Foreign media is banned from Gaza. Biden should press Israel for access.

BY ROBERT MAHONEY, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 03/07/24 

A journalist films Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system fires to intercept a rocket launched from the Gaza Strip towards Israel, in Ashkelon, Israel, Saturday, Aug. 6, 2022. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)


President Joe Biden is under pressure from young voters to change his policy on Gaza. He is unlikely to upend a lifetime of support for Israel. But there is one thing his administration can do today that would be morally right and perhaps politically advantageous: Push Israel to let the international media into the Gaza Strip.

Accusations that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians, inducing famine, and targeting reporters, are whirling across the global media landscape. Israel’s sophisticated government information machine is pushing a counternarrative. The result is a cloud of confusion pierced by occasional shafts of light from reporting inside Gaza by a handful of underresourced Palestinian journalists.


These journalists are being killed in record numbers, and the international press can only look on. Israel has blocked attempts by foreign news organizations to enter Gaza independently since it began an offensive to root out Hamas, which launched murderous, hostage-taking raids on Israel last Oct. 7.

Israel says more than 1,200 Israelis were killed, and hundreds abducted in those attacks. Some 30,000 people have been killed in Gaza in the ensuing Israeli bombardments and ground operations to kill or capture Hamas militants, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

The only trained journalists still working inside the Strip are those who were there when the offensive began. They have been the main source of on-the-ground information and they have paid a terrible price. The Committee to Protect Journalists estimates that at least 94 have been killed. Several international news organizations have evacuated their Gazan staff, leaving an even smaller pool of reporters, who often work for small, local outfits, to be the eyes and ears of the world.

The foreign press is doing what it can to provide an accurate picture of conditions inside the Strip, relying on those local journalists and residents who post reports and pictures online whenever they can find power and a phone or internet connection.

But these reports can be difficult to corroborate quickly, as was the case with the attributions of responsibility and widely divergent death tolls published after the Oct. 17 explosion at Gaza’s al-Ahli hospital. Or again on Feb. 29, when more than 100 Palestinians died waiting for food aid amid Israeli gunfire.

The best bulwark against this type of confusion, misinformation and propaganda is firsthand reporting from the scene by experienced reporters.

Pressure from an exasperated outside world has been growing. Last month, 55 leading journalists from broadcasters such as CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC and the BBC wrote to Israel and Egypt urging them to allow news organizations into Gaza.

Explaining why he signed the letter, BBC Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen said: “I can only surmise that Israel is not allowing reporters to work freely inside Gaza, because their soldiers are doing things they do not want us to see.”

He told BBC Radio 4’s program From Our Own Correspondent that foreign journalists might “back up Israel’s assertions that it always follows the laws of war, that it has, to use a common phrase in Israel, ‘the most moral army in the world,'” or “uncover evidence that backs up those accusations of war crimes as well as the even more serious one of genocide. Until we get in, we’ll never know,” he said.

Israel has a history of barring journalists from entering Gaza while it carries out operations, but the length of the current ban is unprecedented. The Foreign Press Association in Israel challenged the ban in January. Israel’s High Court rejected its petition citing security grounds. It said the presence of journalists would endanger Israeli soldiers and could provide operational details and troop locations.

The association noted that “concerns about reporting on troop positions do not withstand scrutiny at a time when Palestinian journalists continue to operate in Gaza, and when it is vital for the foreign press to access areas of Gaza where troops are not present.”

Israel has allowed some foreign and Israeli journalists to embed with Israel Defense Forces units, but reporters’ movements and access to residents were severely restricted during these supervised trips. Even before Oct. 7., the IDF barred Israeli journalists from entering Gaza independently out of safety concerns, but foreign nationals had been able to enter.

The IDF’s arguments about journalist safety and the disclosure of sensitive operational intelligence are flimsy. Journalists accredited by the Israel Government Press Office are bound by military censorship regulations, which have worked well for decades. It is up to news organizations to determine the level of risk they are prepared to allow their reporters to take. Major news outlets have professional security staff that carry out risk assessments and often accompany reporting teams on the ground.

Meanwhile, foreign outlets are relying on an ever-shrinking pool of Gazan journalists. Dozens of international news organizations pledged their support for these journalists in an open letter on Feb. 28 noting that they continue working “despite the loss of family, friends, and colleagues, the destruction of homes and offices, constant displacement, communications blackouts and shortages of food and fuel.”

The news leaders reminded Israel that journalists are civilians and warrant protection as non-combatants.

“Attacks on journalists are also attacks on truth. We commit to championing the safety of journalists in Gaza, which is fundamental for the protection of press freedom everywhere,” they wrote.

Politicians have also rallied behind the press. More than 20 House Democrats reached out to Secretary of State Antony Blinken last month, demanding the Biden administration take measures to protect Palestinian reporters and push Israel and Egypt to grant media access to the Gaza Strip, which borders both countries.

“We ask that you work with the Israeli and Egyptian governments to protect press freedom and ensure journalists are able to execute their ‘vitally important role,’ as you have described, in providing accurate reporting on the full scale of the war,” they wrote.

Biden’s support among young and Arab-American voters is eroding over Gaza, as last month’s Michigan primary showed. Leaving aside political considerations, there is a compelling moral case for the U.S. to honor the commitment it makes every May 3 on World Press Freedom Day to uphold the right of reporters to work freely and safely.

Washington pumps billions of dollars in aid to Israel and Egypt each year. It has leverage. For the sake of media freedom, it should use it.

Robert Mahoney is a journalist, author and expert on press freedom. He is a former executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists and former Jerusalem bureau chief for Reuters news agency.

Biden’s blind-faith embrace of Israel is ruining America’s image in the Middle East

BY JOE BUCCINO, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 03/07/24 8:30 AM ET
AP photo


In the days following Hamas’s ghastly attack upon Israel, President Biden dug into his political strengths as a vessel for empathy, comfort and humanity. He announced unflinching support for the Jewish state. He publicly hugged controversial Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Weeks later, Biden promised to push tens of billions of dollars to Israel and to continue to do so for as long as the war in Gaza lasts, affirming his support to Israel.

Biden comes alive in such moments. As a comforter of the afflicted, he is a man of great decency and dignity. It’s a shame he has abandoned those principles as they relate to the suffering of the Palestinians.

After promising aid, Biden and his Cabinet cautioned Israel against a large ground assault into Gaza. The Biden team pushed for a more surgical, intel-driven approach to drive down the risk of civilian casualties while dismantling Hamas’s battalions and targeting its leaders. Netanyahu and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, took the American money and proceeded with a massive ground offensive anyway.

In the months since, Israel has engaged in a ruinous bombing campaign in Gaza, killing tens of thousands, including civilians. Macabre images and video of the carnage in the enclave reveal the size and scope of the death. Israeli forces have eschewed precision-guided bombs in favor of much less accurate and larger-diameter “dumb” bombs, causing significantly more devastation than necessary.

Last month, Israel Defense Forces troops opened fire on a crowd of starving Gazans waiting for desperately needed food in a slaughter that killed more than 100 and injured hundreds more. Through all the butchery, the Biden administration keeps the money flowing to Israel.

Last week saw perhaps the most duplicitous photo op of the war yet. U.S. Central Command’s public affairs team released images of American troops airdropping 38,000 meals — enough to provide a single meal for fewer than three percent of the Gazan population — into southern Gaza. Those meals were dropped on a city turned into a dystopian hellscape by bombs provided by the U.S., through weapons sales for which Biden bypassed the U.S. Congress.

In an attempt to mollify the growing number of Americans who deplore Biden’s support of Israel’s prosecution of this war, the president has lightly voiced displeasure with Netanyahu. He has referred to the war as “over the top” without further clarification. He has weakly decried Netanyahu’s plan for a ground invasion into Rafah, the southern Gazan city to which IDF troops have directed more than a million Palestinians. An assault there would doubtless result in a humanitarian catastrophe unlike any thus far seen in the war.

Brushing aside Biden’s concerns, Netanyahu said he will do it anyway. “Over the top,” indeed.

Biden’s inability to influence Israel’s conduct of the war, even as he continues to push aid to Tel Aviv, makes him look foolish, weak and ineffective. D.C.’s continued financial support for the war paints a portrait of Netanyahu leading Biden around by the nose in front of a global audience. Worse than this, however, is what all of this says about American values.

America’s abiding support to Israel over the last four months has created the impression in the Middle East that, for the U.S., the suffering of a single Israeli is not worth that of a dozen Palestinians. Note that, within the region, people are even more likely to believe the overall death toll released currently at over 30,000, which is not necessarily inaccurate just because it comes from the Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry.

The flow of aid leaves the impression that for the U.S., Palestinians are not even considered “people” in the same sense as Israelis, Americans or Europeans. How else to consider Biden’s repeated and scathing criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin for directing indiscriminate attacks on Ukrainian women and children, when American tax dollars are underwriting similar or even worse atrocities in Gaza?

Israel has a legitimate right to defend itself. Netanyahu has a responsibility to his people to fight until Hamas no longer constitutes a threat. And even the most thoughtful, targeted and strategic campaign would have killed many civilians — such is the nature of fighting inside a densely packed enclave against an enemy that routinely uses women and children as shields.

Yet there is no justification for what we’re seeing in Gaza. Israeli supporters of the war’s conduct, taking their cue from Netanyahu, repeatedly invoke the Allied carpet bombing of German and Japanese cities during World War II to justify indiscriminate bombing in Gaza. Considering all the advances in intelligence, missile guidance systems, and targeting over the past seven and half decades, the parallel with World War II bombing does not hold up.

Further, the internationally applied rules of war, established in the immediate aftermath of World War II, ensure that wars are no longer adjudicated with such inhumane lack of consideration for harm to civilians.

Another Netanyahu talking point parroted by Americans and Israelis supporting the appalling devastation in Gaza makes even less sense: The U.S. would react with even more force, had such an attack — on the scale of 9/11 times 20 — occurred in America. Such a hypothetical scenario is so fantastic that there is no way of knowing how we would react militarily. We can, however, hope that our leaders would not succumb to the worst animalistic urges of humanity. We can hope that, as a nation, we would retain our values and dignity and, with them, our esteemed standing in the world.

That’s not the kind of leadership offered today in D.C. or Tel Aviv. And a reckoning is coming. When the war is completely over, rebuilding Gaza will require an international coalition over many years and billions in reconstruction funds. But there will be no way for the U.S. to repair its ruined standing in the Middle East.

Col. Joe Buccino (Ret.) served as U.S. Central Command communications director from 2021 until 2023. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Defense or any other organization.

States are trying to ban lab-grown meat. It’s a dumb mistake.

BY PAUL SHAPIRO,

 OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 03/07/24 

AP Photo/Jeff Chiu
A scientist works in a cellular agriculture lab at Eat Just in Alameda, Calif.


Republican lawmakers in Florida and Alabama may not seem like they’d have much in common with policymakers in Rome and Paris. But some elected officials in these Southern states appear to think that Italy and France are good models to emulate when it comes to taking away consumers’ freedom to buy the types of food they want to enjoy.

Gov. Ron DeSantis is one of these Republican proponents of government intervention into what Americans choose to eat, recently endorsing a ban on the sale of real meat grown from animal cells, even though such meat is FDA-approved as safe. The governor is following in Italy’s and France’s steps to squelch more efficient means of food production.

Despite the fact that meat grown from animal cells — called cultivated meat — isn’t yet sold in Florida or Alabama, its recent approval by the Food and Drug Administration has some in Tallahassee and Montgomery spooked enough that they’ve introduced legislation to ban its sale altogether. The hysteria now extends even to Washington, where a bill was just introduced in Congress to ban cultivated meat from school lunches.

Cultivated meat is not a plant-based alternative to animal meat. It’s real, actual animal meat, only it is grown from animal cells rather than animal slaughter. Two startups, Eat Just and Upside Foods, are now approved to sell their cultivated chicken in the U.S., each having undergone stringent safety testing reviewed by the FDA.




Republican state Rep. Tyler Sirois’s legislation would make it a criminal offense to sell such meat in Florida. He claims that this technology is an “affront to nature and creation.” Gov. DeSantis goes further, objecting that ”You need meat, okay? We’re going to have meat in Florida. Like, we’re not going to have fake meat. Like, that doesn’t work.”

In truth, Sirois and DeSantis seem less concerned about insulting nature and creation than they are about protecting cattlemen from competition. Sirois defended his bill by telling Politico: “Farming and cattle are incredibly important industries to Florida.”

As conventional meat consumption continues to rise around the globe, with the associated deforestation, skyrocketing emissions, and ravenous water use that comes with producing meat from animals, the search for sustainable alternatives is on. After all, study after study shows we need to raise fewer animals for food if we want to feed humanity without destroying our planet in the process. Unsurprisingly, peer-reviewed life cycle analyses show that if cultivated meat startups succeed, they could dramatically slash the environmental footprint of meat production.

But that will take time. While plant-based meat has already made it onto fast food menus, we’re still a long way from seeing cultivated meat show up grocery shelves, due to the industry’s lack of scale. Yet the progress toward a slaughter-free meat industry is slowly unfolding.



Already, many of the biggest meat companies have invested in alt-meat, and the world’s largest meat producer is actively building its own meat cultivation factory right now. Another meat-industry-backed start-up has already commenced construction of a commercial-scale meat cultivation factory in North Carolina. It’s clear that if America wants to remain the “meat basket” to the world, such innovation should be kept on-shore rather than allow Asia to dominate this field as it has with clean energy technologies like solar panels and wind turbines.

DeSantis and other like-minded policy-makers seeking to deny Americans the freedom to choose the meat they can eat may see a threat from innovative entrepreneurs working to bring cultivated meat to market. But those committed to a free market should ask if it’s really the state’s role to stamp out entrepreneurial competition to ensure incumbent industries always win.

Lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic should — at a minimum — not stand in the way of such efforts to improve agricultural efficiency. Rather, they should be helping to foster it, so that the U.S. can remain a leader in food production worldwide.


Paul Shapiro is the author of “Clean Meat: How Growing Meat Without Animals Will Revolutionize Dinner and the World” and the CEO of The Better Meat Co.

Florida Senate passes bill banning local heat protections for workers

BY LAUREN IRWIN - 03/06/24 

Stephen B. Morton /Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP

An employee puts barrels, cones and road closure signs out.

The Florida State Senate passed a bill Tuesday that would prohibit local agencies from implementing heat protections for workers.

The GOP-controlled Senate voted 28-11 to pass the bill, which would ban cities and counties from adopting mandatory water breaks and other extreme heat relief measures that go beyond what is required by state or federal law.

The bill, Senate Bill 1492, was introduced by Sen. Jay Trumbull (R). The legislation said political subdivisions can’t “establish, mandate, or otherwise require an employer” to provide goods and services to “meet or provide heat exposure requirements” that are not already mandated.

Supporters of the bill say it will establish uniform regulations instead of having inconsistent rules across the state, NBC News first reported.

Labor organizations are pushing back, arguing that heat protections are necessary for safety, particularly for those who work in construction and agriculture.

The bill would be implemented beginning July 1, 2024, but it waits approval in the House before going to Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) desk to be signed.

It comes just after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) confirmed that 2023 was the hottest single year ever recorded. The summer season was also confirmed to be the warmest on record.

Florida employers would be required to follow general rules set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which has not yet issued standards for dangerously high temperatures, NBC News noted.

Heat record broken for ninth consecutive month

BY LAUREN IRWIN - 03/07/24 


People watch the sunset at a park on an unseasonably warm day, 

Feb. 25, 2024, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Last month was the planet’s warmest February on record and the ninth consecutive month of record-breaking temperatures, according to data released Thursday.

February was more than 1.7 degrees Celsius warmer than an average February in preindustrial times, reported Copernicus, the European Union’s climate monitoring service.

The average global surface air temperature during the month was 13.54 degrees Celsius — or about 56 degrees Fahrenheit — and beats the previous warmest February, which was recorded in 2016.

The month was also part of a record-warm twelve-month period, according to the service, which reported that “the global-average temperature for the past twelve months is the highest on record, at 0.68 degrees Celsius above the 1991-2020 average.”

The record-breaking temperatures reflect the long-term impacts of climate change and this winter’s El Niño, which was predicted to be historically strong.

“February joins the long streak of records in the last few months. As remarkable as this might appear, it is not really surprising as the continuous warming of the climate system inevitable leads to new temperature extremes,” Carlo Buontempo, the director of Copernicus, said in a statement, first reported by CNN.

According to the report, the daily global temperature was “exceptionally high” during the first half of February and was 2 degrees Celsius warmer than preindustrial periods for four consecutive days, Feb. 8-11.

The month’s average global sea surface temperatures measured at 21.06 degrees Celsius, the warmest of any month in the data set and higher than the previous record of 20.98 degrees Celsius set in August 2023.

The report’s findings come after a record warm 2023; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed that 2023 was the hottest single year ever recorded.

Another new study warned that as temperatures continue to rise, Arctic Ocean sea ice is melting at an even faster pace than previously thought, and the region could experience its first ice-free conditions sometime before the 2030s.

SEC finalizes weakened climate disclosure rule

The federal government will require some of the largest publicly traded companies to disclose their levels of greenhouse gas emissions under a new rule from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

© AP Photo/Michael Probst

The SEC voted 3-2 on Wednesday to require large companies to tell investors about greenhouse gas emissions directly caused by their business if that information would be likely to influence someone’s decision on whether to invest.   SEC Chair Gary Gensler, Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw and Commissioner Jaime Lizárraga — all Democrats — voted in favor of the rule, while Republican Commissioners Hester Peirce and Mark Uyeda voted against it.   The rule will also require all publicly traded companies to disclose ways in which climate change poses significant risks to their business.   The rule represents a massive — and contentious — step in terms of what companies are required to tell potential investors about their vulnerability and contribution to climate change.   But it is significantly scaled back from what the agency proposed in 2022. That rule would have required all public companies to disclose their direct emissions and also made some companies report emissions from their supply chains and the use of their products.   Instead, as part of an effort to lighten the burden for companies, the SEC will only make large and midsize companies report their emissions that come from generating the electricity a company uses. They’ll have to report emissions for their fiscal years that start in 2026 and 2028, respectively.   Read more at TheHill.com.

Bracing for impact: America’s nuclear modernization takes a local toll

BY BRAD DRESS - 03/07/24

This is the third story in a series about Sentinel, the Air Force’s nuclear missile modernization project. Other stories touch on the challenges with creating new plutonium shells and concerns about the Air Force’s budget. 

From his house near Great Falls, Mont., farmer Walter Schweitzer can see the frequent military convoys, sometimes large trucks with missiles as cargo, as they rumble toward their destination. 

Schweitzer, 62, lives just 25 miles from Malmstrom Air Force Base. He’s spent his whole life around the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), 400 of which are deployed across rural Western states, including Montana.

But Schweitzer has concerns about a vast effort from the Air Force to overhaul this land-based leg of the nuclear triad with a brand-new missile called Sentinel. 

Schweitzer, the president of the Montana Farmers Union, said the Air Force has “danced around” community questions concerning public safety, housing and road maintenance, as the military prepares to bring thousands of workers to their city. 

“We’re experiencing a shortage of affordable housing, and this would be a great opportunity if they had some public involvement and discussion on how they approached it,” he said. “There has been no public meetings discussing location or how this is going to be handled.” 

While the U.S. is planning to modernize its entire nuclear triad, which includes bombers and submarines in addition to ICBMs, the Minuteman replacement effort is the most complicated. 

The bulk of the Sentinel construction work will take place at three Air Force bases, in the rugged and rural northern U.S.: F.E. Warren outside Cheyenne, Wyo.; Minot, near the North Dakota city of the same name; and Malmstrom in Montana.

This effort will require the cooperation of local communities, who must work with an influx of up to 3,000 workers in the area for several years. 

The project, which is being handled by defense contractor Northrop Grumman, will bring jobs and money into communities, so it’s generally being welcomed. 

“This is a huge project,” said Minot Mayor Tom Ross. “It’s probably going to be the largest construction project in the history of the state of North Dakota.” 

But the expected wave of workers is forcing community adaptation and bringing questions about public safety and housing.

In this image provided by the U.S. Air Force, Airman 1st Class Jackson Ligon, left, and Senior Airman Jonathan Marinaccio, 341st Missile Maintenance Squadron technicians connect a re-entry system to a spacer on an intercontinental ballistic missile during a Simulated Electronic Launch-Minuteman test Sept. 22, 2020, at a launch facility near Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Mont. (Senior Airman Daniel Brosam/U.S. Air Force via AP, File)

Sentinel has also raised local environmental concerns involving fuel waste disposal and the easement of private property. 

The Air Force did not respond to The Hill’s questions about public safety and housing but said it was engaged in ongoing discussions with local communities. 

Public safety, housing concerns

Sentinel will swap out the 400 deployed missiles with new ones, which will host revamped warheads and new plutonium shells. 

But the costliest part of the project — and the part that requires the most community cooperation — is the redevelopment of the 450 launch areas, which will entail refurbishing underground silos where the missiles are stored and their launch control centers. 

Northrop Grumman will also construct close to 50 new support buildings, 62 communication towers and more than 7,500 miles of utility lines and corridors. 

Preliminary work began last year at F.E. Warren, and construction is expected to start within the next few years, according to Air Force Global Strike Command. 

The Air Force wants to begin deploying the missiles in 2030, though the military branch is facing an inflating budget that may delay the project by two years or more. 

The construction workers are expected to arrive sometime in the late 2020s to early 2030s and will work at each base for two to five years. They will be housed in living facilities known as workforce hubs, commonly referred to as “man camps.”

The Air Force has said it will not place the hubs near schools, residential neighborhoods or other sensitive areas, noting it will work with local communities to comply with zoning laws. 

A Northrop Grumman official told The Hill the workers are expected to be handled by a subcontractor on the project — a construction company called Bechtel — and that the work was still years away, considering that part of the Sentinel project has yet to be awarded. 

The official, who spoke on background to discuss material not made publicly available yet, said it was “difficult to speculate about things not under the current scope.”

The flow of workers will impact states that house missile silos in the Midwest, including Nebraska. 

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen (R) said in a town hall meeting last year after he vetoed $10 million in funding for infrastructure related to Sentinel funding that the federal government was responsible for housing them, according to a local outlet. 

“When you think about the infrastructure that takes place, we have to work day and night with them to make sure they hold their end of the bill up,” Pillen said, adding that he would not spend money on infrastructure that would be boarded up once the workers leave. 

In Montana, work at Malmstrom is primarily going to impact two communities: Great Falls and Lewistown. The Air Force held town halls there in January to discuss Sentinel. 

But Rick Tryon, a Great Falls city commissioner, said his concerns were not adequately addressed at the town hall and that the Air Force told him there was no money in the budget for public safety. 

In this image provided by the U.S. Air Force, Staff Sgt. Brandon Mendola, left, with the 90th munitions squadron at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming demonstrates how they train new missile maintainers to look for scratches on the top of a nuclear warhead. Even a hairline scratch on the polished black surface of the cone could create enough drag when fired to send the weapon off course, so maintainers inspect the devices closely. (Senior Airman Sarah Post/U.S. Air Force via AP)

“We are a little behind in adequately funding our public safety,” Tryon said, adding that his city has around 100 police officers in a community of roughly 60,000 people. “Everybody understands that before this happens, we’ve got to do something to beef up our public safety here, locally.”  

“And the way it stands right now, there’s no plan from the Air Force or the federal folks to do that.” 

Schweitzer told The Hill it was not clear how and where the workers would be housed, describing 3,000 workers as a “major city.”

“There needs to be a whole lot more discussion and planning,” he said. “Our county seat has half that population or less.” 

Minot is in the vicinity of North Dakota’s Sentinel project. But in that city, it’s being largely welcomed with open arms. 

Ross, the mayor, said the Air Force has not told his city to build housing. But he said the local government may allocate funds anyway to grow the municipality. 

“We see it as an opportunity, and we’re going to build housing,” he said. “There’s a great potential for them to stay in Minot when the project is complete.” 

Environmental and property concerns 

The Air Force identified in its 2023 Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that it must dispose of the Minuteman missiles, each of which weighs nearly 80,000 pounds and hosts three solid-propellant rocket motors. 

The decommission plan includes the complete disassembly of Minuteman missiles and the burning of solid rocket motor fuel for release at the Utah Test and Training Range in a process that could last up to five years.

The Environmental Protection Agency asked the Air Force to study alternatives in the EIS. The Air Force did not respond to a request for comment on procedures for the disposal of fuel. 

Sébastien Philippe, a research scholar with Princeton University’s program on science and global security, said releasing solid rocket fuel through detonation into the outside environment is not a safe and environmentally friendly option. 

Philippe, who has released a website tracking concerns about Sentinel, added that the project will have a “massive impact” for the U.S. in environmental terms.

In this image provided by the U.S. Air Force, Airman 1st Class Jonathan Marrs, 21, left, and Senior Airman Jacob Deas, 23, right, work to dislodge the 110-ton cement and steel blast door covering the top of the Bravo-9 nuclear missile silo at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont., Aug. 24, 2023. When the first 225-pound aluminum tow, or “mule” could not pull the door open, Marrs dragged down a second tow to give them more power. (John Turner/U.S. Air Force via AP)

“When you unpack [Sentinel], it’s such a huge project,” he said. “Even if everything goes well, there will be some degree of environmental impact.” 

In the EIS, the Air Force said the “shipping, handling, disassembly, storage, and disposal of ICBM boosters and interstages have been routinely conducted by Air Force personnel following established protocol for approximately 60 years.” 

For local communities, another concern is how private property will be affected by expanding Air Force needs, which has been a focus at town halls.

The Air Force said Sentinel involves negotiations with hundreds of private property landowners and that it has notified landowners whose property might be needed for Sentinel infrastructure.

Air Force officials said town hall meetings are ongoing and pledged to “answer all questions affected landowners may have and seek landowner cooperation regarding existing easements.” 

Initial agreements before property acquisition allow the Air Force and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to conduct real estate surveys on “limited portions” of private property, officials said. 

Cooperation with landowners could allow for utility line installations without property acquisition, they added, and the surveys are crucial to determine the boundaries of any easements. 

The Air Force has also told residents in Montana that it will need a 2-mile-wide corridor for utility lines, according to Schweitzer. He said local farmers are upset about the corridor because it will impose restrictions for building wind farms. The Air Force did not respond to a detailed question on that concern.

Schweitzer said the corridor is likely to amount to the restriction of 10 million acres around one of the windiest regions of Montana. 

“Our national security, as well as our food security, is critically important to this country,” he said. “Our family farms provide food security, and yet we’re struggling economically to make ends meet.”  

“We’re losing farmers every day, because they’re going bankrupt,” he added. “Some of my neighbors are making more money off their windmills than they are from their farms. If they were to impose this 2-mile corridor, I own about 30,000 acres, and none of it would be available.” 

TAGS JIM PILLEN

DEMOCRACY NOW!

Biden Admin Quietly Approves 100+ Arms Sales to Israel While Claiming Concern for Civilians in Gaza

STORY MARCH 07, 2024

GUESTS Josh Paul

veteran State Department official who worked on arms transfers before resigning in protest in 2023, now a non-resident fellow at Democracy for the Arab World Now.

LINKS Democracy for the Arab World Now

Image Credit: Wafa


While the Biden administration has been publicly voicing reservations over the mounting death toll in Gaza, a Washington Post investigation revealed the administration has quietly approved and delivered more than 100 separate weapons sales to Israel over the last five months, amounting to thousands of precision-guided munitions, small-diameter bombs, bunker busters and other lethal aid. Only two approved foreign military sales to Israel have been made public since the launch of Israel’s assault on October 7, which the Biden administration approved using emergency authority to bypass Congress. “It is actually illegal to provide military assistance to a country that is restricting U.S.-funded humanitarian assistance, and we know that this is the case with Israel,” says Josh Paul, a veteran State Department official who worked on arms deals and resigned in protest of a push to increase arms sales to Israel amid its assault on Gaza. Paul describes the “production line”-style sale of weapons to Israel and says increasing internal dissent is putting pressure on Biden to change his “dead-end” policy of unconditional support for Israel. “We have a president and a set of policies … that remain set on this course regardless of the harm it is doing to Israeli security, to American global interests and, of course, to so many Palestinians.”

Katie Porter suggests billionaires rigged California Senate primary after losing to Adam Schiff

BRADFORD BETZ

FOX NEWS
March 6, 2024 at 7:36 PM

Senate candidate Katie Porter, D-Calif., on Wednesday suggested that the California primary race was rigged by "an onslaught of billionaires" after losing to her Democratic opponent, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.

The progressive Democrat did not win a single county, earning a statewide total of just under 14%. She finished nearly twenty points behind both Schiff and Republican candidate Steve Garvey and came in third place in Orange County, which she has represented since 2019.

In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Porter said her supporters "had the establishment running scared – withstanding 3 to 1 in TV spending and an onslaught of billionaires spending millions to rig this election."

She said the results demonstrated that Californians were "hungry for leaders who break the mold, can't be bought, and push for accountability in government and across our economy."

"Special interests like politics as it is today because they control the politicians," she said. "As we’ve seen in this campaign, they spend millions to defeat someone who will dilute their influence and disrupt the status quo.

Former President Trump was frequently criticized for throwing around the word "rigged" after losing the 2020 presidential election to President Biden.

Rep. Katie Porter and Rep. Adam Schiff, left, and right participate in a debate on stage with other democrats who are running to succeed Sen. Feinstein at Westing Bonaventure Hotel on Sunday, Oct. 8, 2023, in Los Angeles, CA.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the campaign offices of Porter and Schiff for additional comment. Garvey declined to respond.

Porter herself has received millions of dollars from big donors to boost her campaign, despite touting her record of not accepting corporate PAC money. She has reportedly accepted thousands of dollars in donations from big Wall Street donors, according to federal campaign finance disclosures.

California, in which Republicans are outnumbered by registered Democrats by about 2-to-1, puts all candidates, regardless of party, on the same primary ballot and the two who get the most votes advance to the general election. A Republican hasn't won a statewide race for any office in California since 2006.

 

Poland sees its most violent farmers' protest yet as anger grows across Europe

By Euronews with AP

Published on 07/03/2024 - 

Numerous EU countries have seen furious protests against the bloc's agricultural policies and the effect of Ukrainian grain imports.

Poland saw its most violent protest by farmers and supporters yet Wednesday as some participants threw stones at police and tried to push through barriers around parliament, injuring several officers, police said.

Police used tear gas and said they detained over a dozen people and prevented the protesters from getting through to the Sejm, the Polish parliament.

Farmers are angry at EU climate policies and food imports from Ukraine. Many similar protests have occurred across the 27-member EU in recent weeks, but this one was decidedly angrier than earlier demonstrations in the central European nation.

Police noted on the social media platform X that its officers "are not a party to the ongoing dispute" and warned that behaviour threatening their safety "cannot be taken lightly and requires a firm and decisive response".

The deputy agriculture minister, Michał Kołodziejczak, said he didn't believe that "real, normal farmers caused a riot in front of the Sejm today", and that it was necessary to isolate "provocateurs and troublemakers".

He did not say who he thought was behind the violence.

Protesters clash with police in Warsaw. 

 Michal Dyjuk/Copyright 2024 The AP. 

Farmers on tractors blocked highways leading into Warsaw while thousands of their supporters gathered in front of the prime minister's office before marching to the parliament. Some trampled an EU flag and burned a mock coffin bearing the word "farmer".

Among the crowd were miners, foresters, hunters and other supporters. They blew horns and set off firecrackers and smoke bombs, despite police warnings that the use of pyrotechnics was banned. Some protesters burned tires.

No backing down

The protesters are demanding a withdrawal from the EU's Green Deal, a plan meant to fight climate change and protect biodiversity with plans including requiring farmers to reduce the excessive use of polluting chemicals to boost their crops.

The protests have led politicians to water down some provisions.

The protesters also want the Polish-Ukrainian border closed to stop the imports of Ukrainian food products, which farmers say drive down market prices and put Poland's agricultural sector in jeopardy.

The protest increased pressure on the still-new government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a former president of the European Council, who is strongly pro-EU and seeks to support Ukraine as it fights Russia's invasion.

Protesters in Warsaw.Michal Dyjuk/Copyright 2024 The AP. All rights reserved

Tusk has sought to meet the farmers' demands, calling their frustrations justified. He has said he plans to propose amendments to the Green Deal.

Anti-Ukrainian slogans have featured at the protests in Poland, where authorities have said they are concerned that Russia is trying to leverage legitimate concerns to create divisions between Warsaw and Kyiv.

Agriculture, forestry and fishing make up less than 3% of Poland's GDP, according to the World Bank.

 

Norway agrees to compensate Indigenous people over land for Europe's largest onshore wind farm

By Angela Symons with APTN

Published on 07/03/2024 

The wind farm fought against by Greta Thunberg will keep operating with compensation paid to Sami reindeer herders.

Norway on Wednesday reached an agreement with the Sami people, ending a nearly three-year dispute over Europe’s largest onshore wind farm and the Indigenous right to raise reindeer.

Under the agreement, the partially state-owned farm's 151 turbines stay in operation. Energy Minister Terje Aasland said the deal includes "a future-oriented solution that safeguards the reindeer farming rights."

The agreement also has compensation for the Sami - including a share of energy produced - along with a new area for winter grazing and a grant of 5 million kroner (€439,000) for strengthening Sami culture.

'The violation of human rights has been brought to an end'

The speaker of the 39-seat Sami Parliament, Silje Karine Mutoka, said "there is reason to believe that the violation of human rights has been brought to an end, and that the agreement lays a foundation for the violation of human rights to be repaired."

Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said "the state must learn from this case and ensure that violations do not happen again. It’s about better dialogue."

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In October 2021, the Supreme Court ruled that the turbines' construction violated the rights of the Sami, who have used the land for reindeer for centuries.

Since the ruling, Sami activists have demonstrated repeatedly against the wind farm’s continued operation and said a transition to green energy shouldn’t come at the expense of the rights of Indigenous people.

Swedish activist Greta Thunberg is carried away during a protest outside the Norwegian Ministry of Finance, in Oslo, on 1 March 2023.Cornelius Poppe/NTB Scanpix via AP, File

Greta Thunberg joined protests against the wind turbines

The protests drew support from Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who was carried away during a demonstration outside the Norwegian Ministry of Finance, in Oslo, on 1 March 2023. 

In June, Sami activists protested outside Gahr Støre’s office. They occupied the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy for four days in February and later blocked the entrances to 10 ministries.

Further protests in October saw activists wearing traditional Sami outfits sit outside the entrance of Statkraft, a state-owned company that operates 80 of the wind turbines.

The farm is located in central Norway’s Fosen district about 450 kilometres north of the capital, Oslo.