Tag: congress

US military report for Congress says UFO sightings by Navy pilots could be aliens or new hypersonic technology from Russia or China – but are not a secret US government project

Government officials have leaked details about the highly anticipated classified report on UFO sightings expected to be released this month, noting that there is no evidence to support that they are alien spacecraft.

But the report does not rule aliens out either, senior administration officials who were briefed on the report told The New York Times. 

The report also theorizes the objects could also be new weapons developed by Russian or China – and definitively says the phenomena are not a part of a secret project from within the United States government.

The report looks at more than 120 incidents of unidentified objects seen by U.S. Navy pilots in the past 20 years.

The UFOs were observed moving in patterns that remain difficult to explain, including their acceleration, ability to change direction and ability to submerge underwater.  

Senior officials told the outlet that the objects could be evidence of Chinese or Russian hypersonic technology – which means the countries may have ‘far outpaced’ the US in weapons development.

Hypersonic weapons are aircraft and missiles that can reach atmospheric speeds faster than Mach 5, or or about 4,000 miles per hour – making them almost impossible to intercept.

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Upcoming UFO report to Congress creating lots of buzz

Later this month, U.S. intelligence agencies will present to Congress a highly-anticipated unclassified report about what they know about UFOs, or as the Pentagon now calls them, Unexplained Aerial Phenomena (UAPs).

However, the jury is still out on whether the report will contain the answers that UFO enthusiasts are looking for: that recent military encounters with UAPs may be proof of contacts with extraterrestrial life.

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House Judiciary Committee Approves Bill for Commission on Reparations for Slavery

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee approved a bill Wednesday that would create a commission to study reparations for black Americans for slavery. The vote was along party lines, 25 Democrats voting yes and 17 Republicans voting against.

The bill has been designated as H.R. 40, in reference to the “40 acres and a mule” once promised to freed slaves in the South.

The bill would create a 15-member “Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans,” which would recommend “appropriate remedies.” The text of the bill argues that slavery resulted in “systemic” discrimination against black Americans whose effects endure: “[A] preponderance of scholarly, legal, community evidentiary documentation and popular culture markers constitute the basis for inquiry into the on-going effects of the institution of slavery and its legacy of persistent systemic structures of discrimination on living African Americans and society in the United States.”

It is not clear who would pay reparations to whom. Moreover, as the Washington Post noted, one Democrat’s comments highlight another potential problem with the idea: namely, that once reparations for “systemic” problems in the past begin, it is unclear where they should end.

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Congress’ most effective lawmakers aren’t generally its household names

Despite high approval ratingsor wide popularity, well-known members of Congress are not the most effective lawmakers, according to a report from the Center for Effective Lawmaking.

The center recently released its effectiveness scores for members of the 116th Congress, which ran from Jan. 3, 2019, to Jan. 3, 2021. The bottom line: The lawmakers often in the news — particularly from the House of Representatives — aren’t generally the ones sponsoring bills that make significant headway through Congress or making substantial policy proposals. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is one exception.

Through a partnership between the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and Vanderbilt University, the Center for Effective Lawmaking, created in 2017, aims to understand and communicate the effectiveness of lawmakers and the congressional legislative process.

“We’re the Center for Effective Lawmaking, so we’re particularly interested in the lawmaking component of what members of Congress do, so we set aside oversite and constituency services and so on,” said Volden, who also is a professor of public policy and politics at the University of Virginia. “In that lawmaking space, we’ve generated the legislative effectiveness scores.”

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