#National Recovery Administration

[newyorkthegoldenage]

In the 1930s, "NRA" stood for the National Recovery Administration, established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 as part of his New Deal. Its goal was to allow businesses get together to write "codes of fair competition" that would help workers set minimum wages and maximum weekly hours, as well as minimum prices at which products could be sold.

That the NRA was popular with workers is shown above by the turnout for a parade in its honor on Fifth Avenue on September 13, 1933. But two years later, the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional, and it was disbanded. However, many of its provisions resurfaced in the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. The end result was a surge in the growth and power of unions.

Photo: Associated Press

[anarchywoofwoof]

the funny thing is that i don't think younger people - and i mean those under the age of 40 - really have a grasp on how many of today's issues can be tied back to a disastrous reagan policy:

war on drugs: reagan's aggressive escalation of the war on drugs was a catastrophic policy, primarily targeting minority communities and fueling mass incarceration. the crusade against drugs was more about controlling the Black, Latino and Native communities than addressing the actual problems of drug abuse, leading to a legacy of broken families and systemic racism within the criminal justice system.

deregulation and economic policies: reaganomics was an absolute disaster for the working class. reagan's policies of aggressive tax cuts for the rich, deregulation, and slashing social programs were nothing less than class warfare, deepening income inequality and entrenching corporate greed. these types of policies were a clear message that reagan's america was only for the wealthy elite and a loud "fuck you" to working americans.

environmental policies: despite his reputation being whitewashed thanks to the recovery of the ozone layer, reagan's environmental record was an unmitigated disaster. his administration gutted critical environmental protections and institutions like the EPA, turning a blind eye to pollution and corporate exploitation of natural resources. this blatant disregard for the planet was a clear sign of prioritizing short-term corporate profits over the future of the environment.

AIDS crisis: reagan's gross neglect of the aids crisis was nothing short of criminal and this doesn't even begin to touch on his wife's involvement. his administration's indifference to the plight of the lgbtq+ community during this devastating epidemic revealed a deep-seated bigotry and a complete failure of moral leadership.

mental health: reagan's dismantling of mental health institutions under the guise of 'reform' led directly to a surge in homelessness and a lack of support for those with mental health issues. his policies were cruel and inhumane and showed a personality-defining callous disregard for the most vulnerable in society.

labor and unions: reagan's attack on labor unions, exemplified by his handling of the patco strike, was a blatant assault on workers' rights. his actions emboldened corporations to suppress union activities, leading to a significant erosion of workers' power and rights in the workplace. he was colloquially known as "Ronnie the Union Buster Reagan"

foreign policy and military interventions: reagan's foreign policy, particularly in latin america, was imperialist and ruthless. his administration's support for dictatorships and right-wing death squads under the guise of fighting "communism" showed a complete disregard for human rights and self-determination of other nations.

public health: yes, reagan's agricultural policies actually facilitated the rise of high fructose corn syrup, once again prioritizing corporate profits over public health. this shift in the food industry has had lasting negative impacts on health, contributing to the obesity epidemic and other health issues.

privatization: reagan's push for privatization was a systematic dismantling of public services, transferring wealth and power to private corporations and further eroding the public's access to essential services.

education policies: his approach to education was more of an attack on public education than anything else, gutting funding and promoting policies that undermined equal access to quality education. this was, again, part of a broader agenda to maintain a status quo where the privileged remain in power.

this is just what i could come up with in a relatively short time and i did not even live under this man's presidency. the level at which ronald reagan has broken the united states truly can't be overstated.

[reasonsforhope]

"As communities across Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee reel from the devastation of Hurricane Helene, federal agencies, aid organizations, and everyday volunteers have stepped up to help provide urgent relief.

But with unfathomable loss — including a rising death toll — rebuilding includes more than providing food, shelter, and power. 

It also includes confronting the toll these disasters take on survivors’ mental health.

“It’s normal for hurricanes to cause people to experience emotional distress,” the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration explains on its website.

“Feelings such as overwhelming anxiety, constant worrying, trouble sleeping, and other depression-like symptoms are common responses before, during, and after these types of storms.”

That’s why SAMHSA created the Disaster Distress Helpline.

The DDH is the first national hotline dedicated to providing 24/7 disaster crisis counseling to all residents in the U.S. and its territories.

It is toll-free and offers multilingual support in over 100 languages, as well as services for Deaf or Hard of Hearing callers. 

“The helpline puts people in need of counseling on the path to recovery. When you call or text, crisis counselors listen to what’s on your mind with patience and without judgment,” a DDH web page explains. 

“DDH is staffed by trained counselors from a network of crisis call centers located across the United States.”

Callers can find crisis counseling related to any natural or human-caused disaster, information on how to recognize distress, referrals to local crisis centers for additional follow-up care, and healthy coping tips.

Many in regions like Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee still lack access to cell service, power, or Wi-Fi. Anyone impacted by the storm and in need of counseling is encouraged to call or text 1-800-985-5990 whenever they are able.

“The helpline is open to anyone experiencing emotional distress related to disasters,” the DDH web page continues. “This includes survivors of disasters; loved ones of victims; first responders; rescue, recovery, and relief workers; clergy; and parents and caregivers. You may call for yourself or on behalf of someone else.”

Crisis counselors do not require any identifying information from callers, though counselors may ask a few general questions at the end of their session to help improve the helpline’s services.

“If you or someone you know is struggling to cope emotionally with the effects of Hurricane Helene, you're not alone,” DDH posted on X (formerly known as Twitter). “Help is just a call or text away.”

Those who are seeking more information about disaster-related evacuations, shelters, relief distribution, volunteer opportunities, and more are encouraged to call 211 for more information."

-via GoodGoodGood, September 30, 2024

--

For anyone who's struggling in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

[aquariumpacific]

This morning we released a rescued green sea turtle!

The sea turtle was rescued near Avila Beach, California, on December 11, 2023, by The Marine Mammal Center’s San Luis Obispo Operations based in Morro Bay, California. The Marine Mammal Center in Morro Bay transferred the rescued sea turtle to the Aquarium with authorization from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Fisheries office for a medical evaluation, surgery, and care because of the Aquarium’s expertise in treating and releasing stranded and injured sea turtles.

When the sea turtle arrived at the Aquarium on December 11, 2023, it had an injured flipper and was in need of medical care and rehabilitation. The Aquarium’s veterinary and animal husbandry staff performed surgery on the sea turtle’s injured front flipper and had been caring for the sea turtle behind the scenes as it recovered. The animal is a subadult and is estimated to be between three and five years old.

“It was an incredible moment, watching the turtle make its way from the sand into the ocean and swim away. We are grateful to have had the opportunity to help it recover and return to the wild,” said Dr. Adams, Aquarium of the Pacific veterinarian.

The turtle is fitted with a microchip ID and also a microsatellite tag that was provided and applied by Upwell Turtles. If all goes according to plan, we should receive location updates in about 3 weeks. Stay tuned!

[hard--headed--woman]

Rose Valland !

She was a French Resistance fighter who rescued and recovered more than 60,000 works of art and cultural property stolen by the Nazis from public institutions and Jewish families during the German occupation!!! For that, she was nicknamed "Capitaine Beaux-Arts"

Rose was born in 1898 and died in 1980. Although she never spoke publicly about her private life and sexual orientation, she never married, and the only relationship she ever had was with a woman.

She was able to study thanks to her mother, who applied for grants for her daughter. In 1914, she entered the École normale d'institutrices in Grenoble, graduating in 1918. Gifted for drawing and encouraged by her teachers, she left to study at the École nationale des beaux-arts in Lyon.

She gained a good reputation there, because she was talented and serious, and won a lot of prizes! In 1922, she entered the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris. She then passed the competitive examination for teaching drawing, coming 6th out of more than 300 candidates.

During the 1920s, she studied art history at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, the École du Louvre and the Institut d'Art et d'Archéologie. In 1931, she obtained her diploma from the École du Louvre on the evolution of the Italian art movement up to Giotto. At the Institute of Art and Archaeology at the University of Paris, she obtained three postgraduate certificates in modern art history, medieval archaeology and Greek archaeology. She was so intelligent and cultured, with so many diplomas, it's impressive! She published some studies and articles too, and she even learned to speak some languages like German without even studying it.

From October 1940, at the request of Jacques Jaujard, Director of the Musées Nationaux, she remained at the Musée du Jeu de Paume, officially as a curatorial attaché, unofficially instructed by Jacques Jaujard to report to him on the actions of the Germans, who had just requisitioned the museum to store works of art extorted from private collectors.

During the Occupation, the Germans began systematically looting works from museums and private collections across France, mainly those belonging to Jews who had been deported or had fled. They used the Jeu de Paume museum as a central depot before sorting and directing the works to various destinations in Germany, Austria and Eastern Europe. During the Nazi looting, Rose Valland discreetly recorded, as accurately as possible, the movements of the works passing through the Musée du Jeu de Paume, the names of the looted victims, the number of works, their destinations, the names of the agents in charge of the transfers, the names of the transporters, the marks and writing on the crates, the numbers and dates of the convoys, not forgetting the name of the artist, the work and its dimensions.

For over four years, she kept track of all the works' movements, origins and destinations. She scrupulously drew up dozens of index cards, deciphered German carbon paper discarded in the museum's garbage cans, and discreetly listened in on the conversations of Nazi officials. She provided the Resistance with essential, detailed information on the trains transporting the works, so that these convoys could be spared by the Resistance. In autumn 1944, she gave the Allies the names of German and Austrian depots (Altaussee, Buxheim, Neuschwanstein, Füssen, Nikolsburg, etc.) to avoid bombing, secure them and facilitate the recovery of stored works.

After the liberation of Paris by Allied troops, and until May 1, 1945, she worked with SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force), providing the Americans with vital information on storage sites for works transferred to Germany and Austria.

From May 1945, she was seconded from the Ministry of National Education to the Ministry of War, then from 1946 to 1952, seconded as a 3rd class administrator to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, occupying the Secretariat of State and then the General Commissariat for German and Austrian Affairs. Nicknamed "Captain Beaux-arts", she was appointed Captain in the 1st French Army, while also serving as Head of the Service de remise en place des œuvres d'art (SROA) within the Public Education Division of the French Group of the Board of Control.

She was sent to the various Allied occupation zones, British, American and Soviet, from where she repatriated a large number of works. She cooperated with American agents to conduct investigations and interrogate the Nazi officers and merchants responsible for the looting.

She played a decisive role in the February 1946 Nuremberg hearings on the plundering of art by Nazi leaders.

Between 1945 and 1954, she took part in the repatriation of over 60,000 items of French cultural property taken from public institutions and persecuted Jewish families.

Her courageous and heroic actions during the war and post-war years earned her numerous French and foreign decorations. In fact, Rose Valland was one of the most highly decorated women in French history.

She was :

-> made an Officer of the Legion of Honor

-> made a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters

-> awarded the French Resistance Medal

-> awarded the Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian decoration in the USA

-> made an Officer of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany

-> awarded the Latvian medal of the Order of the Three Stars in recognition of her involvement in the Latvian Art Exhibition (painting, sculpture and folk art), held at the Jeu de Paume from January 27 to February 28, 1939.

Unfortunately, as is often the case with women in history, the role she played in the Resistance, protecting French works of art and the property of deported Jewish people, was quickly forgotten, and her name is hardly ever mentioned today when this part of history is evoked. Insane, when you know everything she's done and how many decorations she got...

At an undetermined time, perhaps in the post-war years, Rose Valland met the British woman Joyce Heer, secretary-interpreter at the U.S. Embassy, who became her lover until her death. The two women shared an apartment on rue de Navarre in Paris. Rose Valland reserved a place for her beside her in the family vault.

Rose Valland died in 1980 at the age of 81 in a nursing home in Ris-Orangis, outside Paris. She is buried with her lover in the family vault in her native village of Saint-Étienne-de-Saint-Geoirs, where the secondary school and a square bear her name.

She truly was a hero, and I wish we talked about her more !

[todaysdocument]

Position Description for Mercury Astronaut

Record Group 255: Records of the National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationSeries: Reference Files of the Special Assistant

[underline] SS - 6.3 [/underline] [Stamped: Space Task Group] B

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION

1520 H STREET NORTHWEST

WASHINGTON 25, D.C.

TELEPHONE: EXecutive 3-3260, TW: WA 755

IN REPLY REFER TO -

[Stamped: RECEIVED NASA SPACE TASK GROUP JUN 19 2 01PM '59]

[manuscript] 3

[underline] S S- 6.3 [/underline]

SO-14

SP - 2.6 [/manuscript]

Lt. Paul P. Bennett, Jr.

BuPers - A3122

Arlington Annex, Rm. 2603

Washington 25, D. C.

Dear Lt. Bennett:

In accordance with our telephone conversation of June 15 the following is a resume of the position description for the Mercury Astronauts.

[underline] Position Title [/underline]: Mercury Astronaut

[underline] Duties [/underline]: Participates in indoctrination, developmental research, and pre-flight training programs under conditions simulating flight profiles of the type expected to be encountered with Project Mercury. Operates and/or observes fixed-base and moving-base simulator tests, serves as subject-under-test, and assists in the analysis of data for the evaluation and development of various boosters and of communication telemetry, display, vehicle-contol, envirornmental-control and other systems involved in launch, atmospheric escape, orbital flight, re-entry, landing and recovery. Participates in specialized training exercises such as centrifuge programs to build up tolerances to motions and forces associated with launch, flight without gravity, and atmospheric reentry, and to develop proficiency and confidence for vehicle operation under such conditions.

Sincerely yours,

/s/

Clotaire Wood

Technical Assistant to the Deputy Administrator

[Stamped Routing List]

BLAND

BOND

DONLAN

FAGET

GILRUTH

HAMMACK

JOHNSON [initialed: lwj]

KRAFT

KYLE

MacDOUGALL

MATHEWS

MAYER

MEYER

PRESTON

PURSER

RICKER

[strikethrough] TAYLOR [/strikethrough] [initialed: G]

ZAVASKY

ZIMMERMAN

AERO MED [initialed: HBf]

[initials: ATS]

SPACE FILES

[manuscript] COPIES TO:

SHEPARD

SCHIRRA

CARPENTER

GLENN

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Matt Wuerker, Politico

* * * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

October 30, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Oct 31, 2024

On Friday, October 25, at a town hall held on his social media platform X, Elon Musk told the audience that if Trump wins, he expects to work in a Cabinet-level position to cut the federal government.

He told people to expect “temporary hardship” but that cuts would “ensure long-term prosperity.” At the Trump rally at New York City’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday, Musk said he plans to cut $2 trillion from the government. Economists point out that current discretionary spending in the budget is $1.7 trillion, meaning his promise would eliminate virtually all discretionary spending, which includes transportation, education, housing, and environmental programs.

Economists agree that Trump’s plans to place a high tariff wall around the U.S., replacing income taxes on high earners with tariffs paid for by middle-class Americans, and to deport as many as 20 million immigrants would crash the booming economy. Now Trump’s financial backer Musk is factoring in the loss of entire sectors of the government to the economy under Trump.  

Trump has promised to appoint Musk to be the government’s “chief efficiency officer.” “Everyone’s going to have to take a haircut.… We can’t be a wastrel.… We need to live honestly,” Musk said on Friday. Rob Wile and Lora Kolodny of CNBC point out that Musk’s SpaceX aerospace venture has received $19 billion from the U.S. government since 2008.

An X user wrote: “I]f Trump succeeds in forcing through mass deportations, combined with Elon hacking away at the government, firing people and reducing the deficit—there will be an initial severe overreaction in the economy…. Markets will tumble. But when the storm passes and everyone realizes we are on sounder footing, there will be a rapid recovery to a healthier, sustainable economy. History could be made in the coming two years.”

Musk commented: “Sounds about right[.]”

This exchange echoes the prescription of Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, whose theories had done much to create the Great Crash of 1929, for restoring a healthy economy. “Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate,” he told President Herbert Hoover. “It will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living

will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people.” 

Mellon, at least, was reacting to an economic crisis thrust upon an administration. Musk is seeking to create one. 

Today the Commerce Department reported that from July through September, the nation’s economy grew at a solid 2.8%. Consumer spending is up, as is investment in business. The country added 254,000 jobs in September, and inflation has fallen back almost to the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%. 

It is extraordinarily rare for a country to be able to reduce inflation without creating a recession, but the Biden administration has managed to do so, producing what economists call a “soft landing,” rather like catching an egg on a plate. As Bryan Mena of CNN wrote today: “The US economy seems to have pulled off a remarkable and historic achievement.” 

Both President Joe Biden and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris have called for reducing the deficit not by slashing the government, as Musk proposes, but by restoring taxes on the wealthy and corporations. 

As part of the Republicans’ plan to take the country back to the era before the 1930s ushered in a government that regulated business and provided a basic social safety net, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) expects to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. 

At a closed-door campaign event on Monday in Pennsylvania for a Republican House candidate, Johnson told supporters that Republicans will propose “massive reform” to the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare,” if they take control of both the House and the Senate in November. “Health-care reform’s going to be a big part of the agenda,” Johnson said. Their plan is to take a “blowtorch to the regulatory state,” which he says is “crushing the free market.” “Trump’s going to go big,” he said.” When an attendee asked, “No Obamacare?” he laughed and agreed: “No Obamacare…. The ACA is so deeply ingrained, we need massive reform to make this work, and we got a lot of ideas on how to do that.” 

Ending a campaign with a promise to crash a booming economy and end the Affordable Care Act, which ended insurance companies’ ability to reject people with preexisting conditions, is an unusual strategy.

A post from Trump last night and another this morning suggest his internal polls are worrying him. Last night he claimed there was cheating in Pennsylvania’s York and Lancaster counties. Today he posted: “Pennsylvania is cheating, and getting caught, at large scale levels rarely seen before. REPORT CHEATING TO AUTHORITIES. Law Enforcement must act, NOW!” 

Trump appears to be setting up the argument he used in 2020, that he can lose only if he has been cheated. But it is increasingly apparent that the get-out-the-vote, or GOTV, efforts of the Trump campaign have been weak. When Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump and loyalist Michael Whatley became the co-chairs of the Republican National Committee in March 2024, they stopped the GOTV efforts underway and used the money instead for litigation. They outsourced GOTV efforts to super PACs, including Musk’s America PAC.

In Wired today, Jake Lahut reported that door-knockers for Musk’s PAC were driven around in the back of a U-Haul without seats and threatened with having to pay their own hotel bills if they didn’t meet high canvassing quotas. One of the canvassers told Lahut that they thought they were being hired to ask people who they would be voting for when they flew into Michigan, and was surprised to learn their actual role. The workers spoke to Lahut anonymously because they had signed a nondisclosure agreement (a practice the Biden administration has tried to stop).

Trump’s boast that he is responsible for the Supreme Court’s overturning of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision recognizing the constitutional right to abortion is one of the reasons his support is soft. In addition to popular dislike of the idea that the state, rather than a woman and her doctor, should make decisions about her healthcare, the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision is now over two years old, and state examinations of maternal deaths are showing that women are dying from lack of reproductive healthcare. 

Cassandra Jaramillo and Kavitha Surana of ProPublica reported today that at least two pregnant women have died in Texas when doctors delayed emergency care after a miscarriage until the fetal heartbeat stopped. The woman they highlighted today, Josseli Barnica, left behind a husband and a toddler. 

At a rally this evening near Green Bay, Wisconsin, Trump said his team had advised him to stop talking about how he was going to protect women by ending crime and making sure they don’t have to be “thinking about abortion.” But Trump, who has boasted of sexual assault and been found liable for it, did not stop there. He went on to say that he had told his advisors, “I’m going to do it whether the women like it or not. I am going to protect them.” 

The Trump campaign remains concerned about the damage caused by the extraordinarily racist, sexist, and violent Sunday night rally at Madison Square Garden. Today the campaign seized on a misstatement President Biden made when condemning the statement from the Madison Square Garden event that referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.” They tried to turn the tables to suggest that Biden was calling Trump supporters garbage, although the president has always been very careful to focus his condemnation on Trump alone. 

In Wisconsin today, when he disembarked from his plane, Trump put on an orange reflective vest and had someone drive him around the tarmac in a garbage truck with TRUMP painted on the side. He complained about Biden to reporters from the cab of the truck but still refused to apologize for Sunday’s slur of Puerto Rico, saying he knew nothing about the comedian who appeared at his rally. 

This, too, was an unusual strategy. Like his visit to McDonalds, where he wore an apron, the image of Trump in a sanitation truck was likely intended to show him as a man of the people. But his power has always rested not in his promise to be one of the people, but rather to lead them. The pictures of him in a bright orange vest and unusually dark makeup are quite different from his usual portrayal of himself.

Indeed, media captured a video of Trump’s stunt, and it did not convey strength. MSNBC’s Katie Phang watched him try to get into the truck and noted: “Trump stumbles, drags his right leg, almost falls over, and tries at least three times to open the door…. Some transparency with Trump’s medical records would be nice.” 

The Las Vegas Sun today ran an editorial that detailed Trump’s increasingly obvious mental lapses and concluded that Trump is “crippled cognitively and showing clear signs of mental illness.” It noted that Trump now depends “on enablers who show a disturbing willingness to indulge his delusions, amplify his paranoia or steer his feeble mind toward their own goals.” It noted that if Trump cannot fulfill the duties of the presidency, they would fall to his running mate, J.D. Vance, who has suggested “he would subordinate constitutional principles for personal profit and power.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[mariacallous]

Celeste Borys and Kira Lynch don’t leave the house much these days. When they do venture into their small Utah communities—to go grocery shopping, to take their kids to school or the playground—neighbors whisper and stare. “I’ve had people take pictures and videos of me, and I've had someone come up and yell at me,” Lynch says. “Someone at my daughter’s junior high told me to keep my mouth shut and called me some bad names. It’s terrifying.”

“I don’t leave unless I have to,” says Borys. “My day-to-day life doesn’t exist.”

The man whose followers scorn and harass them seems to have no such problems. Long a household name in conservative Mormon circles, Tim Ballard has become nationally known in recent years: He’s the former operative for Homeland Security who says he became so alarmed during the Obama administration by the government’s supposed inaction on child sex trafficking that he decided to go out and fight it on his own, recruiting other true believers to join him on dramatic sting operations in dangerous places, later serving as cochair of the Trump administration’s advisory council on trafficking and ultimately inspiring the heavily fictionalized film Sound of Freedom based on Operation Underground Railroad (OUR), the anti-trafficking organization he founded. (The organization now goes by the name OUR Rescue.)

Ballard is also a defendant in ongoing civil lawsuits in Utah brought by women—Borys and Lynch among them—who allege that he sexually abused them under the guise of saving children. Borys and Lynch have filed police reports regarding their allegations that Ballard sexually assaulted them; Ballard has denied the claims made against him. OUR, which is mentioned in one of the suits, has countersued Borys and her husband.

“This is just a bunch of random details, gossip, and easily disproven falsehoods packaged up to generate some quick clicks,” Ballard’s spokesperson Chad Kolton wrote in response to a request for comment; he also notes that the claims against Ballard in a separate suit have been dismissed. That suit was brought by a veteran Marine who said she was injured at a training overseen by Ballard; a judge ruled she did not have standing to bring it because she had signed a waiver.

While Borys and Lynch mostly stay at home, talking to their families, each other, and their lawyers, Ballard, when not defending himself by claiming he’s the victim of a shakedown, makes regular appearances at high-profile Republican events. He showed up at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February. In March, he joined a Catholic event at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort alongside Roger Stone and Michael Flynn. In April, Mar-a-Lago hosted a fundraiser for the Ballard Family Legal Defense Fund. At the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this summer, he sat for an interview with Trump’s former lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. “The leftist agenda is almost verbatim the pedophile agenda,” said Ballard, grim-faced beneath a cap bearing the logo of Aerial Recovery, a self-described disaster relief and anti-trafficking group with which he now works. “You’ve got supporters here, Tim,” Giuliani told Ballard, adding, a moment later, “Pretty soon, you’re going to have one in the strongest and most powerful position in the world.”

All of this is fairly shocking to Lynch and Borys, who worked with Ballard at OUR. Just last summer, Borys says, she was by Ballard’s side as he crisscrossed Capitol Hill, meeting with Republican legislators about human trafficking and reveling with them in the success of Sound of Freedom, which brought in around $250 million in global ticket sales. “Those people know my face,” she says. “I was in those meetings and on phone calls and texting different people in the congressional world.” By fall, it emerged that Ballard and OUR had parted ways months before, following an investigation into claims of sexual misconduct that employees had made against him. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a longtime supporter of Ballard, publicly rebuked him for “morally unacceptable” behavior. And in the fall of 2023, accusers filed the first set of lawsuits against Ballard. Yet Ballard’s star on the Trumpist right never dimmed.

“They know what’s going on with him right now,” Borys says. “For them to ignore it but then to promote him, it’s so disgusting to me.”

Lynch met Ballard in 2021, when she was giving him a haircut. She’d seen Sound of Freedom in an early preview but at the time didn’t realize that she was cutting the hair of the man on whose life it was loosely based. All she knew was that he was famous.

“I’m kind of a big deal,” she remembers him telling her; he was taken aback and even offended that she didn’t know more about him. He told her, she says, about the amazing things he did and how children were saved by his operations.

“He’s talking about children and sex slavery,” she says. “I’m a mother of four. I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ I got sucked in right that second.”

When Ballard asked if she wanted to get involved in his mission, Lynch says, she enthusiastically agreed. She had just gone through a crushing divorce, and her father was dying of a brain tumor. Lynch was, she says, “desperate for something to come along and help me spiritually.” Lynch says that Ballard told her that he was close friends with M. Russell Ballard, a high-ranking member of the LDS Church’s second-highest governing body, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

OUR was a powerhouse long before Sound of Freedom appeared in theaters, raising millions of dollars in donations every year from devoted fans. The group’s exploits were frequently exaggerated. At the White House and in op-eds, for example, Ballard told the story of how the group had helped rescue a teenage girl who was trafficked from Mexico to New York and forced into sex work for several years, citing the story as evidence of the need for a border wall; at one point, he said the group had helped her “escape her hell.” In fact, according to court records, the girl rescued herself and didn’t come into contact with OUR until well after she’d escaped her captors.

Additionally, as early as 2020, a letter was circulating in philanthropic circles in Utah accusing Ballard of misconduct toward women. OUR denied everything: In a statement to Vice News at the time, an OUR spokesperson wrote, “OUR categorically denies the baseless allegations made in the anonymous letter shared with Vice. The OUR board of directors received the letter 12 months ago and, after a thorough investigation, found zero evidence to corroborate the allegations contained in the letter.”

In Lynch’s community, Ballard was still regarded as a hero. Members of her family, she says, were fans of Ballard’s; her mother gasped in excitement when she learned that Lynch had just done his hair, and showed her a shelf full of books that Ballard had written. “They were all praising him to the roof,” Lynch says. “Automatically, that put me in a very safe place with him in my head.”

Ballard’s books, several of which were published by an LDS Church–owned imprint and promoted by the conservative influencer Glenn Beck, contributed a great deal to his fame and followed two tracks. On one, he lays out supposed ties between figures from American history like George Washington and Mormonism. On the other, he positions himself as a modern-day abolitionist, part of a line with Harriet Tubman. One book, Operation Toussaint, is an adaptation of a documentary showing Ballard and his associates carrying out paramilitary work in Haiti. Missions like this were the basis of Ballard’s image as the leader of an elite group of operators doing the work governments didn’t dare and wresting sex slaves from the hands of traffickers. (Files from an investigation carried out by a Utah prosecutor and the FBI released under a public records request would later show these missions in a much less glamorous light—detailing, among other things, the role of a psychic medium named Janet Russon in providing intelligence and one of Ballard’s backers groping the naked breasts of a trafficking victim he believed to be a minor.)

Lynch never went on missions with Ballard. She was instead asked, she says—after being told of the visions he’d had of them working together to save children—to participate in training operations in which they went to strip clubs.

The first time, she alleges, Ballard arrived at her house beforehand with a close friend and OUR employee in tow, as well as Ballard’s son. At her house, Ballard asked her to put fake tattoos and eyeliner on him, getting into the undercover persona he used, which he called “Brian Black.” But almost immediately, Lynch says, once Ballard was in character, he began groping her and trying to kiss her body while she asked him to stop and reminded him that his son and friend were waiting. The behavior continued as the two rode in an Uber, Lynch says, which she calls “horrific.”

“He doesn’t listen,” she says. “He gets in this mindset where it's like he doesn’t see or hear you. It’s whatever he wants.”

Borys, for her part, began working with OUR in July of 2022 as a volunteer before moving on to paid roles in October of that year; by the time she left the organization, she was working as Ballard’s executive assistant. She also began secretly going on missions when, she says, Ballard told her he “was in the middle of a trafficking ring operation and needed a new female partner to come in” to play his girlfriend.

This was part of what Ballard has called the “couples ruse,” in which he and a woman would tell traffickers they were romantic partners, and act as such, while on missions. Ballard has claimed this was necessary to ensure that he and other male operators wouldn’t have to engage in sexual behavior with victims or traffickers while undercover.

Almost immediately after agreeing to work as Ballard’s partner, Borys’ affidavit says, she was flown to California to do “ops training,” which consisted of staying in hotels, hot-tubbing at a Four Seasons, doing workouts on the beach, and Ballard showing Borys what kind of physical acts they had to do while “undercover” and what his supposed boundaries were. She describes him lifting her shirt to admire her stomach, complimenting her “hot body,” kissing her on the neck and insisting it was fine since it avoided kissing on the lips, and showing her how he simulated sexual penetration during operations to fool traffickers who might be observing them.

Ballard, her affidavit says, told her that traffickers could “smell pheromones,” and so they needed to have real sexual chemistry in order to fool them. (The affidavit also alleges that Ballard removed his temple garment, which observant members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints wear under their clothes, telling her “he sees angels all around, and that this isn't wrong.”)

Their first practice operation happened in Mexico, the affidavit says, where she was forced to get a couples massage with Ballard that culminated in a female massage therapist touching her in a sexual way while she froze, closed her eyes, and waited for it to be over. “I heard Tim say he had never seen this done so close and he was getting a lesson,” Borys writes in the affidavit.

"Within seconds, once I was there, I found myself in a situation where I didn't even have time to get out of it,” she says. “I was just staring at him for help.” Afterward, she recalls, she wept, and he told her, “We’re going to save so many kids, you have no idea.’”

Borys doesn’t believe these missions ever led to the rescue of a child. They nonetheless persisted—as did, her affidavit says, not just sexually abusive but spiritually manipulative behavior. Borys, who was raised a Latter-day Saint but is no longer practicing—”I’m so glad you’re not LDS anymore,” she remembers him saying—became enmeshed with Russon, the psychic medium. (Russon did not respond to a request for comment.)

“My life revolved around Janet and her readings,” Borys says; Russon would claim to channel her grandmother and allegedly encourage her and other operators not to worry about taking part in sexualized behavior.

“Janet would say, ‘Our bodies are just bodies, and God gave us bodies to use them to go save kids,’” Borys says.

Ballard, Lynch says, would also frequently assure her while touching her inappropriately that they were doing the right thing, saying things like “I know this is hard, but God will be with us,” and “we’re bringing light into dark places.” He also explicitly told her, she says, that the couples ruse was sanctioned by both God and M. Russell Ballard. (The denunciation LDS Church leadership issued of Tim Ballard in 2023 cited “the unauthorized use of President Ballard’s name for Tim Ballard’s personal advantage and activity regarded as morally unacceptable.”)

The allegations are not limited to the workings of couples ruse. At one point, Lynch’s affidavit says, Ballard came over to her house and sexually assaulted her on her staircase—something her lawyers say she reported to authorities in the fall of 2023, after joining the civil suit. (The following day, in text messages to her that WIRED has viewed, he asked to come by and pick up his belt, which he’d left lying on her floor.)

In early July, the women’s legal team filed a motion in which they say the state crime lab told them that DNA found on Borys’ skirt matched Ballard’s. (Borys alleges that Ballard sexually assaulted her and ejaculated on her leather skirt.) The motion urged the court to instruct the Utah County Sheriff’s Office to turn over the crime lab analysis to Borys’ legal team.

(In a statement to Utah outlet Fox 13, Ballard’s team accused Borys’ legal team of tainting a criminal investigation, asserting this was “consistent with the other illegal and unethical behavior that has been a hallmark of the Borys case.” Janet Russon, meanwhile, appeared on a podcast called The Last Dispensation and suggested that Ballard’s semen could have been found on her skirt because the two shared a suitcase. )

It took a while, Borys says, before she began to view herself as a victim of sexual misconduct. “I remember doing something on an op and I was so scared to go do this specific thing,” she says, her voice breaking. “And right before, all I could think was, ‘If little kids are having to do this, I can do this.’”

She would go home at night and make dinner—“trying to compartmentalize,” she says, while also texting with alleged traffickers on a burner phone.

“I would think I was doing good in the world,” she says. And she desperately wanted to see something tangible from the work—a “win,” she adds. “I felt so conflicted and dirty. I wanted that win so all the dirtiness would go away.”

At this time, Ballard’s reputation as a heroic anti-trafficking expert was at a peak. His rhetoric around trafficking—that it’s the world’s largest criminal enterprise, carried out with impunity due to the negligence and incompetence of the federal government generally and Democrats specifically—had become incredibly popular. QAnon believers took a particular interest, especially after Ballard appeared to support a false conspiracy theory that furniture company Wayfair sold children online by saying that “with or without Wayfair,” the selling of children online was “common.” (Jim Caviezel, who played Ballard in Sound of Freedom, has lent overt support to QAnon beliefs; Ballard, he claimed, taught him that traffickers extract a substance from children’s bodies that “elites” then inject to preserve their own youth. An OUR spokesperson denied at the time that Ballard had explained this to Caviezel.) As this was playing out, the QAnon-tinged Save the Children movement became a driving force in Republican politics, and Ballard himself began to eye a run for the US Senate.

In 2023, Ballard quietly parted ways with OUR following an investigation into claims of sexual misconduct that employees made against him. Lynch, who was not an employee, has a hazy memory of the time but remembers telling friends of an OUR employee that inappropriate things had happened. They, she says, told their friend, who then reported it to human resources. (Her lawyer, Suzette Rasmussen, confirms this sequence of events.)

Borys became Ballard’s executive assistant in early 2023. She was walled off, she says, from other OUR employees. When the investigation began, she knew little about it and was told that its scope was limited to a report made by one woman and would go away. It wasn’t until after she’d quit OUR, and after she’d seen attorney Suzette Rasmussen on TV discussing a suit the pseudonymous women she was representing had filed against Ballard in civil court in Utah, that she really began to process her experiences.

“I was still trying to understand all the stuff I had been going through working for him,” she says. “Once I saw Suzette, I felt like she was my safest place I could go to to protect myself.”

It wasn’t until after she’d gotten out of Ballard’s orbit, blocked his phone number, and filed a lawsuit, Borys says, that she started to understand how traumatized she was. “I was listening to a police officer doing a podcast or on the news, and he said you don’t get to—” here she pauses, and starts to cry. “You don’t get to create a victim by saving victims. And that really hit me.”

The legal process is ongoing; in addition to the suits and criminal investigation, Borys and Lynch have filed for permanent protective orders against Ballard, which currently await the scheduling of evidentiary hearings.

The two are also still very much processing their experiences not just with Ballard but with OUR, which neither now believes was ever a legitimate child-rescue operation.

“Where’s the proof?” asks Borys. “There just isn’t any proof, and when you try to talk to anyone about it who still works there and believes it, it’s like Tim Ballard—red in the face, flustered and frustrated. Instead of answering questions, they fire back at you.”

WIRED provided a detailed list of questions to Chad Kolton, a spokesperson for Tim Ballard. In response, Kolton wrote, in part, “I started responding to each of these and then reconsidered as it seems like a waste of time … There is absolutely nothing new about Tim’s work with Republicans which he’s done openly for years because they actually want to do something about the problem of trafficking rather than denying it exists. The cases against him have begun to fall apart, with one already dismissed and another facing an evidentiary hearing about serious allegations of illegal and unethical conduct by the plaintiff and her attorneys.”

OUR did not respond to a request for comment from WIRED.

“I hope he goes to jail,” Lynch says. “That’s a really honestly hard thing to say, and it’s been hard to understand that might happen. I have to realize it’s not me putting him in jail. It’s not us. It’s him and what he did.”

She also, she says, simply wants the truth to be known.

“Nobody deserves to go through something like this, and someone like him doesn’t deserve to be on a presidential campaign or speaking engagements,” she says. “He doesn’t deserve that right right now.”

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Thousands of spectators cheer as over a quarter of a million marchers show support for the National Recovery Administration (NRA) in a parade on Fifth Avenue on September 13, 1933. The NRA was part of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal to institute industry-wide codes intended to eliminate unfair trade practices, reduce unemployment, establish minimum wages and maximum hours, and guarantee the right of labor to bargain collectively. The NRA ended when it was invalidated by the Supreme Court in 1935, but many of its provisions were included in subsequent legislation. The NRA flag, at the left, is the symbol of a Blue Eagle with the motto "We do our part." This view is looking north at 42nd St.

Photo: Associated Press

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Oliver Willis at Daily Kos:

On Saturday, federal agencies were forced to move employees assisting with hurricane recovery efforts in North Carolina, following reports of a militia threat against the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The incident follows days of Donald Trump and his allies in conservative media promoting lies about Hurricane Helene and the federal response. The Washington Post reported that federal officials have confirmed the authenticity of the advisory that was sent out to multiple federal agencies.  “FEMA has advised all federal responders Rutherford County, NC, to stand down and evacuate the county immediately,” the Post quoted from the email, adding that recipients were advised that the National Guard “had come across x2 trucks of armed militia saying there were out hunting FEMA” and that the agency was “coordinating the evacuation of all assigned personnel in that county.” Officials told the Post that the first responders who were moved were delivering supplies in the region and clearing trees from damaged and blocked roads being used by search and rescue crews assisting victims of the storm.

Over the weekend, the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office announced that charges have been filed against a man identified as William Jacob Parsons for allegedly threatening FEMA workers in western North Carolina. Police said that Parsons was armed with a handgun and a rifle at the time of his arrest. Investigators say he acted alone, according to Fox 8. Gov. Roy Cooper released a statement on the issue on Monday that said, “We are aware of significant misinformation online and reports of threats to response workers on the ground and the safety of responders must be taken seriously.” The conservative movement, led by Trump, has promoted an avalanche of lies about Hurricane Helene and Milton and the federal response to the devastating weather events. Trump claimed after Helene hit that the Biden-Harris administration was “not responsive” to requests for help from Georgia officials, a statement refuted by Gov. Brian Kemp—a Republican who backs Trump.

The consequences of right-wing conspiracy theories being normalized: Armed militias made threats to hunt FEMA workers, forcing such workers to leave Rutherford County, North Carolina.

[27moremoons]

Civil Defense in Gaza: IMPORTANT/LONG POST

"Civil Defense" after a year of continuous war against our people in Gaza

Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds, and peace and blessings be upon the best of martyrs and messengers, our Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him and all his family and companions...

We extend our greetings to the Palestinian people in Gaza for their patience and steadfastness throughout a full year of "israeli" war.

We salute the heroes of the Civil Defense who work tirelessly day and night, never wavering in their responsibilities and their national, religious, and moral duties toward their people. We also extend our appreciation to our humanitarian service partners across all fields.

After a year of continuous war on Gaza, we confirm that the Civil Defense is operating at full capacity, which amounts to only 20% of its original capabilities. This is due to the "israeli" occupation deliberately targeting Civil Defense facilities, vehicles, and personnel during their duties. This led to the complete or partial destruction of 52 vehicles of various types and the martyrdom of 85 personnel, with 292 others injured.

The "israeli" occupation has completely destroyed 11 firefighting and rescue vehicles, 2 rapid intervention rescue vehicles, 4 water tanker trucks, 8 ambulances, one hydraulic ladder vehicle, and 12 administrative vehicles. This confirms that the occupation forces are deliberately hindering humanitarian work and interventions aimed at saving lives and protecting property.

Additionally, 7 fire trucks have sustained damage that can be repaired if the necessary support and spare parts are provided. Also, 3 rescue vehicles, 3 ambulances, and one water tanker truck were damaged and can be restored to service if the occupation allows the entry of appropriate spare parts for repairs.

The continued disregard by the international community and humanitarian organizations has emboldened the "israeli" occupation to intensify its targeting of our resources and personnel. Our facilities and teams were directly targeted 6 times, and our teams were attacked while performing their duties on the scene 14 times.

Over 47% of our teams have been physically endangered, and all of them have suffered psychological harm due to losing family members or their homes.

Since the start of the war, our teams have carried out operations equivalent to 40 years of work based on response time and control, compared to their usual work before the war.

During the genocide, the Civil Defense received 90,000 emergency calls and responded to over 75,000 of them, resulting in more than 260,000 tasks, including rescues, evacuations, medical care, firefighting, and retrieving the bodies of martyrs.

However, our teams were unable to respond to over 15,600 emergency calls due to numerous obstacles and difficulties imposed by the "israeli" occupation.

Over the course of the year-long genocide, our teams, accompanied by medical teams, retrieved 37,210 martyrs from homes, streets, and targeted areas. The occupation has hindered the recovery of thousands of bodies still trapped under the rubble.

After a year of this devastating war, we affirm the following:

The continued international neglect in providing necessary support to the Civil Defense in Gaza will severely reduce our ability to respond to emergency calls from citizens. Our teams have been unable to respond to many of these calls due to fuel shortages and the lack of essential Civil Defense equipment. The occupation forces also deliberately block and hinder our access to areas they have invaded by closing streets and exits.

Civil Defense teams and humanitarian service providers in Gaza have faced immense challenges since the start of this war, and the evasion of responsibility by international institutions has exacerbated these challenges and difficulties.

We demand the provision of spare parts for Civil Defense equipment and vehicles, so we can repair damaged equipment and vehicles and allow our humanitarian intervention teams to continue their work.

We call for protection for Civil Defense personnel while carrying out their humanitarian duties and for the occupation to stop targeting our already worn-out vehicles and equipment.

We urge the world to pressure the occupation to allow the entry of urgent equipment for the Civil Defense of all types so that we can fulfill our duty amid the ongoing aggression and continuous bombardment across Gaza.

We demand the entry of heavy machinery to help clear the rubble of homes and structures to retrieve the bodies of over 10,000 martyrs still under the debris. These martyrs are not included in the official statistics of casualties from the aggression.

We demand the entry of the necessary quantities of fuel for Civil Defense vehicles, as we have often been unable to reach targeted areas due to fuel shortages, which has led to the martyrdom of hundreds of injured individuals who could not receive the necessary medical care.

General Directorate of Civil Defense

Gaza

Sunday, October 6, 2024

Below are the names of the 85 Civil Defense officers who have ascended to martyrdom in the last year as a result of the zionist aggression on the Gaza Strip:

Mohammed Musa Mohammed Hamad, Mohamed Abdel Hay Mohamed Morsi, Naeem Salama Ismail Al-Ghoul, Mohammed Abdel Hakim Khaled Shabir, Mohammed Nazmi Khamis Al-Ghalith, Fadl Sakib Hassan Ataya, Mohammed Suleiman Shahada Jabr, Shady Hassan Ibrahim Hamad, Ashraf Atta Saleh Juha, Jihad Ammar Khamis Abu Taqiyah, Ashraf Ahmed Mahmoud Abu Al-Maza, Maher Hassan Hamdan Abu Sawawin, Naji Ahmed Mohammed Al-Labban, Abdullah Farid Mohammed Abu Awda, Oday Abdul Jawad Mohammed Abu Ras, Saber Omar Dawood Abu Muslim, Ibrahim Atta Mohammed Hamdan, Mohammed Ayesh Sayed Hamdan, Mohammed Ahmed Musa Ali, Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed Noufal, Khaled Jamal Mohammed Al-Arabid, Osama Suleiman Salah Salah, Mahmoud Nahed Rashid Atallah, Muhammad Farid Hashem Dughmosh, Abdul Rahim Youssef Diab Abu Baid, Ayman Mohammed Mohammed Shawan, Abdullah Suwailem Abdullah Abu Rabie, Ahmed Mohammed Al-Abd Khas, Abdul Ghaffar Ayesh Hussein Asaad, Mazen Ismail Abd Rabbo Ashour, Iyad Abdul Karim Abdul Rahman Salem Deeb, Mohamed Fawzy Mohamed Qatit, Alaa Al-Abd Yousef Abu Ghanima, Adham Fathy Hassan Issa, Suleiman Ali Suleiman Yassin, Mohamed Sobhi Mousa Al-Jamasi, Nour El Din Mohamed Khamis Saqr, Bahjat Omar Musa Al-Jamal, Mohammed Majed Ahmed Ahmed, Abdul Razzaq Mahmoud Khaled Al-Mamluk, Hossam Eid Shaaban Abu Shaaban, Naji Jamal Saleh Al-Fayoumi, Mahmoud Abdel Karim Nimr Al-Sarhi, Hamed Mohammed Rashad Zeno, Mohammed Abdullah Mohammed Abu Al-Qura, Diaa Essam Abdel Rahim Abu Amouna, Mohamed Emad Hamdy Abdel-Ilah, Ahmed Zuhair Ahmed Hamouda, Ibrahim Shaaban Salem Obaid, Ahmed Saqr Hassan Abu Hin, Ahmed Mohammed Saleh Hamada, Mohammed Awad Ahmed Suleiman, Mahmoud Mohammed Ahmed Qanou, Karam Imad Hammad Abu Al-Araj, Abdullah Basem Mohammed Toman,. Mohamed Salah Mohamed Abdel Hadi, Mahmoud Basem Ibrahim Al-Muqaddamah, Mahmoud Mohammed Ahmed Salem, Abdul Karim Hassan Arafat Al-Ghazi, Hussein Diab Hussein Abu Jamous, Sohaib Adel Mohammed Abu Taqia, Ahmed Asaad Gabriel Faraj Allah, Osama Azmi Khalil Abu Daqqa, Abdul Latif Mohammed Ibrahim Salem, Youssef Mohammed Mahmoud Al-Mamluk, Ahmed Ismail Ahmed Abu Al-Qumsan, Bakr Raed Hussein Abu Harb, Ezz El-Din Abdel Sater Ramadan Al-Kurdi, Khaled Adeeb Abdullah Al-Hawrani, Ibrahim Imad Abdul Matar, Abdullah Mansour Eid Abdul Jawad, Hossam Hamdy Abdel Ghani Al-Maqid, Mohammed Hafez al-Assad Hassan Hamada, Mahmoud Ayman Mahmoud Ahmed, Badr Abdel Raouf Tawfiq Qasim, Musab Abdullah Saeed Al-Kurdi, Siraj Ayman Fathi Kaskin, Mahmoud Nidal Mahmoud Hammad, Mohammed Abdul Jawad Abdul Hadi Al-Shoubaki, Rami Abdel Qader Shafiq Mansour, Mahmoud Abdel Shafi Khamis Hussein, Bilal Ramadan Abd Rabbo Farhan, Hani Mohammed Ahmed Juma, Ziad Mohammed Salim Al-Habash, Ammar Rajih Ahmed Awad.

Glory to the heroes of the Civil Defense and their martyrs, to those who work tirelessly and sacrifice to relieve our people day and night through all available means.

[lesbianchemicalplant]

STARR COUNTY, Texas — The Biden administration announced today that for the first time it will waive environmental, public health and cultural resource protection laws to fast-track construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall in Texas. The administration says it will take “immediate action to construct barriers and roads” along the border, including through fragile habitat near the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. “It’s disheartening to see President Biden stoop to this level, casting aside our nation’s bedrock environmental laws to build ineffective wildlife-killing border walls,” said Laiken Jordahl, Southwest conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Starr County is home to some of the most spectacular and biologically important habitat left in Texas and now bulldozers are preparing to rip right through it. This is a horrific step backwards for the borderlands.” The waiver sweeps aside 26 laws that protect clean air, clean water, public lands, endangered wildlife and Indigenous grave sites. The announcement marks the first time the Biden administration has used the REAL ID Act waiver authority. “Every acre of habitat left in the Rio Grande Valley is irreplaceable,” said Jordahl. “We can’t afford to lose more of it to a useless, medieval wall that won’t do a thing to stop immigration or smuggling. President Biden’s cynical decision to destroy crucial wildlife habitat and seal the beautiful Rio Grande behind a grotesque border wall must be stopped.” Wall construction in Starr County could harm recovery plans for endangered ocelots, which depend on contiguous wildlife corridors of protected habitat along the Rio Grande. Two endangered plants, the Zapata bladderpod and prostrate milkweed, are endemic to the area and will likely also be threatened by wall construction with their protections stripped by the waiver. Last month, the U.S. Government Accountability Office released a damning report detailing the severe damage the border wall has caused to wildlife, public lands, and Indigenous sacred sites and burial grounds along the U.S.-Mexico border. Beyond jeopardizing wildlife, endangered species and public lands, the U.S.-Mexico border wall is part of a larger strategy of ongoing border militarization that damages human rights, civil liberties, native lands and international relations. The border wall impedes the natural migrations of people and wildlife that are essential to healthy diversity. Today’s action seeks to waive the following laws: 1. National Environmental Policy Act 2. Endangered Species Act 3. Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act 4. American Indian Religious Freedom Act 5. Federal Water Pollution Control Act 6. National Historic Preservation Act 7. Migratory Bird Treaty Act 8. Migratory Bird Conservation Act 9. Clean Air Act 10. National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act 11. Eagle Protection Act 12. National Fish and Wildlife Act of 1956 13. Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act 14. Archeological Resources Protection Act 15. Paleontological Resources Preservation Act 16. Safe Drinking Water Act 17. Archaeological and Historic Preservation Act 18. Noise Control Act 19. Solid Waste Disposal Act, as amended by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act 20. Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act 21. Antiquities Act 22. Historic Sites, Buildings, and Antiquities Act 23. Farmland Protection Policy Act 24. National Trails System Act 25. Administrative Procedure Act 26. Federal Land Policy and Management Act

(October 4th, 2023)

[reasonsforhope]

"The U.S. government is entering a new era of collaboration with Native American and Alaska Native leaders in managing public lands and other resources, with top federal officials saying that incorporating more Indigenous knowledge into decision-making can help spur conservation and combat climate change.

Federal emergency managers on Thursday also announced updates to recovery policies to aid tribal communities in the repair or rebuilding of traditional homes or ceremonial buildings after a series of wildfires, floods and other disasters around the country.

With hundreds of tribal leaders gathering in Washington this week for an annual summit, the Biden administration is celebrating nearly 200 new agreements that are designed to boost federal cooperation with tribes nationwide.

The agreements cover everything from fishery restoration projects in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest to management of new national monuments in the Southwestern U.S., seed collection work in Montana and plant restoration in the Great Smoky Mountains.

“The United States manages hundreds of millions of acres of what we call federal public lands. Why wouldn’t we want added capacity, added expertise, millennia of knowledge and understanding of how to manage those lands?” U.S. Interior Assistant Secretary Bryan Newland said during a panel discussion.

The new co-management and co-stewardship agreements announced this week mark a tenfold increase over what had been inked just a year earlier, and officials said more are in the pipeline.

Newland, a citizen of the Bay Mills Indian Community in northern Michigan, said each agreement is unique. He said each arrangement is tailored to a tribe’s needs and capacity for helping to manage public lands — and at the very least assures their presence at the table when decisions are made.

The federal government is not looking to dictate to tribal leaders what a partnership should look like, he said...

The U.S. government controls more than a quarter of the land in the United States, with much of that encompassing the ancestral homelands of federally recognized tribes...

Tribes and advocacy groups have been pushing for arrangements that go beyond the consultation requirements mandated by federal law.

Researchers at the University of Washington and legal experts with the Native American Rights Fund have put together a new clearinghouse on the topic. They point out that public lands now central to the country’s national heritage originated from the dispossession and displacement of Indigenous people and that co-management could present on opportunity for the U.S. to reckon with that complicated legacy...

In an attempt to address complaints about chronic underfunding across Indian Country, President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed an executive order on the first day of the summit that will make it easier for tribes to find and access grants.

Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told tribal leaders Thursday that her agency [FEMA] began work this year to upgrade its disaster guidance particularly in response to tribal needs.

The Indigenous people of Hawaii have increasingly been under siege from disasters, most recently a devastating fire that killed dozens of people and leveled an entire town. Just last month, another blaze scorched a stretch of irreplaceable rainforest on Oahu.

Tribes in California and Oregon also were forced to seek disaster declarations earlier this year after severe storms resulted in flooding and mudslides...

Criswell said the new guidance includes a pathway for Native American, Alaska Native and Hawaiian communities to request presidential disaster declarations, providing them with access to emergency federal relief funding. [Note: This alone is potentially a huge deal. A presidential disaster declaration unlocks literally millions of dollars in federal aid and does a lot to speed up the response.]

The agency also is now accepting tribal self-certified damage assessments and cost estimates for restoring ceremonial buildings or traditional homes, while not requiring site inspections, maps or other details that might compromise culturally sensitive data."

-via AP, December 7, 2023

[uboat53]

It's two days after the election and Republicans are already insisting that Democrats need to drop their opposition to Trump and try to work together which… yeah, really.

If you find yourself wondering "sure, why shouldn't they?", I'll go ahead and lay it out.

First of all, Republicans have never done this, certainly not in my adult lifetime. Before Barack Obama was even sworn in the top elected Republican announced that his number one goal was to make him a one-term president. They spent eight years stonewalling every attempt he made at outreach and arguably caused a lot of pain to Americans in the process by preventing any efforts to ease the recovery from the Great Recession. In 2016, when everyone thought Clinton was going to win, every elected Republican was vocal about how their top priority was preparing to resist, attack, and investigate every aspect of the expected administration. Even in Biden's term, while some Senators did join him to pass an infrastructure bill, most Republicans spent the entire four years even denying that he was legitimately elected.

There's an idea in game theory where you set up a game that gets played over and over again ad infinitum. On each turn, two people independently choose to either cooperate or not for that turn. If they both cooperate each gets a 70% prize and if they both refuse then they each a 30% prize, but if one person cooperates and one person doesn't then the person who cooperated gets nothing while the other person gets a 100% prize (these numbers aren't exact, but they make the point). So how do you win the game? Well, obviously, long-term, the best strategy is cooperation, but if one person always cooperates the other person can take advantage of this to do even better by refusing their cooperation.

I'll spare you the math and game theory behind this idea, but it turns out that the optimal strategy, the one that leads to the best rate of return, is to cooperate on the first turn and then simply do whatever the other person did before on every turn after that. In this way you always leave open a return to cooperation, but you also prevent yourself from being taken advantage of.

Basically, when Republicans ask for (demand, really) cooperation, they're asking for something they've never been willing to give themselves. Maybe if, for once, they were at least magnanimous in victory, we might able to talk, but that leads me to my second point…

What, exactly, is there to compromise on? Look, if we both think that we need to invest in roads and schools but we have different ideas about what kinds of things need to be invested in or how much to invest, then we can have a conversation and that can lead to compromise, but that's not the nature of the disagreements on key issues. Republicans think that LGBT people should not have basic rights, that states should have the right to gerrymander minorities out of political power, that women have too many rights these days (abortion, no fault divorce, etc.), and that corporations and rich people pay too much in taxes.

Don't believe me? Look at the legislation they're already lining up and the policies they're preparing to put in place, they're not planning a single bill or policy that does anything but the things that I listed above. So what should the Democrats compromise on? Should we agree that LGBT people only deserve some rights? Should we trade women's rights against minority rights? Should we give up on tilting the economy back in favor of working people and accept even more national debt to give money to rich people?

The agenda that Republicans have proposed is so radical and so violently opposed to everything that the Democratic Party stands for that there's no room for compromise. Even if Democrats wanted to set aside party differences and do what's best for the country, Republicans aren't doing anything that Democrats could remotely agree is good for the country. And here's the thing, most Americans agree. Yes, I know, the United States just elected Republicans to power but, while they did so, they also voted almost entirely against Republicans on almost every issue that I noted above that was up for a vote, even in deep red states! Americans may like Republican vibes and messaging, but every time it comes down to actual policy, the policy that Democrats prefer wins over and over again.

So, as a Democrat, I'm expecting my party to resist. They won't be able to stop everything, but I expect them to raise hell, throw sand in the gears, and investigate fully to point out every last bit of self-dealing, hypocrisy, and flagrant disregard for the rule of law that goes on on the other side.

If Republicans don't like this, if they want cooperation, then they need to think long and hard about what they're actually willing to offer. Just getting less of this far-right policy isn't enough, we can probably stop more of it by resisting anyways. If they want cooperation, they need to think about which of our issues they're willing to give. Are they willing to pass legislation to protect the rights of women, LGBT, and minorities? Are they willing to nominate moderate judges instead of Federalist Society operatives? How about giving 80% of their tax cuts to the working class instead of the rich?

They'll find plenty of Democrats willing to talk if those things are on offer, including me. Of course, they're not actually offering anything; to them, "compromise" just means that we give in to what they want and that's why I have no problems saying that I intend to fully resist the policy of the upcoming administration and I expect my party and all its elected representatives to do the same. When compromise becomes a two-way street, I'm fine with going back to it, but I'm done with the one-way "compromises" the GOP keeps demanding.

And, if you're one of the "why can't we all just get along?" people in politics who want politicians to be bipartisan, I hope I've shown you what it will take to get there.

[workersolidarity]

[ 📹 Turkish news outlet Anadolu News Agency covers the recovery efforts following Israeli airstrikes in Beit Lahiya, in Gaza's north, where endless bombings have left scores of civilians trapped under the rubble. The lives of Palestinian civilians has become an endless scramble for survival, interspersed with efforts to save their friends, neighbors and family buried under their own homes and shelters collapsed on them by the Israeli occupation's bombardment. ]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🏘️💥🚑 🚨

DAY 226: ISRAELI OPERATIONS TO EXPAND IN RAFAH, CROSSINGS REMAIN CLOSED TO AID TRUCKS, SETTLERS ATTACK OTHER AID TRUCKS IN THE OCCUPIED WEST BANK, ENDLESS BOMBARDMENT CONTINUES UNABATED

On 226th day of the Israeli occupation's ongoing special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) committed a total of 8 new massacres of Palestinian families, resulting in the deaths of no less than 70 Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children, while another 110 others were wounded over the previous 24-hours.

It should be noted that as a result of the constant Israeli bombardment of Gaza's healthcare system, infrastructure, residential and commercial buildings, local paramedic and civil defense crews are unable to recover countless hundreds, even thousands of victims who remain trapped under the rubble, or who's bodies remain strewn across the streets of Gaza.

This leaves the official death toll vastly undercounted, as Gaza's healthcare officials are unable to accurately tally those killed and maimed in this genocide, which must be kept in mind when considering the scale of the mass murder.

The Israeli occupation's Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, and Israeli Chief of General Staff, Herzi Halevi, approved the next phase of expanded military operations in the Palestinian city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Sunday.

According to a report published in the Hebrew media, Israeli Channel-14, the two members of Prime Minister Netanyahu's War Cabinet, Gallant and Halevi, have agreed to escalate the Israeli occupation army's ground operations in Rafah following two weeks of bombardment of the city, along with incursions by Israeli armored vehicles and soldiers into neighborhoods east of Rafah.

Since the start of occupation's military operations in Rafah, more than 800'000 Palestinians have fled the city, where more than 1.4 million civilians had sought refuge after the Israeli occupation declared Rafah to be a safe-zone at the start of the war.

Israeli Channel-14 says senior officials with the occupation army will present the next phase of operations to the Biden administration's National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, expecting operations to "expand considerably" as a result of decision.

In the meantime, Gaza's government media office said today that the Israeli occupation continues to prevent the passage of humanitarian and medical aid convoys from entering the Gaza Strip, and also prevents the sick and wounded from leaving Gaza for treatment abroad.

This marks the 13th consecutive day the Israeli occupation army closed the two crossings, making the humanitarian crises unfolding in Gaza that much worse, as civilians continue being starved, blockaded and bombarded by the occupation.

According to a statement of Gaza's media office today, the Israeli occupation prevented the entry of approximately 3'000 various kinds of aid trucks, and also prevented at least 690 sick and wounded Palestinians from traveling abroad for medical treatment.

In a statement issued by the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor (Euro-Med), the human rights organization said the continued closure of the two crossings since the 7th of May continues to exacerbate the catastrophic situation in Gaza, excellerating the genocide perpetrated by the Israeli occupation.

According to Euro-Med Monitor, the Israeli occupation has tightened its "heavy grip and stifling siege" on the Gaza Strip, isolating the enclave from the outside world while preventing the sick and wounded from receiving proper medical treatment, which Euro-Med says is responsible for the deaths of dozens of Palestinians who could have been saved had they received assistance.

In other news on Sunday, a large group of extremist Israeli colonial settlers attacked humanitarian aid trucks loaded with food supplies as they were headed towards Gaza through the Turqumiya crossing, northwest of Hebron, in the southwest of the occupied West Bank.

Reporting on the incident stated that drivers witnessed the settlers stopping aid trucks on their way to the Turqumiya crossing, on the Israeli side of the border, before attacking them and destroying the supplies loaded on the trucks.

According to Adel Amr, an official with the Shipping Syndicate, drivers of aid trucks now fear the attacks of violent Israeli settlers, making the contracting of drivers for humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza that much more difficult.

Another merchant involved in the coordination of aid deliveries told reporters that attacks by Israeli extremists are responsible for raising the costs of shipping aid deliveries to Gaza, increasing from 5'000 sheckles per load, to 20'000 sheckles.

The violent Israeli colonial settlers not only target and destroy the supplies loaded on aid trucks, but also deliberately destroy the trucks, and often attack drivers themselves, leading to injuries among drivers following some of the attacks.

Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) continued their violent assault on various axis of the Gaza Strip, killing and wounding dozens of civilians and continuing the destruction of Palestinian residences and infrastructure, including healthcare infrastructure.

Medical sources in Gaza reported on Sunday that the occupation army has begun a siege of the Al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia, in the north of the Gaza Strip, preventing staff from providing the sick and wounded with medical treatment services.

According to local reports, occupation artillery has targeted the hospital with several shells, preventing Palestinians from accessing the hospital, while also preventing staff from entering or exiting the hospital's facilities, severely hampering their ability to perform their duties.

At the same time, D9 armored bulldozers belonging to the IOF are bulldozing sites in the vicinity of Al-Awda.

In further crimes of the Israeli occupation, IOF warplanes bombed a gathering of civilians east of the Al-Maghazi Refugee Camp, in the central Gaza Strip, killing three civilians and wounding dozens of others, including several children.

In another atrocity, IOF fighter jets bombed a residential apartment in the Abu Hashem building, in the Al-Balad neighborhood of central Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, killing at least three more civilians and wounding a number of others. The dead and wounded were recovered from under the rubble by local civil defense personnel and taken to a nearby hospital.

Strikes continued overnight and were renewed at dawn on Sunday, with intense artillery bombardments and airstrikes hammering the Nuseirat, Bureij and Jabalia Refugee Camps, while also targeting Beit Lahiya in the north and Rafah in the south.

In one example, occupation aircraft bombed a Palestinian house north of the Nuseirat Camp, in the central Gaza Strip, resulting in the deaths of three civilians and wounding several others.

In another war crime, occupation air forces bombed and destroyed the residential home of Palestinian journalist Abdullah Al-Najjar, in Jabalia al-Balad, in northern Gaza, killing the reporter.

Intense artillery shelling by the Israeli occupation army also targeted areas near Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, and also in Jabalia, which led to additional casualties.

A further IOF raid targeted the Bureij Camp, in the central Gaza Strip, while at the same time, occupation forces bombed neighborhoods east and north of Rafah.

Yet another horrific atrocity occured when the Israeli occupation forces launched a violent firebelt targeting the New Camp area of the Nuseirat Camp, in central Gaza, destroying an entire residential square.

Following the strike, local civil defense and paramedic crews managed to recover the bodies of at least 20 Palestinians who were killed in the assault, and also rescued large numbers of wounded civilians, including several children, from under the rubble.

Additional reporting publishing updated figures says the bodies of 31 civilians killed in the strike have since been recovered by local civil defense crews.

Unfortunately, the atrocities and massacres didn't end there, occupation air forces also bombarded several neighborhoods of Gaza City, including the bombing of the Shaheen family home in the Al-Tuffah neighborhood, east of Gaza City, killing 3 civilians and wounding 7 others.

Meanwhile, another airstrike on a school sheltering displaced Palestinian families in the Al-Daraj neighborhood, east of Gaza City, resulted in the deaths of three citizens and wounded a number of others according to initial reports.

Updated figures published in the media say the death toll in the Al-Daraj school strike rose to 13 following the work of local paramedic and civil defense crews.

Occupation forces also bombed a residential home belonging to the Awad family near the Al-Safaa Mosque in the Bureij Camp, in central Gaza, while a citizen was killed and others wounded following an Israeli airstrike on a group of civilians in Deir al-Balah.

Local witnesses also reported that Israeli military helicopters were seen opening fire east of the city of Rafah, in Gaza's south.

Simultaneously, occupation aircraft launched a raid on central Rafah, while Israeli gunboats fired artillery shells towards the city's coast and also bombed various neighborhoods in eastern and central Rafah.

Yet another atrocity occured when an Israeli drone fired a missile towards two civilians collecting firewood in the Al-Sabra neighborhood, south of Gaza City, killing one and wounding the other.

Additionally, an IOF airstrike targeted the vicinity of the post office in the center of the Jabalia Camp, in the northern Gaza Strip, killing two Palestinians, while occupation aircraft bombarded the Tal al-Zaatar area.

As a result of the Israeli occupation's ongoing special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the death toll among the local population has risen further still, now exceeding 35'456 Palestinians killed, including over 15'000 children and 10'000 women, while another 79'476 others have been wounded since the start of the current round of Zionist aggression, beginning with the events of October 7th, 2023.

May 19th, 2024.

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@WorkerSolidarityNews

[dandelionsresilience]

Good News - May 1-7

Like these weekly compilations? Support me on Ko-fi! Also, if you tip me on Ko-fi, at the end of the month I'll send you a link to all of the articles I found but didn't use each week - almost double the content!

1. New study says conservation works, providing hope for biodiversity efforts

“A new study published in Science reveals that conservation works, with conservation actions improving or slowing the decline of biodiversity in two-thirds of the cases analyzed.”

2. Monk Seal Pup Debuts in Waikīkī on Lei Day

“Endangered Hawaiian monk seal RK96 (Kaiwi) gave birth to her sixth pup on popular Kaimana Beach in Waikīkī, Oʻahu! […] Hawaiian monk seals are one of the most endangered seal species in the world, so each pup represents hope for the species’ recovery.”

3. West Coast Indigenous-led marine conservation area gets global spotlight

“A coastal First Nation is celebrating global recognition of its marine protected area after recently snagging a “blue park” designation that highlights exemplary ocean conservation efforts around the world. […] Kitasu Bay supports one of the last abundant herring spawns along the central coast, vital to the nation’s communal herring roe on kelp (ROK) fishery - which harvests the protein-rich eggs but leaves the fish alive to flourish and spawn again.”

4. The number of fish on US overfishing list reaches an all-time low. Mackerel and snapper recover

“The report states that 94% of fish stocks are not subject to overfishing, which is slightly better than a year ago. The U.S. was able to remove several important fish stocks from the overfishing list, NOAA said in a statement. […] The removal of species from the overfishing list shows the U.S. is making progress, said Rick Spinrad, NOAA’s administrator.”

5. Researchers Collaborate with the Shipping Industry to Cut Costs, Fuel Consumption and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Shipping

“Through coordinated ship scheduling and an optimisation of ship operations and port services, the objective is to achieve a substantial increase in energy efficiency and a 10-20% reduction in fuel consumption, consequently resulting in lowered greenhouse gas emissions [and] leading to substantial economic benefits for shipping and environmental advantages for society[….]”

6. The city flower farm that is changing lives

“Heart of BS13 Flowers in Hartcliffe is part of the wider Heart of BS13 charity which tackles food insecurity in south Bristol. Profits from the flower sales to run workshops, offer volunteer and trainee placements, and create education opportunities for people from Hartcliffe.”

7. Four falcon chicks hatch in Glasgow university tower

“Members of the [Glasgow Peregrine] project hope to […] fit [the chicks] with electronic tags that will enable monitoring of their movements. Mr Simpson added: "With the identification tags we can see where they have gone, how high they fly and other information that would be really useful." In recent years the group have held peregrine watches at the university, allowing people to see the birds in their nest.”

8. 'Banana pingers' are saving whales and dolphins around the world

“[T]he Kibel brothers, Pete (a fisheries biologist) and Ben (an engineer) […] have been utilising light to protect turtles, sound to protect porpoises and electro pulses to protect sharks. [… Trials] showed reduced average catch rates of blue shark by 91%, and catch rates of pelagic stingray by 71% […as well as] a fall in the number of sea turtles being trapped by 42%.”

9. New vaccine effective against coronaviruses that haven't even emerged yet

“Researchers have developed a new vaccine technology that has been shown in mice to provide protection against a broad range of coronaviruses with potential for future disease outbreaks -- including ones we don't even know about. […] The new vaccine works by training the body's immune system to recognise specific regions of eight different coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-1, SARS-CoV-2, and several that are currently circulating in bats and have potential to jump to humans and cause a pandemic.”

10. Grassland birds, Forest birds and Other Migratory Birds to Benefit from More Than $22 Million in Funding Throughout the Americas

“This year, more than $4.87 million in federal funds will be matched by more than $17 million in partner contributions going to 30 collaborative conservation projects in 19 countries across the Americas. “These investments will [… protect] millions of acres of diverse habitats needed by grassland birds, forest birds and shorebirds for wintering, breeding and migration,” said Service Director Martha Williams.”

April 22-28 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)