Time for another science post. Let's focus on black holes. What's a black hole? NASA tells us:
A black hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light can not get out. The gravity is so strong because matter has been squeezed into a tiny space. This can happen when a star is dying.
Because no light can get out, people can't see black holes. They are invisible. Space telescopes with special tools can help find black holes. The special tools can see how stars that are very close to black holes act differently than other stars.
Black holes are in the news today. Ashley Strickland (CNN) reports:
Astronomers have long studied supermassive black holes and smaller black holes that form when massive stars implode, but they have searched for intermediate-mass black holes for years.
Now, thanks to observations by the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have found their "missing link" to understand how black holes evolve. They were able to confirm the observation of an intermediate-mass black hole, known as an IMBH, inside a dense cluster of stars.
The study published this week in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Only a few other possible mid-range black holes have been found before. They're difficult to detect because they're smaller than the supermassive black holes that can be found at the heart of large galaxies. At the same time, they're larger than black holes that form when stars collapse and die.
Elizabeth Howell (SPACE.COM) adds:
The famed space observatory made the find while hunting down the source of a powerful burst of X-rays caught in 2006 by two other cosmic telescopes: NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency's X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission (XMM-Newton).
At the time, astronomers weren't sure if the X-rays had come from inside or outside of the Milky Way galaxy, but new high-resolution photography by Hubble shows that the X-ray source (known as 3XMM J215022.4−055108) is located in a star cluster at the edge of another galaxy. That's exactly where an intermediate-sized black hole (IMBH) may lurk — at least, according to theory.
Back to NASA for a question and an answer:
Could a Black Hole Destroy Earth?
Black holes do not go around in space eating stars, moons and planets. Earth will not fall into a black hole because no black hole is close enough to the solar system for Earth to do that.
Even if a black hole the same mass as the sun were to take the place of the sun, Earth still would not fall in. The black hole would have the same gravity as the sun. Earth and the other planets would orbit the black hole as they orbit the sun now.
The sun will never turn into a black hole. The sun is not a big enough star to make a black hole.
That is reassuring and good to know. I always think of the treehouse of horror episode of THE SIMPSONS where there's a tiny black hole on the earth and everyone feeds it their junk to get rid of the junk only to have the hole grow larger and larger. It's a funny episode but the first time we watched it together? One of my kids (I won't identify which) thought that could happen and we had to get online and look it up to prove that it couldn't and restore sanity.
"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
Thursday, April 2, 2020. High school drop out Whoopi Goldberg attacks
Bernie Sanders because she doesn't understand democracy and can't do the
math, even without the corporate media reporting on Tara Reade's
allegations against Joe Biden, the news is getting out, and much that.
Starting in the US where the race for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination continues. Yesterday, Senator Bernie Sanders was attacked by Jabba The Hut. Yes, he appeared on THE VIEW and Whoopi Goldberg tried to eat him for breakfast.
Storm Gifford (NEW YORK DAILY NEWS) reports how the morbidly obese Whoopi Goldberg attacked Bernie:
“I’m told that you intend to stay in this race because you believe there
is a path to victory,” Goldberg asked the Vermont senator, who was
interviewed from his home.
If nothing else, Whoopi is exploding at least one stereotype: The one about fat people being jolly.
If Barbara Walters wasn't in a home and in bad health, Whoopi would be gone. Instead, she gets to continue episode after episode ruining the show that Barbara created. It was supposed to be a place where women of various backgrounds could have an honest and respectful conversation. Instead, it's just a mud fight among ugly women. And Whoopi is an awful host. She's walked out in the midst of interviews, she attacks guests, she doesn't know how to host.
She's the prize pig in ABC's stye. What a proud moment for a woman who last had a hit film in 1992. How wonderful of ABC to give this high school drop out a position on TV where she uses her untrained and uneducated mind to pontificate on every problem under the sun never inhibited by her appalling ignorance.
High school drop out Whoopi never bothered to attend college and it shows. It really shows. It's not often a raging idiot like Whoopi exposes themselves on TV so constantly.
Whoopi does not see a path to victory for Bernie Sanders.
Bernie currently has 914 delegates. To win the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, he needs to get 1991 delegates. Currently, he is 1027 away from that number.
Stupid Whoopi, drop out Whoopi, dumb ass Whoopi, how many delegates are still up for grabs?
1619.
And Bernie only needs 1027.
Is there a path to victory?
Unless you're as stupid and uneducated as Whoopi, you can grasp that, yes, Bernie can pull this off.
Will he?
I'm not making predictions. But it is possible?
Yes, it is.
I get it. Whoopi's ignorant. She's never understood the democratic process, let alone how primaries work. She's just dumb and stupid.
There are 27 primaries still to be held. There are 1619 delegates still to be awarded.
If you're brainless and dense like Whoopi, that means nothing. If you grasp how democracy works, you get that those primaries need to be held.
Whoopi would probably insist that her stupidity and dropping out came from dyslexia. Oh, boo-hoo. I have it too. A lot of us do. I'm rhyming. But most of us learned to manage it. Whoopi was too stupid for that. She has a career of bit parts in films because she was too stupid to avoid the nasty image she built. Starting with getting Howard Zieff fired from her second film, JUMPING JACK FLASH, Whoopi has always been seen as a first-rate bitch. Zieff directed THE MAIN EVENT (Barbra Streisand), PRIVATE BENJAMIN (Goldie Hawn), MY GIRL, HOUSE CALLS and HEARTS OF THE WEST (Jeff Bridges).
Penny Marshall was hired to replace Howard with the hopes that Whoopi would get along with her. She did not and she floated the idea that Penny should be fired. Penny was more popular in the industry and with FOX so it didn't happen. Instead, Whoopi just threw tantrums each day on the set. Again, this was her second film. Her tantrums got worse with each film. Most of it probably was the result of insecurity. She was taking the parts that Cher, Bruce Willis and others had turned down. She was no one's first or second or third or . . . choice. And she can't act. On THE COLOR PURPLE, Steven Spielberg grasped that he couldn't work with her like he would a normal actor so instead he treated her like a child actor, he'd go up to her before each take and explain the way he wants her to react, "Like ___ in ___." She did a great job pretending to be this actor and that in THE COLOR PURPLE, she just never bothered to create Celie. And that's what she's done with every one of her films since.
After five flops in a row, she had to move into character parts and, though no one wanted her for GHOST, she managed to steal the role from Jackee -- and she imitated Jackee in the film. The Academy Award -- for Best Supporting Actress -- led to DISNEY deciding they could rebuild her career the way they had earlier with Bette Midler. SISTER ACT would be a huge hit but everything else that followed proved that you had to have real talent (which Bette does) to have a string of hit of movies. All Whoopi had was SISTER ACT. 18 years later, it's still all she has.
Or all she has to point to with pride. The former Slim Fast spokesperson (they fired her long ago) can't keep the pounds off, not even after 2019's health scare. People don't tend to notice that because she distracts them by insisting that Roman Polanski didn't commit "rape-rape." It wasn't real rape, she wanted America to know, despite the fact that Roman himself had entered a guilty plea. Again, she's stupid. She's ignorant. Why she's allowed on TV to share her opinions is anyone's guess.
I don't mean: Why isn't she doing movies!!!! She has a lousy image of being a pain in the ass on every production. No one's going to hire her for a lead role. She can't do a TV show -- real TV show, primetime TV show -- because she's flopped every time she's tried. So she's gone to the sewer of daytime TV gab show. This is the woman who couldn't even cut it on HOLLYWOOD SQUARES which is why, despite being a producer (a vanity credit, she didn't do any actual producing), Whoopi was kicked to the curb in 2002 and she was replaced with Henry Winkler.
Yesterday, Whoopi asked Bernie why he didn't drop out of the race. Bernie didn't ask her why she didn't drop out of the entertainment industry -- the answer was clear: The industry long ago dropped Whoopi. Bit parts and bad Tyler Perry movies are what she tries to pass off as a career.
Whoopi is supporting presumed rapist Joe Biden. Former senate staffer Tara Reade has detailed her allegations of being attacked by Joe Biden. Another failed actress is Alyssa Milano. CHARMED as cancelled in 2006. There's been nothing of value since. She couldn't get a long with the show runner on MISTRESSES -- she tried to get the woman fired -- so she left the show while pretending it was because she didn't want to film in Canada. She attacked the CHARMED reboot -- for daring to cast Women Of Color in the leads? Remember, after the third season of the original CHARMED, Alyssa is a producer. There's producer Brad Kern who assaults women in the workplace -- and gets fired by CBS for doing that on a CBS show (NCIS: NEW ORLEANS) but producer Alyssa claims she was never aware of anything like that going on at CHARMED. Read Rose McGowan's book and you'll realize that a lot was going on and, yes, Alyssa was aware. Before she got that producing credit, she did her part to run off Shannen Doherty. Now that Shannen's in stage-four on her cancer. Does Alyssa think she can just ignore the public apology she owes Shannen? She's so stupid, she may not grasp that if that apology is not made before Shannen passes away, it will be even worse for Alyssa. When she became a 'producer' of CHARMED, the show never added another African-American character -- all the ones on the show were created by Constance M. Burge -- the creator who left the show because of Alyssa. That's why she thought she'd get away with getting the show runner fired from MISTRESSES but she didn't. And the entire cast of that show -- male and female -- hates her -- not just hated her when they worked with her, actively hates her to this day.
So this former child-actress who never bothered to learn how to act weighed in yesterday to praise Whoopi for attacking Bernie: "Thank you Whoopi Goldberg. This moment in time is too important to take bulls**t from politicians." Alyssa just increased the call outs on herself for refusing to note Tara Reade.
Alyssa's a hypocrite and this is nothing new. Yes, I consider Illeana Douglas a friend. When she publicly came forward about Leslie Moonves assaulting her, I supported her here and I noted that I'd heard the story years ago from Martin Scorsese. But you know who didn't defend her?
Alyssa.
Alyssa never defended Illeana. She never called out Leslie Moonves. And we called Alyssa out for that. See, Leslie was over CBS and THE CW and Alyssa had a pilot she was desperately -- Norma Desmond desperately -- trying to get on the air. So she stayed silent.
Rose McGowan long ago told everyone that Alyssa was a fake. And she is. She will use anything to get her name out there. She doesn't support #MeToo or #Times Up. Nor could she while married to a CAA agent. CAA enabled this behavior for years. They actively covered for men like Harvey Weinstein and they actively procured women -- they'd send women to 'interviews' knowing the women would be assaulted. A French actress who had two hit films in the US (made in the US, hits in the US) left this country because of CAA and will not come back because they set her up on an 'interview' that was rape. Alyssa'a fake ass.
And people are catching on -- click here to read some of the Tweets called the failed adult actress out. While Alyssa is silent, Rose is not -- here, here and here for just three examples. Rose is the real deal. Alyssa is just someone who uses #MeToo to try to get attention.
Yesterday, we noted Amanada Maracotte's attack on Tara. Krystal Ball responds to that attack below.
And we'll note this video where Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti call out the corporate media for refusing to cover Tara's story.
Amanda Marcotte thought she could misdirect and lie and cover for the corporate media and others. She can't. It doesn't matter where you are on the political spectrum, you are hearing about this story and you are noticing that the corporate media is ignoring it.
On the left, THE ALL AMERICAN SOCIALIST is covering it.
On the right, MRCTV is covering it.
Sonali Kolhatkar spoke with Branko Marcetic on RISING UP WITH SONALI (also UPRISING WITH SONALI) about his article on the silence greeting Tara Reade's allegations.
Greg Piper (THE COLLEGE FIX) notes:
Now that he’s been accused of sexual assault by a former employee – an accusation that drew little legacy media coverage – some Democratic student groups are showing their consistency on the issue.
The University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Democrats and Penn for Bernie demanded that Biden’s campaign and mainstream media outlets investigate the allegations by Tara Reade, his former Senate staffer, The Daily Pennsylvanian reports.
Left-wing outlets Vox and The Intercept have run lengthy articles in the past week on the cold shoulder Reade has received since she aired a more narrow version of her allegations a year ago, accusing Biden of inappropriately touching her shoulder and neck.
They were largely in line with allegations by a former Nevada lawmaker, Lucy Flores, but the sudden wave of claims against Biden were not enough to make Penn reconsider naming its new Washington, D.C.-based center after him.
This is story is out there. We are doing video links with students instead of our face-to-face conversations and this is a big issue with students. That's where Joe already has an enthusiasm gap. As Sonali pointed out in her interview "Trump will bring it up" if Joe is the candidate in the general election.
Turning to Iraq, John David Randolph Hilty is the name of the US soldier who died this week in Iraq. WBNS notes:
A soldier from Bowie, Maryland, died in Iraq in a non-combat related incident on Monday, according to Department of Defense officials.
John David Randolph Hilty, 44, was a Bowie resident who entered the Army as a combat engineer about 21 years ago. DOD officials said that at the time of Hilty's death in Erbil, Iraq, he was working as a petroleum supply specialist.
KXXV adds:
Hilty died March 30, in Erbil, Iraq, of a non-combat related incident. The incident is under investigation.
He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment, 1st Air Cavalry Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division since October 2019.
"TF ATTACK is deeply saddened by the loss of Sgt. 1st Class Hilty. He was an exceptional leader who will be sorely missed throughout the entire formation. His loss will not be forgotten and his legacy will continue through the outstanding performance of the Soldiers he led," said Lt. Col. Adam Camarano, 1st Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment, 1st Air Cavalry Brigade commander.
Hilty deployments include three tours to Afghanistan from January 2009 to December 2009, January 2012 to December 2012, October 2016 to October 2017 and most recently to Iraq in October 2019.
Chad Garland (STARS AND STRIPES) explains:
In other news, Robert Schroeder (MARKETWATCH) reports:
President Donald Trump warned Iran on Wednesday against attacking U.S. troops or assets in Iraq, saying the Islamic Republic would pay a “heavy price” for such a move.
“Upon information and belief, Iran or its proxies are planning a sneak attack on U.S. troops and/or assets in Iraq,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “If this happens, Iran will pay a very heavy price, indeed!” he said, without providing more details.
The following sites updated:
Starting in the US where the race for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination continues. Yesterday, Senator Bernie Sanders was attacked by Jabba The Hut. Yes, he appeared on THE VIEW and Whoopi Goldberg tried to eat him for breakfast.
Storm Gifford (NEW YORK DAILY NEWS) reports how the morbidly obese Whoopi Goldberg attacked Bernie:
It’s no surprise that the tone on “The View” got testy, but this time there was no blaming Meghan McCain.
On
Wednesday’s episode of the TV gabfest, Goldberg — still working from
home due to coronavirus concerns — grilled Democratic presidential
hopeful Bernie Sanders as to why he was moving forth on his White House
bid despite significantly trailing frontrunner Joe Biden.
If nothing else, Whoopi is exploding at least one stereotype: The one about fat people being jolly.
If Barbara Walters wasn't in a home and in bad health, Whoopi would be gone. Instead, she gets to continue episode after episode ruining the show that Barbara created. It was supposed to be a place where women of various backgrounds could have an honest and respectful conversation. Instead, it's just a mud fight among ugly women. And Whoopi is an awful host. She's walked out in the midst of interviews, she attacks guests, she doesn't know how to host.
She's the prize pig in ABC's stye. What a proud moment for a woman who last had a hit film in 1992. How wonderful of ABC to give this high school drop out a position on TV where she uses her untrained and uneducated mind to pontificate on every problem under the sun never inhibited by her appalling ignorance.
High school drop out Whoopi never bothered to attend college and it shows. It really shows. It's not often a raging idiot like Whoopi exposes themselves on TV so constantly.
Whoopi does not see a path to victory for Bernie Sanders.
Bernie currently has 914 delegates. To win the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, he needs to get 1991 delegates. Currently, he is 1027 away from that number.
Stupid Whoopi, drop out Whoopi, dumb ass Whoopi, how many delegates are still up for grabs?
1619.
And Bernie only needs 1027.
Is there a path to victory?
Unless you're as stupid and uneducated as Whoopi, you can grasp that, yes, Bernie can pull this off.
Will he?
I'm not making predictions. But it is possible?
Yes, it is.
I get it. Whoopi's ignorant. She's never understood the democratic process, let alone how primaries work. She's just dumb and stupid.
There are 27 primaries still to be held. There are 1619 delegates still to be awarded.
If you're brainless and dense like Whoopi, that means nothing. If you grasp how democracy works, you get that those primaries need to be held.
Whoopi would probably insist that her stupidity and dropping out came from dyslexia. Oh, boo-hoo. I have it too. A lot of us do. I'm rhyming. But most of us learned to manage it. Whoopi was too stupid for that. She has a career of bit parts in films because she was too stupid to avoid the nasty image she built. Starting with getting Howard Zieff fired from her second film, JUMPING JACK FLASH, Whoopi has always been seen as a first-rate bitch. Zieff directed THE MAIN EVENT (Barbra Streisand), PRIVATE BENJAMIN (Goldie Hawn), MY GIRL, HOUSE CALLS and HEARTS OF THE WEST (Jeff Bridges).
Penny Marshall was hired to replace Howard with the hopes that Whoopi would get along with her. She did not and she floated the idea that Penny should be fired. Penny was more popular in the industry and with FOX so it didn't happen. Instead, Whoopi just threw tantrums each day on the set. Again, this was her second film. Her tantrums got worse with each film. Most of it probably was the result of insecurity. She was taking the parts that Cher, Bruce Willis and others had turned down. She was no one's first or second or third or . . . choice. And she can't act. On THE COLOR PURPLE, Steven Spielberg grasped that he couldn't work with her like he would a normal actor so instead he treated her like a child actor, he'd go up to her before each take and explain the way he wants her to react, "Like ___ in ___." She did a great job pretending to be this actor and that in THE COLOR PURPLE, she just never bothered to create Celie. And that's what she's done with every one of her films since.
After five flops in a row, she had to move into character parts and, though no one wanted her for GHOST, she managed to steal the role from Jackee -- and she imitated Jackee in the film. The Academy Award -- for Best Supporting Actress -- led to DISNEY deciding they could rebuild her career the way they had earlier with Bette Midler. SISTER ACT would be a huge hit but everything else that followed proved that you had to have real talent (which Bette does) to have a string of hit of movies. All Whoopi had was SISTER ACT. 18 years later, it's still all she has.
Or all she has to point to with pride. The former Slim Fast spokesperson (they fired her long ago) can't keep the pounds off, not even after 2019's health scare. People don't tend to notice that because she distracts them by insisting that Roman Polanski didn't commit "rape-rape." It wasn't real rape, she wanted America to know, despite the fact that Roman himself had entered a guilty plea. Again, she's stupid. She's ignorant. Why she's allowed on TV to share her opinions is anyone's guess.
I don't mean: Why isn't she doing movies!!!! She has a lousy image of being a pain in the ass on every production. No one's going to hire her for a lead role. She can't do a TV show -- real TV show, primetime TV show -- because she's flopped every time she's tried. So she's gone to the sewer of daytime TV gab show. This is the woman who couldn't even cut it on HOLLYWOOD SQUARES which is why, despite being a producer (a vanity credit, she didn't do any actual producing), Whoopi was kicked to the curb in 2002 and she was replaced with Henry Winkler.
Yesterday, Whoopi asked Bernie why he didn't drop out of the race. Bernie didn't ask her why she didn't drop out of the entertainment industry -- the answer was clear: The industry long ago dropped Whoopi. Bit parts and bad Tyler Perry movies are what she tries to pass off as a career.
Whoopi is supporting presumed rapist Joe Biden. Former senate staffer Tara Reade has detailed her allegations of being attacked by Joe Biden. Another failed actress is Alyssa Milano. CHARMED as cancelled in 2006. There's been nothing of value since. She couldn't get a long with the show runner on MISTRESSES -- she tried to get the woman fired -- so she left the show while pretending it was because she didn't want to film in Canada. She attacked the CHARMED reboot -- for daring to cast Women Of Color in the leads? Remember, after the third season of the original CHARMED, Alyssa is a producer. There's producer Brad Kern who assaults women in the workplace -- and gets fired by CBS for doing that on a CBS show (NCIS: NEW ORLEANS) but producer Alyssa claims she was never aware of anything like that going on at CHARMED. Read Rose McGowan's book and you'll realize that a lot was going on and, yes, Alyssa was aware. Before she got that producing credit, she did her part to run off Shannen Doherty. Now that Shannen's in stage-four on her cancer. Does Alyssa think she can just ignore the public apology she owes Shannen? She's so stupid, she may not grasp that if that apology is not made before Shannen passes away, it will be even worse for Alyssa. When she became a 'producer' of CHARMED, the show never added another African-American character -- all the ones on the show were created by Constance M. Burge -- the creator who left the show because of Alyssa. That's why she thought she'd get away with getting the show runner fired from MISTRESSES but she didn't. And the entire cast of that show -- male and female -- hates her -- not just hated her when they worked with her, actively hates her to this day.
So this former child-actress who never bothered to learn how to act weighed in yesterday to praise Whoopi for attacking Bernie: "Thank you Whoopi Goldberg. This moment in time is too important to take bulls**t from politicians." Alyssa just increased the call outs on herself for refusing to note Tara Reade.
Alyssa's a hypocrite and this is nothing new. Yes, I consider Illeana Douglas a friend. When she publicly came forward about Leslie Moonves assaulting her, I supported her here and I noted that I'd heard the story years ago from Martin Scorsese. But you know who didn't defend her?
Alyssa.
Alyssa never defended Illeana. She never called out Leslie Moonves. And we called Alyssa out for that. See, Leslie was over CBS and THE CW and Alyssa had a pilot she was desperately -- Norma Desmond desperately -- trying to get on the air. So she stayed silent.
Rose McGowan long ago told everyone that Alyssa was a fake. And she is. She will use anything to get her name out there. She doesn't support #MeToo or #Times Up. Nor could she while married to a CAA agent. CAA enabled this behavior for years. They actively covered for men like Harvey Weinstein and they actively procured women -- they'd send women to 'interviews' knowing the women would be assaulted. A French actress who had two hit films in the US (made in the US, hits in the US) left this country because of CAA and will not come back because they set her up on an 'interview' that was rape. Alyssa'a fake ass.
And people are catching on -- click here to read some of the Tweets called the failed adult actress out. While Alyssa is silent, Rose is not -- here, here and here for just three examples. Rose is the real deal. Alyssa is just someone who uses #MeToo to try to get attention.
Yesterday, we noted Amanada Maracotte's attack on Tara. Krystal Ball responds to that attack below.
And we'll note this video where Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti call out the corporate media for refusing to cover Tara's story.
Amanda Marcotte thought she could misdirect and lie and cover for the corporate media and others. She can't. It doesn't matter where you are on the political spectrum, you are hearing about this story and you are noticing that the corporate media is ignoring it.
On the left, THE ALL AMERICAN SOCIALIST is covering it.
On the right, MRCTV is covering it.
Sonali Kolhatkar spoke with Branko Marcetic on RISING UP WITH SONALI (also UPRISING WITH SONALI) about his article on the silence greeting Tara Reade's allegations.
Greg Piper (THE COLLEGE FIX) notes:
Now that he’s been accused of sexual assault by a former employee – an accusation that drew little legacy media coverage – some Democratic student groups are showing their consistency on the issue.
The University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Democrats and Penn for Bernie demanded that Biden’s campaign and mainstream media outlets investigate the allegations by Tara Reade, his former Senate staffer, The Daily Pennsylvanian reports.
Left-wing outlets Vox and The Intercept have run lengthy articles in the past week on the cold shoulder Reade has received since she aired a more narrow version of her allegations a year ago, accusing Biden of inappropriately touching her shoulder and neck.
They were largely in line with allegations by a former Nevada lawmaker, Lucy Flores, but the sudden wave of claims against Biden were not enough to make Penn reconsider naming its new Washington, D.C.-based center after him.
This is story is out there. We are doing video links with students instead of our face-to-face conversations and this is a big issue with students. That's where Joe already has an enthusiasm gap. As Sonali pointed out in her interview "Trump will bring it up" if Joe is the candidate in the general election.
Turning to Iraq, John David Randolph Hilty is the name of the US soldier who died this week in Iraq. WBNS notes:
A soldier from Bowie, Maryland, died in Iraq in a non-combat related incident on Monday, according to Department of Defense officials.
John David Randolph Hilty, 44, was a Bowie resident who entered the Army as a combat engineer about 21 years ago. DOD officials said that at the time of Hilty's death in Erbil, Iraq, he was working as a petroleum supply specialist.
KXXV adds:
Hilty died March 30, in Erbil, Iraq, of a non-combat related incident. The incident is under investigation.
He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment, 1st Air Cavalry Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division since October 2019.
"TF ATTACK is deeply saddened by the loss of Sgt. 1st Class Hilty. He was an exceptional leader who will be sorely missed throughout the entire formation. His loss will not be forgotten and his legacy will continue through the outstanding performance of the Soldiers he led," said Lt. Col. Adam Camarano, 1st Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment, 1st Air Cavalry Brigade commander.
Hilty deployments include three tours to Afghanistan from January 2009 to December 2009, January 2012 to December 2012, October 2016 to October 2017 and most recently to Iraq in October 2019.
Chad Garland (STARS AND STRIPES) explains:
His death marks the seventh fatality for the coalition this year. Six
occurred in March alone and all but two were combat-related.
Army Spc. Antonio I. Moore was killed in a vehicle rollover incident in
Syria on Jan. 25 while conducting route clearance operations in Deir
al-Zour province.
Marine Raiders Gunnery Sgt. Diego D. Pongo and Capt. Moises A. Navas, both 34, were killed March 8
during combat operations in northern Iraq, where a joint U.S. and Iraqi
raid encountered Islamic State group militants in a well-fortified cave
system.
Days later, the rocket attack on Camp Taji
killed Mendez Covarrubias, Oklahoma Air National Guard Staff Sgt.
Marshal D. Roberts and British Army Lance Cpl. Brodie Gillon, a combat
medic and reservist who volunteered for deployment with the Irish Guards
Battle Group.
More than a dozen others were injured in that attack, which the
Pentagon blamed on an Iran-backed militia. In response, U.S. airstrikes
hit several sites south of Baghdad, which the Defense Department said
the militia used as weapons storage facilities.
In other news, Robert Schroeder (MARKETWATCH) reports:
President Donald Trump warned Iran on Wednesday against attacking U.S. troops or assets in Iraq, saying the Islamic Republic would pay a “heavy price” for such a move.
“Upon information and belief, Iran or its proxies are planning a sneak attack on U.S. troops and/or assets in Iraq,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “If this happens, Iran will pay a very heavy price, indeed!” he said, without providing more details.
The following sites updated:
