BAHA’IS OF IRAN
Another Baha’i Arrested In Iran
DECEMBER 11, 2022


The police confiscated his personal electronic devices and transferred him to Adel Abad prison.

Iranian authorities have arrested another member of Iran’s long-persecuted Baha'i religious minority amid an intensified crackdown on the faith.

Armed forces stormed Faraz Haghighatjo's workplace in the southern city of Shiraz Saturday and arrested him, HRANA human rights news agency reported.

The police confiscated his personal electronic devices and transferred him to Adel Abad prison.

The Iranian authorities’ crackdown on members of the Baha'i minority appears to have accelerated since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, in the custody of morality police in September, which triggered the ongoing protests across Iran. The apparent acceleration also follows rising levels of persecution of Baha’is since July 2022.

Since the Islamic Republic was established in 1979, Baha'is in Iran have faced systematic discrimination and harassment, including deportation, restrictions to education, property confiscations, imprisonment, torture and executions.

Baha'is number some 300,000 in Iran and have an estimated five million followers worldwide.

Shia Islam is the state religion in Iran. The constitution recognizes several minority faiths, including Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism, but not the Baha'i faith.

Indigenous communities call on U.S. to confront Canada’s toxic mining runoff at border

By James McCarten The Canadian Press
Posted December 11, 2022 6:05 am


Ottawa has unveiled a $4 billion strategy aimed at speeding up projects involving critical minerals, as it faces pressure to meet its climate goals. Eric Sorensen explains how this could power the transition away from fossil fuels to green technology.

In a city of pinstripes and partisan power brokers, Mike Allison sticks out like a sore thumb. He’s in the wrong place — and he knows it.

“I shouldn’t be here,” the denim-clad Indigenous elder suddenly says, fighting tears beneath the brim of his trademark cowboy hat.

“I should be out on the land, working with my kids, teaching them values. I should be teaching them kids how to work with the environment, not fight for it.”


READ MORE: Efforts to protect nature at COP15 will fail without Indigenous people, leaders say

Instead, the Upper Similkameen Indian Band councillor is in a downtown D.C. boardroom, gearing up for a second day of meetings with State Department officials, bureaucrats, diplomats and members of Congress.

Fighting for the environment is exactly what Allison, whose British Columbia First Nation sits just 80 kilometres from the Canada-U.S. border, is doing in the U.S. capital as part of a tribal delegation from across the Pacific Northwest.


Their goal is an alliance with Congress and the Biden administration they hope will pressure Ottawa into a bipartisan effort to confront toxic mining runoff from north of the Canada-U.S. border they say is poisoning their waters.

Indigenous communities in B.C., as well as Washington state, Idaho and Montana, have been contending for more than a decade with selenium and other toxins leaching into their watershed from coal mining operations in the Elk Valley.

2:18 Vancouver company navigates difficult waters in deep sea mining operation

The principal player in the region, Teck Resources, has already spent more than $1.2 billion in an effort to fix the problem, with plans for $750 million more over the next two years, said spokesman Chris Stannell.

The Elk Valley Water Quality Plan, developed with help from Indigenous stakeholders, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the state government in Montana, the B.C. government and Ottawa, is just part of the strategy, Stannell said.
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Teck describes the plan as “among the largest and most collaborative water quality management and monitoring programs in the world,” alongside water treatment and mitigation efforts the company says have already proven effective.

But selenium levels are still too high, said Rich Janssen, head of the natural resources department with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes in Montana.

1:59 Pristine Alberta lake contaminated by dust from mountaintop coal mines: study

Janssen wants to be clear: the Indigenous groups in Washington on this day are not trying to end mining in the B.C. Interior, nor do they have any interest in headlines generated by protests or blockades.

But they fear ambitious expansion of mining in B.C. will exponentially worsen the environmental impact in their traditional territories, including Alaska, where open-pit gold and copper mines threaten wild salmon stocks.

“We acknowledge that Teck is trying to keep the water clean after they use it when they’re processing metallurgic coal, but they’re not willing to share their data,” Janssen said.

“With all the testing that we do downstream on the U.S. side, we see the increases in selenium. They’re already impacting our waters.”

The goal for years has been a reference, or investigation, under the auspices of the International Joint Commission _ the body that mediates disputes and enforces the terms of the bilateral Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909.

READ MORE: B.C. company watching closely as opposition grows to deep-sea mining

Canada, however, has been dragging its feet, said Janssen.

“We just don’t feel that Canada has really been willing to go that route — they’ve kind of been stonewalling us,” he said.

“So we’re here to continue to put pressure on our government officials to encourage Canada to join that process, which we think is a win-win for everyone.”

The delegation met in D.C. last week with Democrat and Republican lawmakers from Alaska, Washington and Montana, as well as officials from the Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Among them was Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.), who was part of a congressional coalition from the Pacific Northwest that complained in 2019 about a controversial mining proposal in the headwaters of the Upper Skagit River in B.C.
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2:00  B.C. copper mine goes partly electric to cut emissions and fossil fuel use

Those mining rights were surrendered earlier this year as part of a $24-million buyout funded in part by the province, the state of Washington and conservation groups.

Mining runoff from Canada is an ongoing “issue of concern” for DelBene, said a spokesman who confirmed Friday that the meeting took place but provided no other specific details.

Officials in the Canadian Embassy would only say their meeting with the delegation Wednesday involved “a constructive discussion about mining impacts” and they “look forward to continuing this engagement.”

In June, following meetings with several U.S. tribes, the State Department made its position clear by reaffirming its support for a joint reference to investigate the transboundary impact of Canadian mining in the region.


READ MORE: First Nations angered by delays in joint probe of cross-border contamination from coal mines

A mutual, bilateral agreement to examine the issue “would respond to the need for impartial recommendations and transparent communication,” the department said in a statement.

It would also “build trust and forge a common understanding of this issue among local, Indigenous, state, provincial and federal governments, as well as stakeholders and the public in both countries.”

The federal government is developing regulations under the Fisheries Act in an effort to mitigate the potential impact of mining effluent, said Samantha Bayard, a spokesperson for Environment and Climate Change Canada.

That approach “will include the establishment of national baseline effluent quality standards for deleterious substances of concern, including selenium,” Bayard said in a statement.

2:19  Pressure to end exports of coal in Canada

As for transborder pollution, she said, Ottawa “is considering a variety of options.”

While the bulk of the mining activity in the region is relatively old-school _ coal, gold, silver and copper _ conservationists also fear a looming new North American extraction frenzy, this one in search of the precious, climate-friendly critical minerals that now fuel life in the 21st century.

On Friday in Vancouver, Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson released Canada’s new plan to prioritize the extraction of lithium, graphite, nickel, cobalt, copper and rare earth elements.

Critical minerals comprise a “generational opportunity” for Canada, said Wilkinson, who promises “meaningful and ongoing Indigenous partnership” in pursuit of the country’s “ambitious climate and nature protection goals.”

But Canada needs to deal with the old mess before it starts a new one, said Robin Irwin, the head of Upper Similkameen’s natural resources department.

“Before you start permitting the exploration and expansion of these major open-pit mines, at what point are you going to clean up these hundreds of messes that have been left,” Irwin said.

Toxic levels of arsenic have been detected in and around the tiny community of Hedley, B.C., where open dump sites of cyanide-filled barrels have been sitting for decades on the banks of the Similkameen River, she added.

“The companies go bankrupt and the permits expire, and it’s now the responsibility of the Crown to be cleaning up these sites,” Irwin said.

“These companies come in that get a permit from the province, they take everything that they want out of the land, they leave a big scar, and they seem to have no legal or even moral responsibility for remediating those sites.”

 COP15

Big cities have a major role to play in protecting biodiversity, experts say

Montreal mayor Valerie Plante delivers remarks during the opening ceremony of the COP15 UN conference on biodiversity in Montreal on Tuesday, December 6, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson 

Morgan Lowrie, The Canadian Press
Published Sunday, December 11, 2022 8:35AM EST
Last Updated Sunday, December 11, 2022 8:35AM EST

While they're traditionally viewed as concrete jungles rather than natural oases, cities are increasingly taking a leadership role when it comes to protecting biodiversity.

Cities will take the spotlight in the coming days during a summit for subnational governments at the UN biodiversity summit in Montreal, known as COP15.

Sharon Gil, a program officer in the UN Environment Program's cities unit, says the strong presence of cities at the conference reflects their growing efforts to protect biodiversity.

Cities, she said, are where most people live, where most consumption happens, and where many impacts of biodiversity loss are being felt.

"Cities are at the front line of everything," she said. "So when there's a problem of increased rainfall leading to flooding, for example, cities have to deal with that. When there is a problem of bad air quality, cities have to deal with that problem."

Gil said that for the first time, the biodiversity framework being negotiated by the nations gathered in Montreal contains a specific draft target that includes increasing size and access to nature in urban areas.

Gil said cities are increasingly finding that introducing more nature is good for not only human health and well-being, but cost-effective in terms of attracting investment and coping with issues such as air quality, rainfall absorption and even landslides.

The cities summit, which takes place Sunday and Monday, will bring together subnational governments to discuss solutions to protect nature.

Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante has been encouraging her counterparts to sign the “Montreal pledge,” composed of 15 actions that include increasing protected green space, reducing pesticide use and working to eliminate plastic waste. The city also recently announced a plan to protect pollinators and has promised more corridors to connect green spaces.

In her opening speech to the conference Wednesday, she urged other levels of government to listen to urban populations and their mayors and to help fund their initiatives.

"Cities can do a lot," Plante said. "You just have to support us, invite to the negotiating table and give us the means to act."

Shin Koseki, who holds the UNESCO Chair in Urban Landscape at the Université de Montréal, said that while cities will never have the same amount of animal and plant life as untouched nature, they can help improve biodiversity both within their own borders and outside them.

That can mean increasing the presence of native plants and animals, including insects, and ensuring that they properly manage soil, sewage and water run-off to avoid allowing contamination that can seep elsewhere.

On a higher level, he said cities have a responsibility to provide "an urban life experience to fight against urban sprawl" by providing dense living spaces that encroach as little as possible on surrounding natural areas.

Koseki and Gil both acknowledge that cities face challenges when it comes to championing biodiversity, but they believe those obstacles can be overcome.

In Canada there is concern over a need for housing, which has prompted the Ontario government to remove land from the protected Greenbelt to build more homes. Gil, however, points to cities like Hong Kong, which has protected a large portion of its territory as green space while increasing housing.

With certain choices, humans' relationship with nature in their cities "doesn't have to be at a cost to housing, or at a cost to additional infrastructure that will service marginalized neighbourhoods," she said.

Another problem cities face, especially in Canada, is that they have a limited funding base and depend on other orders of government to finance many of their ambitions.

On Saturday, the mayors of 15 cities made a plea at the conference for increased financing from national governments and the private sector to help increase spaces for nature in urban areas.

Gil said that while more funding for cities would help, the leadership role cities taking at the conference and beyond shows they're willing to act with the resources they already have.

"They're not waiting for a handout," she said.

While funding structures put them at a disadvantage, Koseki said cities are much closer to their populations than other levels of government, which can be a powerful tool to spur change.

"To increase urban biodiversity, but also to increase biodiversity outside of urban areas, most of all we need the population to participate," he said. "And cities are best placed to engage their populations, to raise awareness of these issues, and that's why cities have a very big role to play."

Democratic lawmakers make last-ditch effort to enhance child tax credit

By Tami Luhby, CNN
Sun December 11, 2022

Some Democrats want to make more kids eligible for the child tax credit.

Shutterstock

CNN —

Buoyed by the steep drop in child poverty last year, a group of Democratic lawmakers and progressive advocates are pushing hard to restore at least part of the enhanced child tax credit that stabilized many families’ finances in 2021.

Though its prospects are slim, the coalition’s priority is making the credit more refundable so more of the lowest-income families can qualify, as they did last year thanks to the Democrats’ $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan’s temporary expansion of the credit. Nearly 19 million kids won’t receive the full $2,000 benefit this year because their parents earn too little, according to a Tax Policy Center estimate.

The lawmakers, led in the Senate by Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Michael Bennet of Colorado and Cory Booker of New Jersey, are hoping to include the provision in the government spending bill that Congress is scrambling to craft before funding expires on December 16. As leverage, they want to tie it to corporate tax breaks that Republicans and businesses support.

The effort, however, faces many hurdles. Supporters have only a few weeks before the GOP takes control of the House, ending any chance of increasing the refundability of the credit. That makes it more imperative for them that Congress agrees to a full-year funding agreement this month, rather than the more-likely scenario of passing a short-term extension into 2023.

Another challenge: At least 10 Republican senators have to sign on for the measure to pass, and that’s assuming it has the support of Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who last year torpedoed an extension of the expanded child tax credit, along with much of President Joe Biden’s social spending package.

While Bennet would like the credit to become fully refundable so all low-income families could receive the entire benefit, regardless of their earnings, he said he’s keeping an open mind.

“I think about it as an effort to try to cover as many of the 19 million children who are left out of the current credit as possible and cover them in a meaningful way,” he told CNN.

But he acknowledged that it’s been difficult to negotiate a deal with the GOP because of the uncertainty surrounding the government funding bill.

The child tax credit has long enjoyed bipartisan support, though Republicans have been wary of making it fully refundable because they are concerned it could discourage parents from working.

GOP Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, a longtime advocate of the child tax credit, crafted an enhanced version earlier this year, along with fellow Republican Sens. Richard Burr of North Carolina and Steve Daines of Montana. Families must have earned $10,000 in the prior year to receive the full benefit, while those making less will receive a credit proportional to their earnings.

More low-income children would be covered under the proposal, which contains other measures that progressive advocates are not as keen on. But the very poorest would still be excluded.

The 2021 enhancement

The American Rescue Plan made three significant changes to the child tax credit for 2021. It increased the maximum credit to $3,600 for children under age 6 and $3,000 for those ages 6 through 17. Heads of households earning up to $112,500 a year and married couples making up to $150,000 were eligible for the full amount.

Also, it made the credit fully refundable so the lowest-income families could qualify. And it sent half the credit to families in monthly installments of up to $300 from July through December last year to help them cover expenses. They could claim the other half on their 2021 tax returns.

More than 36 million families with more than 61 million kids received monthly payments, which totaled more than $93 billion, according to the Internal Revenue Service.

Prior to the expansion, eligible parents received a credit of up to $2,000 for children up to age 17 when they filed their taxes. That is what is in effect for 2022 since the enhancement has expired.

A reduction in child poverty

The expansion lifted 2.1 million children out of poverty in 2021, according to the Census Bureau. It helped drive child poverty to 5.2%, a drop of 46%, according to the bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure.

While the monthly payments were being delivered, food insecurity dropped and families said they could more easily afford their household expenses, said Elaine Maag, senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center.

She takes issue with the arguments that the enhanced credit dissuaded parents from working and contributed to inflation.

“It’s a way to actually support work. In some cases, people used the money to pay for child care, for transportation,” she said. “The credit is not large enough to be driving inflation. It is enough money, however, for a very low-income family to be able to offset those effects of inflation.”

For Luz and Rafael Garcia, the $750 monthly installments they received for their three children last year meant that the couple could pay their bills without having to repeatedly check their bank balance to make sure they had enough funds.

The Garcias, who live in Lake Elsinore, California, both work – she as a bilingual para-educator in the local school district, he as a machine operator. But they still live paycheck to paycheck, so getting monthly infusions last year gave them a cushion, especially as gas prices skyrocketed.

“We’re back at having to use our credit card for unexpected expenses, or even everyday expenses,” said Luz Garcia, 42. “I’ve had to use a credit card to pay for gas just to fill up my tank just waiting for that next paycheck.”

There are ways to expand the child tax credit that would provide parents with an incentive to work while not contributing to inflation, said Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies with the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute. An enhancement should focus on low-income families, and the amount of the credit should increase with income until it hits the full benefit.

“That would have poverty reduction effects by giving the credit to households with no earnings, but it would also encourage earnings,” he said. “There are ways to accomplish a lot of people’s goals here.”

2 killed, 4 injured in Peru as protests demanding elections turn violent

Two people were killed and four were injured in Peru on Sunday during protests demanding the country hold general elections.

Reuters
Lima,

UPDATED: Dec 12, 2022 

A demonstrator gestures next to a bonfire during a protest demanding the dissolution of Congress and to hold democratic elections rather than recognize Dina Boluarte as Peru's President, after the ouster of Peruvian leader Pedro Castillo, in Lima, Peru December 11, 2022. (Reuters photo)


By Reuters: Two teens were killed and four people injured in Peru on Sunday during protests demanding the country hold general elections following the ouster of former President Pedro Castillo, police and local authorities said.

President Dina Boluarte was sworn in last week after Castillo was sacked by Congress and arrested for attempting to dissolve the legislature in an effort to prevent an impeachment vote against him.

Demonstrators, many of them Castillo supporters, have for days demanded that Peru hold elections rather than allow Boluarte to stay in power until Castillo's term ends in 2026. Some protesters also call for Congress to be shuttered.

Police officers walk near a bonfire during a protest demanding the dissolution of Congress and to hold democratic elections rather than recognize Dina Boluarte as Peru's President, after the ouster of Peruvian leader Pedro Castillo, in Lima, Peru December 11, 2022.

The head of Peru's ombudsman's office, Eliana Revollar, told local radio station RPP that a 15-year-old and an 18-year-old died during clashes with police in the city of Andahuaylas, in the Andean region of Apurimac, "possibly as a result of gunshot wounds."

Baltazar Lantaron, governor of the Apurimac region, told local television station Canal N that "four injuries are reported, treated at the health center, three of them (with wounds) to the scalp, with multiple injuries".


Demonstrators walk near tear gas during a protest demanding the dissolution of Congress and to hold democratic elections rather than recognize Dina Boluarte as Peru's President, after the ouster of Peruvian leader Pedro Castillo, in Lima, Peru December 11, 2022.

The Peruvian Corporation of Airports and Commercial Aviation, which manages the country's airports, reported the closure of the Andahuaylas airport following attacks and acts of vandalism since last Saturday.

Protesters had set fire to the transmitter room, which is crucial for providing navigation services, it added.

The ombudsman's office on Saturday said two police officers were held for hours by protesters in Andahuaylas, but were later released. Clashes on Saturday left 16 civilians and four policemen injured, it said.

--- ENDS ---

View from ‘Dawn’: Journalist Arshad Sharif’s ‘planned assassination’ shouldn’t go unpunished

The message is clear: Journalists with a target on their backs remain in mortal danger even if they are able to flee the country.

Dawn.com
Yesterday · 07:30 pm

Arshad Mohammed Sharif/ Facebook

If there were any doubts about a sinister, transnational plot to kill journalist Arshad Sharif, the 592-page report submitted on December 7 to the five-judge Supreme Court bench by the investigation team looking into the murder should have laid them to rest. The task now is to uncover those who ordered what the two investigators, senior officials from Intelligence Bureau and Federal Investigation Agency, concluded was a “planned targeted assassination”, and bring them to book. According to the report, the involvement of “characters in Kenya, Dubai and Pakistan” cannot be ruled out. The scope of the investigation is vast, and it will require painstaking work that builds upon the wealth of information gleaned thus far. And who knows what inconvenient truths it could unmask? Sharif’s trenchant analysis of political developments in the last few months of his life may have earned him some powerful enemies, something that his mother indicated in the application she has filed before the court.

If the well-known anchor was silenced on account of the views he expressed, it signals a new low for the environment in which the media works in the country. For it means that a journalist with a target on his or her back, which is bad enough a situation to be in, remains in mortal danger despite fleeing abroad. The investigating officers, who travelled to Kenya in late October on a two-week fact-finding visit have uncovered some startling, facts and inconsistencies. For instance, Waqar Ahmed who hosted Sharif in Kenya had connections within the Kenyan intelligence service as well as Pakistani and other international spy agencies, which may have been why he handed over the victim’s cell phone and iPad to a member of the Kenyan intelligence, rather than the local police. The report also notes discrepancies in the account given by the Kenyan police – who claimed to have fired upon the vehicle in which the journalist was travelling – and the ballistic evidence the Pakistani investigators were able to view. There were, moreover, significant inconsistencies in statements given to the fact-finding team by the owner of the channel where Sharif was last working. In short, there is much that the special joint investigation team, constituted by the government on the Supreme Court’s directives, can build upon. This heinous crime must be solved. Neither the court, nor journalists’ bodies – both Pakistani and international – must allow the brazen murder of yet another mediaperson to go unpunished.
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This article first appeared in Dawn.

Australia’s progress towards gender pay parity stalls: Report

Discrimination and bias in hiring as well as for decisions on compensation are partly to blame for the nation’s pay disparity. 

SYDNEY – Australian employers are failing to narrow the pay gap between men and women, with finance firms among the worst offenders.

Females earned 22.8 per cent less than males, the first time that progress has stalled since the government Workplace Gender Equality Agency began to collect the data in 2013, a report showed on Monday.

“It’s very disturbing and disappointing, in terms of the progress,” WGEA director Mary Wooldridge said in an interview. “It needs to serve as a call out to all employers that we need to do better.”

The financial and insurance services industry’s 28.6 per cent gap ranked it second behind the construction sector in terms of pay disparity.

Discrimination and bias in hiring as well as for decisions on compensation are partly to blame for the nation’s pay disparity, according to the WGEA report. They’re part of a slew of other factors that impact the gap, such as having more men in senior management roles who tend to receive bigger bonuses and a large proportion of women in lower paid education and healthcare jobs.

Australia requires companies with more than 100 workers to provide information annually, though individual firms’ results aren’t published.

In the US, Citigroup last year became one of the first big firms to disclose an unadjusted pay gap for its staff, while Britain since 2018 has mandated reporting on wage differences

The WGEA data is based on employer reports from April 1 last year through to March 31 this year, covering 4,795 reporting organisations and almost 4.5 million employees.

Still, Australia has faired well relative to many other countries, Ms Wooldridge said.

“Both Canada and New Zealand, which are good countries to compare to, have actually had slight increases in their gender pay gap over the last 12 months,” Ms Wooldridge said. “You could nearly say it’s good that we’ve only stalled and that we haven’t increased,” adding that more women in leadership executive positions on boards is good for business outcomes.

Meantime, men still disproportionately hold management positions, even in female-dominated industries. Only one in five company boards were gender balanced, and 22 per cent of boards featured no women, according to the report.

Leadership diversity

The lack of progress comes despite concerted efforts to improve workplace representation and equality, such as the 30 per cent Club and the 40:40 Vision, which pension fund Hesta set up to promote gender diversity in leadership in the 300 biggest publicly listed companies.

Deloitte Australia managing partner Pip Dexter said while the WGEA results were disappointing, the report would pressure organisations to take action.

Deloitte had increased its representation of women at partner level by 2 per cent each year, and now 33 per cent of partner positions were held by women, said Ms Dexter, who runs the executive team’s workforce, talent and diversity, equity and inclusion programme.

“If you stop talking about things, then people stop working on them and then they may actually get worse,” Ms Dexter said. “It creates a bit of peer pressure amongst organisations and peer pressure is a powerful way to get behavioral change.” BLOOMBERG

REST IN POWER

Pioneering Black feminist Dorothy Pitman Hughes dies at 84

Dorothy Pitman Hughes poses in her St. Johns, Fla., home on Sept. 24, 2013, with a poster using a 1970's image of herself and Gloria Steinem. Hughes, a pioneering Black feminist, child welfare advocate and activist who co-founded Ms. Magazine with Steinem, formed a powerful speaking partnership with her and appeared with her in one of the most iconic photos of the feminist movement, has died. Hughes died Dec. 1, 2022, in Tampa, Fla. She was 84.

 (Bob Self/The Florida Times-Union via AP)

The Canadian Press
Published Sunday, December 11, 2022 9:21AM EST

NEW YORK (AP) — Dorothy Pitman Hughes, a pioneering Black feminist, child welfare advocate and lifelong community activist who formed a powerful speaking partnership with Gloria Steinem and appeared with her in one of the most iconic photos of the second-wave feminist movement, has died.

She was 84. Hughes died Dec. 1 in Tampa, Florida.

She was perhaps best known for her community activism, especially at the center she established on Manhattan's West side for child care and support for working parents, including job training.

Hughes appeared in a famous 1971 photo with Steinem in which the two raised their arms in the Black Power salute.

Jim Jordan's Own Words Used Against Him as Ted Lieu Accuses Him of Lying

BY FATMA KHALED ON 12/11/22

Representative Ted Lieu, a California Democrat, on Saturday shared remarks previously made by Representative Jim Jordan to point out that the Ohio Republican reportedly lied about a tweet posted by an account for the GOP on the House Judiciary Committee that praised Twitter CEO Elon Musk, rapper Kanye West, and former President Donald Trump.

"'One thing I've learned: People who mislead folks on small things mislead them on big things.' Jim Jordan, December 8, 2022 #SaturdayMorning receipts," Lieu tweeted, quoting Jordan's remarks during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday.

Lieu's tweet comes after Jordan denied that a post on Twitter, which has since been deleted, seemed to have shown approval of Musk, West, and Trump, reading "Kanye. Elon. Trump," The Independent reported.

The tweet was posted on October 6 by an account that belongs to Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee on which Jordan serves as a ranking member. The post was removed around two months later following West's controversial remarks about Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, according to The Independent.

Jordan reportedly lied about the tweet during a Thursday committee hearing, saying that the "tweet was not our account and that tweet has been removed," MSNBC reported Friday.

Thursday's hearing was looking into ethical violations related to the U.S. Supreme Court. During the hearing, Jordan asked Reverend Robert Schenck about an incident involving his brother Reverend Paul Schenck, Fox News reported.

Robert was testifying before Congress about how right-wing Christian activists built close relationships with Supreme Court justices to advance their conservative agenda, according to NPR. Jordan on Thursday referred to Robert's account of an incident that the reverend wrote about in his book, Costly Grace.


Above, Representative Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, speaks to supporters at a "Save America" rally on September 17 in Youngstown, Ohio. Democratic Representative Ted Lieu of California on Saturday shared remarks previously made by Jordan to point out that the Ohio Republican reportedly lied about a tweet posted by an account for the GOP on the House Judiciary Committee that praised Elon Musk, Kanye West, and Donald Trump.
PHOTO BY JEFF SWENSEN/GETTY IMAGES

The incident reportedly was related to a 1997 court case brought forward by Chief Justice William Rehnquist that involved his brother Paul versus Pro-Choice Network for Western New York, according to Fox News. In his book, Robert wrote about how Rehnquist referred to him as "reverend," a title that is not used in the names of court cases, and expressed how he was pleased with that recognition.

However, Jordan questioned Robert about his account of the incident, and suggested that he was lying about it.

"One thing I've learned: People who mislead folks on small things mislead them on big things. You know what? You can lie in a book, that's not a crime. You can lie to The New York Times, that's not a crime. But when you come in front of Congress, and you say things that are not true, you're not allowed to do that."

Newsweek reached out to Jordan's office for comment.

TRIO OF SPACECRAFT LAUNCH FOR THE MOON

BY: DAVID DICKINSON 

DECEMBER 11, 2022  

NASA’s Lunar Flashlight, iSpace’s Hakuto R from Japan, and the United Arab Emirates’ Rashid rover are all headed to the Moon after launching aboard a SpaceX rocket.
The December 11th launch of a Falcon 9 rocket with Hakuto R.
SpaceX/ispace

Three international missions are now headed moonward, after a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lit up the early morning skies over Florida.

Liftoff occurred from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 2:38 a.m. EST / 7:38 UT Sunday morning December 11th, targeting a geostationary transfer orbit. The launch was initially delayed by a day to allow for additional pre-flight checkouts, and delayed again until this weekend. The payloads separated as planned between 46 and 53 minutes after launch. The SpaceX Falcon 9 stage one booster B1073 successfully touched down at LZ 2 back at the Cape, 7 minutes and 44 seconds after launch.



The launch carried a trio of ambitious international missions, including NASA’s Lunar Flashlight orbiter, the Hakuto R Mission 1 lander built by Japan's iSpace company, and the Rashid lunar rover fielded by the Unites Arab Emirates Space Agency. All three will take a long path, traveling to the Moon over three to four months and arriving in lunar orbit in early 2023.

"It was a beautiful launch," says John Baker (NASA/JPL) in a recent press release. "The whole team is excited to see this small spacecraft do some big science in a few months' time."

The trio of spacecraft will take a long path to the Moon that saves on fuel but takes three or more months.
iSpace

LUNAR FLASHLIGHT

First up is NASA’s Lunar Flashlight CubeSat, originally intended to ride aboard Artemis 1 last month. After arriving at the Moon, Lunar Flashlight will enter a near-rectilinear halo orbit, the same type of orbit pioneered by NASA’s CAPSTONE orbiter, which just arrived in lunar orbit on November 14th. This will take the Lunar Flashlight as close as 15 kilometers (9 miles) to the Moon's surface, and as far away as 70,000 kilometers (43,500 miles) — a loop that will allow its detectors to peer into the permanently shadowed craters at the south pole. The four laser reflectometers carried in this briefcase-sized spacecraft will then map out the distribution of the water ice on the Moon's surface.The Lunar Flashlight unfolds its solar panels in a lab on Earth.
NASA / JPL-Caltech

Missions including India's Chandrayaan 1 and NASA’s LCROSS impactor have all gathered evidence for water ice on the Moon. Such deposits are thought to have been brought to the Moon by comets and could exist within the permanently shadowed cold traps that craters create on the Moon. Water ice on the Moon could prove to be a vital resource for future astronauts.

"We are brining a literal flashlight to the Moon--shining lasers into these dark craters to look for definitive signs of water ice covering the upper layer of lunar regolith," says Barbara Cohen (NASA/GSFC) in a recent press release. "I'm excited to see our mission contribute to our scientific understanding of where water ice is on the Moon and how it got to be there."

While the Lunar Flashlight team aims to map out these water ice deposits, this data might also show whether the shadows cast by uneven terrain helps water ice survive, even in the harsh daytime conditions near the Moon's equatorial regions. It's also possible this equatorial water ice, first noted in infrared data from the SOFIA airborne observatory, is instead locked up in rocks. It'll be important to future explorers to find out how accessible this water is

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An artist's conception of Lunar Flashlight in orbit around the Moon.
NASA/JPL Caltech

Lunar Flashlight will be the first mission to use "green" (Advanced Spacecraft Energetic non-Toxic) propellant, an alternative to hazardous hydrazine that's most often used. This fuel was first demonstrated in low-Earth orbit in 2019 on NASA's Green Propellant Infusion Mission.

The spacecraft's design also relies on previous smallsat missions, including the MARCO Mars Cube One satellites that flew to Mars with Insight.

HAKUTO R

Also on board the SpaceX launch is iSpace’s Hakuto R Mission 1, which will attempt to land in Atlas Crater near Mare Frigoris on the lunar nearside in early 2023. Hakuto means "white rabbit" in Japanese; in east Asian mythology, the animal is often associated with the Moon. The European Space Agency’s worldwide tracking network will provide support for the mission down to the lunar surface.

Encapsulation of the Hakuto R mission shortly before launch.
SpaceX

The mission was one the entrants to Google's Lunar X prize, a contest designed to promote private lunar exploration. Although the LunarX prize competition ended without a winner in 2018, several companies have continued with their projects. One of these, the Beresheet lander built by SpaceIL in Israel, crash-landed on the Moon in April 2019.

"iSpace's Hakuto R Mission 1 is a technical demonstration mission," says Andrew Ames (iSpace). "Once the lander is on the lunar surface, operations will take place for approximately 10 days or one lunar day (from local sunrise to sunset)."

An artist's concept of Hakuto R on the Moon.
iSpace

The primary goal of Hakuto R Mission 1 is to demonstrate iSpace’s landing platform, providing momentum for future landing missions. The lander also carries a small transformer-like lunar robot "rover" that's about the size and shape of a baseball. It, too, will provide data for future missions.

The "ball rover" onboard the Hakuto R lander.
JAXA / iSpace

RASHID ROVER

The Hakuto R lander will also carry the United Arab Emirates' Rashid lunar rover down to the lunar surface. The four-wheeled rover is 10 kilograms (22 pounds) and will carry a suite of cameras and a Langmuir probe, designed to measure plasma properties of surface dust.

The UAE team with the Rashid rover.
Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center

"The mission's instruments are designed to study the lunar regolith in great detail," says Dimitra Atri (NYUAD Center for Space Science). "Data from the Langmuir probe on board the rover will help understand how solar charged particles interact with the lunar regolith. Based on data from the microscopic imager, we plan to create a replica of the lunar regolith in our lab and study its properties."

Researchers on Earth already do the same based on soil data from NASA's Curiosity and Perseverance rovers, and now, scientists plan to do the same with Rashid's findings on the Moon.

If this first mission is successful, iSpace could field its second mission to the Moon as early as 2024.

More lunar missions are coming sooner than that: SpaceX is set to launch the Intuitive Machines' IM 1 lunar lander mission in early 2023. (The company's first lunar mission launch of South Korea's Danuri, will have that spacecraft in lunar orbit by mid- December.)

The Moon is once again becoming a busy place. The Artemis 1 mission has been giving us some amazing views from its vantage point in a distant lunar retrograde orbit, including a unique Earth occultation by the Moon last week, ahead of splashdown in the Pacific and return later today.

Good luck to Lunar Flashlight, Hakuto R, and Rashid, as they head outward on their long flight to the Moon.