October 2023 – Page 5 – The Tarbabys Blog

The Hamas tunnel city beneath Gaza – a hidden frontline for Israel

Reuters

The Hamas tunnel city beneath Gaza – a hidden frontline for Israel

Jonathan Saul and Stephen Farrell – October 26, 2023

FILE PHOTO: An Israeli soldier keeps guard next to an entrance to what the Israeli military say is a cross-border attack tunnel dug from Gaza to Israel, on the Israeli side of the Gaza Strip border near Kissufim — An Israeli soldier keeps guard next to an entrance to what the Israeli military say is a cross-border attack tunnel dug from Gaza to Israel, on the Israeli side of the Gaza Strip border near Kissufim

FILE PHOTO: A general view shows the interiors of what the Israeli military say is a cross-border attack tunnel dug from Gaza to Israel, on the Israeli side of the Gaza Strip border near Kissufim — A general view shows the interiors of what the Israeli military say is a cross-border attack tunnel dug from Gaza to Israel, on the Israeli side of the Gaza Strip border near Kissufim

JERUSALEM/LONDON (Reuters) – What lies in wait for Israeli ground troops in Gaza, security sources say, is a Hamas tunnel network hundreds of kilometres long and up to 80 metres deep, described by one freed hostage as “a spider’s web” and by one expert as the “Viet Cong times 10”.

The Palestinian Islamist group has different kinds of tunnels running beneath the sandy 360-sq-km coastal strip and its borders – including attack, smuggling, storage and operational burrows, Western and Middle East sources familiar with the matter said.

The United States believes Israel’s special forces will face an unprecedented challenge having to battle Hamas militants while trying to avoid killing hostages held below ground, a U.S. official said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin noted that Iraq’s nine-month-long battle to retake the city of Mosul from Islamic State might prove to have been easier than what awaits the Israelis – likely to be “a lot of IEDs (improvised explosive devices), a lot of booby traps, and just a really grinding activity”.

Even though Israel has invested heavily in tunnel detection – including a sensor-equipped underground barrier it called an “iron wall” – Hamas is still thought to have working tunnels to the outside world.

After the last round of hostilities in 2021, Hamas’s leader in Gaza, Yehya Al-Sinwar, said: “They started saying they destroyed 100kms of Hamas tunnels. I am telling you, the tunnels we have in the Gaza Strip exceed 500kms. Even if their narrative is true, they only destroyed 20% of the tunnels.”

HOSTAGE WITNESS

There has been no corroboration of the comment by Sinwar, who is thought to be hiding underground ahead of an expected Israeli ground offensive.

But the estimate of hundreds of kilometres is widely accepted by security analysts, even though the blockaded coastal strip is only 40km (25 miles) long.

With Israel in full control of Gaza’s air and sea access and 59km of its 72km land borders – with Egypt 13km to the south – tunnels provide one of the few ways for Hamas to bring in weapons, equipment and people.

While it and other Palestinian groups are secretive about their networks, recently released Israeli hostage, 85-year-old Yocheved Lifshitz, said: “It looked like a spider’s web, many, many tunnels,” adding: “We walked kilometres under the ground.”

Hamas believes that with Israel’s overwhelming aerial and armoured military superiority, tunnels are a way to cut some of those advantages by forcing Israel’s soldiers to move underground in cramped spaces the Hamas fighters know well.

An Israeli military spokesperson said on Thursday: “I won’t elaborate on the number of kilometres of tunnels but it is a high number, built under schools and residential areas.”

Urging the United Nations Security Council to intervene, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has called for an immediate cessation of “aggression” on Gaza and moves toward “a political solution instead of military and security solutions”.

UNDERGROUND CITY

Israeli security sources say Israel’s heavy aerial bombardments have caused little damage to the tunnel infrastructure with Hamas naval commandos able to launch a seaborne attack targeting coastal communities near Gaza this week.

“Although we have been attacking massively for days and days, the (Hamas) leadership is pretty much intact, as is the ability to command and control, the ability even to try and launch counter attacks,” said Amir Avivi, a former brigadier general whose senior positions in the Israeli military included deputy commander of the Gaza division, tasked with tackling tunnels.

“There is a whole city all over Gaza underneath with depths of 40-50 metres. There are bunkers and headquarters and storage and of course they are connected to more than a thousand rocket launching positions.”

Other sources estimated depths of up to 80 metres.

One Western security source said: “They run for miles. They are made of concrete and very well made. Think of the Viet Cong times 10. They have had years and lots of money with which to work with.”

Another security source, from one of Israel’s neighbouring countries, said Hamas’s tunnels from Egypt remain active.

“The supply chain is still intact these days. The network involved in facilitating co-ordination are some Egyptian military officers. It is unclear if there is knowledge of this by the Egyptian army,” he said.

A small number of narrower, deep, smuggling tunnels were still operating until recently between Egypt and Gaza, according to two security sources and a trader in the Egyptian city of El Arish, but they had slowed to a near-halt since the Israel-Hamas war started.

Egyptian officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. On Wednesday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said while inspecting military units in Suez that the army’s role was to secure Egyptian borders.

LONG GAME

Hamas was created in Gaza in 1987 and is thought to have begun digging tunnels in the mid-1990s, when Israel granted Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization some degree of self-rule in Gaza.

The tunnel network is a key reason why Hamas is stronger in Gaza than in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where Israel’s settlements, military bases and monitoring devices make it harder to get anything in from Jordan.

Tunneling became easier in 2005 when Israel pulled its soldiers and settlers out of Gaza, and when Hamas won power in a 2006 election.

Shortly afterwards Hamas’s military wing, the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, captured Gilad Shalit and killed two other Israeli soldiers after burrowing 600 metres to raid the Kerem Shalom base on the Gaza border.

A year later Hamas launched a military strike against Arafat’s forces in Gaza using tunnel-mounted attacks.

Although the military tunnels remained off-limits to outside eyes, during that era Gaza smugglers would show off their scarcely concealed commercial tunnels under the Rafah border.

These were around three feet (one metre) wide and used winch motors to haul goods along the sandy tunnel floors in hollowed-out petrol barrels.

One Rafah tunnel operator, Abu Qusay, said a half-mile tunnel took three to six months to dig and could yield profits of up to $100,000 a day. The most profitable item was bullets, bought for $1 each in Egypt and fetching more than $6 in Gaza. Kalashnikov rifles, he said, cost $800 in Egypt and sold for twice that.

In 2007 the military wing is thought to have brought its commander Mohammed Deif into Gaza through a tunnel from Egypt. Deif was the mastermind behind Hamas’s deadly Oct. 7 attack into Israel, which killed 1,400 people and hostages were taken.

TUNNEL HUNTING

Professor Joel Roskin, a geomorphologist and geologist with Israel’s Bar-Ilan University said it was difficult to map the tunnel network accurately from the surface or space, adding highly classified information was essential for 3D mapping and imagery visualization.

Among the elite units tasked with going underground is Yahalom, specialist commandos from Israel’s Combat Engineering Corps known as the “weasels”, who specialise in finding, clearing and destroying the tunnels.

Earlier this week Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Yahalom fighters, telling them: “I rely on you, the people of Israel rely on you.”

Israeli sources said what awaits them is formidable and they faced an enemy that has regrouped and learned from previous Israeli operations in 2014 and 2021.

“There are going to be a lot of booby traps. They have thermobaric weapons that they didn’t have in 2021, which are more lethal. And I believe they acquired a lot of anti-tank weapon systems that are going to try to hit our APCs (armoured personnel carriers), tanks,” said Amnon Sofrin, a former brigadier general and former commander of the Combat Intelligence Corps.

Sofrin, who was also previously head of the intelligence directorate with Israel’s Mossad spy agency, said Hamas would also be trying to kidnap soldiers.

Daphne Richemond-Barak, professor at Israel’s Reichman University and author of the book Underground Warfare, said the conflicts in Syria and Iraq had changed the situation.

“What the IDF (Israeli military) is likely to face inside the tunnels is also all of the experience and all of the knowledge that has been gained by groups like ISIS (Islamic State) and has been … passed on to Hamas.”

(Reporting by Jonathan Saul in Jerusalem and Stephen Farrell in London, additional reporting by Phil Stewart in Washington, Nafisa Eltahir and Ahmed Mohamed Hassan in Cairo; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Screw You, Republicans, and Your Stupid, Useless Prayers

The New Republic

Screw You, Republicans, and Your Stupid, Useless Prayers

Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling – October 26, 2023

Here we go again. At least 18 people were killed and upwards of 60 people injured in Lewiston, Maine, late Wednesday evening. This is the 565th mass shootings that has been reported in 2023 alone, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

The senseless violence has also tapped into another fruitless round of Republican leaders issuing “thoughts and prayers” to the families of victims while continuing to pocket large donations from gun lobbyists.

In the last decade, the National Rifle Association has spent more than $37 million on its political lobbying, with GOP legislators reaping the bulk of it, including Senators Mitt Romney and Mitch McConnell, according to data from OpenSecrets. Meanwhile, the money behind “gun rights” lobbying groups has dwarfed gun control efforts every year dating back to 1998.

Their unbroken influence over the political right has swept votes on issues ranging from bans on assault weapons to high capacity magazines, both of which Maine’s own Senator Susan Collins voted against.

Like Collins, other Republicans are once again offering us nothing but their thoughts and prayers.

Recent changes to the House’s leadership are unlikely to change circumstances, either. Just last week, now-Speaker Mike Johnson entertained a meeting with a group against gun control legislation, Women for Gunrights.

Roughly 63 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with U.S. gun laws, according to a 2023 Gallup poll, which noted that just 54 percent of Republicans were satisfied with their own party-driven policies—a five point decrease from 2022.

“Praying for everyone’s safety in Maine, and for the victims and their families,” tweeted Florida Representative Maxwell Alejandro Frost. “But unlike some in Congress, I don’t believe the only thing we can do about gun violence is pray. Every minute our leaders fail to act = more people dead to senseless gun violence.”

Hate running? Get an under-desk treadmill and do this cozy TikTok walking workout instead

techradar.

Hate running? Get an under-desk treadmill and do this cozy TikTok walking workout instead

Matt Evans – October 24, 2023

Woman using a walkingpad in front of TV.

I consume quite a bit of online fitness content. It’s the nature of my job. Quite often, I get recommended on my feed clips of influencers running at night, gymming in the early hours of the morning, and people who are obviously on steroids, or using filters to change the shapes of their faces and bodies.

They’re the hardest workers in the room, rising and grinding, going hard rather than going home. It’s exhausting to watch, and I can see why it’s off-putting for new fitness starters. The influencers pushing the limits, using performance-enhancers, and editing their pics to attain perfection make exercise – and by extension, themselves – unattainable.

Therefore, it was quite refreshing to run across ‘cozy cardio’, the latest trend making low-impact exercise accessible and acceptable using the best under-desk treadmills at home. First popularized by TikToker Hope Zuckerbrow, she uses her walking pad for 30 minutes while watching TV, reading or listening to lofi music, occasionally wearing a fluffy bathrobe and sipping a protein coffee.

The trend exploded, getting reported on in several major news outlets (including, apparently, this one), and similar to its predecessor, the ‘hot girl walk’, the concept is aimed at making exercise a comforting, healing activity for people who might be intimidated by the gym or running outdoors. Walking to lose weight, sure, but also walking for pleasure and, well, coziness.

I’m not intimidated by either the gym or running, and I normally detest wellness trends on social media. They’re rarely backed by science and occasionally promote people doing potentially dangerous things for clout rather than health. However, this trend is anything but. Bringing exercise into your comfort zone with a low-intensity workout, in your own space on your own terms, is great. I love the idea of using exercise as a comforting, healing activity, and I’m a huge lofi music fan.

For those who decry the trend’s followers as ‘not working out properly’ or ‘hard enough’, I’d say it’s far preferable to not working out at all, as it’s beneficial for both body and mind. The Journal of the American Medical Association found that “associations between physical activity and depression suggest significant mental health benefits from being physically active, even at levels below the public health recommendations.”

Another report from Cambridge University found that 11 minutes of brisk walking every day is enough to reduce your risk of early death. Clearly, any amount of extra walking you can fit into your day is a Good Thing.

A sedentary lifestyle can be toxic for both body and mind, and activity – even low-intensity, enjoyable activity – is the panacea. If you don’t want to walk in the dark winter months, under-desk treadmills (or walking pads) are a way to get your steps in while you’d otherwise be watching one of the best streaming services.

Below are three of the best under-desk treadmills, or walking pads, we’ve tested, and the ones I’d recommend getting for all your cozy cardio needs. There are likely to be heavy discounts on many under-desk treadmills during the Black Friday sales period, and these are a few models worth keeping an eye out for. I’d also recommend getting one of the best fitness trackers to keep an eye on your step count.

Walking this many minutes a day can undo the harmful effects of sitting, study finds

Today

Walking this many minutes a day can undo the harmful effects of sitting, study finds

Linda Carroll – October 25, 2023

Getty Images

Sitting all day is well-documented to be harmful for your health, from impeding your blood flow to increasing your risk of heart disease and Type 2 diabetes. Previous research has even shown that while regular physical activity can reduce some of the negative impact of sitting all day, it can’t undo all of it.

However, a new study found that brief periods of exercise may be more beneficial for your health than previously thought, even if you spend most of the day sitting. This strategy of small bursts of movement throughout the day is also known as “exercise snacking.”

Published Oct. 24 in the The British Journal of Sports Medicine, the new research found that the current recommendation of getting 150 minutes a week of moderate to rigorous physical activity can counteract the harm to your body from sitting for prolonged periods, the study’s lead author, Edvard Sagelv, a researcher at The Arctic University of Norway, told NBC News via email.

“This is the beautiful part: We are talking about activities that make you breathe a little bit heavier, like brisk walking, or gardening or walking up a hill,” he said. “Only 20 minutes of this a day is enough, meaning, a small stroll of 10 minutes twice a day — like jumping off the bus one stop before your actual destination to work and then when taking the bus back home, jumping off one stop before.”

The data came from almost 12,000 people ages 50 and older who wore movement-detection devices for 10 hours a day for four days and were tracked for at least two years. The researchers found that sitting for more than 12 hours a day versus eight hours increased risk of death by 38% — but this only applied to people who got less than 22 minutes of moderate to rigorous activity a day. They also found that the more people exercised, the more the risk of death decreased.

What about lower intensity activity? This only benefitted people who spent 12 or more hours a day sitting.

Previous research also shows the benefits of “exercise snacks.” Another study published in The British Journal of Sports Medicine suggests that 30 to 40 minutes a day of moderate-to-vigorous activity mostly counteracts the damage done by lots of time sitting and, better yet, that the exercise can be done in short spurts.

“Physical activity of at least moderate intensity, equivalent to the current recommendations from the World Health Organization (150 to 300 minutes of activity of at least moderate intensity per week for adults), seems to attenuate the risk of death associated with high sedentary time,” said the study’s lead author, Ulf Ekelund, a professor in the department of Sport Medicine at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences in Oslo.

“It is possible to split up the activity to as short as 1-minute bouts,” Ekelund said in an email. “We examined accumulated time in minutes in light, moderate and vigorous intensity, which effectively means that ‘every single minute counts.’ The newly released (WHO) guidelines suggest that you can accumulate physical activity in small bouts (such as taking the stairs) throughout the day.”

The study examined how various amounts of exercise and sitting interacted with one another. The researchers totaled all the minutes during the day that were shown to be active and sedentary by the accelerometers. It also found that you can undo the damage of sitting.

“We observed that those who were most active did not have a statistically increased risk of death regardless of high sitting time compared with the group with the highest MVPA (moderate-to-vigorous physical activity) and lowest sedentary time,” Ekelund said. “Those in the middle group (11 minutes per day) had no increased risk of death if they belonged to the least sedentary (about 8.5 hours per day).”

It’s important to remember that sitting time includes not only time in the office but during the rest of the day, as well.

Sports medicine expert Matthew Darnell, Ph.D., is intrigued by the idea of short bouts of activity adding up to the recommended amounts.

“I really like that term (exercise snacks),” Darnell said. “It could be as simple as going for a walk around the block two times a day. Those little exercise snacks add up over time.”

However experts stress that you shouldn’t assume these studies mean you can sit all day except for a 22 minute walk and not have any negative health effects. Talk to your doctor or a trainer about the right amount of exercise for you based on your daily routine.

Clarence Thomas failed to fully repay $267,000 loan for luxury RV, inquiry finds

The Guardian

Clarence Thomas failed to fully repay $267,000 loan for luxury RV, inquiry finds

Martin Pengelly in Washington – October 25, 2023

The US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas failed to repay much – or possibly all – of a “sweetheart deal” to borrow more than $267,000 to buy a luxury motor home, a Senate committee found.

The existence of the $267,230 loan, made by the businessman Anthony Welters in 1999 and forgiven in 2008, was first reported by the New York Times. On Wednesday, the Times quoted Michael Hamersley, a tax lawyer and congressional expert witness, as saying “‘this was, in short, a sweetheart deal’ that made no logical sense from a business perspective”.

The original RV story came amid a torrent of reports, many by ProPublica, about alleged ethical lapses by Thomas, a conservative appointed in 1991 who has failed to declare numerous lavish gifts from rightwing donors.

Thomas denies wrongdoing but the reports, particularly concerning the mega-donor Harlan Crow, alongside stories about other justices’ undeclared gifts and windfalls, have prompted questions about impartiality on the conservative-dominated court and calls for ethics reform.

Senate Democrats have proposed such reform but it has little chance of success, given Republican opposition. The chief justice, John Roberts, has resisted calls to testify.

Supreme court justices are nominally subject to the same ethics rules as all federal judges but in practice govern themselves.

In the case of the luxury RV – a Prevost Marathon Le Mirage XL – Welters loaned Thomas the money in 1999. The businessman told the Times: “I loaned a friend money, as I have other friends and family. We’ve all been on one side or the other of that equation.”

But on Wednesday the Senate finance committee said it had now seen documents that showed an annual interest rate of 7.5% but no obligation to pay down the principal, only annual interest payments of $20,042. The committee also said it had seen a note from Thomas promising to abide by the terms.

“None of the documents reviewed by committee staff indicated that Thomas ever made payments to Welters in excess of the annual interest on the loan,” the panel said.

As described by the Times, when the loan came due, in 2004, Welters granted a 10-year extension “despite the fact that the previous year Justice Thomas had collected $500,000 of a $1.5m advance for his autobiography, according to his financial disclosures. Then, in late 2008, Mr Welters simply forgave the balance of the loan, according to the committee’s report.”

A contemporaneous note, the committee said, showed Welters saying Thomas’s “interest only” payments exceeded the value of the RV. But evidence did not back up this claim, with Welters having given investigators only one copy of a canceled check from Thomas, for the annual interest amount.

Hamersley told the Times: “No bank behaving in a commercially reasonable, arms-length manner would have given that loan in the first place. And a bank doesn’t just say, ‘Oh gee, you’ve paid a lot in interest – we’re good, no need to pay back what you actually owe.’”

Hamersley also said the Internal Revenue Service would treat any such gift as taxable income.

Ron Wyden, the Democratic chair of the Senate finance committee, said: “Now we know that Justice Thomas had up to $267,230 in debt forgiven and never reported it on his ethics forms.

“Regular Americans don’t get wealthy friends to forgive huge amounts of debt … Justice Thomas should inform the committee exactly how much debt was forgiven and whether he properly reported the loan forgiveness on his tax returns and paid all taxes owed.”

Calls for Thomas to resign, or to be impeached and removed, have proliferated. Such outcomes remain vastly unlikely but on Wednesday Caroline Ciccone, president of the watchdog Accountable.US, said Thomas had reached “a new low”, the justice going “about business as usual on the supreme court while skirting all ethics standards to cash in on his wealthy friends – to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“Justice Thomas clearly views his position on our nation’s highest court as a chance to upgrade his own lifestyle with no consequences. As becomes more clear by the day, he is unfit to serve on our high court. Justice Thomas must resign.”

Clarence Thomas never paid back a $267,230 loan from a rich friend used to buy a luxury RV, Senate committee finds

Insider

Clarence Thomas never paid back a $267,230 loan from a rich friend used to buy a luxury RV, Senate committee finds

Kelsey Vlamis – October 25, 2023

The Senate Finance Committee found Clarence Thomas never paid back a $267,230 loan from a rich friend.
The New York Times previously reported Thomas used the loan to buy a luxury RV.
The committee said Thomas never reported the forgiven loan on ethics filings.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas spent $267,230 on a luxury RV with a loan from a wealthy friend, but never fully paid it back, the Senate Finance Committee said Wednesday.

The New York Times first reported on the loan in August, revealing Thomas paid $267,230 for a Prevost Marathon RV in 1999, or eight years after he was appointed to the Supreme Court. The Times found that while Thomas had told people he had saved up to make the purchase, it was actually financed, in part, by Anthony Welters, a wealthy healthcare industry executive and close friend of the justice.

The Senate Finance Committee launched an inquiry following the Times’ reporting and published its findings on Wednesday. The committee said Thomas paid interest payments on the loan but never paid a “substantial portion” of the loan, and possibly never paid back any portion of the principal.

Documents reviewed by the committee included a handwritten note from 2008 in which Welters told Thomas he would no longer seek further payments on the loan. The committee said the note also said Thomas had only made interest payments on the loan.

While the committee said additional documents related to the loan may exist, nothing they reviewed suggested Thomas ever made payments that exceeded the annual interest.

“Justice Thomas did not disclose this forgiven debt on his ethics filings, raising questions as to whether Thomas properly reported the associated income on his tax returns,” the committee staff said.

A representative for the Supreme Court did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

In a statement provided to Insider, Welters acknowledged the loan and said he believed it had been “satisfied.”

“Because the loan was made 25 years ago and completed 15 years ago, bank statements – which I sought – no longer exist. While not a tangible record, I continue to put stock in my contemporaneous belief,” Welters said.

“As anyone who has borrowed from or lent to family or friends, it’s simply not the same as a bank,” he added. “Bottom line, I lent a friend money. The loan was properly papered. The loan, I felt, was satisfactorily repaid.”

Welters previously told the Times the loan had been “satisfied” and acknowledged that Thomas used the money to “buy a recreational vehicle, which is a passion of his.” He did not answer additional questions about how much Thomas had paid back on the loan.

Editors note: This story has been updated to include comment received from Anthony Welters after publication.

Most of Justice Thomas’ $267,000 loan for an RV seems to have been forgiven, Senate Democrats say

Associated Press

Most of Justice Thomas’ $267,000 loan for an RV seems to have been forgiven, Senate Democrats say

Mark Sherman – October 25, 2023

Associate Justice Clarence Thomas joins other members of the Supreme Court as they pose for a new group portrait, at the Supreme Court building in Washington, Oct. 7, 2022. All or most of a $267,000 loan obtained by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to buy a high-end motorcoach appears to have been forgiven, raising tax and ethics questions, according to a new report by Senate Democrats. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — All or most of a $267,000 loan obtained by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to buy a high-end motorcoach appears to have been forgiven, raising tax and ethics questions, according to a new report by Senate Democrats.

Anthony “Tony” Welters, a longtime friend of Thomas who made the loan in 1999, forgave the debt after nine years of what he called interest-only payments, says the report, which was released Wednesday by Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee.

The loan’s existence was first reported during the summer by the New York Times. Committee Democrats undertook their inquiry following the Times’ story.

Thomas, 75, has been at the center of a heightened focus on ethics at the Supreme Court over his undisclosed travel and other ties with wealthy conservative supporters. The court, the only part of the federal judiciary with a formal code of conduct, is debating whether to adopt an ethics code and, in recent months, three justices have voiced their support for such a move.

Thomas borrowed the money from Welters, a healthcare executive, to buy a 40-foot refitted tour bus in which he tours the country with his wife, Ginni. Thomas has talked about staying in Walmart parking lots and RV parks, which are “what the neighborhoods used to be like.”

At the time of the loan, Thomas said in a handwritten note on his Supreme Court letterhead that agreements to pay interest of 7.5% a year and repay the money in five years, the report says. In 2004, the time to repay the loan was extended until 2014.

Documents voluntarily provided by Welters to the committee show that he forgave the loan in 2008, the report says. Welters gave the committee a copy of just one payment of $20,042 that Thomas made, in 2000.

“Welters forgave the balance of the loan to Thomas in recognition of the payments made by Thomas which Welters characterized as interest only payments that exceeded the amount of the original loan,” the report says. Nine years of interest-only payments would total roughly $180,000, considerably less than the loan amount. Welters did not explain the discrepancy.

Forgiven or canceled debt counts as income for tax purposes, the report says. In addition, Thomas has never included forgiven debt in his annual financial disclosures.

“Justice Thomas should inform the committee exactly how much debt was forgiven and whether he properly reported the loan forgiveness on his tax returns and paid all taxes owed,” Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the committee chairman, said in a statement.

There was no immediate response from Thomas to a request made through a court spokeswoman.

A series of reports from the investigative news site ProPublica revealed that Thomas has for years accepted, but not disclosed, luxury trips and other hospitality from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow.

Crow also purchased the house in Georgia where Thomas’s mother continues to live and paid for two years of private school tuition for a child raised by the Thomases.

Earlier this year, Thomas did report three private trips he took at Crow’s expense in 2022, after the federal judiciary changed its guidelines for reporting travel. He did not report travel from earlier years.

ProPublica reported that Justice Samuel Alito also failed to disclose a private trip to Alaska he took in 2008 that was paid for by two wealthy Republican donors, one of whom repeatedly had interests before the court.

The Associated Press also reported in July that Justice Sonia Sotomayor, aided by her staff, has advanced sales of her books through college visits over the past decade.

Coppins: ‘What we’re seeing on the House floor’ is ‘a symptom of a deeply rotten political system’

NBC Universal

Coppins: ‘What we’re seeing on the House floor’ is ‘a symptom of a deeply rotten political system’

NBC – October 25, 2023

In his new book “Romney: A Reckoning,” McKay Coppins details the timeline of Sen. Mitt Romney’s (R-UT) opposition to former President Donald Trump and Trump’s hold on the Republican Party. Coppins joins Andrea Mitchell to discuss his book and weigh in on the current infighting between allies of the former president and more traditional conservatives. “What we’ve seen in Congress right now is just an example of the last 15 years of the Republican establishment allowing the kind of more extreme forces of their party to take over by indulging them and flirting with them and appeasing them. Eventually, those forces took control,” Coppins says. He adds that his book, which features journal entries and interviews with Romney, is “a warning that what we’re seeing on the House floor today and the last few weeks is just a symptom of a deeply rotten political system.”

Republicans’ New Speaker Pick Led Effort to Overturn 2020 Election

The New Republic

Republicans’ New Speaker Pick Led Effort to Overturn 2020 Election

Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling – October 25, 2023

It’s Day 22, and the House still doesn’t have a speaker, though the GOP selected another designee out of an apparent carousel of contenders late Tuesday.

Republican Conference Vice Chair Mike Johnson, a four-term congressman representing Louisiana, is the latest of the batch to try to unify the divided caucus. Johnson’s beliefs are a sweet spot for many GOP members: He’s anti-LGBT and rallied against Roe v. Wade. And when it comes to the 2020 election, he’s just a less dumb version of Jim Jordan, who played a close role in January 6 but failed to secure the speaker’s gavel earlier this month.

In the days following the 2020 presidential election, Johnson played a more subtle but still key part: He led the amicus brief signed by more than 100 Republicans that sought to overturn election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Then, on January 6, 2021, 139 Republican representatives voted to dispute the Electoral College results, in large part thanks to a loophole nitpicked by Johnson, who The New York Times described as the “most important architect of the Electoral College objections.”

According to the Times, it was Johnson’s lawyerly nuance that made him dangerous.

Offering possible objections based on what he described as “constitutional infirmity,” Johnson claimed there were grounds to reject the election results from states that permitted pandemic-induced state modifications to mail-in ballots and early voting systems that bypassed the approval of state legislatures.

Ultimately, it was Johnson’s work that allowed Republicans to seize on the events of January 6 for political profit, helping them transform their brand from dangers to democracy to defenders of electoral integrity, and garner grassroots support and donations from corporate backers who had once denounced them.

According to a leaflet from Johnson’s office obtained by Punchbowl News, Johnson’s core principles include: individual freedom, limited government, the rule of law, peace through strength, fiscal responsibility, free markets, and human dignity—though none of those seemed to conflict with his belief in overturning the 2020 presidential election results.

Only a few GOP members have indicated so far that they will not support him in a floor vote. His endorsers include Majority Leader Steve Scalise, fellow contender Representative Kevin Hern, and perhaps most critical, Donald Trump.

The Michael Scott look-alike is the second person to snag the speaker nomination in just one day, after Majority Whip Tom Emmer resigned mere hours after his own nomination.

New House Speaker Once Blamed Abortions for Social Security, Medicare Cuts

The New Republic

New House Speaker Once Blamed Abortions for Social Security, Medicare Cuts

Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling – October 25, 2023

The new House speaker, Mike Johnson, has touted some extremely controversial opinions as a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus—but few as unsavory as his apparent hatred for a woman’s right to choose, sizing a woman’s worth up as her ability to create more workers for American businesses.

In a clip that surfaced Tuesday, Johnson put the onus of Republican cuts to essential programs on unborn children, claiming that if American women were producing more bodies to churn the economy then Republicans wouldn’t have to cut essential social programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

“Roe v. Wade gave constitutional cover to the elective killing of unborn children in America,” Johnson said, during a House Judiciary Committee hearing.

“You think about the implications of that on the economy; we’re all struggling here to cover the bases of Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and all the rest. If we had all those able-bodied workers in the economy, we wouldn’t be going upside down and toppling over like this,” he added.

Johnson has also co-sponsored at least three bills hoping to ban abortion at a nationwide level, including the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, the Protecting Pain-Capable Unborn Children From Late-Term Abortions Act, and the Heartbeat Protection Act of 2021, all of which carry criminal penalties of up to five years in prison for physicians who perform abortions.