#United Sovereign Americans

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Paul Blumenthal at HuffPost:

With a month and change to go before the election, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his allies are already laying the groundwork to contest the results of the 2024 election if he loses by engaging in a false campaign around the threat of noncitizen voting.

Trump and Republican leaders, from House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to GOP secretaries of state who oversee elections, have pushed the narrative that the 2024 elections are being intentionally corrupted by mass noncitizen voting. Noncitizen voting is “a clear and present danger,” Johnson claimed at a May press conference announcing federal legislation mandating proof of citizenship to register to vote. In his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris last month, Trump took things further, falsely claiming that Democrats allow immigrants into the country to get them to vote illegally. “They can’t even speak English. They don’t even know what country they’re in, practically. And these people are trying to get them to vote, and that’s why they’re allowing them into our country,” Trump said.

Meanwhile, GOP secretaries of state, including Ohio’s Frank LaRose and Alabama’s Wes Allen, and Texas’ GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, made headlines announcing purges of supposed noncitizens from their voter rolls. Texas has also mobilized law enforcement to crack down on voter registration activities by Latino activist groups, raiding their homes and intimidating them from engaging in politics. This strategy has been led by Trump and his allies in Congress and around his campaign. It has been joined by high-profile conservative voices like billionaire Elon Musk and former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson. And it has been organized by election deniers through the conservative election denial group Election Integrity Network, run by Cleta Mitchell, a conservative lawyer who backed Trump’s effort in 2020 to steal the election.

Now, with just weeks to go in the election, the noncitizen voting allegations have entered the courts. Beginning in August, the Republican Party, a Trump-allied legal nonprofit run by his adviser, Stephen Miller, and a grassroots election denial group filed a string of lawsuits seeking massive purges of voters they claim to be either noncitizens or otherwise illegitimately registered to vote while suggesting that elections cannot be certified if they don’t get their way. These lawsuits are not only riddled with unsubstantiated claims of noncitizen voting and faulty data analysis claiming mass voter fraud — they all seek a remedy that is illegal. Federal law prohibits election officials from removing registered voters from the rolls within a 90-day blackout period prior to an election, a period that began on Aug. 7. Courts cannot order voter purges after that date. These lawsuits could have been filed earlier in 2024, when a court could order officials to review voters’ citizenship status or other potential registration errors and remove them from the rolls. But the groups filing these suits all waited until this remedy was impossible. Instead, these lawsuits appear to be part of a concerted public relations campaign to cast doubt on the outcome of the election if Trump loses again, as well as provide a post-election justification to local officials to refuse to certify the vote.

[...]

The Lie

In 2020, Trump and the Republican Party pointed to election law changes enacted due to the COVID-19 pandemic that made it easier for voters to cast their ballots without appearing in person to claim President Joe Biden’s win was fraudulent. Trump’s “big lie” caused a chaotic rush following the election as he sought to toss out the valid votes of millions of Americans, culminating in the attempted insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump’s second impeachment and his indictment on multiple felony counts. Trump continues to embrace the lies about 2020, and Republicans have largely followed suit. More of them trust Trump’s word over government certification of election results, according to an Associated Press poll conducted this year. With no pandemic voting changes to rely on, Republicans are now hanging their hat on the issue of noncitizen voting to provide the narrative structure for false post-election fraud claims. Of course, like the lies around voting in 2020, Republicans’ claims of mass noncitizen voting are entirely made up. Noncitizen voting is already illegal in all federal and state elections under multiple laws. It is also vanishingly rare. A database maintained by the conservative Heritage Foundation, which has been promoting falsehoods about noncitizen voting, lists just 68 legal actions taken against noncitizens for voting in federal elections going back to the 1980s. Meanwhile, a study by the progressive Brennan Center found that election officials across 42 jurisdictions in 12 states found just 30 cases of suspected noncitizen voting following the 2016 election. For perspective, that accounts for 0.0001% of the votes cast in those jurisdictions. Even Trump’s own election fraud task force failed to find any evidence of systematic or widespread fraud, including involving noncitizens in elections.

[...] County clerks provided the board with lists of registered voters who claimed to be noncitizens to be excused from jury duty in August, according to Gannon. The board then compared those lists with state voter registration records and found a total of nine voters who matched. Those nine people will be checked against state and federal databases to see whether they are citizens. If they are indeed noncitizens, the board will send them letters inviting them to cancel their registrations. This is the process the board must follow because of the 90-day blackout period prohibiting voter purges so close to an election. [...] United Sovereign Americans is a grassroots group promoting the idea that every election across the country is effectively illegitimate due to its claims of corrupted voter rolls. It was founded in 2023 by election denial activist Marly Hornik, whose canvassing effort aimed at proving election fraud in the 2022 New York state elections led the state’s attorney general to issue a cease-and-desist letter. The group now claims that upward of 10 million votes cast in the 2022 elections across 20 states were illegitimate and should not have been counted. Its lawsuits in Colorado, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas all make similar claims that the states’ voter rolls contain error rates that exceed the level allowed by federal law and that they should therefore not be certified. The group explicitly states that the number of lawsuits it has filed is in an effort to get their claim before the Supreme Court before the 2024 election.

[...]

A New Road To The Same Goal

When Trump lied about election fraud in 2020, it was only the first part of his push to overturn the election. He also sought to exploit the process for counting electoral votes, first by producing alternate slates of electors from key swing states, then by pressuring former Vice President Mike Pence to use those alternate slates to deny Biden the vote in states he won. Finally, when none of that worked, Trump incited a violent mob on Congress to derail the counting of those votes. This half-baked plan did not work — and it would be impossible to do again in 2024. Harris, not Pence or another GOP official, will preside over the counting of the electoral votes. Meanwhile, Congress has since reformed the Electoral Count Act to make it impossible for states to submit alternate electors. It’s also unlikely that any GOP electors would want to follow Trump’s plans after 35 of his fraudulent electors were indicted for their actions in 2020.

Instead, as the United Sovereign Americans lawsuits make plain, any effort to contest the outcome of the election this year would run through efforts by local GOP election officials refusing to certify the election. “[Certification] is the lever that election conspiracy theorists see as the best opportunity if they don’t like the choice the voters have made,” said Ben Berwick, head of litigation for Protect Democracy, a nonprofit that counters election denial. Election deniers first took aim at the certification process in 2020, when two Republican members of the four-member canvassing board in Wayne County, Michigan (which includes Detroit), initially decided on their own to refuse to certify the county’s election amid a flurry of false claims of voter fraud fueled by Trump.

[...]

First, it’s illegal for local officials to refuse to certify election results. In each previous case, courts have stepped in to force wayward officials to certify in no uncertain terms. And if those local officials still refuse, they can be indicted and prosecuted, as happened to two officials in Cochise County, Arizona. “We’ve got a little bit of a hammer here in Arizona in that we’re kind of operating under the FAFO rule — mess around and find out,” Fontes said, using an acronym for the phrase “fuck around and find out.” Second, county-level certification refusals do not impact state executive decisions to certify the statewide results, meaning states could go ahead and confirm their electoral votes no matter what the county officials choose to do. Third, the Electoral Count Reform Act details instructions for courts to hear cases involving certification that occur after the Dec. 11 deadline on an extremely expedited basis, giving officials yet another path to confirm the results despite opposition stalling. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Trump-backed election deniers who ran for key offices overseeing elections in swing states in 2022 all lost.

Democratic and Republican officials across the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin adamantly assert that they will fight certification refusals in the courts, seize the power to certify county election results if necessary and honor the actual winner of their states. Of course, Trump’s efforts to steal the 2020 election were laughable at the time — until they weren’t. Any attempt to illegally overturn the 2024 election could yet again cause chaos and violence where unlikely things can transpire. Still, election experts expect the dam to hold. “While their strategy will fail, there’s no line they won’t cross,” Becker said. “The period after the election could be very volatile, but I’m 100% confident the winner will have their hand on the Bible on Jan. 20.”

HuffPost’s Paul Blumenthal has an excellent report on how Donald Trump is pushing the bogus “noncitizen voting” issue to set up challenges to the 2024 election results if he loses in a redux of 2020.

See Also:

The Guardian: Republicans’ non-citizen voting myth sets stage to claim stolen election

Read the full story at HuffPost.

[paddysnuffles]

The #1 most confusing thing about sovereign citizen mentality

"I'm not a US citizen, US laws don't apply to me!"

You still have to follow the rules of places you're visiting even if you're not a citizen. Hell, you need to be even MORE careful because you're not as familiar with the rules and you may not have the same rights as citizens.

In fact, non-citizens of the US do NOT have the same protections as USAmericans while on American soil. It's in the US constitution.

Meanwhile, Canadian SovCits try to use the American constitution in Canada, as if US laws and rights apply to Canada...

[fakesocialist]

sovereign citizens are so ridiculous, I can acknowledge this whole shit ain’t real and it’s all social constructs but I’m not gonna act brainless and chaotic

it’s like they acknowledge the government and law enforcement is violent and aggressive and rather than choosing to slowly reform these systems they match their energy and now we have two entities acting violent and chaotic

[ceilidhtransing]

If you can understand that the single sovereign state of the US is made up of 50 constituent states, and that while all Californians are American not all Americans are Californian, you can understand that the single sovereign state of the UK is made up of 4 constituent countries, and that while all English people are British not all British people are English.

[ID: three versions of the “screaming crying throwing up” meme image, with the captions “me when people think the UK and England are the same thing”, “me when people think all British people are English”, and “me when people think “England” refers to the entire British Isles”. Below that, a map of the British Isles with the different countries (Scotland, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, which all make up the UK, plus the Republic of Ireland) highlighted. Text on the map notes that “Great Britain is the main island = England + Scotland + Wales” and that “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the sovereign nation”. end ID]

[uwmspeccoll]

Indigenous People's Day

DR. HENRIETTA MANN Cheyenne

On this Indigenous People’s Day, we are featuring Matika Wilbur’s recent publication Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America, published by Ten Speed Press in 2023. Wilbur (b. 1984) is a visual storyteller and member of the Swinomish and Tulalip peoples of coastal Washington. She holds a degree from the Brooks Institute of Photography alongside a teaching certificate that has shaped her style of educating through narrative portraits.  

Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America, a book born from a documentary project of the same name, resolves to share contemporary Native issues and culture. In 2012 Wilbur set out from Seattle to visit and photograph all 562 plus Native American sovereign territories in the United States.

Wilbur’s engagement with the communities she visited resulted in the creation of hundreds of dynamic portraits and documentation of conversations about “tribal sovereignty, self-determination, wellness, recovery from historical trauma, decolonization of the mind, and revitalization of culture.” She refers to her portraiture approach as “an indigenous photography method” that includes several hours and sometimes days of interaction with the participants, an exchange of energy and gifts, and asking sitters to choose their portrait location. The outcome is a stunning collection of Native narratives and portraits.  

GREG BISKAKONE JOHNSON Lac Du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians

HOLLY MITITQUQ NORDLUM  Iñupiaq

J. MIKO THOMAS Chickasaw Nation

MOIRA REDCORN Osage, Caddo

HELENA and PRESTON ARROW-WEED Taos Pueblo/Kwaatsaan, Kamia

STEPHEN YELLOWTAIL Apsáalooke (Crow Nation)

LEI'OHU and LA'AKEA CHUN Kānaka Maoli

ORLANDO BEGAY Diné

KALE NISSEN Colville Tribes

GRACE ROMERO PACHECO Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians

ISABELLA and ALYSSA KLAIN Diné

NANCY WILBUR Swinomish

DR. JEREMIAH "JERRY" WOLFE Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians

RUTH DEMMERT Tlingit

MARVA SII~XUUTESNA JONES Tolowa Dee-Ni' Nation, Yurok, Karuk, Wintu

Matika Wilbur will be speaking on UW-Milwaukee's campus Thursday, November 16 from 6-7p.m. in conjunction with her exhibition Seeds of Culture: The Portraits and Voices of Native American Women on view at the Union Art Gallery November 16 through December 15, 2023. 

-Jenna, Special Collections Graduate Intern 

We acknowledge that in Milwaukee we live and work on traditional Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk, and Menominee homelands along the southwest shores of Michigami, part of North America’s largest system of freshwater lakes, where the Milwaukee, Menominee, and Kinnickinnic rivers meet and the people of Wisconsin’s sovereign Anishinaabe, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Oneida, and Mohican nations remain present.

[counterpunches]

source

[transcript: [slide 1]

we are treated differently and we are so tired

[slide 2] From day one, we were treated differently: the celebrations

Hamas is an internationally-recognized terrorist organization that is explicit in its aim to annihilate Israel and the Jewish people in its very foundational charter. On October 7, 2023, thousands of Hamas terrorists invaded internationally-recognized sovereign Israeli territory and slaughtered 1,200 people in a matter of hours, the majority of them civilians. They went door to door, pulling people from their beds, maiming, mutilating, beheading, raping, and burning entire families alive. About 80 of the corpses showed signs of torture. They also took over 200 people hostage, including Holocaust survivors and a 9-month-old. It was the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Israel is a small country; had October 7 happened in the US, it would be the equivalent of individually slaughtering 50,000 Americans in a matter of hours.

Instead of expressing outrage, there were worldwide celebrations. In the West Bank, Gaza, and elsewhere in the Arab world, candy was handed out on the streets in celebration. In Gaza, thousands gathered to cheer as terrorists paraded mutilated corpses. A group of 3000 United Nations teachers expressed their joy at the murder and mutilation of Israelis, including young children. All over left-wing social media, people celebrated.

On October 8, before any Israeli retaliation whatsoever, crowds of thousands gathered in Times Square to express their support for the murderers, holding signs that declared "decolonization is not a metaphor" and "by any means necessary".

Fringe extremists exist, but this was hardly the fringe. And we know this is not a normal reaction. We did not see entire protests in Times Square in support of the Russian slaughter of Ukranians, 9/11, the ISIS genocide of Yazidis, the slaughter of Yemenis, the slaughter of Syrians, or any other atrocity.

[slide 3] From Day one, we were treated differently: the contextualization and qualification

Secretary General of the United Nations Anthony Guterres' initial response to the October 7 massacre was the following: "It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum."

First, let me make one thing clear: there is no context, in international law or anywhere else, that justifies or minimizes the slaughter, torture, and rape of civilians, including women, children, those with disabilities, and the elderly.

But beyond that, there is a glaring double standard when Israel is the victim of a massacre. Let's take a look at another example of terrorism as a guideline. When ISIS bombed an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England on May 22, 2017, killing 22, Secretary General Guterres immediately "strongly condemned" the attack, and the Security Council released a statement, condemning "in the strongest terms the barbaric and cowardly terrorist attack" and extending its solidarity to the United Kingdom. No one said the attack had to be understood "in the context" of the UKs invasion of Iraq, the war against ISIS, or the UKs long history of colonialism in the region, and no one said that it did not happen in a vacuum.

Similarly, on October 7, millions of people rushed to social media to provide "context" for the cold-blooded, purposeful, and indiscriminate murder of civilians. Others, before their "condemnation" felt the need to clarify that they were not supporters of the Israeli government (okay, and?), when they've otherwise strongly condemned atrocities perpetrated on others, without feeling the need to qualify support (or lack thereof) for any other country's government.

[slide 4] From day one, we were treated differently: the victim blaming

On October 7, as the massacre was still unfolding, 31 Harvard University organizations released a statement holding Israel "entirely responsible" for the slaughter of its own citizens. I reiterate: as Israelis were still being slaughtered by the hundreds simply for being Jewish - or for being associated with Jews - we were told that our own slaughter was our fault.

They were not the only ones to do so. Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Syria, Iran, and Iraq blamed Israel for the October 7 slaughter. Black Lives Matter Chicago blamed Israel for the October 7 slaughter. Labor unions across the US blamed Israel for the October 7 slaughter. The list goes on.

After the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published an article in which one anonymous police officer said that the police is looking into the possibility that some of the victims of the Nova music festival were killed by fire from an IDF military chopper, antisemites took the statement out of context, distorted it, and disseminated it all over the media and internet.

In response to the Haaretz article, the Israeli police put out a statement that the investigation was only in regard to police activities on October 7, not military activities, and that as such, they do not have any indication about the harm to any civilians due to any aerial activity there."

Regardless, the conspiracy has taken a life of its own, so much so that Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of carrying out the massacre. Abbas later retracted his statement. A few other unverified reports have also similarly taken out of context to "prove" that Israel was actually behind its own massacre.

To this day, we are told, in response to released hostage testimony that Israeli women are being raped in the Hamas tunnels, that it's justified because "they were soldiers." For what it's worth, no one's rape is justified - even when they're soldiers.

[slide 5] A few days later came the denial

The 10/7 massacre was live-streamed by the perpetrators on their own social media platforms.

Initially, antisemites celebrated. After more and more heinous, indefensible details started to come out, antisemites started denying it happened at all.

To reiterate: the massacre was live-streamed to social media - by the perpetrators. We all saw it in the early hours of October 7. The perpetrators have gone on to boast about it since. For example, on January 10, the leader of the Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, said, "We should hold on to the victory that took place on October 7 and build upon it."

The level of denial - just a few days after October 7 - is so pervasive that Israel had to compile a 47-minute film of footage with the most graphic, dehumanizing video evidence to screen for international reporters, government officials, and more.

But no amount of evidence seems to be enough. No independent investigators are enough. No video footage is enough. No survivor or eyewitness testimony is enough. Why are people denying what's before their very eyes? Why?

[slide 6] Then the one-sided demands.

From October 7, there were already demands on Israel - on Israel, as its civilians were massacred - to ceasefire. These demands came from important voices, including American Congresspeople, groups such as UNICEF, and more. These calls made little, if any, mention of Hamas, the perpetrator of the October 7 massacre.

No other country would be asked, as a slaughter of their people was still unfolding, to lay down their arms.

Since then, the calls for Israel - and only Israel - to ceasefire have been incessant. They have continued even as Hamas vowed, on October 24, that "there will be a second, a third, a fourth" October 7. When asked to clarify, in the same interview, whether they meant the complete annihilation of Israel, the senior Hamas official responded, "Yes, of course."

The calls for Israel to ceasefire continued as Yaha Sinwar, the architect of the October 7 massacre, promised on November 30 that "October 7 was just a rehearsal."

The calls for Israel to ceasefire continued as Hamas violated the terms of the temporary ceasefire every single day between November 24 and December 1.

The calls for Israel to ceasefire as Hamas has fired over 13,000 missiles at Israeli civilians. Even more infuriating, the calls for a ceasefire are often made hand in hand with calls to "globalize the Intifada." An intifada is an armed uprising; it's incompatible with a ceasefire.

The calls for Israel to ceasefire have continued as Hamas has rejected several ceasefires in the past several weeks. At this point, those calling for a ceasefire should be honest: what they care is that Israel ceases, but they are not particularly bothered (or even support) when Hamas fires.

[slide 7] The genocide accusations

There are 153 countries that have signed the Convention of 1948. Before this January, only two had ever been brought to trial before the International Court of Justice. Of the signatories, a number of them have been accused of genocidal acts after signing the Convention, including Azerbaijan, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Palestine, Sudan, Syria, and more.

Only Israel, however, is put on trial, which is all the more egregious when we consider that the events post-October 7 are in response to a massacre of Israelis that Genocide Watch classified as "an act of genocide."

What's even more egregious is that South Africa, which has brought this case before the ICJ, maintains close relationships with genocidal dictators, including Russia's Vladimir Putin and Sudan's Omar al-Bashir. It is a close ally of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hamas' patron, which has been brutally oppressing the people of Iran since 1979. South Africa even hosted Hamas officials for a "solidarity" event in December 2023 - two months after the October 7 massacre.

Per the Hamas Ministry of Health, 23,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza; Israel claims at least 9,000 of them are Hamas combatants. While any civilian death is tragic, there are far deadlier wars and atrocities happening around the globe right at this very second. In Yemen, nearly 400,000 have been killed and a million have died in a famine. In Syria, over 600,000 have been killed. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 6 million have been killed. In Ukraine, at least 100,000 have been killed. The list goes on and on. In many of these cases, the perpetrators of the atrocities - some of them South Africa's closest allies - have explicitly expressed genocidal intent. Yet South Africa hasn't found it necessary to bring them before the International Court of Justice. Only the Jewish state.

[slide 8] Feminist advocates are suddenly silent - or worse, accuse us of lying

Perhaps among the most infuriating responses to the October 7 massacre has been the response of so-called feminists and feminist organizations.

On October 7, and every day since, Hamas weaponized rape as a tool of war, which is not only a war crime, but a crime against humanity. There is a preponderance of evidence, including extensive forensic evidence, eyewitness testimony, perpetrator confessions, and survivor testimony.

Yet the Women's March has not condemned Hamas' weaponization of rape as a tool of war; instead, it has only called for a ceasefire. Me Too has not condemned Hamas' weaponization as a tool of war. UN Women did not condemn Hamas' massacre until December 2, nearly two months after October 7, after intense public pressure from Israelis and the Jewish community.

Angelina Jolie, perhaps the most vocal global activist against the weaponization of rape as a tool of war, has said absolutely nothing about Hamas' war crimes; instead, she has asked Israel to ceasefire.

[slide 9] Double standard: legitimacy

Israel is condemned more than any other nation in the world, but the double standard doesn't end there. Israel's real or perceived crimes are blown out of proportion in comparison to other countries' real or perceived crimes, but the double standard doesn't end there. Israel's suffering is minimized, contextualized, denied, or qualified in comparison to the suffering of other countries, but the double standard doesn't end there. Instead, there is another double standard: everything coming out of Hamas' mouth is immediately taken as fact, while everything that comes out of Israel is questioned.

This is not merely a matter of "feeling" like there is a double standard.

On October 17, an explosion went off at the Al Ahli Hospital parking lot. Within minutes, Hamas claimed that an Israeli airstrike had targeted the hospital, killing 471 people. Israel claimed that a Palestinian Islamic Jihad missile misfired and hit the hospital. But the BBC ran with Hamas' story. This triggered worldwide outrage, inciting anti-Jewish riots in the Arab world and in Russia. Eventually, most international independent investigations corroborated Israel's version of events. But by the time the media retracted its original claim - that is, what Hamas said - it was too late. Two Jews had already been killed in Tunisia in retaliation for a massacre that Israel never actually committed.

Then there is the issue of the hostage videos. Hostage videos are hostage videos because they are made under duress. The hostage is told what to say; otherwise, their life is in danger. Hamas, of course, has coerced the Israeli hostages into saying that they are being treated well. These statements, made with a gun to the head, have been taken as fact, so much so that prominent figures such as Shaun King have gushed over Hamas' so-called "humane" treatment of the hostages (that they brutally abducted after murdering their entire families and friends before their eyes).

Yet, now that over a hundred hostages have been released, and they are no longer under threat from Hamas, they are coming out with stories of abuse and torture. Suddenly, no one believes these accounts, claiming that Israel must have told them what to say. It's absolutely absurd and defies all logic.

[slide 10] support my work

venmo: @rootsmetals cash app: $rootsmetals paypal: @debbie@rootsmetals.com

complete bibliography for this post: patreon.com/rootsmetals

disclaimer: the intent of this post is to educate, raise awareness, and challenge hate speech]

[zvaigzdelasas]

The junta’s announcement follows a visit by US officials this week which was led by assistant secretary of state for African affairs Molly Phee and included Gen Michael Langley, commander of the US Africa command. Col Amadou Abdramane said on Niger television on Saturday that the US delegation did not follow diplomatic protocol, and that Niger was not informed about the composition of the delegation, the date of its arrival or the agenda.

He added that the discussions were around the current military transition in Niger, military cooperation between the two countries and Niger’s choice of partners in the fight against militants linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State.[...]

“Niger regrets the intention of the American delegation to deny the sovereign Nigerien people the right to choose their partners and types of partnerships capable of truly helping them fight against terrorism,” Abdramane said.

“Also, the government of Niger forcefully denounces the condescending attitude accompanied by the threat of retaliation from the head of the American delegation towards the Nigerien government and people.”

Abdramane stopped short of saying US forces should leave. But he alleged their status and presence was illegal and violated constitutional and democratic rules because, he claimed, it was unilaterally imposed in 2012.

He said Niger was not aware of the number of US civilian and military personnel on its soil or the amount of equipment deployed and, according to the agreement, the US military had no obligation to respond to any request for help against militants.

“In light of all the above, the government of Niger, revokes with immediate effect the agreement concerning the status of United States military personnel and civilian employees of the American department of defence on the territory of the Republic of Niger,” Abdramane said.[...]

In October, Washington officially designated the military takeover as a coup, which triggered US laws restricting the military support and aid that it can provide to Niger. But in December, Phee said the US was willing to restore aid and security ties if Niger met certain conditions.

16 Mar 24

[crystalis]

twitter thread by Mouin Rabbani

March 14, 2024

Who was there first? The short answer is that the question is irrelevant. Claims of ancient title (“This land is ours because we were here several thousand years ago”) have no standing or validity under international law.

For good reason, because such claims also defy elementary common sense. Neither I nor anyone reading this post can convincingly substantiate the geographical location of their direct ancestors ten or five or even two thousand years ago.

If we could, the successful completion of the exercise would confer exactly zero property, territorial, or sovereign rights.

As a thought experiment, let’s go back only a few centuries rather than multiple millennia. Do South Africa’s Afrikaners have the right to claim The Netherlands as their homeland, or even qualify for Dutch citizenship, on the basis of their lineage?

Do the descendants of African-Americans who were forcibly removed from West Africa have the right to board a flight in Atlanta, Port-au-Prince, or São Paolo and reclaim their ancestral villages from the current inhabitants, who in all probability arrived only after – perhaps long after – the previous inhabitants were abducted and sold into slavery half a world away?

Do Australians who can trace their roots to convicts who were involuntarily transported Down Under by the British government have a right to return to Britain or Ireland and repossess homes from the present inhabitants even if, with the help of court records, they can identify the exact address inhabited by their forebears? Of course not.

In sharp contrast to, for example, Native Americans or the Maori of New Zealand, none of the above can demonstrate a living connection with the lands to which they would lay claim.

To put it crudely, neither nostalgic attachment nor ancestry, in and of themselves, confer rights of any sort, particularly where such rights have not been asserted over the course of hundreds or thousands of years.

If they did, American English would be the predominant language in large parts of Europe, and Spain would once again be speaking Arabic.

Nevertheless, the claim of ancient title has been and remains central to Zionist assertions of not only Jewish rights in Palestine, but of an exclusive Jewish right to Palestine.

For the sake of argument, let’s examine it. If we put aside religious mythology, the origin of the ancient Israelites is indeed local.

In ancient times it was not unusual for those in conflict with authority or marginalized by it to take to the more secure environment of surrounding hills or mountains, conquer existing settlements or establish new ones, and in the ultimate sign of independence adopt distinct religious practices and generate their own rulers. That the Israelites originated as indigenous Canaanite tribes rather than as fully-fledged monotheistic immigrants or conquerors is more or less the scholarly consensus, buttressed by archeological and other evidence. And buttressed by the absence of evidence for the origin stories more familiar to us.

It is also the scholarly consensus that the Israelites established two kingdoms, Judah and Israel, the former landlocked and covering Jerusalem and regions to the south, the latter (also known as the Northern Kingdom or Samaria) encompassing points north, the Galilee, and parts of contemporary Jordan. Whether these entities were preceded by a United Kingdom that subsequently fractured remains the subject of fierce debate.

What is certain is that the ancient Israelites were never a significant regional power, let alone the superpower of the modern imagination.

There is a reason the great empires of the Middle East emerged in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, and Anatolia – or from outside the region altogether – but never in Palestine.

It simply lacked the population and resource base for power projection. Jerusalem may be the holiest of cities on earth, but for almost the entirety of its existence, including the period in question, it existed as a village, provincial town or small city rather than metropolis.

Judah and Israel, like the neighboring Canaanite and Philistine entities during this period, were for most of their existence vassal states, their fealty and tribute fought over by rival empires – Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, etc. – rather than extracted from others.

Indeed, Israel was destroyed during the eighth century BCE by the Assyrians, who for good measured subordinated Judah to their authority, until it was in the sixth century BCE eliminated by the Babylonians, who had earlier overtaken the Assyrians in a regional power struggle.

The Babylonian Exile was not a wholesale deportation, but rather affected primarily Judah’s elites and their kin. Nor was there a collective return to the homeland when the opportunity arose several decades later after Cyrus the Great defeated Babylon and re-established a smaller Judah as a province of the Persian Achaemenid empire. Indeed, Mesopotamia would remain a key center of Jewish religion and culture for centuries afterwards.

Zionist claims of ancient title conveniently erase the reality that the ancient Israelites were hardly the only inhabitants of ancient Palestine, but rather shared it with Canaanites, Philistines, and others.

The second part of the claim, that the Jewish population was forcibly expelled by the Romans and has for 2,000 years been consumed with the desire to return, is equally problematic.

By the time the Romans conquered Jerusalem during the first century BCE, established Jewish communities were already to be found throughout the Mediterranean world and Middle East – to the extent that a number of scholars have concluded that a majority of Jews already lived in the diaspora by the time the first Roman soldier set foot in Jerusalem.

These communities held a deep attachment to Jerusalem, its Temple, and the lands recounted in the Bible. They identified as diasporic communities, and in many cases may additionally have been able to trace their origins to this or that town or village in the extinguished kingdoms of Israel and Judah. But there is no indication those born and bred in the diaspora across multiple generations considered themselves to be living in temporary exile or considered the territory of the former Israelite kingdoms rather than their lands of birth and residence their natural homeland, any more than Irish-Americans today feel they properly belong in Ireland rather than the United States.

Unlike those taken in captivity to Babylon centuries earlier, there was no impediment to their relocation to or from their ancestral lands, although economic factors appear to have played an important role in the growth of the diaspora.

By contrast, those traveling in the opposite direction appear to have done so, more often than not, for religious reasons, or to be buried in Jerusalem’s sacred soil.

Nations and nationalism did not exist 2,000 years ago.

Nor Zionist propagandists in New York, Paris, and London incessantly proclaiming that for two millennia Jews everywhere have wanted nothing more than to return their homeland, and invariably driving home rather than taking the next flight to Tel Aviv.

Nor insufferably loud Americans declaring, without a hint of irony or self-awareness, the right of the Jewish people to Palestine “because they were there first”.

Back to the Romans, about a century after their arrival a series of Jewish rebellions over the course of several decades, coupled with internecine warfare between various Jewish factions, produced devastating results.

A large proportion of the Jewish population was killed in battle, massacred, sold into slavery, or exiled. Many towns and villages were ransacked, the Temple in Jerusalem destroyed, and Jews barred from entering the city for all but one day a year.

Although a significant Jewish presence remained, primarily in the Galilee, the killings, associated deaths from disease and destitution, and expulsions during the Roman-Jewish wars exacted a calamitous toll.

With the destruction of the Temple Jerusalem became an increasingly spiritual rather than physical center of Jewish life. Jews neither formed a demographic majority in Palestine, nor were the majority of Jews to be found there.

Many of those who remained would in subsequent centuries convert to Christianity or Islam, succumb to massacres during the Crusades, or join the diaspora. On the eve of Zionist colonization locally-born Jews constituted less than five per cent of the total population.

As for the burning desire to return to Zion, there is precious little evidence to substantiate it. There is, for example, no evidence that upon their expulsion from Spain during the late fifteenth century, the Sephardic Jewish community, many of whom were given refuge by the Ottoman Empire that ruled Palestine, made concerted efforts to head for Jerusalem. Rather, most opted for Istanbul and Greece.

Similarly, during the massive migration of Jews fleeing persecution and poverty in Eastern Europe during the nineteenth century, the destinations of choice were the United States and United Kingdom.

Even after the Zionist movement began a concerted campaign to encourage Jewish emigration to Palestine, less than five per cent took up the offer. And while the British are to this day condemned for limiting Jewish immigration to Palestine during the late 1930s, the more pertinent reality is that the vast majority of those fleeing the Nazi menace once again preferred to relocate to the US and UK, but were deprived of these havens because Washington and London firmly slammed their doors shut.

Tellingly, the Jewish Agency for Israel in 2023 reported that of the world’s 15.7 million Jews, 7.2 million – less than half – reside in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

According to the Agency, “The Jewish population numbers refer to persons who define themselves as Jews by religion or otherwise and who do not practice another religion”.

It further notes that if instead of religion one were to apply Israel’s Law of Return, under which any individual with one or more Jewish grandparent is entitled to Israeli citizenship, only 7.2 of 25.5 million eligible individuals (28 per cent) have opted for Zion.

In other words, “Next Year in Jerusalem” was, and largely remains, an aspirational religious incantation rather than political program. For religious Jews, furthermore, it was to result from divine rather than human intervention.

For this reason, many equated Zionism with blasphemy, and until quite recently most Orthodox Jews were either non-Zionist or rejected the ideology altogether.

Returning to the irrelevant issue of ancestry, if there is one population group that can lay a viable claim of direct descent from the ancient Israelites it would be the Samaritans, who have inhabited the area around Mount Gerizim, near the West Bank city of Nablus, without interruption since ancient times.

Palestinian Jews would be next in line, although unlike the Samaritans they interacted more regularly with both other Jewish communities and their gentile neighbors.

Claims of Israelite descent made on behalf of Jewish diaspora communities are much more difficult to sustain. Conversions to and from Judaism, intermarriage with gentiles, absorption in multiple foreign societies, and related phenomena over the course of several thousand years make it a virtual certainty that the vast majority of Jews who arrived in Palestine during the late 19th and first half of the 20th century to reclaim their ancient homeland were in fact the first of their lineage to ever set foot in it.

By way of an admittedly imperfect analogy, most Levantines, Egyptians, Sudanese, and North Africans identify as Arabs, yet the percentage of those who can trace their roots to the tribes of the Arabian Peninsula that conquered their lands during the seventh and eighth centuries is at best rather small.

Ironically, a contemporary Palestinian, particularly in the West Bank and Galilee, is likely to have more Israelite ancestry than a contemporary diaspora Jew.

The Palestinians take their name from the Philistines, one of the so-called Sea Peoples who arrived on the southern coast of Canaan from the Aegean islands, probably Crete, during the late second millennium BCE.

They formed a number of city states, including Gaza, Ashdod, and Ashkelon. Like Judah and Israel they existed primarily as vassals of regional powers, and like them were eventually destroyed by more powerful states as well.

With no record of their extermination or expulsion, the Philistines are presumed to have been absorbed by the Canaanites and thereafter disappear from the historical record.

Sitting at the crossroads between Asia, Africa, and Europe, Palestine was over the centuries repeatedly conquered by empires near and far, absorbing a constant flow of human and cultural influences throughout.

Given its religious significance, pilgrims from around the globe also contributed to making the Palestinian people what they are today.

A common myth is that the Palestinian origin story dates from the Arab-Muslim conquests of the seventh century. In point of fact, the Arabs neither exterminated nor expelled the existing population, and the new rulers never formed a majority of the population.

Rather, and over the course of several centuries, the local population was gradually Arabized, and to a large extent Islamized as well.

So the question as to who was there first can be answered in several ways: “both” and “irrelevant” are equally correct.

Indisputably, the Zionist movement had no right to establish a sovereign state in Palestine on the basis of claims of ancient title, which was and remains its primary justification for doing so.

That it established an exclusivist state that not only rejected any rights for the existing Palestinian population but was from the very outset determined to displace and replace this population was and remains a historical travesty.

That it as a matter of legislation confers automatic citizenship on millions who have no existing connection with the land but denies it to those who were born there and expelled from it, solely on the basis of their identity, would appear to be the very definition of apartheid.

The above notwithstanding, and while the Zionist claim of exclusive Israeli sovereignty in Palestine remains illegitimate, there are today several million Israelis who cannot be simply wished away.

A path to co-existence will need to be found, even as the genocidal nature of the Israeli state, and increasingly of Israeli society as well, makes the endeavor increasingly complicated.

The question, thrown into sharp relief by Israel’s genocidal onslaught on the Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip, is whether co-existence with Israeli society can be achieved without first dismantling the Israeli state and its ruling institutions.

[hylianengineer]

Hey, wanna see something cool?

Project 562 is one Native photographer's quest to visit all of the 562+ Native American sovereign territories in what is now known as the United States, and photograph their people and cultures. One of the goals behind the project is to challenge stereotypes by showcasing the diversity of Native people and their experiences. The artist's name is Matika Wilbur and you should go look at her gallery.

[ghelgheli]

To understand the full context of the American-led ‘53 coup against Mosaddegh in Iran it is imo critical to recognize anti-communism as a proximate cause. Write-up below:

It is commonly understood that the early decades of the 20th century in Iran are characterized by British colonial extortion of material resources (mostly oil) within the boundaries of “Persia” (pre-1935) / “Iran” (post). The penultimate monarchical dynasty, the Qajars, were ousted in 1925—but the exile of the last Qajar Ahmad Shah was the direct result of the 1921 military coup led by then-Reza Khan (later the first “Pahlavi”, Reza Shah) which was directed by Britain. And at this time, British anxieties heavily featured concerns about Bolshevik encroachment from the Caucuses (not just through the newly-formed Azerbaijan SSR, but also through domestic sympathizers that fueled such projects as large as the transient Persian SSR, put down by Reza Khan after Soviet withdrawal).

This is stage-setting. Of course, by the 50s, in tandem with Cold War thread-pulling, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company constituted a thirsty tentacle of British imperialism sucking Abadan dry and contributing pittances to the local economy. It was in the midst of decades of growing resentment against this presence that Mosaddegh became Prime Minister in 1951 as the leader of the broad National Front coalition, and we are familiar with how intensely he campaigned for nationalizing the country’s oil and how pissy this made the British (here’s one and another post on the subject if not).

Here’s the detour: you may know that it was the CIA, an American institution, that orchestrated the ‘53 coup to oust Mosaddegh. But we were just now discussing threats against British colonial power in Iran. How did things get from B to A, as it were? We can’t take this for granted.

The British in fact spent the intervening two years trying to get Mosaddegh out by mobilizing the Shah and various right-wing (often clerical and mercantile) interests in Iran (this point, and much of what follows, draws from bits of Darioush Bayandor’s Iran and the CIA and Mostafa Elm’s Oil, Power, and Principle). They spent the same two years desperately trying to get the Americans on board with their efforts. But—here it is—the Truman regime and American foreign policy was in general intensely hostile to this strain of British interventionism in Iran, going so far as to issue warnings against it.

Why? Well, as you would expect, the Americans were concerned about Soviet influence in the region. Then-U.S ambassador in Tehran Henry Grady claimed that “Mosaddegh’s National Front party is the closest thing to a moderate and stable element in the national parliament” (Wall Street Journal, June 9 1951). This summarizes the American position at the time: Mosaddegh’s nationalist movement constituted the bastion against communism, and the US was very interested in the survival of this bastion lest Iran align with the USSR. 

What happened between 1951 and 1953 is that British pressure, operating through the Shah and more conservative elements of the Iranian government, jeopardized moderate support for Mosaddegh. With the right and center-right against him an entire wing of National Front coalition was falling off, and Mosaddegh found himself leaning more and more on the strengthening Tudeh Party, which had grown in numbers to militaristic significance during Mosaddegh’s tenure (including a network of at least 600 officers in the state military). Tudeh, of course, was the pro-Soviet communist party in Iran. And now the threads come together.

It was in this context of Mosaddegh, backed into a corner with almost only the communists behind him, that the CIA released a memo on November 20th, 1952 singing a very different tune:

It is of critical importance to the United States that Iran remain an independent and sovereign nation, not dominated by the USSR...

Present trends in Iran are unfavorable to the maintenance of control by a non-communist regime for an extended period of time. In wresting the political initiative from the Shah, the landlords, and other traditional holders of power, the National Front politicians now in power have at least temporarily eliminated every alternative to their own rule except the Communist Tudeh Party...

It is clear that the United Kingdom no longer possesses the capability unilaterally to assure stability in the area. If present trends continue unchecked, Iran could be effectively lost to the free world in advance of an actual Communist takeover of the Iranian Government. Failure to arrest present trends in Iran involves a serious risk to the national security of the United States.

And (!!!)

In light of the present situation the United States should adopt and pursue the following policies:...

Be prepared to take the necessary measures to help Iran to start up her oil industry and to secure markets for her oil so that Iran may benefit from substantial oil reserves...

Recognize the strength of Iranian nationalist feeling; try to direct it into constructive channels and be ready to exploit any opportunity to do so

It took two tries for the CIA to bring about a coup that removed Mosaddegh from power, but the objective of this coup was not the preservation of British control over Iranian resources; it was the maintenance of the Western sphere of influence against communist revolution (this was further prioritized by the arrival of the Eisenhower administration). In fact, after the coup the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now renamed British Petroleum) had to make room for six other companies from the US, France, and the Netherlands as part of a consortium, and this consortium would split profits with Iran 50/50. This is, to be clear, still colonialist extraction! But it constitutes a huge blow to British economic interests, because they were never the CIA’s goal. This is part of why the post-coup government is characterized far more as a US puppet than a British one.

It does remain that this was a sequence of events very much set in motion because of actions taken by the British government; by the time they managed to get shit to hit the fan, though, it was very much no longer in their control where the shit was flying.

[horreurscopes]

four days ago on monday my (radical queer black) therapist told me they were an adult when 9/11 happened, and not only is the current zionist propaganda being pushed by the united states the exact same playbook, but they said it was "hundreds of times more intense" due to social media. they said it was surreal to experience it again. i said being overwhelmed with feeling makes me feel like i'm making it about me, someone with no ties to the middle east. they said it's the most natural, human thing to experience horror and grief when being made to witnesses a holocaust of innocent people.

three months from turning 30 i thought i knew everything there is to know about the evils of the world, and yet i find myself surprised to realize there was still a last sliver of innocence within me left to lose. history will remember the short-lived american empire as the single most sadistic, brutal, barbaric, monstruous and bloodthirsty sovereign state to ever plague our species, and i can only hope to live long enough to see it burn to the ground. هي فلسطين من النهر إلى البحر

[paddysnuffles]

"Sovereign Citizens" are some of the stupidest people alive, I swear to god.

They go around claiming that they're not bound by their country's laws then turn around and threaten to sue people through the country's judicial system.

They claim to not be citizens but expect to have the rights of a citizen.

And Canadian ones are extra dumb because they argue about their Amendment rights when Canadians don't have Amendment rights, they have Charter rights.

[soon-palestine]

https://t.co/J3fEqiIOIk

Since June 2019, Sudan has been caught in a whirlwind of revolution, descending into a profound economic and political crisis. The initial optimism that followed President Omar H. al-Bashir's ousting has led to chaos, influenced by powerful international actors with their respective political agendas. The geopolitical quagmire is further complicated by the involvement of neighbouring countries.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's (PhD) recent visit to Port Sudan, where he met with Abdel Fattah al-Burhan (Gen.), the head of the Sudanese army and the Saudi- and Egyptian-backed Sovereign Council of Sudan, evidenced Ethiopia’s vested interests. The visit should be particularly important given Abiy’s prior engagement with Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) leader, whom he hosted in Addis Abeba in December 2023 to advocate for peace in Sudan.

Ethiopia's economic ties with Sudan are substantial. The slowdown in the 211.5 million dollar investment circuit between Khartoum and Addis Abeba has adversely affected both countries. Small businesses along the Sudan-Ethiopia border have borne the brunt of the ongoing conflict. Prime Minister Abiy’s visit can be seen as an effort to stabilise these economic ties and promote peace for mutual benefit. However, if influenced by Western countries or Saudi Arabia, Abiy’s administration may face political backlash from its ally, the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The role of international players was evident early on. The UAE was among several countries, including the United States (US), Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, that expressed solidarity with the Sudanese people. Saudi Arabia and the UAE notably provided three billion dollars in economic aid to Al-Burhan’s leadership, signalling their approval of the political shift in Khartoum. However, the situation in Sudan soon deteriorated into an ongoing civil war, leading to accusations of ethnic cleansing and further international scrutiny.

Sudan's civil war, however, extends beyond regional dynamics. Recent reports have uncovered the involvement of external actors in perpetuating the conflict.

In May this year, American Senator Ben Cardin, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, raised concerns about a UN Panel of Experts' report from the previous year, which provided evidence of the UAE supplying weapons to the RSF, a group notorious for its brutal tactics. US Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, echoed these concerns, calling for “external actors" to stop "fueling and prolonging this conflict and enabling these atrocities by funnelling weapons into Sudan.”

Abu Dhabi has been working vigorously to clear its name in response to these accusations. Through diplomatic channels and humanitarian aid, the UAE has sought to counter allegations of its involvement in the Sudanese civil war. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been funnelled to humanitarian organisations operating in Sudan through various UN agencies, a move seen by many as an attempt by Abu Dhabi to portray itself as a force for good amidst the chaos.

Despite these efforts, a recent UN report has further implicated the UAE. The report exposed that the RSF, supported by Abu Dhabi, committed international crimes by receiving and laundering gold illegally exported from Sudan. The UAE has vehemently denied any involvement in Sudan’s political turmoil or illegal gold trade practices, calling the allegations a political mockery of its humanitarian generosity.

While these revelations add layers of complexity, the international community’s response remains lacklustre. The US and the UN have the political and diplomatic clout to influence the situation, but the resolution of Sudan’s crisis ultimately lies in the hands of its people. The international community can only play a supportive role in the Sudanese-led efforts to resolve the political disorder, providing the necessary space and resources for Sudan to shape its destiny.

Although belatedly, the Addis Abeba-based African Union (AU) has also begun addressing the dire humanitarian situation in Sudan. The Chairperson of the AU High-Level Panel on Sudan, Mohamed Ibn Chambas (PhD), has begun to speak out about the severe impacts of the ongoing civil war. However, stronger official condemnations from the AU were expected, holding all groups and countries involved in the war accountable.

Ironically, Sudan’s revolution is no longer a story of a failed uprising but an ongoing civil war marked by international intrigue and regional power struggles.

[uwmspeccoll]

Milestone Monday

On this date, August 12 in 1898, The Hawaiian flag was lowered from ʻIolani Palace in an elaborate annexation ceremony and replaced with the flag of the United States to signify the transfer of sovereignty from the Republic of Hawaii to the United States. We mark this unhappy milestone with images from writer and editor G. Waldo Browne's (1851-1930) historical work The Paradise of the Pacific; The Hawaiian Islands, published in Boston by Dana Estes & Company in 1900.

This was certainly not the first indignity suffered by the sovereign people of these islands. In 1887, King Kalākaua was forced under threat of violence to sign the 1887 Constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. Drafted by white businessmen and lawyers, the document stripped the king of much of his authority and disenfranchised most Hawaiians and immigrant laborers and favored the wealthier, white elite.

In 1893, a group European-American business leaders and residents successfully engineered a coup d'état against Kalākaua's sister and successor Queen Liliʻuokalani and established the Republic of Hawaiʻi led by a non-indigenous oligarchy. Their goal, however, was the eventual annexation by the United States. Royalists staged a failed counter-coup in 1895. 123 troops were taken into custody as prisoners of war, along with a mass arrest of nearly 300 more men and women, including Queen Liliʻuokalani, as political prisoners intended to incapacitate the political resistance.

The coup of 1893 was certainly illegal, and this was recognized by the U.S. government following the Blount Report and the later Morgan Report. Nevertheless, the white leaders of the Republic still successfully realized their goal with the ultimate annexation by the United States on August 12, 1898. G. Waldo Browne notes that the lack of Native Hawaiians at the annexation ceremony was conspicuous:

A noticeable feature of the occasion was the small number of Hawaiians witnessing the event. They were showing their affection for their former queen, who had returned to her native land a few days before. . . . To-day their absence spoke, more forcibly for them than any words could have done, their feelings. In more ways than one the occasion reminded the spectators of a funeral, which it partly was: the last rites over the traditional government.

In 1993, Congress passed, and President Bill Clinton signed, a joint Apology Resolution regarding the 1893 overthrow: "The Congress—on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the illegal overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi on January 17, 1893, acknowledges the historical significance of this event which resulted in the suppression of the inherent sovereignty of the Native Hawaiian people." In 2009, however, the U.S. Supreme Court asserted that the Apology Resolution had no legally binding effects, unanimously deciding that Hawaii could not assert independent sovereignty as it had already been admitted into the Union over 30 years earlier.

View more posts on Hawaii.

View more Milestone Monday posts.

[4libertylover]

"No single person, including the President of the United States, should ever be given the power to make a medical decision for potentially millions of Americans. Freedom over one's physical person is the most basic freedom of all, and people in a free society should be sovereign over their own bodies. When we give government the power to make medical decisions for us, we in essence accept that the state owns our bodies." - Ron Paul

[usafphantom2]

On August 13, 1981, Jay Reid and I made the first SR-71 landing in Continental Europe. It was virtually unannounced—and not particularly welcomed.

There is no doubt that our presence was heralded to Soviet personnel on the ground by the sweet (and rather loud) sound of freedom: the distinctive double-sonic boom of the 2,200 mile-per-hour SR-71.

The Soviet Union claimed their sovereign territory extended 100 nautical miles from their land mass. The international norm is 12 miles. Heading inbound, we turned so that we flew within 12.5 miles of the Soviet coast in a 30-degree right-banked turn while obtaining radar imagery (or photographs) and recording Soviet electronic countermeasures.

This somewhat provocative technique was trolling: we stimulated the Soviet defenses, causing their radios and radar to bristle with electronic information, thus impelling them to reveal telltale electromagnetic signatures indicating the type of equipment, modes of operation, and limits. There were sometimes other American assets offshore, but within radio range, which also collected electronic transmissions.

Our indication was the illumination of the left-engine oil supply low-quantity red warning light. From our training and experience with the aircraft emergency checklists, we knew immediately that this required that we “land as soon as possible. While Jay was transmitting our mandatory abort reports via high-frequency, long-range radio, I contacted Norwegian Approach Control. Our orders were not to broadcast that we were flying an SR-71, but rather give the general type as “U.S. Air Force Tactical,” which really meant nothing to a controller concerned about arranging for emergency equipment, and notifying proper authorities of our emergency condition.

My call sign was “Belmont 86” and my transmissions to approach control were something like this:

“Bodø Approach, Belmont 86, six-zero miles west, declaring an in-flight emergency, request straight-in approach to land on runway zero seven.”

“Belmont 86, say aircraft type, nature of emergency, souls-on-board, and fuel remaining.”

“Bodø Approach, Belmont 86, US Air Force Tactical, engine problem, 2 souls, zero plus four-five fuel-on-board.

The reception was well taken, but when it came time to feed us, there is nothing on the table, but four different smelling bowls of fish! I asked for cornflakes, and thankfully, they rustled up some.

We are thankful that Norway treated the United States SR 71 crewmember so well on the four times that they were forced to land there while flying missions nearby in the 1980s.

@Habubrats71 via X