up to $250 per month for each child age 6 until the year they turn — over age 6, sorry, until the year they turn 18. More than 80 percent of the 39 million households will receive the Child Tax Credit by direct deposit to ensure safe and fast delivery.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/05/17/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-may-17-2021/
MS. PSAKI: Well, first, Josh, let me remind people that the President also did two calls over the weekend that we did readouts of. And, in those calls, he conveyed — stressed the need for Hamas to cease firing rockets into Israel and affirmed, again, Israel's right to defend itself against terrorist attacks. As I would note from the reports, there have been more than 3,000 rockets that have been shot from Hamas into Israel over the last several days. He also expressed his concern that this current period of conflict has tragically claimed the lives of Israeli and Palestinian civilians, including children. And he raised concerns about the safety of journalists, including those who had to leave the building from the — where the Associated Press was based — and reinforced the need to ensure their protection. So how we are looking at this, from our standpoint, is that our focus, our goal — every single action we take, every statement we make is with the objective of reducing the violence and bringing an end to the conflict on the ground. There are times, in diplomacy, where the — we'll need to keep those conversations quieter, where we won't read out every component of it. But that is our objective, and that is the — the prism through which every action and every comment is being made.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/05/17/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-may-17-2021/
MS. PSAKI: Well, Trevor, I think it's clear to everyone who has been a part of — and covered or been a part of — I was at the State Department back in 2014. We all know that the only way to bring an end to violence, to bring an end to this escalation of violence is for there to be a two-state solution over time. And in both calls the President made this weekend, he underscored his strong commitment to a negotiated two-state solution as the bet- — best path to reach a just and lasting resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But in terms of what that would take or what form and what it would look like, it is going to require both parties wanting to engage in that and wanting to have a discussion about the path forward. And who would be the point person from this end — we're certainly not quite there yet. It will be up to both parties to decide if they want to move forward on that pathway.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/05/17/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-may-17-2021/
MS. PSAKI: Well, I will say — I will say, Mike, good to see you, first of all. I will say that it's not our role to assess or analyze the politics on the ground in Israel. Everybody has their own politics in different regions of the world, and we see that play out in foreign policy all the time. What our role is, is to play the most — be as constructive as possible in deescalating the violence, bringing an end to the conflict. And there certainly is — the President has known the Prime Minister for some time. They've obviously spoken, as — hence, we did the readout this weekend. And I'm sure they will speak again. We were also deeply engaged at the highest levels. Our National Security Advisor spoke with his counterpart earlier this morning. We've done, again, more than 60 calls over the past week with a range of partners in the region. So, our objective here — our role is not to do political analysis or — or provide motivation for any actions, but to take steps we can take as a leader in the world, as a country with deep relationships in the region to deescalate the violence on the ground.
Q Speaking of domestic politics, you have a letter from a majority of the Senate Democrats calling for the White House to demand a ceasefire. You also have Democrats in the party — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — calling Israel an "apartheid state"; Senator Bernie Sanders saying that, potentially, this should lead the U.S. to reevaluate foreign assistance. What's the White House's message to those in the President's party on this?
MS. PSAKI: I will say, if we — our message is: Sometimes you have to step back from politics for a moment. It's not easy to do. And we recognize and agree that watching the lives lost of these Palestinian children, of these families, the fear you see in the eyes of the Israeli people — it is heartbreaking. We want to bring an end to the violence. We want to dis- — deescalate the situation on the ground. The role we feel we can do that through — the most effective way we feel we can do that is through quiet and intensive diplomacy, and that is what our focus is on at this point in time. But we share an objective of deescalating the circumstances on the ground. We share a view that a two-state solution is the only way to bring a lasting end to the violence.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/05/17/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-may-17-2021/
Q Over the weekend, there were these reports that the Israelis had shared intelligence with the United States regarding what was going on in that tower that was blown up that housed the Associated Press and others. They said that it was shared with the United States. The Secretary of State, this morning, overseas, said he didn't see it. He's not the intelligence director, so perhaps that's why. Has the President seen it? And can you confirm that the Israelis actually shared that intelligence with the United States?
MS. PSAKI: Well, this would be handled, as you alluded to, through intelligence channels, and I'm not going to be in a position now or ever of committing or confirming who has or hasn't seen intelligence. What I believe the State Department has confirmed is that the Secretary was saying he has not personally seen the intelligence because such matters would be appropriately — be handled through intelligence channels. So that's not necessarily a surprise. But in terms of who has or hasn't seen it, what's been communicated, I'm just not going to be a position to confirm that.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/05/17/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-may-17-2021/
Q So, my question is: If you say that the ultimate — the only solution is a two-state solution, and that requires both parties to want that, which they don't seem to right now, does that mean that despite all of your quiet, intensive diplomacy behind the scenes, that the U.S. really has limited leverage and power to solve this problem?
MS. PSAKI: Well, I would say first that, right now, our quiet, intensive diplomacy is of course not negotiating a two-state solution.
Q Right.
MS. PSAKI: I know you're not suggesting that.
Q Yeah. Yes.
MS. PSAKI: But just for clarity purposes. That is to bring an end and to deescalate the violence on the ground now. And certainly, we feel we have strong relationships with Israeli leaders, we have strong relationships with key partners in the region, and we're hopeful that those conversations — that quiet diplomacy — will help bring an end to the violence and reduce the conflict on the ground. As it relates to a two-state solution, you've been through many of these, as have I, and it is clear that it will require both parties to be committed themselves. The United States cannot manufacture, on our own, a two-state solution. It would require both parties having that desire to move forward.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/05/17/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-may-17-2021/
Q Thank you. I wanted to ask you about India. What is your assessment of the COVID-19 situation in India? And the President has already announced $100 million of assistance to India. Is he thinking about additional — more assistance to India?
MS. PSAKI: Well, I would say — well, I'm not going to be able to give an assessment, as a non-public-health expert, of the situation on the ground in India. We remain closely in touched and engaged — in touch and engaged, and we will continue to work through how we can provide assistance during this difficult time. As you noted, we expect our assistance to be about $100 million. We've sent seven air shipments funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development to India. The seventh flight, carrying additional oxygen concentrators via commercial shipping center, arrived today, and those — that obviously is critical for a number of the patients who have already been — are already battling COVID. So, we will continue to provide a range of assistance. We will remain in touch about what the direct needs are on the ground, and hope that we can play a constructive role in reducing the numbers and bringing some relief to the people of India.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/05/17/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-may-17-2021/
The Hornets say Gordon Hayward (sprained foot) is out for Tuesday's play-in game at Indiana.
https://twitter.com/TheSteinLine/status/1394375910715846656
As the ball changes hands at the top of the key, Curry, in the right corner, does something counterintuitive, something he hasn't done the entire possession. He stands still. Curry's second wind comes from his ability to rapidly lower his heart rate during short breaks, even in the middle of games. It's something he trains his body to do. Once he's out of breath at the end of most workouts, Curry lies on his back, and Payne, his trainer, places sandbag weights below his rib cage in order to overload, and train, Curry's diaphragm. Through conditioning and breathing techniques like this, Curry can often coax his heart rate below 80 during one 90-second timeout. But here, when he goes flat-footed, straightens his back and flops his hands at his side as if to signal, I'm done, I give up, it's mostly a decoy. And it works. Because at this point, after chasing Curry nonstop all over the court, most defenders are begging for even a hint at a break. Do you ever stop? They often whisper to Curry. It's the best compliment he can get from an opponent, Curry says, even better than praise for his shooting. You're wearing me out. Stand still for a f---ing second. Now, as Curry relaxes, the tension leaves Lillard's body. Initially, Lillard had his eyes locked on Curry and his left arm extended to block the baseline. But the second Curry stands up, Lillard's head turns and his eyes instinctively drift to the ball as Evans begins to drive down the right side of the key. Lillard doesn't see Curry's body coil like a spring. Curry's famous shooting mechanics are a marvel of clean kinetic efficiency. But so is his footwork -- which often goes overlooked. So instead of a lazy stutter-step toward the basket with his right foot, Curry reengages by, first, taking a full step across his body with his left foot (like a major leaguer stealing second). Such economic footwork allows Curry to reach top speed in just two steps. He then accentuates the swim move down the baseline by using his right hand to violently swing Lillard's left arm across his body, rotating his torso 45 degrees so that his back is now turned to Curry. After creating almost 3 feet of space where a split second ago there was none, Curry accelerates down the baseline anticipating a well-earned and wide-open backdoor pass from Evans. It never comes. For the second time in less than 10 seconds, Curry's movement without the ball has created a scoring opportunity that Second Spectrum rates as above 70% -- and his teammates have failed to capitalize on it. "A lot of guys would stop right there or let up out of frustration," Payne says. "He's already run all over the court and done the work to get open -- twice -- and his teammates missed him. But he keeps going. That's what makes him so special. He's mentally unbreakable. He won't quit. He won't stop." | After running 225.94 feet, changing directions 12 times, facing a triple-team and fighting through four miscues, Curry gets to perform what he's best known for. And even after 10 years and nearly 2,700 3s, it's still stunning the way his brain, his drive and his shooting mechanics are able to accomplish in one fluid movement what most shooters must do in several, deliberate steps. That kinetic efficiency is why Curry's release is still almost 30% faster than that of most other NBA players. It's reminiscent of the Navy SEAL motto: Slow is smooth; smooth is fast.
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/30742095/how-stephen-curry-organized-chaos-fuels-record-breaking-career-golden-state-warriors-rebuild
Crenshaw claimed the Republican brief just asked the court a question about the constitutionality of states' acts. Nope. It called those acts unconstitutional, backed Texas' overturn lawsuit, asked the court to halt the states' certification of Biden's wins:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/17/politics/fact-check-crenshaw-republican-amicus-meet-the-press-overturn-election/index.html
Surprise? I guess. When you hire incompetent conspiracy theorists, you get what you paid for: Maricopa county says Cyber Ninjas is just straight miscounting ballots
https://maricopa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/68972/20210517-Response-Letter-to-Senate-President-Fann---FINAL#page=10
One of the big issues flagged by an official SoS observer at the audit was that there was no one checking that data was being entered accurately/without typos
https://theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/14/arizona-election-audit-recount-ballots-maricopa-county
Maricopa county also responds to the suggestion they are hiding passwords from Cyber Ninjas. The county does not have the passwords, it says. "A password that we do not possess any more than we can give you the formula for Coca Cola."
https://twitter.com/srl/status/1394402479597621253/photo/1
Maricopa county board of supervisors, plus county recorder and sheriff, end letter asking senate president Karen Fann to end the audit
https://twitter.com/srl/status/1394404078051106820/photo/1
It's 150K from taxpayers, but even worse, unnamed private donors have given millions to Cyber Ninjas to cover the cost of their audit. We have no way of knowing who they are or if they are paying for a specific outcome.
Following a judge's ruling that the Arizona Senate's election audit team can't keep its policies and procedures secret, lead audit contractor Cyber Ninjas submitted nearly two hundreds pages to the court detailing its practices. The collection of policies and procedures covers guidelines for hand counting ballots, handling digital evidence, documenting chain-of-custody for ballots, rules of conduct for observers and other matters from Cyber Ninjas, as well as the subcontractors it's working with. It also includes manifests for ballots and tabulation machines provided by Maricopa County election officials. | Cyber Ninjas' statement of work for the audit states that it will search for counterfeit ballots, despite a total lack of any evidence that any such ballots were counted in the 2020 general election.
https://www.azmirror.com/2021/04/29/cyber-ninjas-releases-its-election-audit-policies-after-court-order/
José Abreu will miss the entirety of the Sox series with the Twins due to ankle inflammation. He suffered the injury during his ninth-inning slide yesterday. X-rays were negative, and an MRI showed inflammation. He's expected back for the weekend series against the Yankees.
https://twitter.com/VinnieDuber/status/1394393854594277376
Atlanta Braves' Mike Soroka has setback with Achilles
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/31433752/atlanta-braves-mike-soroka-setback-achilles-exploratory-surgery
Braves starter Mike Soroka undergoes exploratory surgery
https://www.ajc.com/sports/atlanta-braves/braves-starter-mike-soroka-undergoes-exploratory-surgery/NBGYVACWSVH55GL3L5OJKXWTPQ/
In response to the police killing George Floyd, 15 unions that represent law enforcement officers across the US have endorsed a blueprint for policing that includes an unprecedented shift in the way unions protect bad police officers, according to a copy of the plan obtained by CNN ahead of its release this week. A committee convened by the AFL-CIO, International Brotherhood of Teamsters and Service Employees International Union Friday approved the plan that calls on more than 250,000 law enforcement members and more than 100,000 members in police-adjacent professions to intervene when another union member is doing something wrong. Unions still have a responsibility to represent members they believe are wrongfully accused, but the framework challenges local unions to look at the merits of an officer's actions when considering whether to defend them.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/17/us/police-unions-intervention-blueprint/index.html
Even after months of talks and Pelosi concessions, Republicans not sold on bipartisan Jan. 6 commission. We found few willing to endorse it tonight and both McConnell and McCarthy haven't signed on. Needs 10 Rs to pass Senate
https://politico.com/news/2021/05/17/republicans-bipartisan-jan-6-commission-489149
Luke Walton has a 62-82 record with the Kings for a .431 win%. That makes him the 2nd best coach in Sacramento Kings history.
SIGH: ATLvNYM: Kevin Pillar gets hit in the face
https://streamable.com/q954b2
According to a league source, Luke Walton will continue as head coach of the Sacramento Kings next season.
https://twitter.com/james_hamnbcs/status/1394439708319551490
Max Fried exits with an unknown ailment in the seventh
https://twitter.com/mlbbowman/status/1394458510759546880
Shohei Ohtani ... * 2.10 ERA, 40 SO, 25 2/3 IP * .931 OPS, 13 HR, 162 PA
Madison Bumgarner gets pulled after 4 innings for unknown injury, finishes the night with: 4 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 4 BB and 5 K
Willians Astudillo has a 4.50 ERA, which is as good or better than 12 of the 19 actual pitchers who've appeared in a game for the #MNTwins this season.
https://twitter.com/AaronGleeman/status/1394499526455664642
Albert Pujols records his first RBI in a Dodger uniform
https://bdata-producedclips.mlb.com/4c44555a-2f2f-4678-9adc-7560cacc89c4.mp4
#Angels announced Mike Trout left the game with a right calf strain
https://twitter.com/Jack_A_Harris/status/1394479198778007552?s=19
Twenty firms produce 55% of world's plastic waste
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/18/twenty-firms-produce-55-of-worlds-plastic-waste-report-reveals
US approves release of oldest Guantanamo prisoner — a 73-year-old man from Pakistan held 16 years without being charged
https://www.dawn.com/news/1624317/us-approves-release-of-oldest-guantanamo-prisoner-a-73-year-old-man-from-pakistan
Myanmar activists say more than 800 killed by security forces since coup
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/myanmar-activists-say-more-than-800-killed-by-security-forces-since-coup-2021-05-18/
Florida Rep. Val Demings is planning to run for the U.S. Senate, rather than governor, providing Democrats with a big-name candidate to take on Republican Sen. Marco Rubio next year.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/18/demings-running-for-senate-rubio-489137
Good: Andrew Yang plummets, Eric Adams leads in new Democratic mayoral poll
https://nypost.com/2021/05/17/yang-plummets-adams-leads-in-new-democratic-mayoral-poll/
To restore the Department of Justice's leadership in this area, President Biden is directing Attorney General Garland to submit a report to the President within 120 days that outlines the Department's plan to expand its access to justice work. As Attorney General Garland will make clear in a memorandum that he will issue today, the Justice Department will start this work immediately. The Biden-Harris Administration will re-establish the White House Legal Aid Interagency Roundtable to prioritize civil legal aid and expand access to federal programs. The Biden-Harris Administration is re-committing to the mission of the White House Legal Aid Interagency Roundtable, which was initially established in 2015 to raise federal agencies' awareness of how civil legal aid could increase employment, family stability, housing security, consumer protection, and public safety. The White House Legal Aid Interagency Roundtable will be co-chaired by the Attorney General and the Counsel to the President, or their designees, and will convene federal agencies to identify ways to address some of the most pressing legal services challenges that we face today—including those posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/05/18/fact-sheet-president-biden-to-sign-presidential-memorandum-to-expand-access-to-legal-representation-and-the-courts/
___________________________________
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/05/18/fact-sheet-the-american-jobs-plan-supercharges-the-future-of-transportation-and-manufacturing/
FACT SHEET: The American Jobs Plan Supercharges the Future of Transportation and Manufacturing
May 18, 2021 • Statements and Releases
Increasingly, the global market is shifting to electric vehicles (EVs) – tapping into EVs' potential to save families thousands of dollars, lower carbon pollution, and make the air we breathe cleaner. Yet, despite pioneering the technology, the United States is behind in the race to manufacture these vehicles and the batteries that go in them.
Today, the U.S. market share of plug-in electric vehicle (EV) sales is only one-third that of the Chinese EV market. And in 2020, China had approximately 800,000 public charging points compared to just 100,000 in the U.S. President Biden believes it is time for this to change and for the U.S. to lead in EV manufacturing, infrastructure, deployment, and innovation.
Through the investments in the American Jobs Plan, we can re-establish U.S. leadership in electric vehicles and batteries. The American Jobs Plan will position America to win the future of transportation and manufacturing with once-in-a-generation investments that will strengthen our ability to create good-paying, union jobs, dramatically expand American manufacturing, make EVs more affordable for families, and ship EVs and their parts around the world.
Now is the golden time for long-term, transformative investments. As the economy heals, and interest rates remain low, President Biden believes these investments will ensure we manufacture the next generation of vehicles right here in America, lead the world in EV and battery innovation, and create strong, sustained, and durable growth for decades to come.
The American Jobs Plan will accelerate our domestic EV industry by driving demand for advanced cars and trucks, reinvigorating our automotive sector and battery manufacturing, deploying a national network of chargers, and advancing our innovation capacity for the next generation of technology.
Driving Demand
The American Jobs Plan will create incentives to continue to lower the cost of and support market demand for electric vehicles. These incentives are a proven policy to support the growing market for EVs, which then drives down the purchase price as the auto industry scales up production and creates incentives for domestic production. The American Jobs Plan will help support EV deployment with:
- Consumer Incentives: Provide point-of-sale incentives that encourage EV deployment. These incentives will not go towards expensive luxury models and will also incentivize manufacturers who use good labor practices. Incentives provide critical encouragement for manufacturers to move to sell more EVs.
- Tax credits for zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty vehicles: a new tax credit that will support the market for electric and fuel cell trucks and other heavy vehicles. Heavy-duty vehicles are major contributors to poor air quality and health problems, especially in environmental justice communities, and deployment of zero emission versions will clean up the air in communities that need it most.
- Transit buses: $25 billion as a transformative investment in clean transit vehicles. These advanced vehicles will improve urban air quality and environmental justice.
- School buses: $20 billion to convert 20% of the fleet of school buses to electric. This will improve the air that kids breathe and create jobs in clean bus manufacturing.
- Federal fleet leadership: Funding for federal agencies, including the Postal Service, to lead on transitioning their vehicle fleets to electric and installing charging infrastructure. The federal government spends more than a half-a-trillion dollars buying goods and services each year. This purchasing power can be used to drive innovation and clean energy production, as well as to support high quality jobs.
Manufacturing and Supply Chains
The American Jobs Plan recognizes that EVs are important to the future of a strong American manufacturing base. Securing the domestic production of EV parts, like batteries, also represents an opportunity to shore up U.S competitiveness in a growing market, bolster our domestic supply chain, and create good-paying jobs in the U.S. — union jobs. The American Jobs Plan will:
- Provide tax credits to clean vehicle manufacturing: The plan proposes new funds to the 48C Advanced Manufacturing Tax Credit, which has a successful track record in supporting advances in manufacturing. EV manufacturing is an eligible use for this credit. The proposal mirrors the Manchin-Stabenow bill by including a set aside for coal communities.
- Incentivize the start-up of new battery production facilities: The President's plan proposes cost-sharing grants to support new high capacity battery facilities in the United States, recognizing that new businesses may not be able to access tax credits but can pitch in their fair share as they scale their operations.
- Provide low cost credit for the production of advanced vehicles: The plan provides new capital to the Advanced Vehicle Technology Manufacturing Program to support companies who domestically produce clean energy vehicles, and it proposes that the program incentivize the production of medium and heavy-duty vehicles.
- Fund retooling of dormant factories: Brownfield grants will support the upgrading and reopening of facilities that had previously shuttered, revitalizing communities and increasing domestic capacity to build advanced vehicles and parts.
Creating a National Network of Charging Infrastructure
The American Jobs Plan will establish grant and incentive programs for state and local governments and the private sector to build a national network of 500,000 EV chargers by 2030, while promoting strong labor, training, and installation standards. It will establish:
- Grants and incentives for public EV charging infrastructure: To build a national network of 500,000 charging stations, the plan will make a bold $15 billion investment that spurs the manufacturing and installment of chargers. Through state and local governments and the private sector, it will fund chargers in apartment buildings, in public parking, and throughout communities, and robust fast charging along our nation's roadways. Charger installation and maintenance creates good-paying, union jobs right here in America that cannot be outsourced, and the American Jobs Plan also includes incentives to bring more charging equipment manufacturing to the United States.
- Tax credits for other charging infrastructure: Because some infrastructure, such as fleet depot charging, residential charging, and workplace charging, may not be eligible for federal grants, the plan will extend and improve the 30C Alternative Fuel Infrastructure Tax Credit so everyone can have access to electric vehicle changing infrastructure.
Research and Innovation
Public investments in research and development lay the foundation for the future breakthroughs and innovations that over time yield new businesses, new jobs, and more exports. The American Jobs Plan will establish the U.S. as a leader in innovation and R&D. It will:
- Scale up federally-funded research and development: The American Jobs Plan will invest $35 billion in transformative research and development for energy and climate related topics, of which $15 billion is specifically set aside for the Department of Energy, a leader in applied clean energy research, including advanced batteries. It will also invest $40 billion to upgrade research infrastructure such as laboratories and networks. The plan will increase funding in key areas to reestablish our leadership in innovation and create a pipeline of technologies that we can build here.
- Make it in ALL of America: The President is calling on Congress to invest $20 billion in regional innovation hubs and a Community Revitalization fund – building the social infrastructure to support innovation and productivity across the country.
To view this fact sheet in your browser, click here.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/AJP-Fact-Sheet-EVs-Manufacturing.pdf
___________________________________
A right-wing judge tried to hit BLM protesters with his car, then lied about it
https://washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/05/17/north-carolina-judge-protesters-hit/
President Joe Biden pledged in his inaugural address to combat white supremacy and domestic extremism in the wake of the January 6 attack at the US Capitol. But as of today, Biden's administration still has no comprehensive strategy for identifying and removing federal law-enforcement officers who may have ties to white-supremacist groups.
https://www.businessinsider.com/white-supremacists-working-in-federal-government-agency-law-enforcement-biden-2021-5
Hamas is most regressive murderous groups on earth and Israel is one of the world's most progressive leftist liberal countries on earth. Hamas routinely denies rights to and executes females, LGBTQ, Jews, Christians, and other minorities. Israel was the first country to legally protect and champion civil rights, LGBTQ rights, abortion rights, etc. There are mosques and churches across Israel FFS. Israel was the first country to host the Gay Pride parade.
Sec State Blinken says the US has received some further info through intelligence channels from Israel regarding their strike on a building in Gaza over the wknd that housed journalist outlets, and which Israel said Hamas was using. He says he cannot comment on the intelligence.
https://twitter.com/kylieatwood/status/1394630815544446987
Indiana Pacers guard Caris LeVert is expected to miss tonight's Play-In Tournament game vs. the Charlotte Hornets due to health and safety protocols
https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1394688053915144196
Bradley Beal on choosing to play through the pain: "The toughest thing for me is, as a player, with injuries, you have to be selfish," he said. "You have to look at yourself and think about your career…my biggest thing is being on the floor, being available. My first four years in the league, I had that injury-prone label to my name, so I absolutely hate when I miss games. This injury, in particular, I know it's something that — it won't heal in a week. Hell, I don't even know if it'll heal in two weeks. James Harden, I think he missed a month. It's different grades of strains. You never know. Your hamstring is so delicate. My final decision came down to, do I want the first time me coming back onto the floor with this injury to be in a must-win game, with me trying to do everything on the fly with a super important game? If I had just come back, played on Tuesday, I don't know how I would have been. … I kind of understood the risk of playing (Sunday). I was comfortable with knowing, okay, if I tweaked it again, I was okay with knowing it could potentially set me back. You've got to be able to have something within," Westbrook said of playing hurt Sunday. "I can only speak from my personal experience last year. It's more (adjusting) physically, at least for me. It doesn't allow you to do the things that you're able to do to help your teammates out. And also mental, because I know that I'm kind of letting my teammates down, not letting them see the best of me. Unfortunately in the sports world, injured or not, the media and people judge you based on that particular time. I think it's kind of like a lose-lose situation, 'cause if you don't play and you're hurt, it's a conversation. But if you play hurt and you play bad, it's like, oh, well, he can't play anymore."
https://theathletic.com/2594506/2021/05/18/this-is-exactly-what-im-talking-about-wizards-bradley-beal-chooses-to-play-through-the-pain/
Leonardo DiCaprio pledges $43m to restore the Galápagos Islands
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/18/leonardo-dicaprio-pledges-43m-to-restore-the-galapagos-islands
Belarus raids top news site in widening crackdown
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57156836
Andrew Giuliani announces run for New York governor | His father, Rudy Giuliani, remains under intense legal scrutiny.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/18/andrew-giuliani-new-york-governor-489235
Biden admin let 2,000 vulnerable immigrants into U.S., will allow 250 more per day, says ACLU
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/biden-admin-let-2-000-vulnerable-migrants-u-s-will-n1267735
U.S. to stop flying migrants to border cities to expel them into Mexico
https://www.newsweek.com/us-stop-flying-migrants-border-cities-expel-them-mexico-1592508
The evidence is overwhelming that Donald Trump's tariffs have benefited the few to the detriment of the many.
https://wsj.com/articles/how-trumps-steel-tariffs-failed-11621288859?
https://twitter.com/RiegerReport/status/1394700870806351874/photo/2
DOJ Says Capitol Rioter Carried Semi-Auto Handgun After Republicans Claim They Weren't Armed
https://www.newsweek.com/doj-says-capitol-rioter-carried-semi-auto-handgun-after-republicans-claim-they-werent-armed-1592314
Seriously, Just Tax The Rich. The haggling and hemming and hawing over what to do about the debt overshadow a point that many Americans find obvious: It's simply a good, fair idea to tax the wealthy. They have disproportionately reaped the benefits of economic growth and the stock market in recent years, contributing to increasing inequality in the United States. The divide has become even more obvious during the Covid-19 pandemic, during which billionaires have managed to add heaps of dollars to their wealth even as millions of people were knocked on their heels. Some ultra-rich people in the US keep getting richer no matter how much of their money they give away. They literally cannot stop adding to their coffers. | As it stands currently, long-term capital gains on investments such as stocks are taxed at a lower rate than income. In other words, if you make money off of the sale of a stock you've had for a while, it's taxed at a lower rate than if you'd made the same amount of money through working. The Biden administration is eyeing overhauling the capital gains rate for people making $1 million or more, so that those gains would be taxed at the highest individual rate, which the president's tax plan would put at 39.6 percent. (The 2017 tax bill lowered the highest rate to 37 percent). The White House is also pushing Congress to close the carried interest loophole that lets private equity and hedge fund managers have their gains taxed at a lower rate. Democrats are also looking at changing how inherited wealth is taxed, including the "stepped-up basis" tax code provision. As it stands, if a rich person sees their wealth go up by $1 billion in, for example, stock, when they sell that investment, they'll be taxed on their $1 billion gain. But if they never sell and the investment gets passed to their heirs when they die, their heirs are taxed at the baseline of what it's worth when they get it. If and when they sell, they're only taxed on new gains. | Biden has also proposed trying to raise taxes on the wealthy without really touching the tax code and just trying to more fully collect what they already owe. He wants Congress to direct some $80 billion to the IRS over the next decade to try to beef up enforcement and close the "tax gap" — the difference between what the IRS gets in taxes versus what it is owed. IRS chief Charles Rettig has estimated that it could amount to $1 trillion every year. | In March this year, the Washington Center for Equitable Growth published a paper on tax evasion that estimated the top 1 percent of earners underreport about one-fifth of their income. The research suggested that collecting all unpaid federal income tax from the richest Americans would increase revenues by $175 billion each year. However, tax enforcement is difficult and takes a long time. (Remember Donald Trump's taxes and endless audits?) IRS agents with the adequate experience and know-how to deal with complex audits can take years to train and replace. And even once the IRS is staffed up, it's unlikely it will be able to capture all the money that's owed. | Lots of people right now say the economy seems unfair. It feels like the system is rigged in favor of the people who need help the least. And that makes many people lose faith in the economy — it's easier to believe in America when you feel like America isn't stacked for winners. That's part of why taxing rich people and corporations is so popular. Like, really, really popular. Eight in 10 Americans say they are bothered by some corporations and the wealthy not paying their fair share in taxes, according to Pew Research Center. A recent Morning Consult/Politico poll found that paying for infrastructure by increasing taxes on those groups made Biden's infrastructure plan more popular, not less. Taxing rich people can't pay for everything Democrats would perhaps like to, but for many progressives, that's beside the point. "We do not have to tax to have nice things, we tax for predistribution and redistribution. In order to have nice things, we print money and we invest in the things that we need," said Solana Rice, co-founder and co-executive director of Liberation in a Generation, which pushes for economic policies that reduce racial disparities. "We almost couldn't tax enough to really pay for all the things that we need, so it's a ruse."
https://www.vox.com/22432338/joe-biden-tax-plan
https://www.axios.com/treasury-biden-tax-plan-infrastructure-c66280e2-c67f-43a8-8434-133bc06d30da.html
https://www.businessinsider.com/billionaires-added-4-trillion-to-their-wealth-during-the-pandemic-2021-4
https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/11/1/20941440/tech-billionaires-rich-net-worth-philanthropy-giving-pledge
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-22/biden-to-propose-capital-gains-tax-as-high-as-43-4-for-wealthy
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/23/business/dealbook/carried-interest-biden.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/15/your-money/estate-tax-biden.html
https://www.vox.com/22405898/joe-biden-irs-funding
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-treasury-irs/irs-chief-says-1-trillion-in-taxes-goes-uncollected-every-year-idUSKBN2C0255
https://equitablegrowth.org/working-papers/tax-evasion-at-the-top-of-the-income-distribution-theory-and-evidence/
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21492209/donald-trump-income-taxes-ny-times-evasion-avoidance
https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/america-we-have-problem-irs-brain-drain
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/04/30/top-tax-frustrations-for-americans-the-feeling-that-some-corporations-wealthy-people-dont-pay-fair-share/
https://morningconsult.com/2021/03/31/biden-infrastructure-plan-raising-taxes-wealthy-corporations/
The Alabama Legislature has passed a bill to illegally and unconstitutionally ban curbside voting. Curbside voting is not even practiced in Alabama, but the legislature still decide to illegally and unconstitutionally approve the ban.
https://www.al.com/news/2021/05/alabama-senate-debating-bill-to-ban-curbside-voting.html
This planned pro-oil pro-Russia anti-Earth move sets up a bizarre situation in which the worthless coward Biden administration will be sanctioning ships involved in the building of Nord Stream 2 but refusing to sanction the actual company in charge of the project. The decision indicates the Biden administration is not willing to compromise its relationship with pro-Nazi pro-Islamist dictatorship Germany over this pipeline, and underscores the difficulties President Biden faces in matching actions to rhetoric on a tougher approach to Russia. This is an unjustifiably bad decision. Russia's decaying economy will now be given a crucial lifeline and fuel further production of advanced hypersonic weapons while causing havoc in the Middle East. There's other pipeline options for Germany that involve EU nations. So sick of us pandering to dictatorship pro-Nazi pro-Islamist Germany, which is pandering to Russia. This has been going on for almost a decade, and Russia keeps getting what they want.
https://www.axios.com/nord-stream-sanction-biden-russia-f6db2ae3-2c89-4343-b326-9f399d674077.html
Phoenix Suns coach Monty Williams has been voted as the National Basketball Coaches Association's Coach of the Year.
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1394689869746688002
So the coach on CP3's team wins this award two years in a row. First Billy Donovan and now Monty Williams. Maybe the real coach of the year was Chris Paul all along.
Schumer pledges to put bill forming Jan 6 commission to a vote, and asks, "If the Republican leaders are just going to throw their lead negotiators under the bus, why do they even participate in negotiations?"
https://twitter.com/igorbobic/status/1394717819233869825
Continued my convo w/ MoD @gantzbe on Israel's military ops in Gaza. I will always support Israel's right to defend itself against indiscriminate terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians. I expressed my support for de-escalation & reviewed US efforts to bring and end to violence.
https://twitter.com/SecDef/status/1394705016720613380
U.S. condemns Erdogan comments on Jewish people as anti-Semitic
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-condemns-erdogan-comments-jewish-people-anti-semitic-2021-05-19/
A new movement has sprung up in the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, demanding an end to violence against women. But the government of the twin island state, just off the coast of Venezuela in the southern Caribbean, has been accused of ignoring a study's recommendations to reduce murder and domestic abuse. Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports with help from cameraman Dylan Quesnel.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/brutal-violence-against-women-in-trinidad-and-tobago-ignored-by-government-critics-say
Australia to spend $468 million on controversial gas-fired power plant
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/australia-invest-468-million-new-gas-fired-power-plant-2021-05-18/
Detroit's Spencer Turnbull just no-hit Seattle. Fifth nine-inning no-hitter in MLB this year. The record in the Modern Era is seven in one season. Second time the Mariners have been no-hit this season. It's May 18, and they are hitting .199 as a team. That is a real statistic.
https://twitter.com/JeffPassan/status/1394879546369970176
Blake Snell vs the Rockies tonight: 6IP, 5H, 1ER, 11K, 1BB, his first 6IP game since July 2019
The Boston Celtics defeat the Washington Wizards behind Jayson Tatum's 50-point performance and clinch the #7 seed in the East
Wizards new $80 million dollar man Davis Bertans: 4pts/1reb/0ast on 1/8 FG, 0/7 3pt, team worst -23 in 33 minutes
Marine veteran John Lira (D) launches challenge to #TX23 Rep. Tony Gonzalez (R).
https://expressnews.com/news/news_columnists/gilbert_garcia/article/Garcia-San-Antonio-veteran-enters-the-Democratic-16186663.php
The Trump Administration ousted climate scientist Michael Kuperberg, who directed the US Global Change Research Program. This week, the Biden Administration has brought him back:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/05/19/kuperberg-climate-usgcrp-biden-trump/
Women's workloads — at home & on the job — have grown, their mental health has suffered, and their allies among employers are few
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/working-women-face-perfect-storm-study-finds-n1267888
Giant May snowstorm to unload feet of snow in Montana
https://www.accuweather.com/en/winter-weather/giant-may-snowstorm-to-unload-feet-of-snow-on-rockies/948687
Meat Eaters 'Wilfully Disregard Factory Farming' As Driver Of Infectious Diseases. Scientists warn of the enormous health threats posed by intensive animal agriculture, from zoonotic disease emergence to the rise of antibiotic resistance, and say understanding of these risks is critical.
81+ Pro-Trump Terrorists Are Charged With Trying To Murder Capitol Policee On January 6th 2021. Republicans Claim No Such Event Happened
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/05/capitol-riots-insurrection-trump-assaults-police-kevin-mccarthy/
Republican pollster Frank Luntz claimed to be impartial — but was paid by Ted Cruz during 2018 Texas race
https://www.salon.com/2021/05/19/gop-pollster-frank-luntz-claimed-to-be-impartial--but-was-paid-by-ted-cruz-during-2018-texas-race/
Mark McCloskey, former Democrat and current pro-Trumper, lawyer, facing felony charges for illegally and unconstitutionally attempting to murder BLM protesters, announces Senate run. He's literally running on an "I pointed a gun at black people and Democrats stopped me" platform.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/05/19/missouri-mark-mccloskey-senate-campaign/
Reminder: But their new profile ignores a significant chapter in their professional histories: The couple, who for decades ran a personal injury law practice in Missouri, litigated numerous cases against prominent gun manufacturers and contributed to the downfall of what was once America's largest handgun maker. In fact, the handgun Patricia McCloskey brandished on June 28 appears to have been an exhibit used in one of those cases.
https://www.thetrace.org/2020/08/mark-patricia-mccloskey-st-louis-gun-companies-lawsuit-rnc/
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/portland-place-couple-who-confronted-protesters-have-a-long-history-of-not-backing-down/article_281d9989-373e-53c3-abcb-ecd0225dd287.html
New York opens criminal investigation into Trump Organization | "We are now actively investigating the Trump Organization in a criminal capacity, along with the Manhattan DA," he said.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/new-york-criminal-investigation-trump-organization-https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-investigation-new-york-attorney-general-letitia-james/2021/05/18/cd2f1288-b0cf-11eb-a980-a60af976ed44_story.html
Arizona recount auditors have found the files of voting data Trump claimed were destroyed as part of a plot to deprive him of victory. "Just want to underscore that AZ Senate's @ArizonaAudit account accused Maricopa County of deleting files- which would be a crime- then a day after our technical letter explained they were just looking in the wrong place," the tweet said. "All of a sudden 'auditors' have recovered the files."
https://www.businessinsider.com/arizona-recount-auditors-find-files-trump-claimed-destroyed-2021-5
https://twitter.com/maricopacounty/status/1394759892737552385
Bangladeshi Journalist Facing Death Penalty For Covid19 Investigation
https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7edwy/bangladeshi-journalist-could-face-death-penalty-for-her-covid-investigation
Denmark banning and deporting Syrian Muslim refugees
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57156835
Scientists launch tool to detect bleaching of coral reefs in near real time
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/19/scientists-launch-tool-to-detect-bleaching-of-coral-reefs-in-near-real-time
FCC Creates Public Database to Track Compliance with New Robocall-Killing Program | Telephone service providers must implement the new STIR/SHAKEN framework by the end of June and certify compliance in a new publicly available database.
https://www.nextgov.com/analytics-data/2021/05/fcc-creates-public-database-track-compliance-new-robocall-killing-program/174117/
Native tribes need Biden's bold plan to fix infrastructure - The American Jobs Plan wouldn't just fix roads and bridges. It would make vital investments in tribal nations, and in the future of the entire country
https://crosscut.com/opinion/2021/05/native-tribes-need-bidens-bold-plan-fix-infrastructure
Cavs expected to give Jarrett Allen $100M contract extension. Seems high but what else are they going to do with their money
https://cavaliersnation.com/2021/05/19/report-cavs-expected-to-give-jarrett-allen-100m-contract-extension/
Kemba Walker was asked about wearing this jacket which has a flag associated with far-right politics. His answer made it pretty apparent he has no idea what it means, saying he liked the colors and the way it looked. No message meant by it.
https://www.twitter.com/JaredWeissNBA/status/1394873911339270144
Pennsylvania voters illegally and unconstitutionally imposed restrictions on a governor's authority under an emergency disaster declaration. Democrats are seriously done (Republicans are winning a ton of elections and ballot initiatives already at the local and state level....)
https://apnews.com/article/pennsylvania-health-coronavirus-pandemic-government-and-politics-f5ce447986a26cca310a6639de37b5ce
Lance Lynn last night said "there are no rules" when a position player is pitching, adding: "The more I play this game, the more those (unwritten) rules have gone away." Tony La Russa said of those remarks: "Lance has a locker. I have an office. ... I don't agree."
https://twitter.com/cemma670/status/1395040297424457733
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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/18/arts/music/sinead-oconnor-rememberings.html
Sinead O'Connor Remembers Things Differently
The mainstream narrative is that a pop star ripped up a photo of the pope on "Saturday Night Live" and derailed her life. What if the opposite were true?
May 18, 2021
Sinead O'Connor is alone, which is how she prefers to be. She has been riding out the pandemic in a tiny village on an Irish mountaintop, watching murder shows, buying fairy-garden trinkets online and mainlining American news on CNN. On a recent overcast afternoon, she had a navy hijab arranged over her shaved head and a cigarette permanently installed between her fingertips, and when she leaned over an iPad inside her all-glass conservatory, she looked as if she had been hermetically sealed into her own little world.
"I'm lucky," she said, "because I enjoy my own company."
Her cottage was appointed in bright, saturated colors that leapt out from the monotonous backdrop of the Irish sky with the surreal quality of a pop-up book. Bubble-gum roses lined the windows, and the Hindu G-ddess Durga stretched her eight arms across a blanket on a cozy cherry couch. When O'Connor, 54, gave me a little iPad tour during our video interview, the place seemed to fold in on itself: The flowers were fake ones she bought on Amazon.com, and her pair of handsome velvet chairs weren't made for sitting.
"Deliberately, I bought uncomfortable chairs, because I don't like people staying long," she said. "I like being on my own." But she disclosed this with such an impish giggle that it sounded almost like an invitation.
O'Connor is, no matter how hard she tries to fight it, irresistible. She exudes a tender familiarity, thanks to her cherubic smile, her loose tongue and the fact that she happens to possess one of the most iconic heads in pop culture memory. In the early '90s, O'Connor became so famous that the very dimensions of her skull seemed inscribed in the public consciousness. If you remember two things about her, it's that she vaulted to fame with that enduring close-up in the video for her version of "Nothing Compares 2 U" — and then, that she stared down a "Saturday Night Live" camera, tore up a photo of Pope John Paul II and killed her career.
But O'Connor doesn't see it that way. In fact, the opposite feels true. Now she has written a memoir, "Rememberings," that recasts the story from her perspective. "I feel that having a No. 1 record derailed my career," she writes, "and my tearing the photo put me back on the right track."
O'Connor saw herself as a protest-singing punk. When she ascended to the top of the pop charts, she was trapped. "The media was making me out to be crazy because I wasn't acting like a pop star was supposed to act," she told me. "It seems to me that being a pop star is almost like being in a type of prison. You have to be a good girl." And that's just not Sinead O'Connor.
"CRAZY" IS A word that does some dirty cultural work. It is a flip way of referencing mental illness, yes. But it's also a slippery label that has little to do with how a person's brain works and everything to do with how she is culturally received. Calling someone crazy is the ultimate silencing technique. It robs a person of her very subjectivity.
By the time O'Connor appeared on "S.N.L.," in October 1992, she had already been branded as insane — for boycotting the Grammy Awards where she was up for record of the year (they recognized only "material gain," she said) and refusing to play "The Star-Spangled Banner" before her concerts (because national anthems "have nothing to do with music in general"). But now her reputation felt at permanent risk.
"I'm not sorry I did it. It was brilliant," she said of her protest against abuse in the Catholic Church. "But it was very traumatizing," she added. "It was open season on treating me like a crazy bitch."
Soon after the show, O'Connor appeared at a Bob Dylan tribute concert, and when the crowd booed, she was so taken aback she thought, at first, that they were making fun of her outfit. Joe Pesci threatened to smack her in an "S.N.L." monologue, and later, on that same stage, Madonna mocked her in a gently condescending fashion, play-scowling and ripping up a photograph of the tabloid-star sex offender Joey Buttafuoco. O'Connor was condemned by the Anti-Defamation League and a group called the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations, which hired a steamroller to crush hundreds of her albums outside of her record company's headquarters. The Washington Times named her "the face of pure hatred" and Frank Sinatra called her "one stupid broad."
Now O'Connor's memoir arrives at a time when the culture seems eager to reassess these old judgments. The top comment on a YouTube rip of O'Connor's "Behind the Music" episode is: "Can we all just say she was right!" Few cultural castaways have been more vindicated by the passage of time: child sexual abuse, and its cover-up within the Catholic Church, is no longer an open secret. John Paul II finally acknowledged the church's role in 2001, nearly a decade after O'Connor's act of defiance.
But the overreaction to O'Connor was not just about whether she was right or wrong; it was about the kinds of provocations we accept from women in music. "Not because I was famous or anything, but because I was a human being, I had a right to put my hand up and say what I felt," O'Connor said. Some artists are skilled at shocking in a way designed to sell more records, and others at tempering their political rage into palatable music, but "Sinead is not the tempering type," her friend Bob Geldof, the musician and activist, told me. "In that, she is very much an Irish woman."
To understand why O'Connor may have seen her cultural blacklisting as liberating, you have to understand just how deeply she was misapprehended throughout her career. She was still a teenager when she started work on her fierce, ethereal first record, "The Lion and the Cobra," when an executive — "a square unto high heaven" — called her to lunch and told her to dress more femininely and grow out her close-cropped hair. So she marched to a barber and shaved it all off. "I looked like an alien," she writes in the book, which was a kind of escape hatch from looking like a human woman. When O'Connor became pregnant in the midst of recording, she writes that the executive called a doctor and tried to coerce her into having an abortion, which she refused. Her first son, Jake, arrived just before the album did.
Later, when "Nothing Compares 2 U" made her a star, O'Connor said the song's writer, Prince, terrorized her. She had pledged to reveal the details "when I'm an old lady and I write my book," and now she has: She writes that Prince summoned her to his macabre Hollywood mansion, chastised her for swearing in interviews, harangued his butler to serve her soup though she repeatedly refused it, and sweetly suggested a pillow fight, only to thump her with something hard he'd slipped into his pillowcase. When she escaped on foot in the middle of the night, she writes, he stalked her with his car, leapt out and chased her around the highway.
Prince is the type of artist who is hailed as crazy-in-a-good-way, as in, "You've got to be crazy to be a musician," O'Connor said, "but there's a difference between being crazy and being a violent abuser of women." Still, the fact that her best-known song was written by this person does not faze her at all. "As far as I'm concerned," she said, "it's my song."
O'CONNOR'S STATEMENT ON "S.N.L." was more personal than most knew. In the book, she details how her mother physically abused her throughout her childhood. "I won the prize in kindergarten for being able to curl up into the smallest ball, but my teacher never knew why I could do it so well," she writes. There is a reason, in the "Nothing Compares 2 U" video, she begins to cry when she hits the line about her mama's flowers. O'Connor was 18 when her mother died, and on that day, she took down the one photograph on her mom's bedroom wall: the image of the pope. O'Connor carefully saved the photo, waiting for the right moment to destroy it.
"Child abuse is an identity crisis and fame is an identity crisis, so I went straight from one identity crisis into another," she said. And when she tried to call attention to child abuse through her fame, she was vilified. "People would say that she's fragile," Geldof said. "No, no, no. Many people would have collapsed under the weight of being Sinead O'Connor, had it not been Sinead."
Instead, O'Connor felt freed. "I could just be me. Do what I love. Be imperfect. Be mad, even," she writes in the book. "I'm not a pop star. I'm just a troubled soul who needs to scream into mikes now and then." She sees the backlash as having pushed her away from the wrong life, in mainstream pop, and forced her to make a living performing live, which is where she feels most comfortable as an artist.
"Rememberings" is a document of a difficult life, but it is also deliciously funny, starting with the title. ("As I've said, I can't remember many details because I was constantly stoned," she writes.) It is loaded with charming stories from the height of her fame. She rejects the Red Hot Chili Peppers singer Anthony Kiedis's claim that they had a thing ("Only in his mind") but confirms a fling with Peter Gabriel (to discover the profane term she assigns to their affair, you'll have to read it).
But the book does not supply a tidy, cheerful sort of vindication. These moments of cultural reassessment can feel like the awarding of a consolation prize; the fallout of past judgments can never truly be reversed. Meanwhile, the same dynamics keep repeating, over and over again. In recent years, O'Connor's mental health has become grist for the therapy-entertainment complex overseen by the likes of Dr. Drew and Dr. Phil, who thrive on casting illness as drama and converting pain into spectacle.
O'Connor has seen a little bit of herself in women who came after her — in Amy Winehouse and Britney Spears. "What they did to Britney Spears was disgusting," she said. "If you met a stranger in the street crying, you'd put your arms around her. You wouldn't start taking photos of her, you know?" It is not lost on O'Connor that the night Spears was roundly categorized as a crazy person, she shaved her hair off. "Why were they saying she's crazy for shaving her head?" she said. "I'm not."
O'Connor still shaves her head, herself, about every 10 days. "I just don't feel like me when I have hair," she said. She usually wears a hijab over it now; she converted to Islam several years ago and started going by the name Shuhada Sadaqat, though she still answers to O'Connor, too. She wrote the first part of her memoir in 2015, but after having a hysterectomy and "a total breakdown," as she puts it in the book, it took time for her to revisit the project.
She spent six years in and out of mental health facilities — the book is partly dedicated to the staff and patients at St. Patrick's University Hospital — and she now has some clarity about how her mind works: Chiefly, that she has complex post-traumatic stress disorder and borderline personality disorder. Her difficulty remembering the post-"S.N.L." period is also the product of trauma. "It was a very lonesome, lonesome 10 years," O'Connor said. "I really trust the subconscious," she added. "If it doesn't want you to remember something, there's a very good reason for that."
O'CONNOR NEVER UNDERSTOOD why people were so drawn to her music. But a few years ago, she was preparing to head out on tour after a long break from the road, and "I couldn't remember the bloody lyrics of any of the songs," she said. For the first time, she browsed the internet for old artifacts from her career. "I was like, Jesus Christ, this is really good," she said. "That's me! Oh my G-d!"
A couple of years ago, the Irish producer David Holmes approached O'Connor, star-struck at an event, and asked if she'd make a record with him about healing. "She is just an incredibly complex individual and she should never be judged," Holmes told me. "She doesn't go out of her way to try and hurt anyone. She's just Sinead, and she wears her heart on her sleeve." Their seven-track album "No Veteran Dies Alone" is due out later this year.
O'Connor's ethereal sound has acquired an appealingly raw undercurrent. When she sings, on the title track, "There are two mes, the one that you see/and the real me, who I'm not supposed to be," her pull is undeniable. As Holmes put it: "She's got that voice, it's like a friend."
O'Connor's own friends describe her as a naturally loving person. "She's a generous soul," the Pogues singer Shane MacGowan told me over email. "She looked after me when I really needed it." Said her longtime friend Kara Hanahoe, "I've just found that she can be relied upon, and I think that's probably the most important thing."
O'Connor is a dedicated email correspondent; as I wrote, she sent me emails signed "Sinead / Shuhada," and punctuated with emojis of sunglasses and cherry blossoms. But her complex post-traumatic stress has translated into agoraphobia, and her life circumstances have not always allowed for people to stay close. Geldof knows friends who won't speak to O'Connor anymore, but he's not one of them. "She can say whatever she likes about me and my wife," he said. "Because it's her."
O'Connor is happy being on her own, with her garden and her Mayfair cigarettes and her iPads and her "imaginary boyfriend," Taye Diggs, to keep her company via episodes of "Murder in the First." "I haven't been terribly successful at being a girlfriend or wife," she said. "I'm a bit of a handful, let's face it."
But a few months ago, when she moved into her blissfully remote cottage, she found that several other single women lived alone nearby. Soon a couple of them had come by offering bread and scones, and she found herself with a crew of girlfriends for the first time since she was a teenager. "We bury bodies for each other," she said.
The trouble of releasing a memoir is that it has forced O'Connor to relive her past, and that can be a traumatic experience, even if it does spur a cultural reckoning. "Down the mountain, as I call it, nobody can forget about Sinead O'Connor," she said. But up in the village, nobody cares, "which is beautiful for me," she said. "It's lovely having friends."
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NOT TOURISTS >> FBI just released NEW video of 2 Pro-Trump Terrorists (Jan 6th 2021 terrorist attack) still at large. This video shows officers under attack. Truly, truly horrifying. Suspect #106 is shown picking up tactical baton, hitting officers with it
https://twitter.com/i/status/1395068820994334726
https://twitter.com/MikevWUSA/status/1395068820994334726
Support for Palestinian rights is not antisemitic. But racism directed at Jews living thousands of miles from Israel does not help a single Palestinian. It suggests that it is not injustice that the perpetrators oppose, but the existence of Jewish people anywhere.
When conflict breaks out between Israelis and Palestinians, racist attacks on British Jews – a separate group of people living thousands of miles away – increase.
https://standard.co.uk/comment/comment/london-antisemitism-antisemitism-israel-palestine-b935787.html
Republicans say they can't support the Jan 6 commission because only the Democrat-appointed chair can hire staff. But that's modeled after the bipartisan 9/11 commission, which passed in the Senate 90-8
India on Wednesday reported more coronavirus deaths in a single day than any other country at any time during the pandemic, while infections continued to spread through vast rural areas with weak health systems
https://apnews.com/article/india-coronavirus-pandemic-health-ce604ee88062c459e0a3bd9f1e1ed686
Why on earth would you assemble a team as good as the White Sox and hand it over to a racist hateful piece of shit alcoholic terrorist (Tony La Russa)?
World's Largest Iceberg Breaks Off In Antarctica As Glaciers Retreat | The Antarctica ice sheet is warming faster than the rest of the planet | An iceberg the size of the Spanish island of Majorca has broken off the coast of Antarctica, with measurements taken from satellites and planes confirming it's now the world's largest. Iceberg A-76 calved from the western side of the Ronne Ice Shelf in Antarctica and is now floating on the Weddell Sea, the European Space Agency said. It measures around 170 kilometers (105 miles) long and 25 kilometers (15 miles) wide. That's larger than New York's Long Island and half the size of Puerto Rico. The Antarctica ice sheet is warming faster than the rest of the planet, causing melting of snow and ice covers as well as the retreat of glaciers, especially around the Weddell Sea. As glaciers retreat, chunks of ice break off and float adrift until they break apart or crash into land. | The study by 84 scientists from 15 countries concluded that the more ambitious national goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions and slow down climate change set recently are not enough to stop sea levels from rising. In fact, melting glaciers and ice sheets will raise sea levels twice as fast as they would if countries fulfilled their earlier pledges under the Paris Agreement.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-19/world-s-largest-iceberg-breaks-off-in-antarctica-as-glaciers-retreat
All fossil fuel exploration needs to end this year, IEA says | To limit global warming to 1.5˚C by the end of the century, the world has to deploy clean technologies en masse while slashing investment in new oil, gas, and coal supplies, according to a new report by the International Energy Agency.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/05/all-fossil-fuel-exploration-needs-to-end-this-year-iea-says/
https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Grodin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Mooney_(comedian)
USPS NEWS: I talked with President Biden's newest picks for the USPS Board of Governors. Not only did I emphasize DeJoy's disastrous leadership, but I also got their commitment to a full review of USPS leadership and policies. It's time to build back a better Postal Service.
https://twitter.com/SenDuckworth/status/1394833119698722819
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Did you know the rebellion in Chad is in part a long-tail consequence of the western destabilization of Libya?
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/22/world/africa/chad-rebels.html
Where Did Chad Rebels Prepare for Their Own War? In Libya.
Fighting as mercenaries for years, the rebels were ready to pull off their own stunning feat: an invasion that resulted in the death of Chad's strongman ruler.
Declan Walsh
By Declan Walsh
April 22, 2021
NAIROBI, Kenya — The rebels pulled off a stunning feat. Barely a week after their armed convoy roared across the desert into northern Chad, they kicked off a battle that on Monday claimed the biggest scalp of all: Idriss Déby, Chad's iron-fisted president of three decades, killed on the battlefield when a shell exploded near his vehicle, according to a senior aide.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/23/world/africa/chad-idriss-deby-funeral.html
On Wednesday, a day after his death was announced, a sense of apprehension and disbelief reverberated through the capital, Ndjamena, where the military formally installed as interim president Mr. Déby's 37-year-old son, Mahamat Idriss Déby. Rumors of an impending rebel attack on the city coursed through its streets.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/20/world/africa/president-chad-killed.html
But the secret of the rebels' striking success thus far lay behind them, across Chad's northern border in Libya, where they have been fighting as soldiers of fortune for years, amassing weapons, money and battlefield experience, according to United Nations investigators, regional experts and Chadian officials. In effect, the rebels used Libya's chaotic war to prepare for their own campaign in Chad.
Until recently they were employed by Khalifa Hifter, a powerful Libyan commander once championed by Trump. They fought with weapons supplied by the United Arab Emirates, one of Mr. Hifter's main foreign sponsors.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/12/world/middleeast/libya-hifter-benghazi.html
And they were based last year at a sprawling Libyan military air base alongside mercenaries from the Wagner Group, the Kremlin-backed private company that is considered a spearhead for Russia's covert efforts to spread its military influence across Africa.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/05/science/earliest-human-burial-africa.html
Experts say the unexpected coup by the Chadian rebels offers a stark example of how the decade-old power vacuum in Libya, starting with the ouster of the dictator Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in 2011, has incubated an array of mercenaries and other armed groups, some of which are now spreading chaos in the region.
"The civil war in Libya has created an environment in which armed groups, not just from Chad but from all over the place, can thrive and find sponsors and allies," said Nathaniel Powell, a research associate at the Center for War and Diplomacy at Lancaster University in Britain, and the author of "France's Wars in Chad."
Uncertainty has seized Chad since the death of Mr. Déby, casting doubt on the stability of a nation viewed by the United States and France as a linchpin of their efforts to counter Islamist militancy spreading across western and central Africa.
https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/west-africa/nigeria/islamic-state-franchises-africa-lessons-lake-chad
In a statement on Wednesday the rebels, who go by the name Front for Change and Concord in Chad (F.A.C.T., by its French acronym), threatened to march on Ndjamena this weekend, following Mr. Déby's funeral planned for Friday.
Whether the rebels can deliver on that threat is unclear. They suffered heavy losses early this week — Chad's military claimed to have killed 300 rebels — and foreign military officials are unsure how far the rebel force is from the capital.
Even so, the Chadian military fortified the defenses around the presidential palace on Wednesday, where officials denied persistent rumors that Mr. Déby's successor, his son Mahamat, had also been killed or injured.
"If he has been shot or dead, that means he's a good actor, because he is alive and kicking," said Acheikh Ibn-Oumar, a senior presidential adviser who said he was speaking from inside the palace.
There are still questions about the circumstances of the elder Mr. Déby's death, and whether he was in fact killed by a rival. But Mr. Ibn-Oumar, echoing statements by military leaders, insisted the president was killed when a rebel shell exploded near his vehicle near Nokou, 170 miles north of Ndjamena.
Mr. Déby was killed on the day he won his sixth election, marred by irregularities. Western countries had largely overlooked his dismal record of corruption and rights abuses because he was a bulwark against the rising tide of Islamist militancy in the Sahel, an arid swath bordering the Sahara that spans six African countries.
France has had a continued military presence in Ndjamena since 1986, and its counterterrorism operation in the Sahel, known as Operation Barkhane, has been headquartered in Chad's capital since its launch in 2014. France says at least 1,000 of its soldiers are currently based in Chad.
But the rebels looking to overthrow Mr. Déby represented an array of local grievances against the iron-fisted, 31-year rule of an old-fashioned African strongman accused by critics of squandering Chad's considerable oil revenues, leaving it among the poorest countries on earth.
Since the 1990s an array of rebel groups, many defined by ethnic identity, have sought to overthrow him. Some were based in the Darfur region of western Sudan, where they received funding and weapons from the Sudanese dictator Omar Hassan al-Bashir.
After Mr. al-Bashir and Mr. Deby struck a peace deal in 2010 and agreed to stop backing rebels fighting each other's governments, the Chadian rebels were forced to leave Sudan. They found a new base, a year later, in Libya.
https://www.reuters.com/article/ozatp-sudan-chad-visit-20100209-idAFJOE6180D020100209
In the chaos that followed the ouster and death of Col. Qaddafi in 2011, rival Libyan factions hired African mercenaries to fight alongside their own forces. The Chadians, who have a reputation as dogged desert fighters, were in high demand.
Some Chadians even swapped sides, if the price was right.
The F.A.C.T. started out with a Libyan faction based in the central city of Misurata, said a United Nations official who has spoken with the group's leadership, but was not authorized to speak to the media. But by 2019 they had switched their support to a rival faction, led by Mr. Hifter, which had launched a campaign to seize the capital, Tripoli.
The Chadians are by no means the best-known foreign mercenaries in Libya. Far greater attention has been paid to the Russian and Syrian fighters who played a key role in Mr. Hifter's push for Tripoli.
But the money, weapons and experience gathered by African mercenaries, mostly from Chad and Sudan, is now being put to use in other countries.
A U.N. report published in February noted that F.A.C.T. fighters were based at a major military air base in Al Jufra, in central Libya — an airfield that is also a hub for Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group, and which has received cargo flights carrying weapons from the United Arab Emirates, the report notes.
https://undocs.org/S/2021/229
The U.N. also noted that an airplane owned by Erik Prince, the former Blackwater owner who organized an ill-fated $80 million mercenary operation for Mr. Hifter, had been photographed at the Jufra air base.
Following the collapse last year of Mr. Hifter's assault on Tripoli, the warring factions in Libya signed a cease-fire agreement in October that has mostly held.
As the fighting in Libya ended, the Chadian fighters returned home for the uprising they launched against Mr. Déby on April 11. They may have brought some of the advanced weaponry from Libya with them, said Cameron Hudson, a former State Department official now at the Atlantic Council, a research body in Washington.
He said that the Chadians appeared to be traveling in the same kind of armored vehicles that the Emiratis had donated to Mr. Hifter.
The U.N. official said that, even at the height of the Libyan war, the rebels had always intended to go home to Chad.
"That's their real interest," he said. "They talked about gathering as many weapons as they could and going back to Chad."
Mahamat Adamou contributed reporting from Ndjamena, Chad, and Elian Peltier from London.
Declan Walsh is the Chief Africa correspondent. He was previously based in Egypt, covering the Middle East, and in Pakistan. He previously worked at the Guardian and is the author of The Nine Lives of Pakistan. @declanwalsh
A version of this article appears in print on April 22, 2021, Section A, Page 9 of the New York edition with the headline: Chadian Rebels Pulled Off Unexpected Coup by Preparing in Libya Civil War. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe
____________________________________________________
At 1st mtg of Biden's Supreme Court commission, the 33 members who attended the 20-min session took their oaths and laid out scope of their work, which will including analyzing proposals to expand SCOTUS, limit its powers and impose term limits on the justices, @GregStohr
https://twitter.com/GregStohr/status/1395063894436204545/photo/1
https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1395088386688495626
The AP has obtained video of Louisiana state troopers stunning, punching and dragging a Black man as he apologizes for leading them on a high-speed chase — footage the state has refused to release for two years since the death of Ronald Greene
https://apnews.com/article/ronald-greene-death-louisiana-eca021d8a54ec73598dd72b269826f7a
Family of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Howie Liebengood, who took his own life after battling the insurrectionist mob at the Capitol, urges Congress to approve commission examining the riot.
https://washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/police-officer-suicides-capitol-riot/2021/02/11/94804ee2-665c-11eb-886d-5264d4ceb46d_story.html
When he actually dies in the courtroom do think Americans will figure out just how slow and inefficient their legal system is, and that's why old rich white men don't fear it?
https://twitter.com/i/status/1395086560098340864
1. Create the lie
2. Repeat the lie
3. Followers repeat the lie
4. Echo followers' lie
5. Lie is truth
Chris Davis underwent left hip labrum surgery this morning, Mike Elias said. He's out for 4-5 months, so "he projects to be out for the season." He'll be ready for spring training in what would be the final year of his contract. #OriolesI
https://twitter.com/nathansruiz/status/1395099683526217731
Giolito today, 8 IP 2 H 1 ER 11 Ks 3 BB
Thought it was interesting LaRussa ripped the Yerminator for not knowing about unwritten rules when it was La Russa who admitted not knowing the WRITTEN rules for extra innings (pitchers don't have to run). Now We should ask: which rules are more important?
https://twitter.com/jonheyman/status/1395120144972668929
Keone Kela underwent Tommy John surgery today and will miss the remainder of the season, per a source. The Padres thought Kela's upside was huge, but they always knew his signing would be a risk after he pitched just two innings last season.
https://www.twitter.com/ajcassavell/status/1395112770832527362
Lucas Giolito on any issues in the #WhiteSox clubhouse in the aftermath of the Yermin Mercedes home-run controversy: "No negativity. We all support Yermin. We love homeruns here. That's it. We're going to move on.''
https://twitter.com/BNightengale/status/1395113459700801537
Most of the young players were involved, including the guards. They learned about the rhythm of screens in the Warriors' offense and effective angles for Curry to lose the defender tailing him. Looney called it "Screen School." Green was the instructor. "I was the teacher's assistant," Looney said. By season's end, Looney led the Warriors with 197 screen assists (when a screen leads to a basket). Green had 192 — and that doesn't count dribble handoffs, which don't count in screen assists but is a staple to the Green-Curry two-man game. The Warriors had a team of players who knew the intricacies and tricks of detouring defenders. And Curry had his second career scoring title.
https://theathletic.com/2595725/2021/05/19/this-guy-is-chasing-greatness-the-making-of-stephen-curry-scoring-champ/
In November 2020, Andrew Giuliani updated his Twitter bio to say he was working for "President Donald J. Trump until January 20, 2025." He didn't change it until after the Jan. 6 riots. Via the InternetArchive, here's how it looked on Jan. 7. https://web.archive.org/web/20210107065902/https://twitter.com/AndrewHGiuliani
Wow - the US Capitol Police express profound disappointment" in McCarthy and McConnell comments. The full statement is worth a read.
https://twitter.com/KFaulders/status/1395121154319437824/photo/1
https://twitter.com/KFaulders/status/1395121154319437824
The Capitol Police idiotically deny their own letter instead of supporting their own Capitol Police by demanding Republicans vote for a commission to investigate the people who intentionally murdered and attempted to murder their own Capitol Police members
https://twitter.com/CapitolPolice/status/1395127921300361230
Anti-Semitic violence is a hate crime, not free speech. Praying for peace today and everyday.
https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2021/05/19/police-investigate-possible-jewish-hate-crime-attack-at-beverly-grove-restaurant/
Appalled by what appears to be an anti-Semitic attack at a Beverly Grove restaurant last night. We expect a thorough investigation of the attack & that the hateful perpetrators will be arrested & prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
https://lieu.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/rep-lieu-condemns-attack-jewish-diners-beverly-grove-restaurant
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/05/20/executive-order-on-climate-related-financial-risk/
Executive Order on Climate-Related Financial Risk
May 20, 2021 • Presidential Actions
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Policy. The intensifying impacts of climate change present physical risk to assets, publicly traded securities, private investments, and companies — such as increased extreme weather risk leading to supply chain disruptions. In addition, the global shift away from carbon-intensive energy sources and industrial processes presents transition risk to many companies, communities, and workers. At the same time, this global shift presents generational opportunities to enhance U.S. competitiveness and economic growth, while also creating well-paying job opportunities for workers. The failure of financial institutions to appropriately and adequately account for and measure these physical and transition risks threatens the competitiveness of U.S. companies and markets, the life savings and pensions of U.S. workers and families, and the ability of U.S. financial institutions to serve communities. In this effort, the Federal Government should lead by example by appropriately prioritizing Federal investments and conducting prudent fiscal management.
It is therefore the policy of my Administration to advance consistent, clear, intelligible, comparable, and accurate disclosure of climate-related financial risk (consistent with Executive Order 13707 of September 15, 2015 (Using Behavioral Science Insights to Better Serve the American People)), including both physical and transition risks; act to mitigate that risk and its drivers, while accounting for and addressing disparate impacts on disadvantaged communities and communities of color (consistent with Executive Order 13985 of January 20, 2021 (Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government)) and spurring the creation of well-paying jobs; and achieve our target of a net-zero emissions economy by no later than 2050. This policy will marshal the creativity, courage, and capital of the United States necessary to bolster the resilience of our rural and urban communities, States, Tribes, territories, and financial institutions in the face of the climate crisis, rather than exacerbate its causes, and position the United States to lead the global economy to a more prosperous and sustainable future.
Sec. 2. Climate-Related Financial Risk Strategy. The Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director of the National Economic Council (Director of the National Economic Council) and the Assistant to the President and National Climate Advisor (National Climate Advisor), in coordination with the Secretary of the Treasury and the Director of the Office of Management of Budget (OMB), shall develop, within 120 days of the date of this order, a comprehensive, Government-wide strategy regarding:
(a) the measurement, assessment, mitigation, and disclosure of climate-related financial risk to Federal Government programs, assets, and liabilities in order to increase the long-term stability of Federal operations;
(b) financing needs associated with achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions for the U.S. economy by no later than 2050, limiting global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and adapting to the acute and chronic impacts of climate change; and
(c) areas in which private and public investments can play complementary roles in meeting these financing needs — while advancing economic opportunity, worker empowerment, and environmental mitigation, especially in disadvantaged communities and communities of color.
Sec. 3. Assessment of Climate-Related Financial Risk by Financial Regulators. In furtherance of the policy set forth in section 1 of this order and consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations:
(a) The Secretary of the Treasury, as the Chair of the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), shall engage with FSOC members to consider the following actions by the FSOC:
(i) assessing, in a detailed and comprehensive manner, the climate-related financial risk, including both physical and transition risks, to the financial stability of the Federal Government and the stability of the U.S. financial system;
(ii) facilitating the sharing of climate-related financial risk data and information among FSOC member agencies and other executive departments and agencies (agencies) as appropriate;
(iii) issuing a report to the President within 180 days of the date of this order on any efforts by FSOC member agencies to integrate consideration of climate-related financial risk in their policies and programs, including a discussion of:
(A) the necessity of any actions to enhance climate-related disclosures by regulated entities to mitigate climate-related financial risk to the financial system or assets and a recommended implementation plan for taking those actions;
(B) any current approaches to incorporating the consideration of climate-related financial risk into their respective regulatory and supervisory activities and any impediments they faced in adopting those approaches;
(C) recommended processes to identify climate-related financial risk to the financial stability of the United States; and
(D) any other recommendations on how identified climate-related financial risk can be mitigated, including through new or revised regulatory standards as appropriate; and
(iv) including an assessment of climate-related financial risk in the FSOC's annual report to the Congress.
(b) The Secretary of the Treasury shall:
(i) direct the Federal Insurance Office to assess climate-related issues or gaps in the supervision and regulation of insurers, including as part of the FSOC's analysis of financial stability, and to further assess, in consultation with States, the potential for major disruptions of private insurance coverage in regions of the country particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts; and
(ii) direct the Office of Financial Research to assist the Secretary of the Treasury and the FSOC in assessing and identifying climate-related financial risk to financial stability, including the collection of data, as appropriate, and the development of research on climate-related financial risk to the U.S. financial system.
Sec. 4. Resilience of Life Savings and Pensions. In furtherance of the policy set forth in section 1 of this order and consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations, the Secretary of Labor shall:
(a) identify agency actions that can be taken under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (Public Law 93-406), the Federal Employees' Retirement System Act of 1986 (Public Law 99-335), and any other relevant laws to protect the life savings and pensions of Unites States workers and families from the threats of climate-related financial risk;
(b) consider publishing, by September 2021, for notice and comment a proposed rule to suspend, revise, or rescind "Financial Factors in Selecting Plan Investments," 85 Fed. Reg. 72846 (November 13, 2020), and "Fiduciary Duties Regarding Proxy Voting and Shareholder Rights," 85 Fed. Reg. 81658 (December 16, 2020);
(c) assess — consistent with the Secretary of Labor's oversight responsibilities under the Federal Employees' Retirement System Act of 1986 and in consultation with the Director of the National Economic Council and the National Climate Advisor — how the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board has taken environmental, social, and governance factors, including climate-related financial risk, into account; and
(d) within 180 days of the date of this order, submit to the President, through the Director of the National Economic Council and the National Climate Advisor, a report on the actions taken pursuant to subsections (a), (b), and (c) of this section.
Sec. 5. Federal Lending, Underwriting, and Procurement. In furtherance of the policy set forth in section 1 of this order and consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations:
(a) The Director of OMB and the Director of the National Economic Council, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury, shall develop recommendations for the National Climate Task Force on approaches related to the integration of climate-related financial risk into Federal financial management and financial reporting, especially as that risk relates to Federal lending programs. The recommendations should evaluate options to enhance accounting standards for Federal financial reporting where appropriate and should identify any opportunities to further encourage market adoption of such standards.
(b) The Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council, in consultation with the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality and the heads of other agencies as appropriate, shall consider amending the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to:
(i) require major Federal suppliers to publicly disclose greenhouse gas emissions and climate-related financial risk and to set science-based reduction targets; and
(ii) ensure that major Federal agency procurements minimize the risk of climate change, including requiring the social cost of greenhouse gas emissions to be considered in procurement decisions and, where appropriate and feasible, give preference to bids and proposals from suppliers with a lower social cost of greenhouse gas emissions.
(c) The Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall consider approaches to better integrate climate-related financial risk into underwriting standards, loan terms and conditions, and asset management and servicing procedures, as related to their Federal lending policies and programs.
(d) As part of the agency Climate Action Plans required by section 211 of Executive Order 14008 of January 27, 2021 (Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad), and consistent with the interim instructions for the Climate Action Plans issued by the Federal Chief Sustainability Officer, heads of agencies must submit to the Director of OMB, the National Climate Task Force, and the Federal Chief Sustainability Officer actions to integrate climate-related financial risk into their respective agency's procurement process (subject to any changes to the FAR arising out of the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council's review pursuant to subsection (b) of this section). The Director of OMB and the Federal Chief Sustainability Officer shall provide guidance to agencies on existing voluntary standards for use in agencies' plans.
(e) In Executive Order 13690 of January 30, 2015 (Establishing a Federal Flood Risk Management Standard and a Process for Further Soliciting and Considering Stakeholder Input), a Federal Flood Risk Management Standard (FFRMS) was established to address current and future flood risk and ensure that projects funded with taxpayer dollars last as long as intended. Subsequently, the order was revoked by Executive Order 13807 of August 15, 2017 (Establishing Discipline and Accountability in the Environmental Review and Permitting Process for Infrastructure Projects). Executive Order 13690 is hereby reinstated, thereby reestablishing the FFRMS. The "Guidelines for Implementing Executive Order 11988, Floodplain Management, and Executive Order 13690, Establishing a Federal Flood Risk Management Standard and a Process for Further Soliciting and Considering Stakeholder Input" of October 8, 2015, were never revoked and thus remain in effect.
Sec. 6. Long-Term Budget Outlook. The Federal Government has broad exposure to increased costs and lost revenue as a result of the impacts of unmitigated climate change. In furtherance of the policy set forth in section 1 of this order and consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations:
(a) The Director of OMB, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury, the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, the Director of the National Economic Council, and the National Climate Advisor, shall identify the primary sources of Federal climate-related financial risk exposure and develop methodologies to quantify climate risk within the economic assumptions and the long-term budget projections of the President's Budget;
(b) The Director of OMB and the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, in consultation with the Director of the National Economic Council, the National Climate Advisor, and the heads of other agencies as appropriate, shall develop and publish annually, within the President's Budget, an assessment of the Federal Government's climate risk exposure; and
(c) The Director of OMB shall improve the accounting of climate-related Federal expenditures, where appropriate, and reduce the Federal Government's long-term fiscal exposure to climate-related financial risk through formulation of the President's Budget and oversight of budget execution.
Sec. 7. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.
THE WHITE HOUSE,
May 20, 2021.
___________________________________
Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie fined $500 for refusing to wear mask on House floor. Most House/Senate Republicans are not vaccinated and refuse to get vaccinated. 100% of Democrats are
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/2021/05/20/rep-thomas-massie-fined-500-refusing-wear-mask-house-floor/5190914001
Marks Simon did much important reporting for on the war in Tigray, including accounts of atrocities and horrific sexual violence.
Today the Ethiopian government summoned Simon, detained him, then deported him without explanation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/20/world/africa/ethiopia-new-york-times-simon-marks.html
Since leaving office, Trump has illegally and unconstitutionally charged the Secret Service more than $40,000 which US taxpayers ar paying to party at Mar-a-Lago
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-secret-service-charges/2021/05/20/d328eb5c-9d36-11eb-b7a8-014b14aeb9e4_story.html
1. Businesses have a legal right to ask if you're vaccinated
2. Yes, you have the right to refuse disclosure of your vaccination status
3. Businesses reserve the right to refuse you service (and refuse to hire you) if you choose not to disclose your status or disclose that you are unvaccinated
4. Get vaccinated, problem solved
When the filibuster is actually used, it becomes an exhibit in the case against continuing it.
CDC warns 'Don't kiss or snuggle backyard poultry,' in salmonella alert
https://nbcnews.com/news/us-news/don-t-kiss-or-snuggle-backyard-poultry-cdc-warns-salmonella-n1268083
New details on the lengths to which Disney has gone to placate Chinese censors
https://hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/hollywood-and-china-what-now-1234955332/
Steph Curry and Draymond Green were supposed to be exposed this year without Klay Thompson or Kevin Durant. Now they are in the running for MVP and DPOY respectively.
Trump's Justice Department Illegally And Unconstitutionally Spied On At Least Five Reporters From Outlets Trump Despised
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/05/trump-doj-reporter-surveillance
Republican House Candidate Raped And Impregnated 14-Year-Old Female
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gop-house-candidate-impregnated-14-year-old-girl-when-he-was-18_n_60a7bd05e4b0d45b752885b8
Claiming victory while sitting in Qatar, Hamas chief says 'we destroyed project of coexistence with Israel'
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/claiming-victory-while-sitting-in-qatar-hamas-chief-says-we-destroyed-project-of-coexistence-with-israel/
Iceberg Splits From Antarctica, Becoming World's Largest | The iceberg broke off from the edge of the Ronne Ice Shelf into the Weddell Sea this week
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/20/world/iceberg-antarctica-ronne-a76.html
Damion Lee has been upgraded to "doubtful" tonight vs Grizzlies. First time he hasn't been listed as out since a difficult bout with COVID. Remains unlikely to play tonight, but positive sign for his availability in possible Warriors-Jazz first round series.
https://twitter.com/anthonyVslater/status/1395798453817462789
Biden announces he's appointing Ambassador Sung Yong Kim as special envoy to North Korea
https://c-span.org/video/?511958-1/president-biden-south-korean-president-hold-joint-news-conference
In first official sign that Maricopa County supervisors are considering suing Arizona Senate, county attorney sends letter to Senate President asking them to retain all audit communications and documents. You know, just in case. Full letter here:
https://maricopa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/69134/Litigation-Hold-Letter-to-Senate-President-Fann
We will never, ever tolerate antisemitism here in NY or anywhere in the world. The recent surge in attacks is horrifying. We stand with our Jewish communities in condemning this violence. You can help. Take NYC's free, 1hr bystander intervention course:
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/health/emergency-preparedness/bystander-training.page
I spoke with Palestinian Authority President Abbas today and discussed measures to ensure that the ceasefire holds. I also conveyed the U.S. commitment to work with the Palestinian Authority and the UN to provide rapid humanitarian assistance.
https://twitter.com/SecBlinken/status/1395858824872009733
Anti-Semitic attacks are being reported in US cities as tensions flare over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/21/us/anti-semitic-attacks-new-york-los-angeles/index.html
A judge today ruled that 145k ballots in Fulton County, GA can be illegally and unconstitutionally unsealed to allow Republicans to commit election fraud. GA's election results were already verified by an RLA/full hand recount and sep machine recount)
https://twitter.com/grace_panetta/status/1395854591900717063
Good: Biden: "There's no shift in my commitment to the security of Israel. Period. No shift. But I'll tell you what there is a shift in: we need a two state solution. It is the only answer."
Texas gov knew of natural gas shortages days before blackout, blamed wind anyway
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/05/texas-gov-knew-of-natural-gas-shortages-days-before-blackout-blamed-wind-anyway/
He's banned from the Idaho Capitol building, but that didn't stop Ammon Bundy from taking the first step toward running for Idaho governor.
https://idahocapitalsun.com/briefs/ammon-bundy-takes-first-step-toward-running-for-idaho-governor/
I'm sure those burning bodies in India would love to have a word with this lunatic . . .
https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1395767976595427333
Biden administration officials made a conscious decision to avoid publicly clashing with Israel during the latest fighting in the MidEast...in part because they believed an antagonistic US approach aggravated tensions during the 2014 conflict
https://www.wsj.com/articles/white-house-learned-from-the-past-to-handle-latest-israel-hamas-conflict-11621634819
Officers guarding Jeffrey Epstein when he killed himself admit falsifying records, cut deal that avoids jail time.
https://twitter.com/ZekeJMiller/status/1395887790412423172
Democrats Want To Hire 87,000 Additional IRS Agents To Enforce Tax Laws On Wealthy Tax Dodgers
https://truthout.org/articles/biden-wants-to-hire-87000-additional-irs-agents-to-go-after-wealthy-tax-dodgers/
Steph Curry: "Ja Morant tonight, he nice, he had a floater on me, he had one on Juan, Looney. He's shown so much love, I wish him all the best in his playoff run, he played his ass off"
https://streamable.com/wyns53
Marshall Plan for Indian Country': Wave of federal money flows to reservations
https://missoulian.com/news/local/marshall-plan-for-indian-country-wave-of-federal-money-flows-to-reservations/article_acd1338b-64ec-55d5-8394-feac6c2c29a8.html
A Weekly Conversation: Secretary Buttigieg On The American Jobs Plan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xJqcYAtZnk
Green Finance Goes Mainstream, Lining Up Trillions Behind Global Energy Transition | After years of intermittent excitement and fizzled expectations, environmental-oriented investing is no longer just a niche interest
https://www.wsj.com/articles/green-finance-goes-mainstream-lining-up-trillions-behind-global-energy-transition-11621656039
The top U.S. commander for the Middle East says finding better ways to counter attacks by small drones in the region is a top priority and that the U.S. is still behind the curve. Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie said the use of small drones will increase.
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-middle-east-government-and-politics-e39fb650c283cc6e3962752e1d9e339b
Actor Danny Masterson must stand trial on 3 rape charges
https://apnews.com/article/danny-masterson-religion-entertainment-trials-arts-and-entertainment-c53cf75f0170ea7c4d81d11354b5831a
Steph Curry absolutely showed out in every single game this season. It sucks that it's over, but let's give it up for our guy, nothing short of exceptional. Hundreds of things didn't go our way throughout the season, but he never complained.
Arizona Democratic Party passes a resolution in support of ending the filibuster. One of their Democratic senators, Sen. Sinema, has been a vocal opponent of ending it.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/kyrsten-sinema-defends-filibuster-as-pressure-mounts-from-progressives-11617714005
The Biden administration will grant more than 100,000 Haitians in the US the opportunity to gain Temporary Protected Status, shielding them from deportation and allowing them to obtain work permits, according to a DHS doc.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/biden-haitian-immigrants-temporary-protected-status
Article 1 Section 4 of the US constitution specifically empowers the federal government to pass laws regulating how federal elections run. The 15th Amendment further authorizes Congress to protect voting rights for persons of color at all levels of government
https://twitter.com/franklarose/status/1396191745076047873
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https://www.axios.com/gaza-crisis-israel-biden-response-3119a844-357a-4f5f-ba7e-3c497475893a.html
Before 11 days of fighting in the Gaza Strip ended in a ceasefire, President Biden held six phone calls with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, one with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and one with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Behind the scenes: To get the inside story of those phone calls, President Biden's strategy, and the path to a ceasefire, Axios spoke to three U.S. and Israeli sources who were deeply involved in the diplomacy. They requested anonymity to speak freely.
Before the storm
The warnings began in late April.
- Officials and experts in Washington cautioned the White House that the postponement of the Palestinian parliamentary elections, combined with the protests over the looming expulsions of Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem, could foreshadow a new crisis.
- At first, the White House didn't take the warnings particularly seriously. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict remained a low priority.
Then came the confrontations between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters at the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, or Temple Mount, one of the holiest sites for both Muslims and Jews, which would culminate in a police raid on May 10 in which hundreds of Palestinians and several police officers were injured.
- The day prior, with tensions escalating fast, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan had called his Israeli counterpart, Meir Ben-Shabbat, while Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman spoke to the director general of the Israeli foreign ministry, Alon Ushpiz.
- The Biden administration had three immediate demands of Israel: stop the evictions in Sheikh Jarrah, lower tensions on the Temple Mount and cancel the annual Jerusalem Day flag parade, during which Israeli nationalists celebrate the unification of Jerusalem under Israeli control.
While Israeli officials briefed reporters at the time that Ben-Shabbat had rejected Sullivan's requests, viewing them as rewards for terrorists, Netanyahu in fact complied on May 10.
- He asked the Supreme Court to postpone its verdict on the evictions, banned visits by Jews to the Temple Mount and rerouted the flag parade so it wouldn't pass through the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem's Old City.
But it was already too late. As a deadline from Hamas to remove all Israeli security forces from the al-Aqsa Mosque compound and Sheikh Jarrah expired, the militant group fired seven missiles on Jerusalem.
The game has changed
Netanyahu's aides called the White House with a clear message: the game had changed and Israel would now undertake a military operation in Gaza.
- The first instinct of officials in the White House was to take a very active role, as previous administrations had done. But President Biden and his top advisers settled on a different approach.
- One factor was the bad memories many of Biden's senior advisers had from the 2014 war in Gaza, which included an Israeli ground invasion and left almost 2,500 Palestinians dead, many of them civilians, along with 69 Israeli soldiers and five Israeli civilians.
- One lesson they took from 2014 was that Obama's public posture centered international attention on the U.S. and made Israel very defensive, undermining efforts toward a ceasefire.
Biden told his top advisers that this time around, the U.S. would deal with the crisis through intense but quiet diplomacy with Israel and Egypt.
- Biden followed a dual strategy: backing Israel in public and while urging Netanyahu in private to end the operation as soon as possible and minimize civilian casualties.
- The U.S. would not publicly call for a ceasefire or engage with the issue at the UN Security Council, Biden told his team.
A turning point
In the first few days of the operation, international condemnation was growing along with the civilian death toll in Gaza, but even in private, Biden's message focused on U.S. support for Israel.
- But after Israel bombed a building in Gaza that housed the offices of the AP and other media outlets, Biden — under growing domestic pressure to push for a ceasefire — placed a second call to Netanyahu, this time with a focus on de-escalation.
- Biden also called Abbas, urging him to send Palestinian security forces to act as a buffer between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian protesters to ensure the Gaza crisis didn't spread into the occupied West Bank. Abbas committed to do so.
During that weekend, the White House realized that Egypt was the only effective mediator that could facilitate a mutual ceasefire. Between Sunday and Monday, U.S. officials started to see signs that such a ceasefire was possible.
- Egypt had reached a secret understanding with Hamas to stop firing on Tel Aviv. The unannounced lull lasted 18 hours — proving to the White House that Egypt could deliver Hamas.
- This new development informed Biden's decision to call Netanyahu on Monday and, for the first time, issue a public statement backing a ceasefire.
The ceasefire push
The Israelis quickly pushed back, with Netanyahu and Defense Minister Benny Gantz both insisting to their U.S. interlocutors that they had to continue the operation and further degrade Hamas' military capabilities.
- But the top officers in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) started signaling to their U.S. counterparts on Wednesday that the operation had achieved its primary objectives.
By Wednesday morning, the White House assessment was that a ceasefire could be achieved within days, and Biden decided to call Netanyahu for a fourth time to push a bit harder.
The atmosphere wasn't combative — with Biden taking the same "I don't agree with you but I love you" approach that has characterized their relationship over three decades — but Biden was more firm in the fourth call than in the previous three.
Netanyahu continued to insist that he needed several more days, but Biden — who knew the IDF had achieved its primary objectives — warned Netanyahu that continued fighting could spiral out of control.
- As a source familiar with the call puts it, Biden told Netanyahu: "You can't control the events. The Egyptians have a good proposal. I think it is time to finish."
- In private, Netanyahu told Biden he only needed 24 more hours.
- In public, he released a video in Hebrew stressing that there would be no time limit on the operation, seeming to defy Biden's pressure. The White House decided to let it go, knowing Netanyahu was playing to his political base.
The final day
On Thursday morning in the U.S., Biden placed his first call as president to Sisi.
- Biden asked for and received a guarantee that if Israel agreed to a ceasefire, Egypt could ensure that Hamas stopped firing rockets.
- That message was communicated to Netanyahu shortly before he convened a Security Cabinet meeting. In it, the Cabinet voted to approve the ceasefire.
- Netanyahu called Biden to update him and offer one warning: if Hamas used the remaining 2.5 hours to fire a barrage of missiles, Israel would retaliate with full force, and the ceasefire could collapse.
That set the stage for a dramatic two hours, with Biden's aides continuously on the phone with Israeli and Egyptian officials.
- An hour before the ceasefire began, Netanyahu again called Biden and said he'd received assurances from the Egyptians that Hamas would not fire a last-minute barrage.
- Only then did he make a televised statement from the White House, praising Netanyahu for backing the ceasefire and claiming the window was now open for progress between the Israelis and Palestinians.
The bottom line: Just 24 hours elapsed between Biden's urging of Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire and Israel's vote to do so.
- Critics of Biden's approach — including many fellow Democrats— argue that he should have applied greater pressure earlier into a conflict in which at least 248 Palestinians were killed.
- U.S. officials, meanwhile, argue that Biden used his political capital and reputation as a friend of Israel to both avoid a public confrontation with Netanyahu and help deliver a ceasefire relatively quickly.
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Angelina Jolie. The actor, director, and humanitarian embraced bees and women beekeepers as environmental guardians. Jolie was inspired by different visions: of bees as an indispensable pillar of our food supply—one that's under threat from parasites, pesticides, habitat loss, and climate change—and of a global network of women who will be trained to protect these essential pollinators.
https://nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/bee-conservation-women-entrepreneurs-angelina-jolie
https://www.un.org/en/observances/bee-day
https://en.unesco.org/themes/biodiversity/women-for-bees
https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-many-species-native-bees-are-united-states?qt-news_science_products=0#qt-news_science_products
Another 7 activists arrested on Vancouver Island over old-growth logging blockades: "It's morally reprehensible to be logging 2000 year old cedar forests."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/another-7-activists-arrested-on-vancouver-island-over-old-growth-logging-blockades-1.6037891
Carmelo Anthony hits back-to-back 3s after the crowd boos him
https://streamable.com/daewqk
On April 25, the Portland Trail Blazers lost to the Memphis Grizzlies 113-120 to fall to 32-28, at the end of a 3-11 stretch. Since then, they've gone 11-2 with the second best NRTG in the NBA (+16.6)
Rural ambulance crews are running out of money and volunteers. In some places, the fallout could be nobody responding to a 911 call
https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/22/us/wyoming-pandemic-ems-shortage/index.html
"Who are the other tenants in this building? Are any of them engaged in combat operations?" seem like questions I would ask if I were a news organization renting office space in Gaza City.
Israel told the truth that AP et al shared the building with Hamas war-fighting capabilities. NYT cites concern "if Israel had not taken action, Hamas would have realized that it could shield its resources from attack by placing them near media facilities."
Before deciding to bomb a building in Gaza City, Israeli officials knew that it housed AP offices, and some argued against the strike but overruled. In light of the international furor, some high-ranking officials now call it a mistake
https://nytimes.com/live/2021/05/21/world/israel-hamas-news/israeli-regrets-bombing
Almost all the people killed in Gaza were Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists and they were killed by the IDF. The rest were Palestinian civilians murdered by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad
https://www.timesofisrael.com/guardian-of-the-walls-wasnt-the-resounding-victory-the-idf-had-hoped-for/
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https://www.timesofisrael.com/guardian-of-the-walls-wasnt-the-resounding-victory-the-idf-had-hoped-for/
'Guardian of the Walls' wasn't the resounding victory the IDF had hoped for
Though it had clear successes on the tunnel front and elsewhere, the military failed to prevent terror groups in Gaza from firing over 4,000 rockets and mortar shells at Israel
By Judah Ari Gross Today, 7:16 am 11
The 11 days of fighting in Gaza that made up what the Israel Defense Forces calls Operation Guardian of the Walls constituted the first major conflict overseen by army chief Aviv Kohavi. The results were at best a mixed bag, despite claims by military and political leaders of unprecedented achievements.
On a strictly military basis, in this round of fighting, Israel emerged the clear victor. The IDF destroyed large amounts of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad weaponry and infrastructure and killed over 200 of their members, including senior leaders. The underground tunnels that represented the primary challenge for Israel before and during the 2014 Gaza war were not only not a threat, but were instead a liability for Hamas. And while the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror groups can count a number of small achievements to their credit, they failed to carry out any major, paradigm-changing attacks.
Yet this was far from a resounding victory for the IDF. Throughout the fighting, over 4,360 rockets and mortar shells were fired at southern and central Israel, at rates far, far beyond previous rounds of violence — nearly three times as high as in the 2014 Gaza war, which saw on average 130 projectiles fired per day, compared to the nearly 400 launched per day on average during this month's fighting. According to the IDF, some 3,400 of the rockets and mortars that were launched actually crossed into Israeli territory, while 680 fell short of the border inside Gaza and another 280 landed out at sea.
Due mostly to a lack of precise intelligence, the IDF was unable to destroy the lion's share of the terror groups' existing arsenals of rockets, Israeli military officials acknowledge. While the IDF developed techniques to somewhat address this rocket fire during the conflict, according to a senior IDF Southern Command officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad were overwhelmingly free to launch massive barrages at major Israeli population centers and key infrastructure. The IDF destroyed some 850 of the more than 15,000 rockets that the terror groups had between them going into the conflict, according to Israeli military tallies.
Almost twice as many civilians in Israel were killed over the 11 days of Operation Guardian of the Walls — 11 — than were killed in the 51 days of the 2014 Gaza war. At the same time, one IDF soldier was killed in the fighting this month, Staff Sgt. Omer Tabib, whose jeep was hit by an anti-tank guided missile, compared to the 67 troops killed in 2014, almost all during the military's ground invasion; ground forces did not enter Gaza in this conflict.
Hamas's ability to fire barrages at the Israeli home front unhindered is a source of major concern for the IDF not only in the context of Gaza, but also in terms of what it means for a future war in Lebanon against Hezbollah, whose arsenals contain far, far more powerful rockets and missiles and in far, far greater quantities, military officials said.
If Operation Guardian of the Walls was a test run for a fight against Hezbollah, with its 190,000 rockets and mortar shells, including a number of precision-guided missiles and long-range munitions, the IDF General Staff recognizes that it will have to quickly learn some significant lessons on how to halt these types of attacks before they occur and not only rely on the Iron Dome anti-missile system and other defensive measures to protect Israel's civilian population and critical infrastructure after they've been launched.
Alongside such efforts, Israel will also have to make serious investments in building up its physical defenses on the home front. The city of Ashkelon bore the brunt of Hamas's rocket fire, with rocket sirens sounding 168 times in its southern industrial park, more than any other location in Israel, according to a tally by the Maariv newspaper.
Hundreds upon hundreds of rockets were fired at the city over the course of the fighting, including nearly 150 in one fusillade last Tuesday, effectively overwhelming the otherwise successful Iron Dome missile defense system, which also suffered a malfunction at the time of the attack that was quickly fixed, according to the IDF. Two women were killed in the barrage and dozens more were injured. This was far from the first time that Ashkelon has been targeted by rocket fire, yet between one-third and one-quarter of the city lacks proper, accessible bomb shelters, a fact that has been well documented in multiple state comptroller reports, including one last year.
And Ashkelon is not alone. Over a quarter of a million Israelis who live near the Gaza Strip and Lebanon borders do not have access to bomb shelters in or close to their homes, according to the damning 2020 comptroller report.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/gimme-shelters-comptroller-says-millions-have-nowhere-to-run-from-rockets/
During the fighting, the head of the IDF Home Front Command, which is formally tasked with ensuring Israelis have ready access to bomb shelters, acknowledged that this was an area that required significant attention going forward.
No attack tunnels this time
But the Israeli military did also have a number of notable successes.
For years, the Hamas terror group has been digging tunnels under and out of the Gaza Strip. It used them in 2006 to kidnap Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, holding him hostage until Israel agreed to a wildly lopsided exchange to get him back, releasing over 1,000 convicted terrorists. It also used them to deadly effect in the 2014 Gaza war. The IDF effectively made these tunnels, particularly cross-border ones, a non-issue in this round of fighting.
Following the 2014 conflict, Israel set out to neutralize this threat, pouring significant resources into technologies to detect tunnels as well as pouring concrete into the ground around the Gaza Strip to form a massive underground barrier studded with sensors to physically block tunnels from entering Israeli territory.
In addition, for years, the IDF dedicated huge amounts of intelligence-gathering efforts to locate and accurately map out the massive, sprawling networks of tunnels that Hamas has built underneath the Gaza Strip.
Initially, the Israeli military intended to use its knowledge of the locations of Hamas's subterranean passages for the opening salvo in a ground campaign by dropping masses of bombs on the tunnel networks in order to deny Hamas access to what it considers to be one of its most significant strategic assets and to kill large numbers of Hamas operatives inside the tunnels.
Ultimately, IDF Southern Command chief Eliezer Toledano decided to strike the tunnel network, which the military took to calling the "metro," as a center point of Operation Guardian of the Walls, as a goal in itself rather than as the opening gambit in a ground invasion. Over the course of seven raids, the Israeli Air Force destroyed over 100 kilometers (60 miles) of tunnels, knocking those passages out entirely and — the IDF hopes — forcing Hamas to reconsider its underground infrastructure entirely.
This decision to attack the so-called "metro" was a contentious one, with some in the military arguing that it such a strike should be saved for a future ground offensive as originally intended. Ultimately, however, Toledano decided that Hamas was quickly realizing that its tunnels were no longer the impenetrable, undetectable assets they once were and this campaign may be the last time that the tunnel networks could be destroyed while they were still in full use by Hamas, The Times of Israel has learned.
As a result, the bombing of these underground passages was of somewhat limited immediate tactical value to the IDF, but the military hopes that it will cause more lasting damage to Hamas as the terror group has to significantly overhaul its fighting strategies in light of the loss of the subterranean domain.
In total, the military believes it destroyed roughly a third of Hamas's underground tunnel infrastructure in Gaza.
Preventing rearmament
The IDF also successfully destroyed much of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad's rocket production capabilities, meaning the groups will not be able to begin replenishing their somewhat diminished arsenals for at least several months for some types of simpler rockets, and for over a year, with longer-range munitions. Due to Israel's ongoing naval blockade of the Gaza Strip, terror groups in the enclave are forced to domestically manufacture their rockets, meaning they are of far poorer quality than they would be if they could import them from abroad, notably from Iran.
The IDF, working with other Israeli security services, hopes to stretch out the amount of time it would take for the terror groups to rearm even longer by stepping up its operations against their smuggling efforts in order to prevent them from bringing in the technical equipment needed for rocket production.
In addition to the IDF's offensive efforts against Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad's tunnels and rocket production, the Israeli military's defensive operations were also notably successful, preventing the terror groups from carrying out significant attacks besides rocket launches during the fighting.
At least three times during the fighting, Hamas attempted to send fighters into Israel to carry out cross-border raids to kill or kidnap Israeli soldiers and civilians using tunnels that approached but didn't cross the border, and all three times, a senior IDF officer said, the military thwarted these efforts, once by targeting the operatives before they entered the tunnel and twice while they were inside, killing a total of 18 top Hamas fighters, according to Palestinian media.
Seven drones were launched from Gaza toward Israel and all of them were brought down, including at least one of them by the Iron Dome in the first such use of the system operationally. And at least two autonomous submarines — effectively small, explosive underwater drones — were also intercepted before they could be used against Israeli targets at sea and on the coast.
Though the Islamic Jihad and Hamas each carried out successful anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) attacks — killing Tabib and hitting an empty bus, respectively — the use of these particularly deadly weapons was relatively limited, in large part because Israeli ground and air forces bombed at least 20 ATGM teams during the course of the fighting, according to IDF assessments.
In total, the IDF estimates it killed upwards of 200 terrorist operatives, most of them members of Hamas but some of the Islamic Jihad, though it believes that the number is likely higher as many of those killed were in underground tunnels and their bodies have yet to be retrieved. The Israeli military currently knows the names of at least 123 of the terrorist operatives killed and is working to identify the rest, The Times of Israel has learned.
This appears to indicate that most of the people killed in Gaza were members of terrorist groups, though the exact ratio of civilians to combatants is not yet clear. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry has only acknowledged the deaths of 243 Palestinians in the fighting, likely a low figure given the IDF's assessments, especially as the ministry says this includes 66 minors and 39 women.
According to the IDF, a portion of the Palestinian civilian deaths were caused by failed rockets that landed within the Strip, though military officials acknowledge that many Palestinian civilian casualties were indeed caused — directly or indirectly — by Israeli bombs. In one case, in which at least 10 people including eight children were killed in the Shati refugee camp, the IDF believes a missile strike on an underground bunker caused the ground above to give way, collapsing the homes of at least two families. The military describes such civilian casualties as being the unfortunate result of Hamas's strategy of intentionally operating within densely populated areas to use the residents as civilian shields. Human rights groups, however, regularly accuse Israel of using disproportionate force in such situations.
Just before the ceasefire went into effect, the head of IDF Operations said he believed that at least five years of calm from Gaza would constitute a success for Operation Guardian of the Walls. The 2014 war, in contrast, yielded four years of relative calm along the Gaza border. While the IDF plans to try to counter the rearmament efforts of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in order to push off the next round of fighting further, military officials acknowledge that this is nearly impossible to achieve fully.
But IDF officials warn that there is no military solution to the issue of the Gaza Strip, a tiny land mass with over two million people on it, ruled by an internationally recognized terrorist organization. Without major inroads toward a diplomatic, civil resolution, the next round of fighting is only a matter of time.
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Lauren Boebert stated there hadn't been a single Covid-19 death in Texas since mask restrictions ended in March. Data shows thousands had, in fact, died.
https://news.yahoo.com/lauren-boebert-stated-hadnt-single-153435239.html
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/lauren-boebert-falsely-texas-no-covid-19-deaths-two-months-2021-5
A Belarus opposition figure has been detained after his flight was diverted to Minsk because of a bomb threat. The exiled opposition leader called for an investigation, saying it was a government-led operation to "hijack" the plane and detain the activist.
https://apnews.com/article/europe-belarus-technology-business-government-and-politics-66ed27d88963aaf10c9f595433ac14fd
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/belarus-ryanair-roman-pratasevic-journalist/2021/05/23/01b2e28a-bbc2-11eb-922a-c40c9774bc48_story.html
Iraq estimates that $150 billion of its oil money has been stolen from the country since the US-led invasion of 2003 | "The draft law seeks to strengthen the powers of Iraqi nation in order to recover money stolen in corrupt deals, to hold corrupt people accountable and bring them to justice," according to Salih.
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/23/middleeast/iraq-oil-money-us-invastion-intl/index.html
At least 138 people killed after being deported from U.S. to El Salvador, report says
https://globalnews.ca/news/6512332/el-salvadoran-migrants-dead-report/
Technical fouls on Caruso and Harrell. Cameron Payne is ejected. Two techs on him.
https://twitter.com/KellanOlson/status/1396582018922651648
Wuhan Lab Staff Sought Hospital Care Before COVID-19 Outbreak Disclosed
https://www.wsj.com/articles/intelligence-on-sick-staff-at-wuhan-lab-fuels-debate-on-covid-19-origin-11621796228
One of the hardest things about losing Francesca has been that every day she becomes more of a memory to me. Tomorrow will be five months since she died and at some point this year she'll have been dead longer than she has been alive. It's scary to me and hard to think about.
https://twitter.com/KFILE/status/1396562515358851077
25 states and DC have now fully vaccinated at least half their adult populations, per CDC data. The state with the highest number of adults fully vaccinated is Maine.
https://twitter.com/kaitlancollins/status/1396600681038028809
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