President obama approval rating

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel has approved construction of four new apartment buildings in disputed east Jerusalem, officials said Tuesday, fueling tensions with the Palestinians at a time when the U.S. is laboring to get peace talks moving again. The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem for a future capital and want all construction there stopped before negotiations resume. The project is being developed near a Jewish seminary by Irving Moskowitz, an American Jew who has generously funded Jewish settlers determined to cement Israel’s hold on contested areas of the holy city. Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat’s spokesman, Stephan Miller, confirmed that Jerusalem’s local planning committee approved the 24-apartment project on Monday, clearing the way for construction to begin. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat condemned the move “in the strongest possible terms.” He said if Israel wants to resume peace talks, “they must announce a total cessation of settlement activities” in east Jerusalem and … [Read more...] about Israel approves east Jerusalem building project

The needlessly besieged Neera Tanden. Photo: Andrew Harnik/AP/Bloomberg via Getty Images Okay, folks, this is getting ridiculous. When a vote in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on the nomination of Neera Tanden to Office of Management and Budget director was postponed earlier this week, you would have thought it presented an existential threat to the Biden presidency. “Scrutiny over Tanden’s selection has continued to build as the story over her uneven reception on Capitol Hill stretched through the week,” said one Washington Post story. Politico Playbook suggested that if Tanden didn’t recover, the brouhaha “has the potential to be what Biden might call a BFD.” There’s been all sorts of unintentionally funny speculation about whether the White House is playing some sort of “three-dimensional chess” in its handling of the confirmation, disguising a nefarious plan B or C. Perhaps it reflects the law of supply and demand, which requires … [Read more...] about Tanden’s Nomination Won’t Make or Break the Biden Presidency

Authorities in Western China’s Xinjiang region are formally prosecuting ethnic Uyghurs at a higher rate than in previous years, and have increased the length of prison sentences for the Turkic minority group native to the Central Asian territory, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported on Wednesday. Xinjiang courts sentenced over 99,000 people in the Uyghur-majority region in 2017 and over 133,000 in 2018, according to Chinese government statistics cited by HRW, a non-governmental organization (NGO). The Chinese government has yet to release Xinjiang’s 2019 or 2020 sentencing statistics. Human Rights Watch said it analyzed “nearly 60 of these cases” and found many people appear to have been convicted and imprisoned by Chinese authorities without evidence they had committed a genuine criminal offense. “These formal prosecutions are distinct from those arbitrarily detained in unlawful ‘political education’ facilities,” HRW noted, referring to Xinjiang’s state-run detention camps. … [Read more...] about Human Rights Watch: China Arresting Uyghurs at Skyrocketing Rates

President Joe Biden campaigned on promises to govern by “ consensus .” He devoted his Inaugural Address to “unity.” Yet he has issued more executive orders and actions in the first three weeks of his presidency than any president in U.S. history. As the Democrats prepare for the circus side show of impeachment focusing on the past, it’s interesting to look at what he’s already done to change the future. Jan. 20 1. Memorandum : Regulatory review – This executive action froze many of President Donald Trump’s pending regulatory changes, including a regulation to lower the cost of insulin and epinephrine, which the pharmaceutical industry had opposed. 2. Announcement : COVID-19 proposal – President Biden introduced his controversial $1.9 trillion plan for coronavirus relief, though over $1 trillion of funding from previous proposals approved under President Trump had not yet been spent , 3. Executive Action : Rejoining Paris Climate Agreement – President … [Read more...] about Fundamental Change: 63 Executive Orders and Actions Already Put into Place by Joe Biden (Updated)

The Space Launch System’s (SLS) development by NASA and a number of aerospace contractors proves that rocket science, which is really engineering to build spacecraft, is a term that describes something that is truly difficult for a reason. On Jan. 16, NASA performed the last test of the so-called green run series on the core stage of the SLS. During the test, all four main engines were to be fired for eight minutes. Unfortunately, the software commanded that the test be shut down after about one minute because of major component failure (MCF) in one of the engines. Later, NASA announced that the premature shutdown was caused by “conservative” test parameters and that the core stage was in “good condition.” If the fault had been experienced during an actual launch, the SLS would have continued to fly. ADVERTISEMENT The bigger problem is that the SLS has cost $17 billion , has taken 10 years to build and is still problem-prone. NASA and everyone else who builds rockets … [Read more...] about NASA demonstrates why rocket science is still hard with the SLS test