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“Shame & Name” Climate Activist Satellite Backed By Bezos Lost

A high-resolution Earth-observation satellite designed to monitor and map global methane emissions has been lost after a power failure.

The $88 million satellite, called MethaneSAT, owned by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and backed by Jeff Bezos, was lost ten days ago… 

On Friday, June 20, the MethaneSAT mission operations lost contact with MethaneSAT. After pursuing all options to restore communications, we learned this morning that the satellite has lost power, and that it is likely not recoverable. While this is difficult news, it is not the end of the overall MethaneSAT effort, or of our work to slash methane emissions.

MethaneSAT was launched in March 2024 and delivered data on methane emissions, focusing on the “name and shame” operations of global oil and gas assets worldwide. It was built on Blue Canyon Technologies’ X-Sat platform and carried a custom infrared spectrometer from Ball Aerospace, capable of detecting methane sources both large and small.  

Reuters reported that MethaneSAT’s last known position was over Svalbard, Norway, and the EDF has acknowledged it is unlikely to be recovered.

“We’re seeing this as a setback, not a failure,” Amy Middleton, senior vice president at EDF, told Reuters, adding, “We’ve made so much progress and so much has been learned that if we hadn’t taken this risk, we wouldn’t have any of these learnings.”

MethaneSAT stated, “To solve the climate challenge requires bold action and risk-taking and this satellite was at the leading edge of science, technology and advocacy.” 

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The Curbing Of The Administrative State

The Supreme Court delivered an opinion last week that not even the best of the punditry class was prepared to understand. The decision was Trump vs. CASA, and the topic concerned the nationwide injunction against Trump’s management of U.S. immigration policy. As with more than 40 other cases, federal district judges have intervened to stop the president from exercising executive powers.

The opinion could not be plainer: “Universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts.” That principle applies not only to this case but to the whole panoply of cases that have tethered the ability of the president to manage executive branch operations. The courts have presumed authority over the president that the Constitution plainly does not grant.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett said the following of the unjoined dissent by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson: “[It] is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself. We observe only this: Justice Jackson decries an Imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.”

Court watchers called this an unprecedented rebuke of a colleague in a majority opinion.

The practical effect of the decision is to underscore the meaning of Article 2: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”

Why should this be controversial? Here we get into the overwhelming reality of the structure and operations of the U.S. government that stand in complete contradiction to the U.S. Constitution. It’s been going on for more than a century and has never been fundamentally challenged. Until Trump, most presidents were fine with it and offered no serious challenge. The legislature too has chosen to look the other way.

The issue is the fourth branch of government that is nearly the whole of the operational side of government as we know it. We elect leaders and representatives but our votes have carried ever less power over the course of a century. We know that but it has not always been obvious.

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Iran Damaged 33,000 Structures in Israel

The damage assessment in Israel from Iran’s counterattack against Tel Aviv’s unprovoked aggression against Iran last month is coming in.

Despite strenuous efforts by Israeli authorities to suppress news from bomb sites — including arresting news crews — the extent of the destruction suffered by Israel is now being revealed.

The Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Monday that the vaunted Israeli air defense system, headlined by the so-called Iron Dome, failed to prevent a significant inundation of Iranian ordnance.

Some single ballistic missiles landing on Israeli streets damaged a wide area of surrounding buildings purely from the vibrations of the impact, the newspaper reported.

“Throughout Israel, between the shock waves and the direct impact of the heavy Iranian missiles, the destruction spread out over hundreds of meters,” Haaretz said. “Thousands of houses and buildings have been damaged, some severely, with exterior and interior walls collapsing.” 

“The common denominator is the person uprooted from his or her home, who will feel the shock for years,” the paper said.  It further reported: 

“In Tel Aviv, 480 buildings have been damaged, many of them badly, at five separate sites. In Ramat Gan, it’s 237 buildings at three sites, about 10 badly. In another Tel Aviv suburb, Bat Yam, 78 buildings were damaged by one hit; 22 will have to be razed.

The Israel Tax Authority has received applications for financial assistance for nearly 33,000 damaged structures. Another 4,450 files have been opened for the loss of belongings and equipment, and another 4,119 for damaged vehicles”.

The Iranian attacks killed 29 Israeli civilians and, according to a Haaretz map, 96 buildings were severely damaged. 

By contrast, in the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq fired 42 Scud missiles at Tel Aviv and Haifa, killing two Israelis and damaging 4,100 buildings, destroying 28. 

The Haaretz report deals only with civilian buildings. Iran also hit a number of Israeli military bases, including  Kirya and Camp Moshe Dayan in Tel Aviv; as well as the  BAZAN oil refinery in Haifa, causing significant damage; and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, destroying two buildings. 

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Lawsuit Aims To Prevent IRS From Targeting Conservative Groups Ever Again

The mechanism that allowed the IRS to deny right-leaning groups legal nonprofit status during Barack Obama’s administration is still on the books, but this week a conservative group is challenging the provision in court to prevent it from being weaponized again.

Back in 2013, when Obama was president and Lois Lerner led the IRS Tax-Exempt Organizations division, Americans learned that conservative groups seeking nonprofit tax-exempt status were being blackballed by the IRS.

A 2014 House Oversight Committee report shows how huge the scandal was when it was discovered: “A May 2013 review of the IRS tax-exempt applications found that not a single group identifying itself as ‘Tea Party’ was approved by the IRS after February 2010, when the new targeting criteria were instated, while dozens of ‘progressive’ groups were approved.”

But 11 years later, the same criteria on the application for a nonprofit 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status remain, leaving the door open to more corruption.

Lex Politica Attorney Chris Gober has been working since then to change the rule on behalf of Freedom Path, a now nearly inactive conservative issue advocacy organization that filed for tax-exempt status in 2011. After the IRS requested a list of Freedom Path’s donors in 2012, and the 2014 Lois Lerner scandal blew over, finally in 2020 — nine years after its application — the IRS denied Freedom Path nonprofit status on the basis of the same “Facts and Circumstances Test” weaponized against conservative groups in the scandal.  

The Trump administration’s Department of Justice is defending the Facts and Circumstances Test as the case returns to court this week for a status report with Washington, D.C., District Judge Jia M. Cobb. Freedom Path is asking the court to declare the Facts and Circumstances Test “unconstitutionally vague.”

The IRS uses the 11-factor Facts and Circumstances Test (seen below) to evaluate whether a group’s advocacy communications, such as advertising campaigns, should be considered “issue advocacy” — which would allow the group to become a tax-exempt nonprofit — or if its communications should be considered a “political campaign intervention,” preventing the group from gaining tax-exempt status.

The test is subjective; results depend on the values of the person evaluating the applicant’s material.

“It has a necessary chilling effect, because conservative groups nationwide will have to self-censor rather than risk IRS retaliation,” Gober told The Federalist.

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Texas State U. professor told my class ‘we’re not born with a sex,’ it’s assigned

When I signed up for Professor Michael Whitehawk’s sociology class at Texas State University, I hoped it would challenge me to look at society in new ways, and think critically.

But after hearing his lectures and seeing his slides, it was obvious that we were there to accept his one sided political view, not explore ideas or facts.

That’s especially concerning at a public university. For the 2024-25 school year alone, lawmakers approved $275 million in public funding for the Texas State University System.

And for next year, the legislature approved a $70 million increase — making it all the more fair to ask whether that money is going toward real education, or just reinforcing political agendas in the classroom.

In class, Whitehawk told us flat-out that biological sex itself is a social construct.

“First, we assign the sex category?” he told us. “The sex, male or female, is also assigned at birth. I think that’s a little bit of a hump for some of us to get over, to see that we’re not born with a sex. Sex is also socially constructed.”

One girl raised her hand and asked him, “So you’re saying biological sex and gender are separate?”

Whitehawk replied: “Yeah, and the simple explanation is that sex is biological and gender is social. And I’m sort of suggesting they’re both social. Even the concept of sex is social and a human convention. Because we understand that that binary isn’t even how biology works, it’s more of a continuum.”

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VP Vance’s Tiebreaker Vote Helps Senate Pass Bill Defunding Planned Parenthood For One Year

The Senate, with the help of Vice President J.D. Vance’s tiebreaking vote, voted on Tuesday to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, effectively defunding abortion giant Planned Parenthood for one year.

The House version of President Donald Trump’s legislative package promised that no Medicaid dollars “shall be used to make payments to a prohibited entity for items and services furnished during [a] 10-year period.” The Senate version, however, cut that provision down to prohibit only twelve months of taxpayer-funded abortion.

In a last-ditch effort to protect Planned Parenthood’s flow of federal funding, Democrats tried to add a pro-abortion amendment to the BBB. The motion failed in a 49-51 vote on Monday evening.

During the same 2023-2024 period Planned Parenthood performed a record number of abortions — more than 402,000 — the abortion business collected nearly $800 million in taxpayer funds.

Planned Parenthood’s steady stream of taxpayer funding has no doubt contributed to its history of ending unborn lives (or botching its attempts to do so), allegedly flouting federal law and wasting tax dollars, dispensing castrating drugs to confused minors, reportedly trafficking baby body parts, enabling abusers, allegedly performing unlicensed procedures and violating health and safety standards, opposing free speech, and allegedly conducting procedures that have resulted in mothers’ deaths.

Terminating tax dollars from abortion businesses not only saves lives but opens the door for community health centers, which receive far less federal funding and already outnumber Planned Parenthoods 15 to 1, to continue outperforming abortionists.

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VICTORY! After Four Years and Two Months British Nursing Council Drops Charges Against Dr. Niall McCrae for Publishing His Completely Factual Report on COVID Vaccine Risks on The Gateway Pundit in 2021

In the covid debacle, health professions played a major role in enforcing the official narrative. I can now reveal my experience with the UK Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC), who charged me with contradicting government guidance on vaccination and risking patients’ lives, after writing an entirely factual article on Gateway Pundit.

As a senior lecturer in psychiatric nursing at King’s College London, the NMC was my professional regulator.

When covid vaccines were introduced, I feared that blind faith and propaganda about an oxymoronic ‘miracle of science’ would lead to less impressive and harmful outcomes.

On 4th March 2021, Gateway Pundit published my article ‘British government study confirms Covid-19 vaccine risk’.  The article is linked below. This related to a Public Health England report showing increased infections soon after vaccination, which I attributed to a known phenomenon of temporary depletion in immunity.

Although factually accurate, a fact-check website labeled my article as ‘misleading’. On 8th March I was notified by the NMC of a referral by a ‘Dr Byrne’, who had seen my writing and found me on the register. The NMC began an investigation of my fitness to practise, alleging ‘failure to uphold your position as a registered nurse – in that you promoted health advice contrary to official health advice in the context of a global pandemic’.

From the outset, I was confident that the NMC had no reasonable case against me. I submitted my statement, supported by three experts (physician Helen Westwood, biostatistician Paul Cuddin, and nursing professor Roger Watson.  Cuddin wrote: ‘on the basis that there is consistent, increasing real-world and clinical evidence of increased infections in the two weeks after vaccination, the points raised by Dr Niall McCrae need to be addressed as a matter of urgency.’

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Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy Bans Rainbow Crosswalks

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy struck a blow at radical LGBTQ activism as “Pride Month” ended.

Duffy sent a letter to all 50 state governors, the D.C. mayor, and Puerto Rico’s governor, a letter which he also shared with The Daily Signal. Trump’s transportation secretary told the governors to work on removing distractions, including woke political symbols, from roads and intersections.

In the letter, Duffy wrote, “Roads are for safety, not political messages or artwork. Today I am calling on governors in every state to ensure that roadways, intersections, and crosswalks are kept free of distractions.”

He added, “Far too many Americans die each year to [sic] traffic fatalities to take our eye off the ball.” He assured the governors that the Transportation Department “stands ready to help communities across the country make their roads safer and easier to navigate.” Just this June, a Rhode Island man was reportedly arrested for leaving skidmarks on a rainbow crosswalk. Hopefully, Duffy’s new guidance will help the man as his case moves forward.

Duffy’s letter is part of the effort to push the Federal Highway Administration’s Safe Arterials for Everyone through Reliable Operations and Distraction-Reducing Strategies, or SAFE ROADS, initiative, Daily Signal explained.

Last year, 39,345 people died on our country’s roads, which represented a decrease of 3.8% from 2023, but Duffy understandably labeled it an “unacceptable” number.

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What do the MOON LANDING and CLIMATE CHANGE have in common? BOTH are FAKE

Get some cheap cameras, some lights with stands, 50 rolls of tin foil and a couple lapel mics and head out to the Badlands of South Dakota with some amateur actors and YOU TOO can film the next “moon” landing. It will be one small step for the elementary science fair, and one even smaller step for mankind.

Take one look at the “Apollo 11” spacecraft, made with sticks, tin foil, cardboard, a couple copper pipes and some old television antennas, and then swear up and down this thing made it 240,000 miles to the moon and back home to earth with 3 guys in it, a land rover, and enough equipment to fill up a storage facility, and you can be 100% sure the moon landing was all faked on a Hollywood set somewhere in Arizona. Great job NASA. Does NASA stand for Never Anything So Absurd?

  1. Rising Skepticism About the Moon Landing
  • Polls indicate growing doubt, especially among younger, more educated individuals (e.g., 73% of Brits aged 25–34 disbelieve it, vs. 38% of those 55+).
  • Russian polls show 57% disbelief, rising to 69% among higher-educated respondents.
  1. Alleged Evidence of Fakery
  • Shadows intersecting at 90° in Apollo photos suggest studio lighting, not sunlight.
  • “Moon rocks” may originate from Antarctic meteorites; some samples were proven fake (e.g., petrified wood gifted to the Netherlands).
  • NASA’s high-resolution photos show anomalies (e.g., inconsistent shadows, overexposure when shooting into the sun).
  1. Suspicious Filmmaking and Footage
  • Filmmakers like Bart Sibrel uncovered edited NASA footage (e.g., repeated takes to fake distance).
  • Experts like Hasselblad engineer Jan Lundberg admitted they couldn’t explain photo inconsistencies.
  • Astronauts’ rehearsals in studios with fabricated “moon dust” raise questions about authenticity.
  1. Historical Context of the Hoax Theory
  • Conspiracy claims gained traction post-internet; pioneers like Bill Kaysing (ex-Rocketdyne) alleged a $30B fraud.
  • Documentaries (What Happened on the Moon?, A Funny Thing Happened…) dissect technical flaws.
  • Compartmentalization (e.g., Manhattan Project secrecy) suggests few needed to know the full truth.

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NYC driving school rigged driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants — even if they couldn’t drive: DA

A Big Apple driving school paid off DMV examiners to fraudulently fast-track driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants — even if they had no clue how to drive, Staten Island prosecutors said Tuesday.

T&E Driving School in Queens took cash from Chinese immigrants — many of whom didn’t even speak English — and paid off a crew of Department of Motor Vehicles employees on Staten Island to illegally obtain driver’s licenses, District Attorney Michael McMahon said at a press conference.

The crackdown, dubbed Operation Road Test, took down the ring in a joint investigation with state investigators and the US Department of Homeland Security, prosecutors said.

“Our investigation found that T&E Driving School blatantly flouted the laws and procedures that are necessary to ensure the public safety on the road,” George Ioannidis, assistant special agent in charge for Homeland Security Investigations in New York said Tuesday.

“As alleged T&E utilized social media and strategic advertising to Target exploited members of the Chinese community and guaranteed individual driver’s licenses regardless of their immigration status, language, and even their ability to operate a vehicle,” he said.

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