Using film from U.S. spy balloons to take pictures of the Moon

"THERE WILL BE LAUGHTER IF THIS PIECE WORKS ...".

Article from the newspaper "St. Petersburg Vedomosti" of April 10, 1993. by Igor Borisovich Lisochkin.

Russian text reference provided by Alexander Dzhuly. Subsection headers inserted by Sven Grahn //

And the fact that we "photographed" the opposite side of the Moon with an American film that was sent to our country with purely spying goals, I told my closest associates only many years later, long after the untimely death of Sergei Pavlovich Korolev. In fifteen years. The abbreviation “AB”, I think, is not necessary to decipher. Of course, this is the "American Balloons". Odessites never lose their sense of humor. Starting with "Vostok" I acted as the chief designer of space television systems. Of course, I perfectly remember the immortal flight of Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin, and everything that followed. But this is another story and completely different adventures.”

Labor Secretary Walsh is the ‘designated survivor’ at the State of the Union address
By Maegan Vazquez and Matt Stiles, CNN
Updated 9:06 PM EST, Tue February 7, 2023

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Avlon: These are the key things Biden needs to address in State of the Union
02:25 - Source: CNN
CNN
—
Labor Secretary Marty Walsh is the “designated survivor” during President Joe Biden’s second State of the Union address on Tuesday night.

The selection comes the same day CNN reported that Walsh is expected to depart the Biden administration soon – marking the first Cabinet secretary departure of Biden’s presidency.

Biden’s address is taking place in the House chamber, where he’s speaking in front of nearly every influential federal official in Washington – including members of Congress, top military brass, US Supreme Court justices and senior officials within his administration.

Walsh, a key member of Biden’s economic team, becomes the first Labor secretary in American history publicly known to have participated in the obscure ritual in order to maintain the line of presidential succession in the rare case that disaster strikes.

Last year, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo was the designated survivor for Biden’s first State of the Union address, staying away from the Capitol in an undisclosed and secure location during the president’s prime time remarks.

According to the National Constitution Center, the tradition of a designated survivor during the State of the Union speech began in the 1950s as a result of fears of a nuclear attack during the Cold War. But the federal government did not publicly name the designated survivor until 1981, when President Ronald Reagan’s Education Secretary Terrel Bell assumed the designation for an address to a joint session of Congress.

The presidential line of succession is outlined in the Presidential Succession Act of 1792, which was updated during the Truman administration in the Presidential Succession Act of 1947. The updated line of succession was spurred by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death in 1945, which led to Harry Truman’s assumption to the highest office.

After the vice president, the speaker of the House, the Senate president pro tempore, and the secretaries of State, Treasury and Defense are next in the line of succession. Data analyzed by CNN shows that the attorney general, seventh in the line of succession, has been the highest-ranking Cabinet member known to have been appointed to be designated survivor. A Justice Department head has been selected for the role three times. //

Who has been the ‘designated survivor’?
One member of the president's Cabinet is chosen to remain absent from the State of the Union address to ensure continuity of government in the case of a mass-casualty event. The vice president and both houses of Congress are typically in attendance, so the designee is chosen from further down the presidential line of succession. Since the 1980s, the selection has been made public.

Note: There was no designated survivor in 2021. Attendance was limited due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Sawhorse
3 months ago
Sorry, but the Civil War DID NOT START OVER SLAVERY. Lincoln used Gettysburg to appeal to the abolitionists to motivate the North. This is a fact. States rights was the issue as the North and West cut the South out of the Transcontinental Railroad and it got worse from there.

Blue State Deplorable Sawhorse
3 months ago
You beat me to the punch. In point of fact, states’ rights was the root cause. Slavery was a tangential if irreconcilable issue that fueled it - each new slave-holding state meant a new state without slavery was needed to offset it - but more fundamentally it was about opposing views of how the states would be governed. The Southern states had voluntarily entered the union, and felt they also had a right to secede. They opposed a strong federal government and contended that rights not explicitly granted to the federal government belonged to the individual states.

I see this notion that the Civil War was fought to free the slaves all the time, but that’s simply not so. It’s revisionism. Lincoln personally despised slavery, but was more than willing to retain it to preserve the union. When the states began to secede, they forced his hand leading to the Civil War.

Pepsi_Freak Blue State Deplorable
3 months ago
" Lincoln personally despised slavery, but was more than willing to retain it to preserve the union."

Correct. In fact, he so stated in public. He felt preservation of the Union was more imperative than abolishing slavery (i.e., abolition could wait, restoring the Union couldn't). //

AFVet262
3 months ago
Sounds like DeSantis used a very balanced approach in teaching. When I was working on my masters in military history, I had a professor who used a very similar approach, and who also made the statement that the Civil War was not about slavery.

And the fact is, to many of the players at the time, it wasn't. Of the 11 states that eventually seceded, only 5 explicitly mentioned slavery in their declarations. The majority focused on the concept of states' rights - which included import and export controls, foreign policy, and several other components.

Lincoln stated that his sole goal was to preserve the Union - and if he could do that by freeing all the slaves, he would; if he could do it without freeing any slaves, he'd do that.

The causes of the Civil War were much more complicated than the issue of slavery. It was clearly a part of it, but not the sole reason. DeSantis, by taking the "devil's advocate" approach, opened his students' eyes to the wider historical picture. Good on him. //

CarolineL
3 months ago
To distill the many, many reasons for the Civil War down to “just slavery” is ridiculous.

It’s like saying WWI happened just because Arch Duke Ferdinand was shot. Yes, it was a flash point but it’s laughable to discount the decades of built up of hostility, previous European history, the treaties among allies and countless other integral people, facts and events. //

davenj1
3 months ago

1. Sharyl Attkisson is a hero among investigative reporters in my book. She's been vilified for her story on Queen Hillary and Bosnia, Fast and Furious, and the TSA. She was targeted by the Obama DOJ. She stood strong!
2. There is some strong evidence that the Civil War was fought because of competing economic systems- the industrial North versus the agrarian South. There is nothing for DeSantis to apologize here. I was taught the War of 1812 was not about the impressment of US naval sailors, but because the US had it eyes on Canada, or that it was about products protectionism and tariffs. It's what a real teacher does. Kudos to DeSantis for being that type of teacher. He gets my vote.

medieval davenj1
3 months ago
Item 2 is quite correct -- the Civil War was about re-uniting the US which was split over economic issues. Slavery was a side-issue which was brought forward for purely military reasons. The actual causes of the Civil War are quite complex and covered extensively (and quite read-ably) in first volume of Bruce Catton's "Centennial History of the Civil War."