What Happened Today: June 16, 2023
Justice for Tree of Life; American companies buying Russian uranium; Israel has some hypersonic tricks up its sleeve
The Big Story
After five hours of deliberation over two days, a Pittsburgh jury found defendant Robert Bowers guilty on Friday of 63 counts related to the massacre of Jewish worshippers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018. The guilty verdicts included charges of “obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death and hate crimes resulting in death.” Prosecutors made the case that Bowers’ attack on the synagogue was motivated by racial hatred, and supported that claim with witness testimony and social media posts he’d made on Gab, a social media platform, espousing praise for Hitler and the Holocaust. Bowers’ attorneys said his attack was not motivated by religious hatred but by hatred for immigrants and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, a Jewish organization, though they did not make a case in his defense overall, admitting he had committed the crimes.
Throughout the trial jurors were given a brutal, piece-by-piece account of the attacks that included witness testimony, grisly crime scene photos, and detailed descriptions of the victims’ autopsies. Andrea Wedner, who was shot but survived by playing dead while lying next to her dying mother, Rose Mallinger, testified, “I kissed my fingers and I touched my fingers to her skin. I cried out, ‘Mommy.’”
The next phase of the trial will be to determine if Bowers deserves the death penalty, which prosecutors say he does, citing premeditated intent and targeting of the vulnerable, while his defense team is expected to say a death penalty sentence would violate the Constitution due to Bowers’ alleged schizophrenia. During jury deliberations, the New Light Congregation, which shared the Tree of Life space and whose members were also killed that day, said in a statement, “There can be no forgiveness. … Forgiveness requires two components: that it is offered by the person who commits the wrong and is accepted by the person who was wronged. The shooter has not asked—and the dead cannot accept.”
In the Back Pages: The War on Trump is a War on Millions
The Rest
→ Breaking: RIP to Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg, 92, who died of pancreatic cancer this morning at his home in Kensington, California. Ellsberg was a former Marine, think tanker, and finally DoD analyst who had been studying classified documents on the history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam while the war was still raging in 1971. Ellsberg, who had been a “hawk” before going to Vietnam in 1965, realized that the 7,000 pages he’d been looking at could utterly change the narrative on what we were doing over there. As Ellsberg later put it, the documents revealed that, contrary to what the American public was being told, “We always knew we could never win.” Ellsberg knew his patriotic act of getting the documents into the hands of The New York Times and, later, The Washington Post would probably get him thrown in prison for the rest of his life. But, he said, “How can I measure the jeopardy I’m in … to the penalty that has already been paid by 50,000 American families and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese families?” The Jewish-born, Christian Scientist-raised Ellsberg didn’t believe in G-d as such, says his son and editor Robert Ellsberg, but through his anti-war and anti-proliferation work, and his relentless habit of speaking truth to power, his father was a “person of hope.” Upon discovering he had months left to live, the indefatigable Ellsberg wrote a farewell post, saying goodbye while encouraging his fellow man to take up his most cherished cause, the fight against nuclear weapons. “I think there is no greater cause to which I could have dedicated my efforts,” he wrote. “I’m happy to know that millions of people—including all those friends and comrades to whom I address this message!—have the wisdom, the dedication and the moral courage to carry on with these causes, and to work unceasingly for the survival of our planet and its creatures.”
→ Now that tools like ChatGPT are being widely used, media companies are working to make sure that they get a fair share of the profits from their intellectual property. The owners of the chatbots—such as Google, Open AI, and Microsoft—have been meeting with top news organizations to try and hammer out some terms for compensation before the inevitable government regulation crackdown. One of the questions on the table is whether the model for AI use of media properties should be compensated on a per use basis, as in the music industry, or in the form of annual retainers. Brad Smith, Microsoft’s vice chair, says that the media has a lot to gain from the technology too. “I think our bigger opportunity is really to work with publishers first to think about how they can use AI to generate more revenue,” he told the Financial Times. As of press time, we remain unimpressed by Microsoft’s revenue growth plan for The Scroll.
→ Video of the Day:
https://twitter.com/21WIRE/status/1669243790861762561
This video from Russian state-controlled media outlet RT shows just how sophisticated deepfakes have gotten. The video, released Wednesday on the accounts of several Russian embassies, pokes fun at President Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as they try to come up with ideas for another round of sanctions on Russia.
→ U.S. nuclear energy companies are paying about $1 billion a year to Russia’s state-owned Rosatom for enriched uranium to fuel our reactors. The beginning of the end of domestic enrichment was 1993, when President Clinton signed a deal by which the United States would buy Russia’s oversupply of enriched uranium to use in our plants. The deal was good for the U.S. economically, since Russia’s centrifuge method was cheaper than our gaseous diffusion and seen as a way of building trust after the Cold War. In the interim, however, the United States never invested in its own centrifuges and has been reliant on Russia and Europe for the uranium fuel. There is a plant in Ohio about 10 years out from matching Rosatom’s output, but some say it’s too little too late. “It’s inexplicable that over a year after Russia invaded Ukraine, the Biden administration does not appear to have a plan to end this dependence,” James Krellenstein, the director of GHS Climate, told The New York Times. “We could eliminate almost all of America’s dependence on Russian enrichment by finishing the centrifuge plant in Ohio.”
Read More: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/14/climate/enriched-uranium-nuclear-russia-ohio.html
→ Meanwhile in China, nuclear energy is taking a great leap forward with the permit granted last week to the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to begin use of its molten-salt thorium reactor in the city of Wuwei. Thorium is a precursor of uranium and incredibly abundant in China, with some estimating the country has enough of the resource to power the country for 20,000 years. When combined with molten salt (superheated, purified liquid salt), thorium forms a natural, self-cooling nuclear fission fuel that can be used to create reactors that require a lot less water to run. This could help China and other nations with dry areas to have access to nuclear power without huge water supplies.
→ A group of medical scientists, including Tablet contributor Dr. Vinay Prasad and British Medical Journal editor Peter Doshi, petitioned the FDA in January 2023 to update the labels on the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine products to more accurately reflect potential issues, as is required by law. The group asked that the labels inform patients “that phase III trials were not designed to determine and failed to provide substantial evidence of vaccine efficacy against SARS-CoV-2 transmission or death” as well as provide “frequency data for clinical and subclinical myocarditis.” The scientists also requested that the FDA list potential adverse reactions “for which there is some basis to believe there is a causal relationship,” as is required by law. In the case of the mRNA shots, Prasad et al. believe those to be “multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), pulmonary embolism, sudden cardiac death, neuropathic and autonomic disorders, decreased sperm concentration, heavy menstrual bleeding and detection of vaccine mRNA in breastmilk.” The FDA replied in a letter dated April 18, 2023, “We conclude that the Petition does not contain facts demonstrating any reasonable grounds for the other requested actions.”
→ Quote of the Day:
When I look at potential candidates, say, for squadron command, I strive to match the right person to the right job. I consider their job performance and relevant experience first. However I also look at their personal circumstances and their family is also an important factor. If a good match for a job does not feel safe being themselves and performing at their highest potential at a given location, or if their family could be denied critical health care due to the laws in that state, I am compelled to consider a different candidate and perhaps last qualified.
That is Space Force Lt. Gen. DeAnna Burt speaking Wednesday at the Pentagon’s annual Pride Month celebration regarding how she approaches personnel decisions, taking into account the intersection of LGBT identities versus family mores and state laws, even at the cost of placing the best person for the role in the location they are most needed. Burt continued, speaking about recent legislation, “Those barriers are a threat to our readiness, and they have a direct correlation to the resiliency and well-being of our most important operational advantage: our people.” Her bio reads, “as the Chief Operations Officer, Lt. Gen. Burt has overall responsibility for Operations, Sustainment, Cyber, and Nuclear Operations of the United States Space Force.”
→ When Iran revealed that it had developed hypersonic missiles last Tuesday—which, in theory, could reach Tel Aviv in seven minutes—head of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard’s aerospace program, Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, said, “There exists no system that can rival or counter this missile.” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant replied, “To any such development, we have an even better response.” Now we know what he meant. On Wednesday, Israeli defense contractor Rafael, the company behind the life-saving Iron Dome system, revealed that it has been working in secret on a hypersonic interceptor called Sky Sonic. The design, which has not yet been tested “live,” will be presented next week at the Paris Air Show with the hopes of attracting buyers in the European market. Dr. Yuval Steinitz, chairman of Rafael, said in a statement, “Rafael has identified a marked increase and arousing interest in the international arena with proven operational capabilities and a geopolitical reality that has created many opportunities.”
→ In his conversation with podcaster Joe Rogan, released on Thursday, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke at length about his uncle John F. Kennedy’s secret war with the CIA and the military industrial complex that he believes led to his uncle’s untimely death. RFK Jr. outlined JFK’s many battles with close advisers over sending the U.S. military on adventures abroad in Laos, Vietnam, and Cuba. RFK Jr. told Rogan that his uncle was staunchly opposed to invading any of the countries, and when he found out that 75 Americans had died in Vietnam as of October 1963, he ordered all the troops back. Kennedy was shot and killed in November 1963. Rogan asked RFK Jr. if he was worried about a similar fate upon taking office. He replied, “I’m aware of that, you know, I’m aware of that danger. I don’t live in fear of it—at all. But I’m not stupid about it, and I take precautions.”
→ According to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, federal agencies including the Department of Energy have been hit in a cyberwarfare attack by a Russian ransomware gang called CLOP. Apparently the hacks have not had “significant impacts,” CISA Director Jen Easterly told reporters, and so far the group has not asked for its usual ransom. In other words, while the federal agency charged with defending the country’s cybersecurity was busy spying on and censoring the constitutionally protected speech of American citizens, as part of the “counter-disinformation complex” articulated by The Scroll’s Jacob Siegel in March, it couldn’t be bothered to do its actual job.
TODAY IN TABLET:
Saving a Building That Saved Hundreds of Children by Lisa Klug
Château de Chaumont was a sanctuary for young Jews fleeing the Nazis. Now a British contractor is restoring the French mansion, and documenting his renovations online.
Hey, I’m Your Cousin by Michael Hoberman
Tracking the descendants of America’s early Sephardic elite, from WASP blue bloods to the great-great-grandchildren of slaves
SCROLL TIP LINE: Have a lead on a story or something going on in your workplace, school, congregation, or social scene that you want to tell us about? Send your tips, comments, questions, and suggestions to scroll@tabletmag.com.
The War on Trump is a War on Millions
Biden’s Justice Department views Trump as a traitor. It views Trump’s supporters the same way.
By Lee Smith
With the arraignment of Donald Trump on charges brought under the Espionage Act, America’s Cold Civil War pitting Blue cities against Red regions has gotten considerably hotter. But that’s inevitable when you manipulate the nation’s laws to designate the leader of a movement representing one half of the country a traitor.
Legal experts say the Justice Department’s case against Trump is strong. Even many on the right agree. “This indictment contains serious charges,” says Trump’s former vice president Mike Pence. The former president is “toast,” says his one-time attorney general William Barr. But to others, the 37-count indictment looks like a reboot of the 2020 letter signed by 51 former U.S. spies claiming Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation. The package is so big it’s got to be real, when in fact it’s just bubble wrap all the way down.
Debating the indictment’s details, the DOJ’s legal theory, which documents do and do not belong to Trump under the Presidential Records Act, etc., is a ritualized expression of faith that the law is still impartial and the justice system is in the hands of serious men and women, devoted law enforcement officials who even when it looked most hopeless over the last seven years never once veered from their mission and now finally got their man. But it’s just play-acting, for the stark fact is this: The never-ending campaign to get Trump is evidence the country has gone mad.
“Here’s what I was hoping,” journalist Joe Klein wrote on his Substack. “That Trump would be charged with espionage. Full stop.” Of course he did, as did the majority of the media hastening America into open conflict. The Espionage Act was written for times like these. Enacted in 1917 to criminalize anti-war activism, the statute is a political weapon designed to bypass the Constitution and prosecute the ruling party’s domestic opponents. The fact that Trump has been charged with crimes under the Espionage Act is evidence that the world’s oldest democracy has fallen into the hands of a corrupt and pathological ruling faction that has turned federal law enforcement into a people’s commissariat serving a cohort of performative elites who still harbor the fantasy that a former American president is a Russian spy.
The appropriate legal framework through which to view the indictment is election interference — it’s the latest leg in the Department of Justice’s ongoing effort to bar Trump from the White House that began in 2016. For the purpose of obtaining a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to spy on Trump’s campaign, the FBI alleged that the Republican candidate and his aides were Russian agents. The Bureau was acting on behalf of the rival campaign, worried that the deleted emails from Hillary Clinton’s private unsecure email server were in circulation. They wanted to know if Trump aides had any foreknowledge that evidence of her arrangements with foreign powers and enterprises would be leaked as an October Surprise. Russia “collusion” was the information operation built up around the FBI’s phony justification for its digital break-in of the Trump campaign.
For the 2020 election cycle, federal law enforcement used the same plot points for the same purpose: to shield the Democratic candidate from revelations of corruption that might thwart his chances. The FBI was especially concerned about Hunter Biden’s laptop, which it had taken in its possession in 2019. To prevent the voting public from learning of the evidence of Biden family corruption sourced to the laptop, the Bureau set up a censorship task force and labeled reports about it “Russian disinformation” — just Vladimir Putin again, so keen to keep Trump in the White House he’s polluting the infosphere by smearing Joe Biden and his son. After the election, social media platforms acknowledged how the FBI had defrauded the public, and press organizations that had participated in the cover up admitted that the laptop was genuine.
The incumbent has problems this time out as well. The FBI can no longer hide the evidence alleging that Joe and Hunter Biden each demanded $5 million from the owner of Bursima, a Ukrainian energy firm once under Ukrainian and international investigations. A year after vacating the vice presidency, Biden boasted before a New York audience that in March 2016 he threatened to withhold a $1 billion loan guarantee from the Kyiv government if it didn’t fire the prosecutor investigating Burisma. The charges against Trump deflect attention, for the time being at least, from Biden’s alleged bribery scandal as well as his own problems for possessing classified information he wasn’t supposed to have.
So the Trump indictment is a cover up for Biden as well as an early effort to tilt the 2024 vote away from Trump. But it’s part of a second storyline, too, and though it intersects in places with the DOJ thread, it represents something significantly more dangerous than one political faction turning the spy services against the other faction. After all, that’s a standard feature of all third-world security regimes, but few caudillos risk setting the stage for domestic conflict.
Charging Trump under the Espionage Act plays on a theme first developed by Barack Obama when he ordered CIA director John Brennan to produce an Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) concerning Russian interference in the 2016 election. Published just before Obama’s term ended, the January 2017 report concluded, without evidence, that Putin had sought to help Trump win the election. Sourced to the brazen fabrication known as the Steele dossier, the ICA anchored the collusion narrative and served as the foundation for Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation of Trump and his aides.
Obama’s strategy worked: the Russian collusion narrative crippled Trump’s presidency. More importantly, he used the authority of the executive branch to declare Trump’s presidency, and by extension the political movement that supported it, illegitimate. Because the election was compromised, so in effect was the electorate that chose as commander-in-chief a man who, according to the ICA, had been assisted by a foreign power. Trump was a foreign agent and the more than 60 million people who voted for him were, at best, useful idiots. As Obama likes to say, that’s not who we are as Americans.
Thus the espionage act charges are crucial to advancing the traitor narrative. Obama tipped you off more than six years ago that Trump wasn’t really American and here are the charges to prove it: He betrayed U.S. secrets because he’s working on behalf of a foreign power.
That narrative is due to be reinforced when the special counsel charges Trump, as seems nearly certain, with offenses related to January 6. After all, the point of referring to the raucous and sometimes violent 3-hour-long demonstration at the Capitol as an insurrection more dangerous to our domestic peace than 9/11, Pearl Harbor, and the Civil War wasn’t just to drive news coverage. And charging Jan 6 defendants with seditious conspiracy wasn’t just to enhance their prison sentences. No, the purpose was to bulk out the narrative that Trump and the voters who favor him are in a fundamental way not American. Accordingly, since Trump and his followers are foreign agents, it follows that they don’t really have constitutional rights, and can’t complain about their votes being nullified through election interference, since they’re not really American in the first place.
Some may be tempted to see the current indictment as Obama turning the tables on Trump — you pushed the idea I didn’t have a U.S. birth certificate and now look who’s laughing, foreign spy. Except it was Clinton whisperer Sidney Blumenthal who invented the birther hoax. And then there’s the fact that all of us will pay for the plot to set Americans at each others’ throats.
The fall-out from the permanent bureaucracy’s war on Trump has turned millions of Americans into combatants in a conflict started by Democratic party bosses and spy masters. Trump’s followers aren’t brainwashed cultists for believing attacks on him are assaults against them, too — the political and legal establishment describes them as domestic terrorists to designate them as targets of counterinsurgency warfare tactics developed during the global war on terror. It seems that Washington is breeding at home what it nurtured in the Middle East — civil war. That it strikes our political class as a good idea to renew hostilities between Americans after more than 150 years of peace is further evidence that the current regime is pathological.
It’s no small thing to arrange for two sides that bled each other to live side by side again. Look at the last half century alone, from Lebanon and Somalia to the former Yugoslavia and Syria—many countries never find a way to get along after blowing each other’s brains out. America is an exception. Indeed it is an astonishing fact that after our own fratricidal conflict, America became the most powerful nation in world history. And yet the fabric of our domestic peace is fragile and now we are tempting fate: brother calling brother traitor may be the prelude to a renewed nightmare.
Lee Smith Along with the journalists who explained the Twitter files is one of the great journalists of our time
Prasad is a hero.