John Hanno – Page 245 – The Tarbabys Blog

Photos show the Mississippi River is so low that it’s grounding barges, disrupting the supply chain, and revealing a 19th-century shipwreck

Business Insider

Photos show the Mississippi River is so low that it’s grounding barges, disrupting the supply chain, and revealing a 19th-century shipwreck

Morgan McFall-Johnsen, Paola Rosa-Aquino – October 21, 2022

man sits on rock watches people walk across exposed river bottom to big rock island in the mississippi river — Randy Statler sits on a rock to watch people walk to Tower Rock, an attraction normally surrounded by the Mississippi River and only accessible by boat, in Perry County, Missouri, on October 19, 2022.Jeff Roberson/AP Photo

The Mississippi River is receding to historic lows amid drought across the Midwest.
Barges are getting stuck on sandbars and forced to reduce their cargo, disrupting a critical shipping route.
The low waters also revealed human remains and a 19th-century shipwreck.

The waters of the Mississippi River have fallen to historic lows, driving a shipping and industry crisis in the heart of the US.

The Mississippi is a major channel for shipping and tourism, running from northern Minnesota down through the Midwest plains and emptying through Louisiana, with numerous tributaries stretching east and west. All that boat-based commerce relies on the river’s deep waters, which can accommodate hefty vessels carrying cargo like soybeans, corn, fertilizer, and oil, or cruise-line passengers.

tow trailing five barges floats under bridge in low river waters with exposed dirt banks — A barge tow floats past the exposed banks of the Mississippi River in Vicksburg, Mississippi, on October 11, 2022.Rogelio V. Solis/AP Photo

For the past month, though, the water has dwindled so low that ships are getting stuck in the mud and sandbars at the river bottom. The Coast Guard imposed new restrictions on how low ships and barges can sit in the water. The price of shipping goods along the river skyrocketed, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, and the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) began emergency dredging to deepen the river at more than a dozen key choke points, where a backup of about 2,000 barges built up.

A NASA satellite image from October 7 shows the parched river, with barges queued up along its shorelines.

satellite image mississippi river low levels with dry banks exposed barges lined up along shores — An image from a Landsat satellite shows the parched Mississippi River north of Vicksburg, Mississippi, on October 7, 2022.NASA Earth Observatory/USGS Landsat

“This is the most severe we’ve ever seen in our industry in recent history,” Mike Ellis, the CEO of American Commercial Barge Line, told CNBC on Wednesday.

satellite image mississippi river with arrows pointing to barges lined up on shore — A close look at the satellite image reveals barges waiting on the river’s shores.NASA Earth Observatory/USGS Landsat

“That’s a significant impact to our supply chain,” Ellis said, adding, “We can’t get the goods there.”

The water receded so much that it revealed human remains and a 200-year-old shipwreck along the river’s new banks. In Missouri, people are walking across the dry, exposed riverbed to an island that’s normally only accessible by boat.

man looks at wooden shipwreck on banks of low river waters — A man walking along the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, stops to look at a shipwreck revealed by the low water level on October 17, 2022.Sara Cline/AP Photo

On the Louisiana coast, the river is so low that ocean water from the Gulf of Mexico began pushing upstream. USACE is racing to build a 1,500-foot-wide underwater levee to prevent saltwater from creeping further up the river, where it could contaminate drinking water, CNN reported on Tuesday. Already, there’s a drinking water advisory in effect for the coastal region of Plaquemines Parish.

Drought is drying the Mississippi River to record lows

paddlewheel boat full of windows passes between two bridges with low water on mississippi river — A passenger paddle wheeler passes between the river bridges in Vicksburg, Mississippi, on October 11, 2022.Rogelio V. Solis/AP Photo

Just a few months ago, the Mississippi River basin was flooding. This summer, historic rainfall caused flash flooding and overflowing rivers in Kentucky, St. Louis, Missouri, parts of Illinois, and Jackson, Mississippi.

Despite these extreme sporadic rainfall events, overall, the Midwest is in an abnormal drought. The Ohio River Valley and the Upper Mississippi aren’t getting enough rain to feed the giant river.

us drought map october 11 2022 — US Drought Monitor

Up and down the Mississippi, waters have dropped to levels approaching the record low set in 1988. In Memphis, Tennessee, the waters plunged below that record on Monday, according to data from the National Weather Service.

“There is no rain in sight, that is the bottom line,” Lisa Parker, spokeswoman for the USACE Mississippi Valley Division, told the Journal. “The rivers are just bottoming out.”

dock full of boats sits on mud with river waters receding in the background — Boats rest in mud at Mud Island Marina as the water on the Mississippi River continues to recede in Memphis, Tennessee, on October 19, 2022.Scott Olson/Getty Images

Scientists must conduct rigorous analysis to attribute any single event to climate change. However, this year’s extreme conditions of both drought and floods is consistent with what scientists have been predicting and observing: Rising global temperatures are driving more weather variability in the central US, fueling both more severe droughts and one-off rainfall events.

That’s because climate change, driven by all the greenhouse gasses that humans have released into the atmosphere, is changing the planet’s water cycle. Rising temperatures are increasing water evaporation and changing the atmospheric and ocean currents that distribute moisture across the globe.

Droughts are unearthing relics and remains of the past

wooden remains of a ship in dry dirt near green grass and trees — The remains of a ship lay on the banks of the Mississippi River after recently being revealed due to the low water level, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on October 17, 2022.Sara Cline/AP Photo

The severe drought along the river is so intense that it uncovered a centuries-old shipwreck. In early October, low water levels revealed the old sunken ship along the banks of the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Archaeologists believe these remains are from a ferry that sunk in the late 19th or early 20th century, The Associated Press reported.

Though this is the first time the ship has been fully exposed, it’s not a new discovery. Small parts of the vessel emerged from low waters in the 1990s.

“At that time the vessel was completely full of mud and there was mud all around it so only the very tip tops of the sides were visible,” Chip McGimsey, Louisiana’s state archaeologist, told the AP. “They had to move a lot of dirt just to get some narrow windows in to see bits and pieces,” McGimsey said.

aerial photo show long wooden shipwreck on dry banks of low green river — A shipwreck is exposed along the banks of the Mississippi River due to low water levels, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on October 18, 2022.Stephen Smith/AP Photo

McGimsey thinks the ship could be the Brookhill Ferry, which carried people and possibly horse-drawn wagons across the Mississippi, until it sunk in a storm in 1915, according to news stories from the State Times archives.

The river’s receding waters also led to a more gruesome discovery. On Saturday, a Mississippi woman found human remains while searching for rocks with her family on the banks of the drought-stricken river. The remains included a lower jawbone, rib bones, and some unidentified bone pieces, Scotty Meredith, Coahoma County’s chief medical examiner, told CNN.

“Because these water levels are so low that we knew it was only a short matter of time before human remains were found,” Crystal Foster, the woman who found the remains, told WMC.

They are the latest in a bevy of discoveries to surface from receding waters. Over the summer, multiple set of remains were found in Nevada’s Lake Mead, which fell to historically low levels amid climate change-fueled drought.

But it’s not all bad news. Shrinking bodies of water could be a boon for experts tasked with solving missing persons cases, according to Jennifer Byrnes, a forensic anthropologist who consults with the Clark County coroner’s office, which reviews deaths in Lake Mead.

“A big body of water disappearing is going to help us, from a forensic perspective,” Byrnes told Insider.

Correction: October 21, 2022 —A photo caption in an earlier version of this story misstated the location of Vicksburg. The city is in Mississippi, not Louisiana.

Trump’s years-long crusade against Ukraine has finally come home to roost as Republicans call for abandoning Kyiv

Insider

Trump’s years-long crusade against Ukraine has finally come home to roost as Republicans call for abandoning Kyiv

John Haltiwanger, Sonam Sheth – October 20, 2022

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California. Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Trump’s years-long crusade against Ukraine has finally come home to roost as Republicans call for abandoning Kyiv

US aid to Ukraine could be in jeopardy if Republicans win the House in the midterms.
Several GOP lawmakers and candidates have signaled they would support reducing or cutting off Ukraine aid.
“Ukraine unfortunately has been hijacked sometimes in domestic politics. Now and then that happens,” a Zelenskyy advisor told Insider.

In a phone call with Ukraine’s president this month, US President Joe Biden pledged continued solidarity with Ukraine as it battles Russia’s military invasion and illegal annexation of Ukrainian territory.

But that level of support could be in jeopardy if the GOP gains control of the House of Representatives in this year’s midterm elections.

The warning signs have been building for months.

In April, 10 House Republicans voted against a bill allowing the Biden administration to more easily lend military equipment to Ukraine. The following month, 57 House Republicans voted “no” on a nearly $40 billion aid package for Ukraine. Both measures ultimately passed the chamber.

“I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession and they’re not going to write a blank check to Ukraine,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who’s favored to become House Speaker if the GOP retakes the chamber, recently told Punchbowl News. “They just won’t do it.”

Ukraine has repeatedly defied expectations since Russia launched its unprovoked invasion, delivering a blow to the Russian military’s prestige. With the help of Western aid and at a massive personal cost, Ukrainian forces prevented Russia from seizing Kyiv in the early days of the war and more recently launched a counteroffensive that’s shown major signs of success.

But a far-right faction of the GOP has increasingly pushed against continued assistance to Ukraine, saying the billions the US has provided to Kyiv is too costly and not worth the risk of sparking a wider conflict with Russia.

President Donald Trump (right) meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (left) — In this Sept. 25, 2019 file photo President Donald Trump meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the InterContinental Barclay New York hotel during the United Nations General Assembly in New York.AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File

A remarkable shift

The GOP’s gradual shift away from Ukraine and toward Russia has been years in the making, but right-wing hostility toward Ukraine hit a pivotal point during Donald Trump’s presidency.

In addition to peddling the conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 US election, Trump was impeached in 2019 for withholding hundreds of millions in vital aid to Ukraine as it fought a war against Kremlin-backed separatists in the eastern Donbas region.

While withholding the aid, Trump and his allies pressured Zelenskyy, a political neophyte who won the 2019 election in a landslide victory, to launch an investigation targeting the Bidens ahead of the 2020 US election.

Foreign policy experts said Trump’s actions — dangling security assistance in exchange for political favors — were a threat to the US’s national security and bipartisan support for Ukraine. But the vast majority of congressional Republicans rallied to Trump’s defense, and ultimately, just one Senate Republican, Mitt Romney, voted to convict the former president over his actions.

In the years since, Trump has continued to take a controversial stance on Ukraine, praising Russian President Vladimir Putin’s justifications for invading as “genius” and “savvy.” The former president has often lauded the Russian leader, going out of his way to avoid criticizing Putin amid a historically contentious period in US-Russia relations.

Anti-Ukraine sentiment doesn’t just come from the top of the GOP. Putin has long been seen as a hero by the alt-right and white nationalists, and since Russia invaded Ukraine, many prominent right-wing politicians and media figures have moved in lockstep with the Kremlin, creating a feedback loop where each side amplifies and recycles the other’s propaganda.

On Fox News, for instance, the far-right host Tucker Carlson has repeatedly echoed a nonsense conspiracy theory, which originated in Moscow before taking root in the US, suggesting that Ukraine houses US-funded bioweapons labs.

Russian state-sponsored media outlets in turn frequently feature Carlson’s segments, and in March, Mother Jones reported that the Russian government instructed state media that it was “essential to use as much as possible fragments of broadcasts of the popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson” to spread negative information about Ukraine, the US, and NATO.

“When we see Fox News commentators, from our perspective, promote isolationist positions — that looks like support for Russia,” Mykola Kniazhytskyi, a member of Ukraine’s parliament, recently told NPR.

Some GOP opposition to continuing aid to Ukraine is tied to Trump’s “America First” policy vis-a-vis foreign affairs. Trump embraced a non-interventionist stance and was often critical of US spending abroad, particularly when it came to NATO and European security.

Congressional Republicans like Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene have echoed these sentiments in their criticism of US assistance to Ukraine.

It’s a remarkable shift for the Republican Party, which for years touted a hawkish position on foreign policy, especially as it related to leading adversaries like Russia. But under Trump’s stewardship, the party has become increasingly isolationist, and its growing opposition to aiding Ukraine is the latest and clearest sign of that.

Biden, meanwhile, has made the case that supporting Ukraine is part of a wider fight between democracy and autocracy. But a growing number of Republicans say sending aid to Kyiv should not be prioritized in Washington amid concerns over inflation and a potential recession.

“When people are seeing a 13% increase in grocery prices; energy, utility bills doubling … if you’re a border community and you’re being overrun by migrants and fentanyl, Ukraine is the furthest thing from your mind,” GOP Rep. Kelly Armstrong told Axios.

Democrats are more optimistic about retaining the Senate, but according to forecaster FiveThirtyEight, their chances have gone down in recent weeks based on polling in four key contests in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, and North Carolina.

And in Ohio, GOP Senate candidate JD Vance has made it clear that he would vote against sending more aid to Ukraine, saying in September that “we’ve got to stop the money spigot to Ukraine eventually. We cannot fund a long-term military conflict that I think ultimately has diminishing returns for our own country.”

‘The cards have been dealt’

There are some in Kyiv who believe that US support to Ukraine will continue regardless of which party controls Congress.

“Ukraine unfortunately has been hijacked sometimes in domestic politics. Now and then that happens,” Tymofiy Mylovanov, an advisor to Zelenskyy who previously served as Ukraine’s economic minister, told Insider. “We try our best to stay away from this. We would like to stay away from this.”

“Despite all that rhetoric, the support has always been bipartisan,” Mylovanov said, adding that the amount of assistance Ukraine needs is a small fraction of the US GDP. “In terms of what it means in the budget — it means nothing. It’s not trillions of dollars,” he said.

The US has provided over $20 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014. The Biden administration has sent Ukraine $18.2 billion in military aid, including roughly $17.6 billion since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in late February.

Other Western countries have provided important assistance to Ukraine, but the US has contributed the most of any individual country so far.

Weapons the US sent, including Javelin anti-tank missiles and High-Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), have turned the tables on Russia by blunting its previous advantages in armored vehicles and artillery. If US aid to Kyiv suddenly dried up, it would likely curtail Ukraine’s ability to oust sizable Russian columns from dug-in positions.

Trump, meanwhile, called for a negotiated settlement to the war during a rally earlier this month. “We must demand the immediate negotiation of a peaceful end to the war in Ukraine or we will end up in World War III,” he said at the time.

But Putin has shown little interest in negotiating, as evidenced by the drastic steps he’s taken in recent weeks. Beyond the illegal annexations, Putin announced a partial military mobilization — calling up hundreds of thousands of men — and imposed martial law in the regions Moscow claims are now part of Russia but does not fully control.

Russia has also ramped up missile and drone attacks against civilian areas while destroying key infrastructure across Ukraine.

But Mylovanov, the former economic minister who is also the president at the Kyiv School of Economics, said that while Russia wants Ukraine to surrender, the “Ukrainian people will not have it.”

“People think that what happens in Kyiv is decided either in Moscow or Washington or Brussels, or maybe Beijing. It is not, it’s decided in Ukraine,” Mylovanov said.

“The cards have been dealt,” he added, and it’s up to the US if it wants to be at the table.

Michigan family mourns loved one who came to Naples to help, acquires deadly infection

Naples Daily News

Michigan family mourns loved one who came to Naples to help, acquires deadly infection

Liz Freeman, Naples Daily News – October 20, 2022

A Michigan man who came to Naples to help a friend in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian died from a deadly bacteria that lives in standing water.

James Hewitt, of Jenison, Mich., fell in the water while helping a friend with his boat and he scratched his leg, according to FOX 17 in western Michigan.

He put anti-bacteria ointment on the wound and thought that was enough, his fiancé, Leah Dalano, told the news station.

Ian damage: Damage from Hurricane Ian at $2.2 billion in Collier; more than 3,500 buildings face major damage

Also: Collier County beach advisories ending but debris remains hazardous from Ian

“He just helped so many people, that’s just what he wanted to do,” Delano told FOX17.

The hull of a sail boat destroyed by Hurricane Ian sits among other debris by Naples Bay near 10th Avenue South in Naples, FL, on Tuesday, October 4, 2022.

Hewitt went to a hospital after his leg had become swollen and he was in pain.

That’s when doctors diagnosed the infection as vibrio vulnificus, a bacteria found in warm salty or brackish waters that can enter the body through open wounds.

“It goes after your vital organs and it leaves you with horrible blisters near the area,” Delano told FOX 17. “He got scratched on his leg and it was unrecognizable.”

Ribbons on cars: SWFL residents finding ribbons, markings on their damaged homes in Hurricane Ian aftermath

One of his sons, Kendall Smoes, posted on his Facebook page five days ago that his father fought hard but died peacefully with his family and his fiancé by his side. Smoes could not be reached for comment.

The state Department of Health in Collier put out an advisory Oct. 4 about the danger of vibrio vulnificus and how the bacteria can grow quickly. Sewage spills in coastal waters caused by Ian can increase the bacteria levels.

“Vibrio vulnificus can cause and infection of the skin when open wounds are exposed to warm sea water,” the advisory said. “These infections may lead to skin breakdown and ulcers. Anyone can get vibrio vulnificus infection; however infections can be severe for people with weakened immune systems, especially people who have chronic liver disease or take medications that lower the body’s ability to fight germs.”

Since the beginning of 2022, there have been three cases in Collier and 28 in Lee County. Statewide there have been 64 cases, according to the state health department’s reportable disease website.

There is one case of vibrio vulnificus reported this month in Collier that is tied to Ian, according to Kristine Hollingsworth, spokeswoman for the state health department in Collier

She could not disclose details. It is unrelated to the recent vibrio vulnificus death of Hewitt, who came to Naples from Michigan.

“The person from Michigan would count as a case for Michigan (state of residency), even though we did the investigation,” she said.

Vibrio vulnificus can invade the bloodstream, causing a severe life-threatening illness with symptoms like fever, chills, decreased blood pressure (septic shock), and blistering skin lesions.

It does not spread person-to-person. If someone is concerned that they may have been exposed to vibrio vulnificus and experiencing symptoms, they should seek medical care.

For more information, go to the Florida Department of Health at floridahealth.gov/diseases-and-conditions/vibrio-infections/vibrio-vulnificus/index.html

Study: Cancer-causing gas leaking from CA stoves, pipes

Associated Press

Study: Cancer-causing gas leaking from CA stoves, pipes

Drew Costley – October 20, 2022

Gas stoves in California homes are leaking cancer-causing benzene, researchers found in a new study published on Thursday, though they say more research is needed to understand how many homes have leaks.

In the study, published in Environmental Science and Technology on Thursday, researchers also estimated that over 4 tons of benzene per year are being leaked into the atmosphere from outdoor pipes that deliver the gas to buildings around California — the equivalent to the benzene emissions from nearly 60,000 vehicles. And those emissions are unaccounted for by the state.

The researchers collected samples of gas from 159 homes in different regions of California and measured to see what types of gases were being emitted into homes when stoves were off. They found that all of the samples they tested had hazardous air pollutants, like benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene (BTEX), all of which can have adverse health effects in humans with chronic exposure or acute exposure in larger amounts.

Of most concern to the researchers was benzene, a known carcinogen that can lead to leukemia and other cancers and blood disorders, according to the National Cancer Institute.

The finding could have major implications for indoor and outdoor air quality in California, which has the second highest level of residential natural gas use in the United States.

“What our science shows is that people in California are exposed to potentially hazardous levels of benzene from the gas that is piped into their homes,” said Drew Michanowicz, a study co-author and senior scientist at PSE Healthy Energy, an energy research and policy institute. “We hope that policymakers will consider this data when they are making policy to ensure current and future policies are health-protective in light of this new research.” 0:01 0:38 Scroll back up to restore default view.

Homes in the Greater Los Angeles, the North San Fernando Valley, and the San Clarita Valley areas had the highest benzene in gas levels. Leaks from stoves in these regions could emit enough benzene to significantly exceed the limit determined to be safe by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazards Assessment.

This finding in particular didn’t surprise residents and health care workers in the region who spoke to The Associated Press about the study. That’s because many of them experienced the largest-known natural gas leak in the nation in Aliso Canyon in 2015.

Back then, 100,000 tons of methane and other gases, including benzene, leaked from a failed well operated by Southern California Gas Co. It took nearly four months to get the leak under control and resulted in headaches, nausea and nose bleeds.

Dr. Jeffrey Nordella was a physician at an urgent care in the region during this time and remembers being puzzled by the variety of symptoms patients were experiencing. “I didn’t have much to offer them,” except to help them try to detox from the exposures, he said.

That was an acute exposure of a large amount of benzene, which is different from chronic exposure to smaller amounts, but “remember what the World Health Organization said: there’s no safe level of benzene,” he said.

Kyoko Hibino was one of the residents exposed to toxic air pollution as a result of the Aliso Canyon gas leak. After the leak, she started having a persistent cough and nosebleeds and eventually was diagnosed with breast cancer, which has also been linked to benzene exposure. Her cats also started having nosebleeds and one recently passed away from leukemia.

“I’d say let’s take this study really seriously and understand how bad (benzene exposure) is,” she said.

Israel holds fire amid mounting pressure from Ukraine

The Hill

Israel holds fire amid mounting pressure from Ukraine

Laura Kelly – October 19, 2022

Israel is rejecting desperate calls from Ukraine to supply advanced air defense systems to counter Russia’s use of Iranian kamikaze drones, intent on maintaining strategic ties between Jerusalem and Moscow.

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz on Wednesday said that Israel “will not provide weapon systems,” but said that Jerusalem will continue to side with Western support for Kyiv.

“We have asked the Ukrainians to share information regarding their needs and offered to assist in developing a life-saving early-warning system,” he reportedly said in remarks to ambassadors from the European Union.

Israel has sent humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, publicly condemned Russia’s invasion and is reportedly sharing intelligence with Kyiv.

But it has held back on strategic military aid, hoping to preserve its Moscow ties.

Those ties include Israeli communication with Russia in Syria to target Iranian weapons transfers through the country, and Israeli concerns for the Jewish diaspora in Russia.

Gantz’s rejection of military assistance came after the Ukrainian Embassy in Israel officially appealed for air defense systems following two weeks of devastating attacks by Russia using the Iranian drones.

The Shahed-136, nicknamed the kamikaze drones, have killed civilians in their homes and on the street, and destroyed critical infrastructure that threatens the country’s electricity and water supplies as winter temperatures begin to take hold.

The Ukrainian Embassy in Israel, in a letter sent Tuesday, asked the Israeli government to enter into “mutual cooperation in the field of air/missile defense,” warning that Iran’s battlefield experience for its weapons systems is a direct threat to the Middle East.

“The request of the Ukrainian side to the Israeli side to support above mentioned proposals is based on the consideration that positive experience gained by Iran of using the above-mentioned weapons in Ukraine will lead to further improvement of Iranian systems,” the letter read, and re ported by Axios.

The letter asks for Israel’s Iron Dome system, which last had a 97 percent success rate at intercepting nearly 600 missiles shot from the Gaza Strip over the course of a few days in August.

“We are a country at war ourselves, I don’t think we can afford emptying our warehouses,” said Uzi Rubin, founder and first director of the Israel Missile Defense Organization in the Israel Ministry of Defense and a fellow with the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security.

“We export weapons. We are one of the 10 largest exporters. But that means if you want an Israeli system, you have to contract for it and wait for it to be manufactured.”

Other air defense systems Ukraine requested in its letter are the Barak-8, David’s Sling and Arrow Interceptor — advanced and layered air defenses that can intercept medium- to long-range rockets and missiles, and are increasingly used to intercept drones.

Other requests, like the Iron Beam — a high energy laser weapon system developed by Israeli weapons manufacturer Rafael — are not operational. And while the Ukrainians appeared to request a Patriot Missile Defense System from the Israelis, that system is made by the U.S. and is deployed in Saudi Arabia for missile and drone defense.

While the U.S. Army has possession of two Iron Dome batteries, the administration has not sent any signals it’s looking to send those to Ukraine.

Becca Wasser, senior fellow for the defense program at the Center for New American Security, said one reason the U.S. may not send its own Iron Dome is that it only has two, and only one is operational in Guam.

“A few years ago the [House Armed Services Committee] was talking about the U.S. sending one of its Iron Dome batteries to Ukraine, long before the recent events took place with Russia’s invasion,” she said.

“But at the end of the day … the United States does not have that many Iron Dome systems.”

But she added there has been a recent U.S. push “to have other allies and partners step up in providing air defenses to Ukraine.”

Seth Frantzman, author of “Drone Wars: Pioneers, Killing Machines, Artificial Intelligence, and the Battle for the Future,” said that early detection is more critical than expensive air defense systems, adding the Iranian-made kamikaze drone is slow-moving and “sounds like a kind of flying lawn mower.”

“Ukraine needs the right kind of radars to detect the drones,” he said, giving them time to decide how to shoot them down with war planes, shoulder-launch rockets or small arm fire.

Germany, Spain, NATO and the U.S. have sent, and are sending, more air defense systems to Ukraine, but Kyiv is pleading for more.

“Iranian drones that attack Ukraine were probably produced to attack Israel,” tweete d Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. “Israel knows better than anyone what it’s like to fight terrorists. We ask Israel to give us air defense systems and defensive weapons – they are critically important when dealing with terrorists.”

Frantzman said Israel is familiar with the ways Russia appears to be using Iranian drones.

“It’s actually being used by the Russians just to bludgeon and murder the civilian population and terrorize people. Israel has faced similar types of indiscriminate rocket fire and now a bit of drone fire, that’s why it built systems like Iron Dome,” he said. “So from Israel’s perspective, it’s like Israel’s already seen this.”

While the Biden administration has quietly pushed for Jerusalem to more firmly stand up for Ukraine against Russia’s aggression, it has held back from public calls that Israel provide critical military defense to Kyiv.

“We’ve said that we’ve been — pleased is maybe the wrong word — but we’ve been fine with Israel’s complicated relationship [with Russia],” U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides said in an interview with The Hill in September.

“It’s a little complicated for Israel obviously, but we push them every day,” he added.

A few isolated voices in Israel have said Iran’s drone sales and expected missile sales to Russia are reason enough to justify military deliveries.

“This morning it was reported that Iran is transferring ballistic missiles to Russia. There is no longer any doubt where Israel should stand in this bloody conflict,” Israel’s Minister for Diaspora Affairs Nachman Shai tweete d on Sunday. “The time has come for Ukraine to receive military aid as well, just as the USA and NATO countries provide.”

Rubin said for Israel, Russia’s use of Iranian drones could present an intelligence-gathering opportunity for future conflicts with Tehran.

“Of course [the Iranians] learn more — the conflict in Ukraine is a very high-intensity conflict, they learn from that. But at same time we also learn from how they’re being combatted, we see what’s happening and we learn from that too.”

And Russia has issued stark warnings of severing relations with Israel if Jerusalem shifts its position.

“It seems Israel will supply weapons to the Kyiv regime. A very reckless move. It will destroy all diplomatic relations between our countries,” Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia and a key Putin ally, wrote on Telegram.

Rubin said that Medvedev’s threats resonated in Israel.

“Israel declared neutrality because we have relations with Russia. It’s something I don’t think we can easily give up,” he said.

Israel is set to go to elections in November, and there’s little public pressure for the government to more robustly support Ukraine. Polling dat a from March found that only 22 percent of Israelis supported sending military assistance to Ukraine, and that voters are largely focused on the r ising cost of living.

“I, as an Israeli would like to keep our channels to Russia open, but I am a citizen, just a taxpayer and a voter, I’m not making the decisions,” Rubin said.

Trump drops F-bombs and shares potentially sensitive information in newly released audio

Yahoo! Entertainment

Trump drops F-bombs and shares potentially sensitive information in newly released audio

Stephen Proctor – October 19, 2022

Previously unheard audio featuring former President Donald Trump aired Tuesday on Anderson Cooper 360. Famed journalist Bob Woodward recorded 20 conversations he had with the former president, with Trump’s knowledge, from 2016 through 2020. Trump, who is facing possible legal peril for taking classified documents when he left office, appears in one recording to share sensitive information with Woodward.

“I have built a weapons system that nobody’s ever had in this country before,” Trump said. “We have stuff that you haven’t even seen or heard about. We have stuff that Putin and Xi have never heard about before.”

Trump also spoke of Russia’s nuclear capabilities.

“Getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing, alright?” Trump said. “Especially because they have 1,332 nuclear f***ing warheads.”

Throughout his presidency, Trump was criticized for his apparent affinity for authoritarian leaders, which he spoke about to Woodward.

“It’s funny, the relationships I have, the tougher and meaner they are, the better I get along with them. You know? Explain that to me someday, OK,” Trump said. “But maybe it’s not a bad thing. The easy ones are the ones I maybe don’t like as much or don’t get along with as much.”

In another recording, Trump brags about how he handled being impeached, while at the same time taking shots at two of his predecessors who also faced impeachment.

“There’s nobody that’s tougher than me,” Trump said. “Nobody’s tougher than me. You asked me about impeachment. I’m under impeachment, and you said, you know, you just act like you won the f***ing race. Nixon was in a corner with his thumb in his mouth. Bill Clinton took it very, very hard. I just do things, OK?”

In 2016, Woodward asked then-candidate Trump about having his staff sign non-disclosure agreements. Woodward recorded Trump talking to his staff about who had and who had not yet signed one. Trump was confident in the effectiveness of these agreements at the time, but a multitude of former officials wrote tell-all books after leaving the administration.

Woodward plans to release the more than eight hours of recordings as an audiobook titled The Trump Tapes on Oct. 25.

Former DOJ official says Trump’s reaction to the January 6 panel is starting to look like the makings of an insanity defense

Business Insider

Former DOJ official says Trump’s reaction to the January 6 panel is starting to look like the makings of an insanity defense

Cheryl Teh – October 17, 2022

The former DOJ official Neal Katyal commented on Donald Trump’s 14-page response to the DOJ.
Katyal said he did not think the response would help Trump unless he was trying to plead insanity.
He said Trump’s response showed “evidence” of an insanity plea.

Neal Katyal, a former Justice Department official, says former President Donald Trump’s written response to the House Capitol-riot panel’s intention to subpoena him looks like an insanity defense.

Katyal — a law professor and an Obama-era acting solicitor general — made an appearance on NBC on Sunday, three days after the House panel investigating January 6, 2021, unanimously voted to subpoena Trump. The subpoena will compel the former president to cooperate with the committee or be held in contempt of Congress and referred to the Justice Department for prosecution — much like Trump’s allies Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro.

In response to the decision, Trump sent a document to the panel that started with the sentence, “THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2020 WAS RIGGED AND STOLEN!” and contained multiple baseless claims of election fraud. It also included four photos of the crowd near the Washington Monument on January 6, 2021.

“Yeah, so, this is a 14-page screed, Jonathan, that’s very hard to follow. But it does seem to dig the hole in deeper for Donald Trump,” Katyal told the MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart.

“I can’t see it in any legal way helping him unless he is trying to go for the insanity defense, of which this paper seems, you know, to be some evidence of,” Katyal added.

Katyal also said he thought it was a “pretty fanciful” idea that Trump would just give in and testify to the panel because of the congressional subpoena.

“I mean, this is a man who took the Fifth Amendment more than 400 times the last time he was questioned under oath. And I doubt he’s suddenly become eager to testify,” Katyal said.

Katyal was referencing Trump’s deposition in August during New York Attorney General Letitia James’ investigation into the Trump Organization’s business practices, during which he pleaded the Fifth more than 440 times and answered only a question about what his name was.

Katyal added that he thought Attorney General Merrick Garland would indict Trump, as there’s overwhelming evidence to do so and “no contrition whatsoever” on Trump’s part.

A representative at Trump’s post-presidential press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Russia faces turmoil, says former diplomat who resigned over war

Reuters

Russia faces turmoil, says former diplomat who resigned over war

Guy Faulconbridge – October 17, 2022

LONDON (Reuters) -President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has set Russia on a path towards turmoil that could unseat the Kremlin chief, trigger civil war or even ultimately break the country apart, said a Russian diplomat who resigned over the war.

Boris Bondarev, a counsellor at Russia’s permanent mission to the United Nations in Geneva, resigned in May because he felt the war had shown how repressive and warped his homeland had become.

In a 6,500 word critique of Putin’s Russia, Bondarev said the state was infested by sycophantic “yes men”, enabling Putin to make big decisions in an echo chamber of his own propaganda.

“If Putin is kicked out of office, Russia’s future will be deeply uncertain,” Bondarev, who worked at the foreign ministry from 2002 to 2022, said in an essay in Foreign Affairs.

“It’s entirely possible his successor will try to carry on the war, especially given that Putin’s main advisers hail from the security services. But no one in Russia commands his stature, so the country would likely enter a period of political turbulence. It could even descend into chaos.”

The foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Bondarev’s article. The Kremlin has dismissed such views as deeply flawed and says Putin’s popularity has been shown repeatedly at the ballot box.

Putin said on Friday that he had no regrets about the “special military operation”, which he casts as an existential battle with an aggressive and arrogant West that he says wants to destroy and carve up Russia.

But nearly eight months into a war that has triggered the biggest confrontation with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, even Russia’s most basic aims are far from achieved.

The vast army of a former superpower has been humbled on the field of battle by a much smaller Ukrainian force backed up with weapons, intelligence and advice from Western powers led by the United States. Tens of thousands have died on both sides, according to U.S. intelligence.

RUSSIA’S COLLAPSE?

Bondarev, who casts himself as a “diplomat in exile” who stepped off the “crazy train”, is the son of an economist at the foreign trade ministry and an English teacher at Moscow’s elite State Institute of Foreign Relations (MGIMO).

He details how diplomats who cabled made-up repetitions of Russian propaganda back to Moscow were rewarded.

“Diplomats who wrote such fiction received applause from their bosses and saw their career fortunes rise,” Bondarev said.

“Moscow wanted to be told what it hoped to be true – not what was actually happening. Ambassadors everywhere got the message, and they competed to send the most over-the-top cables.”

Any ceasefire in Ukraine, he said, would give Putin time.

“Any ceasefire will just give Russia a chance to rearm before attacking again,” he said. “There’s only one thing that can really stop Putin, and that is a comprehensive rout.”

But, Bondarev said, those who dreamed about Russia’s implosion might want to consider the consequences.

“Russians might unify behind an even more belligerent leader than Putin, provoking a civil war, more outside aggression, or both,” he said.

“If Ukraine wins and Putin falls, the best thing the West can do isn’t to inflict humiliation.”

The humiliations Russians suffered after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union should, Bondarev said, be a lesson for the West.

“Providing aid would also allow the West to avoid repeating their behaviour from the 1990s, when Russians felt scammed by the United States, and would make it easier for the population to finally accept the loss of their empire.”

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

As FBI probed Jan. 6, many agents sympathized with insurrection, according to newly released email

USA Today

As FBI probed Jan. 6, many agents sympathized with insurrection, according to newly released email

Will Carless, USA TODAY – October 15, 2022

A “sizable percentage” of FBI employees felt sympathy towards the Jan. 6 insurrectionists, and considered the riot at the U.S. Capitol “no different than the BLM protests,” according to a warning email sent to a top FBI official by someone with apparent connections to the bureau.

In the email, which is included in a trove of documents released by the bureau this week, the sender’s name is redacted. The documents indicate the message came from an email address outside the bureau, though the subject line is “Internal concerns.”

The email was sent to Paul Abbate, now the second highest official at the FBI, who responded an hour later, thanking the sender for the message.

USA TODAY investigation: FBI agents monitor social media. As domestic threats rise, the question is who they’re watching

FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate at a news conference in 2021.

The Jan. 13, 2021, email contained a stark warning about attitudes toward the insurrection within the bureau:

“I literally had to explain to an agent from a ‘blue state’ office the difference between opportunists burning and looting during protests that stemmed legitimate grievance to police brutality vs. an insurgent mob whose purpose was to prevent the execution of democratic processes at the behest of a sitting president,” the email states. “One is a smattering of criminals, the other is an organized group of domestic terrorists.”

And it relayed concerns from agents within the bureau:

“I’ve spoken to multiple African American agents who have turned down asks to join SWAT because they do not trust that every member of their office’s SWAT team would protect them in an armed conflict.”

More: Police were warned about right-wing extremism as far back as 2009

Michael German, a former FBI special agent and a fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program at New York University and an outspoken critic of the bureau, said the email didn’t surprise him.

“It didn’t tell me anything I didn’t expect already, but I think it’s important to substantiate the suspicions me and many other people had,” German said. “They clearly are on notice about a much more serious problem within the FBI.”

An FBI spokesperson declined to comment on the email.

While there may be some sympathy towards the Capitol rioters within the FBI, the bureau’s investigations have nonetheless contributed to Justice Department prosecutions of almost 900 people who were there that day. Scores of defendants have received jail time for their crimes. Dozens more have agreed to cooperate with the prosecutions.

But there has been pushback. Earlier this year, FBI special agent Stephen Friend was suspended for refusing to participate in prosecutions of Jan. 6 protesters. Friend’s stance was praised by Republican lawmakers, who called him “patriotic.”

The FBI email sheds more light on a problem that has been endemic in American law enforcement for decades, said Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, who has studied white supremacists since the 1980s.

“The situation has been serious enough that the FBI for almost 20 years, has been warning of insider threats from cops,” Beirich said. “And the thing is, nobody’s done anything about it.”

Military extremists: How the Navy and Marine Corps quietly discharged white supremacists

A 2009 warning about extremists recruiting members of the military and police officers went largely ignored by the federal government, and resulted in the ostracizing of the author of the study, a senior Department of Homeland Security official.

Ten years later, a 2019 study by the Center for Investigative Reporting found that hundreds of active duty police officers were active inside racist, Islamophobic and anti-government groups on Facebook. Another study by the Plain View Project compiled hundreds of hateful and racist posts made on Facebook by police officers. Last year, USA TODAY found more than 200 people who claimed they worked for police departments in a leaked database of members of the Oath Keepers, an armed extremist group that is now the subject of one of the biggest prosecutions emerging from Jan. 6.

Oath Keepers trial: 1800s-inspired defense meets most significant Jan. 6 prosecution yet

And as USA TODAY reported last month, the FBI itself has also been heavily criticized for directing domestic extremism investigations overwhelmingly towards left-wing targets.

The FBI has a long and troubled history of focusing on groups on the left of the political spectrum while largely turning a blind eye to domestic extremists on the far-right, Matthew Guariglia, a policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told USA TODAY.

“Both historically speaking and in current events, we’ve seen the amount of surveillance that has been marshaled specifically against groups fighting for racial justice increased exponentially than from what we’ve seen being monitored on the right,” said Guariglia, who holds a doctorate in the history of police surveillance.

Beirich said given the conservative nature of law enforcement, there is bound to be some “overlap” into far-right extremism within the ranks. The biggest problem is a lack of action taken by departments to root out extremists on the payroll, she said.

“Even right now, there aren’t policies in a whole lot of departments about what to do with these guys — there’s no screening mechanisms,” Beirich said. “There’s no effort to really deal with it.”

Mortality rate of wounded Russian soldiers exceeds 50%

Ukrayinska Pravda

Mortality rate of wounded Russian soldiers exceeds 50%

Olha Hlushchenko – October 15, 2022

Due to the low quality of medical care and the reluctance of the Russian command to evacuate the seriously wounded to Russia, the mortality rate among the latter exceeds 50%.

Source: General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces

Details: The General Staff reports that, according to available information, many injured are being admitted to medical facilities in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.

Thus, in one of Donetsk’s hospitals, about 100 wounded were admitted this week.

Hospitals are overcrowded in the city of Tokmak, Zaporizhzhia Oblast. According to information from local residents, civilians are not being admitted to hospital because doctors are overloaded and there is a lack of hospital beds.

“Due to the low quality of medical care and the refusal by the Russian occupying forces’ command to evacuate the seriously wounded to Russia, the mortality rate among their injured service personnel exceeds 50%”, the General Staff noted.