#U.S. tanker

[youthchronical]

Ship owner says arrested captain of cargo vessel involved in North Sea collision is Russian - The Times of India

LONDON: The captain of a cargo ship that collided with a US tanker is a Russian national who remains in UK police custody, the vessel’s owner said Wednesday. The 59-year-old man, who hasn’t been named by authorities, was arrested by police in northeast England Tuesday on suspicion of manslaughter by gross negligence over the collision. He hasn’t been charged. Shipping company Ernst Russ, which…

[faultfalha]

China is in the process of building a "shadow fleet" of tanker ships. This fleet will be used to transport oil to Beijing, and to other parts of the world, in order to ensure that the Chinese government has a secure supply of oil, in the event of a global crisis. The construction of this shadowy fleet is taking place in complete secrecy. Not even the Chinese people know about it. The ships are being built in a hidden shipyard, on the coast of China. This fleet is a sign of China's growing power and influence in the world. It is clear that the Chinese government is preparing for the future, and is not afraid to take whatever steps are necessary to ensure its security.

[idontmindifuforgetme]

Iraqi insurgents wave their national flag as they celebrate in front of a burning U.S. military tanker after attacking it in Abu Gharib. April 9, 2004.

[collapsedsquid]

A Portuguese container ship collided with a U.S.-flagged oil tanker while the tanker was anchored in the North Sea, on the eastern coast of England, with both ships catching on fire, according to officials. The U.S. ship was identified as the Stena Immaculate, while the Portuguese-flagged container ship was identified as the Solong. Both ships sustained significant damage and were abandoned by their crews.

@todays-problematic-ship

[usafphantom2]

Legendary Pilot Bob Pardo, Who Pushed A Damaged F-4 With His F-4 Over Vietnam, Has Died

December 20, 2023 Military Aviation

Bob Pardo

Bob Pardo in a 2017 photo by Senior Airman Ridge Shan. In the background, Pardo's Push in an artwork by S.W. Ferguson.

Bob Pardo passed away earlier this month at the age of 89. With his Phantom, he pushed a crippled F-4 outside the enemy airspace in one of the most heroic missions in the history of military aviation, known as “Pardo’s Push”.

“Pardo’s Push” is the name of an incredible maneuver carried out during the Air War over North Vietnam that, over the years, has become the symbol of heroism and a demonstration of courage and contempt for danger.

March 10, 1967.

Captain Bob Pardo is flying in an F-4C with Weapon Systems Officer 1st Lt Steve Wayne. Their wingman is the F-4C flown by Captain Earl Aman with Weapon Systems Officer 1st Lt Robert Houghton. The two Phantoms of the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing, based at Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand, are assigned the task to attack a steel mill in North Vietnam north of the capital Hanoi.

During the approach to the target, both F-4 is hit multiple times by enemy’s anti-aircraft fire. The North Vietnamese flak causes significant damage to Capt. Aman’s aircraft whose fuel tank begins to leak fuel forcing the crew to abort the mission. While hit too, Pardo’s F-4 is able to continue its mission.

On their egress route, at 20,000 feet, Aman and Houghton determine that they do not have enough fuel to reach a tanker or Laos, where they could eject and avoid capture. Although his F-4 is still efficient and has enough fuel to reach a tanker, Pardo decides to remain with his wingman.

At a certain point, while still inside North Vietnamese airspace, Aman’s Phantom flames out. To save Aman and Houghton, Pardo decides to do something he believes no one has ever done before: he attempts to push the other F-4 to Laos.

Initially, Pardo tries to push the other F-4 by gently making contact with the drag chute compartment. However, turbulence interferes with the maneuver and after several failed attempts, Pardo opts for an extreme solution: he instructs Aman to lower his tailhook, then he positions his F-4 behind the other Phantom leaning his windscreen against the tailhook. The contact is made but the “solution” is quite unstable and, as a consequence of turbulence, Pardo needs to reposition his F-4 every 15 to 30 seconds. Nevertheless, the push works and rate of descent of Aman’s Phantom is considerably reduced.

As if the situation was not complicate enough, Pardo’s F-4 suffers an engine fire, forcing him to shut it down.

Try for a second to visualize the situation: a flame-out F-4 is somehow pushed by means of its tailhook by another F-4 powered by a single engine. In enemy airspace. Incredible.

Ezoic

Pardo pushes Aman’s F-4 for another 10 minutes until his Phantom runs out of fuel too. With both planes safely inside Laotian airspace, at an altitude of about 6,000 feet, the aircrews of both F-4s ejects (they will be rescued by SAR helicopters and evade capture).

Although he saved another aircrew, Pardo was initially reprimanded for not saving his own F-4. Until 1989, when the episode was re-examinated and both Pardo and Wayne were awarded the Silver Star.

Retired Air Force pilot Lt. Col. Bob Pardo poses in front of a static display model of an F-4 Phantom II, one of the many fighter aircraft he has flown, at Luke Air Force Base, Ariz., Dec. 12, 2017. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Ridge Shan)

Pardo and Aman both continued serving and retired from the U.S. Air Force in the rank of lieutenant colonel. Years later, after learning that Aman had lost his voice and mobility because of Lou Gehrig’s disease, created the Earl Aman Foundation that raised enough money to buy Aman a voice synthesizer, a motorized wheelchair, and a computer. The foundation later contributed to raise funds to pay for a van, which Aman used for transportation until his death. In other words, Pardo never left his wingman behind, not even after retiring.

Ezoic

Noteworthy, as told by John L. Frisbee in his 1996 article for Air Force Magazine, Pardo’s push was not the first time a U.S. pilot pushed another jet out of enemy airspace: in 1952, during the Korean War, fighter ace Robbie Risner pushed his wingman out of North Korea in an F-86. However, pilots were ordered to refrain from attempting the hazardous maneuver again, and the episode had faded from memory and was almost completely unknown within the Air Force by the time Pardo and Wayne pushed Aman and Houghton outside of North Vietnam’s airspace.

Bob Pardo passed away aged 89, on Dec. 5, 2023. His courage and ingenuity, along with the legendary “Pardo’s Push“, will be remembered forever.

About David Cenciotti

David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.

@Aviationist via X

[amaranthoi]

Several of the refueling aircraft supporting the B-2s operated out of Souda Bay, with key phases of the operation involving air-to-air refueling over the central Mediterranean. According to itamilradar.com, between June 15 and 17, significant movement of U.S. tanker aircraft was recorded across Europe — including from Lajes, Morón, and Souda Bay.

The Chaniotika Nea newspaper confirmed: “Souda base was used for refueling purposes in the early morning U.S. strike on Iran. According to sources, between three and six KC-135 refueling aircraft took off from Souda and fueled the B-2 bombers, and possibly fighter jets as well. Activity at the Souda base was intense during this period, with flights clearly noticed by residents of Akrotiri and Apokoronas.”

[reasonsforhope]

Additional humanitarian aid trucks started rolling over the Rafah Crossing from Egypt to Gaza early Friday [November 24] morning, as the planned four-day ceasefire began. The aid trucks, fuel tankers among them, were a welcome sight amid the seven-week-long war between Israel and Hamas.

Since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 200 hostage, Israel has periodically [note: imho, this language is wildly minimizing the extent of the long-term, near-total blockade] cut off water, fuel and electricity to Gaza. An estimated 14,000 people have been killed by Israeli bombardment of the territory, the Hamas-run health ministry has said.

People in Gaza experienced reprieve on Friday after the warring sides implemented a new deal that included a temporary pause in fighting, delivery of more aid, and the planned exchange of a possible 50 Hamas hostages for 150 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

International organizations and Qatar’s foreign minister, who helped broker the deal, have said the new aid will not be enough to address the dire humanitarian disaster in Gaza. More than half of the territory’s two million-plus residents are internally displaced, with food and clean water now running out in north Gaza.

The United Nations and many aid groups have been calling for a permanent ceasefire.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that the country will continue its war to eliminate Hamas after the truce. Hamas told Al Jazeera in an interview that they want a permanent ceasefire, but said the group is “ready to deal with all situations imposed by Israel.”

What aid is entering Gaza? 

Between Oct. 21 and Nov. 23, more than 1,723 truckloads of humanitarian supplies entered Gaza through the Egyptian border, the U.N. said. Before the war, a monthly average of nearly 10,000 trucks of commercial and humanitarian commodities came in.

The U.N. said Israel allowed 19,812 U.S. gallons (75,000 liters) of fuel to enter Gaza on Nov. 23. Israel had previously prohibited fuel over fears it would be used by Hamas for military purposes. Fuel is now being distributed by the U.N. to support food distribution and to operate generators at hospitals, water and sanitation facilities, shelters and other critical services, the agency said. 

The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement shared on various social media channels that four tankers of fuel and four tankers of cooking gas were transferred from Egypt on Friday morning. 

Videos showed more trucks started passing into Gaza after the temporary ceasefire started at 7 a.m. local time. 

As of 10:30 a.m., 60 trucks of a total of 230 expected on Friday had entered Gaza, Al Arabiya reported, citing a Rafah crossing border official.

The Palestinian Red Crescent received two ambulances and 85 trucks loaded with aid through the crossing, carrying food, water, relief items, medical equipment, and medications, the group wrote on X (formerly Twitter)...

Multiple U.N. agencies have called for a humanitarian ceasefire, with U.N.’s Secretary-General saying in a statement on Nov. 19 that “this must stop.”

In a news conference Friday morning, Jens Laerke, spokesman for the U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA, told reporters: “We hope that this humanitarian pause leads to a longer term humanitarian ceasefire for the benefit of the people of Gaza, Israel and others.”

-via Time, November 24, 2023

[darkmaga-returns]

Story #1 - The U.S. government is FINALLY addressing the elephant in the sky—geoengineering.

“The conspiracy theorists” were right again.

For years, those who warned about geoengineering were dismissed as paranoid. Now, the federal government is confirming that it’s not only real—it may be illegal.

Make Sunsets is “polluting the air we breathe,” Zeldin says.

RFK Jr. has long sounded the alarm on these kinds of sky-based spraying programs—calling them “crimes.”

While this may seem like a breakthrough, not everyone is convinced this move actually addresses the real problem. So, is Zeldin’s crackdown the beginning of real change—or just political theater?

Geoengineering investigator Dane Wigington believes this is “smoke and mirrors”—a distraction from the much larger, ongoing operations that have been happening in our skies for years.

“This is a distraction from the elephant in the sky,” Wigington says.

According to him, Make Sunsets is just a small player in a much bigger system—one involving military tankers, commercial aircraft, and unknown substances being sprayed into the atmosphere and falling into ecosystems worldwide.

Watch his full breakdown in this must-see interview with Maria Zeee. We may be falling for a limited hangout.

[nudityandnerdery]

God fucking dammit. We don't have a fucking adult in the GOP to tell him not to do this?

[dangerousthingobservation]

U.S. and France Working on Rafale’s Certification to Refuel F/A-18

The tanker qualification partnership paves the way for an extended reach and enhanced interoperability for allied airpower, says the U.S. Navy. The U.S. Navy’s Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) announced that testing is in progress to improve interoperability with allies by allowing the French-made Rafale to refuel the F/A-18 family of jets. “The tanker […]The post U.S. and France Working on Rafale’s Certification to Refuel F/A-18 appeared first on The Aviationist.

[military1st]

British Tanker.

A British Soldier assigned to the King's Royal Hussars watches movement from his driver's hatch during Exercise Combined Resolve 24-02 at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center near Hohenfels, Germany.

The U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Dana Clarke (2024).

[dertaglichedan]

Iranian Parliament Backs Strait of Hormuz Closure After U.S. Strikes

Iran’s parliament on Sunday approved a resolution calling for the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the 33-kilometre-wide channel that carries about a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil trade—some 17 to 18 million barrels a day. Lawmakers said the step is a response to overnight U.S. strikes on the Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear facilities.

Esmail Kowsari, an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander who sits on parliament’s National Security Committee, told state media that legislators had “reached the conclusion” the waterway should be blocked, but emphasised that Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, chaired by President Masoud Pezeshkian and answerable to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, must take the final decision. Kowsari added that the IRGC is prepared to act “if circumstances require,” and no timetable has been set.

Any shutdown of the strait would disrupt tanker traffic from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar, threatening global energy supplies and likely lifting oil prices sharply. Brent futures have already risen more than 10 % since regional hostilities escalated this month. The U.S. Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain, patrols the corridor and has warned that attempts to block it would invite a military response.

[mariacallous]

Despite plenty of threats and ominous social media posts, the Trump administration has not taken an aggressive stance on sanctioning Russia yet. It has been more than three years into Russia’s war with Ukraine and more than three months since U.S. President Donald Trump first promised to end the war.

In contrast, Europe is stepping up, with its latest proposed sanctions targeting the financial sinews of Russia’s war machine, which complements its efforts to backstop Ukraine’s attempts to target the physical sinews.

On June 10, the European Union unveiled its 18th package of proposed sanctions that take aim at Moscow’s ability to fund the war through energy exports. There are plans to cut dozens of Russian banks completely out of the financial system; go after scores of tankers that ship illicit Russian crude; and to end, for good, Russia’s ability to hold Europe hostage through energy pipelines in Germany, as Trump seeks. There are also plans to limit the amount of money Russia can make by selling oil.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, the sanctions “robust” and “hard-biting,” while her vice president, Kaja Kallas, said, “Russia is cruel, aggressive, and a danger to us all.”

Not all of Europe’s action comes from Brussels. Baltic states such as Denmark and Sweden, which have been tormented for years by illicit Russian tanker flows through the narrows, are now doing what was unthinkable a year ago and are working to impound decrepit, undocumented ships that pose an immediate environmental threat, as well as the larger existential one. And last week, Germany Chancellor Friedrich Merz urged Trump to continue supporting Ukraine and NATO against Russia.

Merz left Washington triumphant in a way that many other world leaders who tangled with Trump in the Oval Office have not, but he failed to overcome the stasis that prevails in Washington on punishing Russia.

The U.S. Senate continues to deliberate over a “bone-crushing” sanctions bill sponsored by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham and Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal that, among other provisions, would impose tariffs of at least 500 percent on any country that imports Russian oil, uranium, natural gas, petroleum products, or petrochemical products. As Stephen Sestanovich, a senior fellow for Russian and Eurasian studies at the Council on Foreign Relations noted, “Such duties would amount to a near-total embargo on U.S. trade with China and India, among many other countries.”

If the bill were to pass—it has a veto-proof majority in the Senate and a seemingly similar stampede in the House—it would take millions of Russian oil barrels off the market, which would lead to a global spike in oil prices and an even bigger recession than the one that’s inbound.

That might be why the White House has not only withheld support but quietly urged the kinds of changes that are typical in sanctions legislation, to give the executive more discretion. It is now likely pushed back to the end of the month, if then.

“Winning a Nobel Prize for peace in Ukraine is a prize worth pursuing, but losing domestic support because of higher gasoline prices hurts more,” said Kevin Book, the founder of ClearView Energy Partners.

The latest EU measures are not a done deal. As always in a bloc that relies on consensus, the lowest common denominator comes into play, and now there are two of them: Hungary and Slovakia. In the past, Europe has been able to pass its sanctions packages despite Hungary’s misgivings by massaging energy restrictions or pardoning particular oligarchs, but Europe’s rightward tilt makes walking a straight line an uphill task. Appeasing Hungary has been as easy as ensuring carve-outs for Russian gas or oil flows to Eastern Europe; but as the rope tightens, Europe’s wiggle room shrinks, as does its options to strong-arm recalcitrant EU members. There is chatter that this 18th package, unlike the one before it, might be met with serious resistance, but experts say odds are that part will go through.

The bigger push will come this weekend, at the G-7 meeting in Canada. The centerpiece of the latest EU package is an effort to hurt Russia’s bottom line by lowering the cap for legal Russian oil sales from $60 a barrel to $45 a barrel. The oil price cap was set in late 2022 at a high level because nobody wanted to really tank oil markets.

But since then, Trump’s trade wars have weakened the global economy and driven down benchmark prices for crude oil to nearly $60 a barrel. At a time when oil prices were in the mid-80s, the price cap was meant to be a cap, not a floor. And yet, today, Russian Urals crude oil—a lesser, sulfur-heavy grade of crude oil—can be sold on the global market with its habitual discount without falling afoul of Western sanctions. In order to put teeth back into the price cap, Europe and the West figure they need to tighten the zipper.

The question mark is the United States. There are plenty of experts who expect Washington to push back against the EU’s proposed package, and the EU cannot tighten the garrote without U.S. connivance, because the price cap is a G-7 construct outside the EU that relies on the United Kingdom’s dominance of the maritime oil insurance market and the United States’ ability to police sanctions transgressors. The really big question is whether the Trump administration wants to strangle Russian oil revenues and force an end to the war or court it as a postwar investment paradise.

The EU’s latest proposed measures have one big, positive step: further tightening restrictions on “shadow fleet tankers” that traffic Russian oil and products with no papers, rules, or insurance. The new measures would go after another 77 ships, out of the 350-odd shadow fleet tankers still afloat and flouting rules. The Biden administration hit this hard on its way out the door, and the bruises are only now showing.

When it comes to bringing down the shadow fleet, wrote Robin Brooks, Ben Harris, and Liam Marshall at the Brookings Institution, gang tackles are better. Only a handful of the illegal Russian ships are covered by U.S., EU, and U.K. sanctions. Quite a few are covered by two of the three. A bunch are unsanctioned altogether. The EU and the U.K. do a lot on sanctions enforcement, but there is no instrument like the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

“In particular, when the EU and the U.K. sanction ships together, they shut down about 50 percent of sanctioned ships,” Brooks said. “That’s not as effective as OFAC, which is near 100 percent, but definitely nothing to sneeze at.”

More than three years into Europe’s bloodiest war since World War II, one that Russia continues to prosecute with a targeting as indiscriminate as it is deliberate, there are still ways to bring Moscow to heel beyond flashy drone strikes. The tools, whether in the EU’s 18 sanctions packages, the U.K.’s companion efforts, or a modified U.S. Senate sanctions bill, are out there.

The Trump administration’s handling of European allies and Ukraine is empowering Europe—not unlike the way its handling of Asian allies is empowering China, despite some regional blowback. But the response so far, resounding as it is, remains uneven.

[usafphantom2]

Front view of an F-14 Tomcat aircraft of VF-31 Tomcatters being refueled by a tanker aircraft in flight, as seen from the boom operator position

Source: U.S. National Archives

@CcibChris via X

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

L.A.fires Mary Elaine LeBey

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 8, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Jan 09, 2025

At least four wildfires tearing across Los Angeles have killed at least five people and forced the evacuation of at least 130,000 more, and have flattened about 42 square miles (109 square kilometers). The fires are being driven by unusually high winds with gusts of up to 98 miles per hour (158 km per hour). Although January is typically part of California’s wet season, conditions are terribly dry. Downtown Los Angeles has received just 0.16 inches (0.4 cm) of rain since May 6, 2024, and the summer was unusually hot.

President Joe Biden is supporting state and local responses to the fire with federal resources. Today, he approved a major disaster declaration, which enables people and towns to access funds immediately in order to jump-start their recovery. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will reimburse California for some of the costs of fighting the fires. Five U.S. Forest Service large air tankers and ten federal firefighting helicopters have been deployed to support the local firefighters; ten Navy helicopters with water delivery buckets are joining them. California governor Gavin Newsom has deployed the California National Guard, and the Nevada National Guard is standing by.

Canada, too, has sent water-dropping helicopters and a pair of planes, which are part of a firefighting contract with California that’s been in place for 14 years.

At a fire station in Santa Monica, Biden stood beside Newsom and said: “We’re prepared to do anything and everything for as long as it takes to contain these fires.”

In contrast to federal support for California under Biden, in the midst of the ongoing crisis President-elect Donald Trump blamed California governor Gavin “Newscum and his Los Angeles crew” for the fires, suggesting he had put the needs of fish over the people of California. He posted: “Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way.” "Let this stand as a symbol of the gross incompetence and mismanagement of the Biden/Newsom duo,” Trump posted. “January 20th cannot come fast enough!"

Newsom’s office responded: “There is no such document as the water restoration declaration—that is pure fiction. The Governor is focused on protecting people, not playing politics, and making sure firefighters have all the resources they need.”

Trump is apparently claiming that water that could be used to fight the fires has been diverted to protect the endangered Delta smelt. But the water systems in California are complicated, and importing water from northern California would make no difference for the wildfires.

Los Angeles water doesn’t come from northern California. It comes from an aqueduct east of the Sierra Nevada, from groundwater, and from the Colorado River. Right now, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has more water stored than it has ever had before, according to Mark Gold, a board member. “It’s not a matter of having enough water coming from Northern California to put out a fire,” he told Alastair Bland of CalMatters. “It’s about the continued devastating impacts of a changing climate.”

Hydroclimatologist Peter Gleick told Taryn Luna, Liam Dillon, and Alex Wigglesworth of the Los Angeles Times that Trump’s linking of water policy to the raging fires was “blatantly false, irresponsible and politically self-serving.”

The two different responses of the current president and the incoming one reveal dramatically different approaches to the presidency.

Yesterday the Biden administration announced the finalization of a new rule that will remove medical debt from all credit reports. Until now, medical debt has meant that consumers could be denied mortgages, car loans, or small business loans. In addition, Vice President Kamala Harris announced that funds from the American Rescue Plan, passed by Democrats shortly after Biden took office in 2021, have enabled the elimination of more than $1 billion in medical debt for 700,000 Americans. Jurisdictions are on track to eliminate about $15 billion in medical debt for nearly 6 million Americans, the White House said.

“No one should be denied economic opportunity because they got sick or experienced a medical emergency,” Harris said.

While Biden and Harris are working to solve problems for regular Americans, Trump has simply gone on the offensive, attacking Democrats for what he claims is their mismanagement without offering any ideas of his own. “NO WATER IN THE FIRE HYDRANTS, NO MONEY IN FEMA,” he posted. “THIS IS WHAT JOE BIDEN IS LEAVING ME. THANKS JOE!”

By now, we know that Trump goes on offense to hide his own shortcomings. As Judd Legum of Public Notice pointed out, “The largest wildfire in California history—the August Complex Fire, which burned more than 1 million acres—occurred during the Trump administration.”

That pattern of going on offense to hide his own behavior was also on display today when CNN’s Hadas Gold reported that someone inside the Fox News Channel (FNC) gave the Trump team the questions that Trump would be asked at an Iowa town hall last January just before the Iowa caucus. A forthcoming book by Alex Isenstadt of Politico details the close relationship between Trump and people within FNC. It says that after Trump refused to prepare for that town hall, someone inside Fox texted the questions to a senior Trump aide, enabling them to prep him with answers.

After Trump fell apart during his debate with Vice President Harris, he accused her of knowing the questions ahead of time and said the debate was “rigged.”

Trump apparently went on the offensive yesterday when he called Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito just hours before Trump’s lawyers filed an emergency request with the court asking it to stop Manhattan judge Juan Merchan from sentencing Trump Friday in the election interference case in which a jury found him guilty of 34 felonies. Alito told reporters that they talked only about a job opportunity for one of Alito’s law clerks and did not discuss the case, but it is highly unusual for a president or president-elect to talk with a Supreme Court justice when that official has business before the court. CNN’s Kaitlan Collins said such a thing was “almost unheard of.”

As legal analyst Quinta Jurecic observed, though, someone leaked news of this inappropriate contact astonishingly quickly. Such news usually “has taken a while to dribble out,” Jurecic noted, but “this happened THIS MORNING. [S]omebody was smug or pissed off enough to go to the press right away.”

Trump’s accusations that Biden committed a crime more likely to be chalked up to Trump himself—taking bribes from a foreign company—was also in the news today. Alexander Smirnov, the key witness for the House Republicans’ investigation into Biden, was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI about the alleged bribery and to tax evasion.

Julia Ainsley and Carol E. Lee of NBC News today reported another way in which Trump is threatening to go on offense: by conducting a very visible raid targeting undocumented immigrants in the Washington, D.C., area as soon as he takes office. While Presidents Barack Obama and Biden have targeted employers who violate labor laws, Trump wants to demonstrate “shock and awe” by raiding workplaces and sweeping up migrants who are in the U.S. without documentation, regardless of their criminal status. His transition team has been talking with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials about the logistics of such raids.

And then, of course, there are Trump’s frequent references to taking over other countries. Don Jr. traveled to Greenland this week with right-wing activist and media personality Charlie Kirk, ostensibly to record a podcast, but Trump Sr. followed the trip with posts saying “MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN!” That idea is getting traction among MAGA leaders, even though—or perhaps because—it is a direct affront to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), to which both the U.S. and Denmark belong.

Over the New York Post’s map of the “Donroe Doctrine” in which Canada is labeled “51st state,” Greenland is labeled “our land,” the Gulf of Mexico is labeled “Gulf of America,” and the Panama Canal is labeled “Pana-Maga Canal,” the Republican majority on the House Foreign Affairs Committee posted today: “Our country was built by warriors and explorers. We tamed the West, won two World Wars, and were the first to plant our flag on the moon. President Trump has the biggest dreams for America and it’s un-American to be afraid of big dreams.” Journalist Jamie Dupree screenshotted the tweet before the committee deleted it.

Behind all the offense, though, things that matter deeply to the American people are going largely unnoticed.

MAGA representatives have been introducing a slew of measures to the new Congress, many of which incorporate the plans of Project 2025 into legislation. They call for turning over immigration to the states, privatizing veterans’ healthcare, and repealing the 1993 National Voting Rights Act, the 2010 Affordable Care Act, and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.

Bills call for withdrawing the U.S. from the World Health Organization; increasing oil and gas production on federal lands; abolishing the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA); allowing states to spend federal education money on private school vouchers; and removing the protection of transgender rights from schools.

Other measures would revoke security clearances for “certain former members of the intelligence community,” introduce a constitutional amendment to cap the Supreme Court at nine justices, and cut off federal funding to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office (the office that successfully charged Trump with election interference) and the Fulton County (GA) District Attorney’s Office (the office that has charged Trump with criminal conspiracy).

And MAGA Republicans have proposed a bill to impose a national abortion ban, along with a bill urging Congress to support a consortium of antiabortion doctors for women because, the bill says, “health care should emphasize the whole woman, including her physical, mental, and spiritual wellness,” and “health care for women should also address the needs of men, families, and communities.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[alex99achapterthree]

Phantom Friday...

Pardo's push.

An epic story of guts and ingenuity. Captain Bob Pardo used his own damaged Phantom to push his wingman's crippled aircraft to an area safe for ejection. From Wikipedia: (they write it better than I could...)

Captain Bob Pardo (with Weapon Systems Officer 1st Lt Steve Wayne) and wingman Captain Earl Aman (with Weapon Systems Officer 1st Lt Robert Houghton) were assigned to the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing, 433rd Tactical Fighter Squadron, at Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand. In March 1967, they were trying to attack a steel mill in North Vietnam just north of Hanoi. On March 10, 1967, the sky was clear for a bombing run, but both F-4 Phantom IIs were hit by anti-aircraft fire. Aman's plane took the worst damage; his fuel tank had been hit, and he quickly lost most of his fuel. Aman and Houghton then determined that they did not have enough fuel to make it to a KC-135 tanker aircraft over Laos. To avoid having Aman and Houghton bail out over hostile territory, Pardo decided to try pushing the airplane. Pardo first tried pushing the plane using Aman's drag chute compartment but turbulence interfered. Pardo then tried to use Aman's tailhook to push the plane. The Phantom, having been originally designed as a naval aircraft for the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps, was equipped with a heavy duty tailhook for landings aboard aircraft carriers and for emergency arrestments ashore. Aman lowered his tailhook and Pardo moved behind Aman until the tailhook was against Pardo's windscreen. Aman then shut down both of his J79 jet engines. The push worked, reducing the rate of descent considerably, but the tailhook slipped off the windscreen every 15 to 30 seconds, and each time Pardo had to reposition his plane to do it again. Pardo also struggled with a fire in one of his own engines and eventually had to shut it down. In the remaining 10 minutes of flight time, Pardo used the one last engine to slow the descent of both planes. With Pardo's plane running out of fuel after pushing Aman's plane almost 88 miles (142 km), the planes reached Laotian airspace at an altitude of 6,000 feet (1,800 m). This left them about two minutes of flying time. Both crews ejected, evaded capture, and were picked up by rescue helicopters.

Initially Pardo was reprimanded for not saving his own aircraft but the case was re-evaluated in 1989 and all four crewmembers were awarded the Silver Star.

Epic!