90 Miles From Tyranny

Sunday, May 16, 2021

China Successfully Lands a Rover on Mars

China’s space program took a great leap forward Saturday morning when a rover the size of a small car landed on the planet Mars. It was China’s first successful landing on the red planet — a feat of engineering and luck, according to space experts.

About half of the Mars missions to attempt a landing have failed. The U.S. has had its share of failures but has stuck the landing for the last seven missions. Currently, the U.S. has its own rover on Mars — Perseverance. China thus becomes only the second nation to successfully touch down on the surface of Mars.

Zhurong, the name given to the rover, is the Chinese fire god.

Space.com:

The six-wheeled rover, which is about the size of NASA’s twin Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, carries six scientific instruments on board, including two panoramic cameras, a ground-penetrating radar and a magnetic field detector. It also has a laser that it can use to zap rocks and study their composition, as well as a meteorological instrument to study the climate and weather on Mars.

Zhurong will work in tandem with the Tianwen-1 orbiter to study the Red Planet, and the orbiter will serve as a data relay station for communications between Zhurong and mission controllers on Earth. The orbiter is designed to last for at least one Mars year, or about 687 Earth days.

China recently completed a successful sample return mission from the moon. And the Chinese have recently launched the first module in what is to be their own version of a space station. Clearly, China is working toward challenging NASA’s longtime dominance in space.

The Chinese Communists don’t have to worry about taxpayers complaining that the space program is a waste of money. They recognize the enormous PR value in overtaking America in space and are spending the money to make it happen.

NPR:

The launch of the main module for China’s space station in April is the first of 11 planned missions to build and provision the station and send up a three-person crew by the end of next year. While the module was successfully launched, the uncontrolled return to Earth of the rocket drew international criticism including from NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

China has said it wants to land people on the moon and possibly build a scientific base there. No timeline has been released for these projects. A space plane is also reportedly under development.

The U.S. landed on the moon 50 years ago and it will be at least 5 years until NASA is able to go back. China will almost certainly beat that date. While in many respects, the U.S. space program is still ahead of China, building a space station, landing people on the moon, and flying a reusable shuttle-like spaceplane would all show that China is on track to...

FBI quietly admits 2017 GOP baseball shooting was domestic terrorism after all

The FBI quietly admitted Friday that the 2017 Alexandria, Virginia, baseball field shooting that nearly killed Rep. Steve Scalise has been classified as “domestic terrorism” carried out by a “domestic violent extremist” targeting Republicans after the bureau previously classified it as “suicide by cop.”

The revelation appears in the middle of an appendix on page 35 of a 40-page FBI-DHS report released on Friday titled “Security Strategic Intelligence Assessment and Data on Domestic Terrorism.” In a section describing approximately 85 different “FBI-Designated Significant Domestic Terrorism Incidents in the United States from 2015 through 2019,” the Alexandria baseball field shooting appears, with the FBI categorizing the perpetrator as a “Domestic Violent Extremist” and describing the incident thusly: “An individual with a personalized violent ideology targeted and shot Republican members of Congress at a baseball field and wounded five people. The subject died as a result of engagement with law enforcement.”

In June 2017, James Hodgkinson, a man from Illinois who was living out of a van in Alexandria, opened fire at Eugene Simpson Stadium Park after asking GOP Rep. Jeff Duncan, who was leaving practice early, if the players were Republicans or Democrats. Hodgkinson struck Scalise in the hip, hit lobbyist Matt Mika in the chest, and injured two U.S. Capitol Police officers, Crystal Griner and David Bailey. Scalise nearly bled to death and required multiple surgeries before returning to Congress.

Hodgkinson, an avid liberal and supporter of Democratic presidential primary candidate and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, was killed by law enforcement. He had posted on Facebook that “Trump is a Traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It's Time to Destroy Trump & Co.” and joined other groups such as "Terminate The Republican Party" and "Join The Resistance Worldwide!!"

Last month, the FBI had said that the shooting would have been classified as "domestic terrorism" if it happened today, but that seemed to dance around the issue of how it should properly be classified. Earlier in April, Republican congressmen had criticized the decision by the FBI, led in an acting capacity at the time by Andrew McCabe, not to label the shooting by Hodgkinson as domestic terrorism despite his targeting of elected Republican leaders as they practiced for the annual congressional baseball game, calling upon FBI Director Christopher Wray, who has...

Now I'm hoping some one will care

Living on the breath of a hope to be shared

Trusting on the sons of our love

That someone will care, someone will care

But now

We're today's scrambled creatures

Locked in tomorrow's double feature

Heaven's on the pillow, its silence competes with hell

It's a twenty-four hour service, guaranteed to make you tell

And the streets are full of pressmen

Bent on getting hung and buried

And the legendary curtains are drawn 'round Baby Bankrupt

Who sucks you while you're sleeping

It's the theatre of financiers

Count them, fifteen 'round a table

White and dressed to kill

Oh, caress yourself, my juicy

For my hands have all but withered

Oh, dress yourself my urchin one, for I hear them on the stairs

Because of all we've seen, because of all we've said

We are the dead

OUTRAGEOUS: Space Force Unit C.O. Relieved of Duty for Criticizing Marxism in the Military

A commander of a U.S. Space Force unit tasked with detecting ballistic missile launches has been fired for comments made during a podcast promoting his new book, which claims Marxist ideologies are becoming prevalent in the United States military.

Lt Col. Matthew Lohmeier, commander of 11th Space Warning Squadron at Buckley Air Force Base, Colorado, was relieved from his post Friday by Lt. Gen. Stephen Whiting, the head of Space Operations Command, over a loss of confidence in his ability to lead, Military.com has exclusively learned.

"This decision was based on public comments made by Lt. Col. Lohmeier in a recent podcast," a Space Force spokesperson said in an email. "Lt. Gen. Whiting has initiated a Command Directed Investigation on whether these comments constituted prohibited partisan political activity."

Lohmeier's temporary assignment in the wake of his removal was not immediately clear.

Earlier this month, Lohmeier, a former instructor and fighter pilot who transferred into the Space Force, self-published a book titled "Irresistible Revolution: Marxism's Goal of Conquest & the Unmaking of the American Military."

"Irresistible Revolution is a timely and bold contribution from an active-duty Space Force lieutenant colonel who sees the impact of a neo-Marxist agenda at the ground level within our armed forces," a description of the book reads.

Lohmeier sat down last week with L. Todd Wood of the podcast "Information Operation," hosted by Creative Destruction, or CD, Media, to promote the book. He spoke about U.S. institutions, including universities, media and federal agencies including the military, that he said are increasingly adopting leftist practices. These practices -- such as diversity and inclusion training -- are the systemic cause for the divisive climate across America today, he said.

From his perspective as a commander, Lohmeier said he didn't seek to criticize any particular senior leader or publicly identify troops within the book. Rather, he said, he focused on the policies service members now have to adhere to to align with certain agendas "that are now affecting our culture."

Regarding Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, he said, "I don't demonize the man, but I want to make it clear to both him and...

Navarro’s 9 “Indisputable” Facts Linking Fauci To COVID-19 Origin.

Is Dr. Anthony Fauci the father of the Wuhan virus? If that virus escaped from the Wuhan virology lab, it’s the most ironic yes in all of American history.

Given the importance of this topic to understand the origins of the virus– and the fact Fauci has now lied before a congressional hearing under the withering interrogation of Rand Paul – it’s worth going over a case that rests on nine indisputable facts. In some cases, the evidence for Fauci’s role in the creation of the virus even comes directly from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) website.

ONE: Fauci used NIH grant money to help fund the Wuhan Virology Lab; and TWO, these American taxpayer funds were funneled to the Wuhan Lab through Peter Daszak and the New York City-based EcoHealth Alliance.

Under the auspices of a nearly $3.7 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) – “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence” – 30 studies have been published since 2014. Over half of these studies count authors from Chinese Communist Party-run scientific organizations, and in 13 cases, the authors come from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

What’s more, the studies themselves describe the grant money as going to both EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak and Shi Zhengli, Director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases.

For example, one study on the “Isolation and Characterization of a Novel Bat Coronavirus” notes that “National Institutes of Health (NIH) provided funding to Peter Daszak and Zheng-Li Shi under grant number NIAID R01AI110964.” There are seven other instances where U.S. taxpayer dollars from the NIH have been described as funding research conducted by Shi Zhengli. (Here, here, here, here, here, here, and, here.)

But there’s more.

THREE, Fauci, together with NIH Director Francis Collins, went behind the back of the Trump White House in December 2017 to overturn a 2014 Obama Administration decision to ban the use of “gain of function” tools to increase the lethality of viruses – Australian journalist Sharri Markson has revealed Fauci used a “low level” White House meeting to fly below the radar.

FOUR, before the pandemic hit, Peter Daszak bragged in a TV interview about how simple it was to use gain of function at the Wuhan lab to make viruses more deadly.

FIVE,