Janice Blake

Reader. Writer.
"The Battalion Artist" traces Nat Bellantoni's WWII odyssey in the Pacific. Next: "Lighter Than Air" tells of my Uncle Joe in the Atlantic.

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

Scientists at Trump’s EPA say they are being told to make chemical risks “disappear on paper.” Not to study or manage them, but to make them vanish.

When a safety test on a household chemical shows danger, supervisors reportedly ask to keep shrinking the scenario until the poison looks safe.

They have reassigned senior scientists to paperwork and handed life-and-death risk assessments to staff with less experience. They have installed former chemical industry lobbyists to run the very offices that are supposed to regulate the chemical industry.

A gift to industry, paid for with your family’s health.

They are even throwing out research on how certain chemicals hit certain communities harder, calling decades of established science “DEI.”

You can make risk disappear on paper.

The cancer does not disappear.

The birth defects do not disappear.

The infertility does not disappear.

The kids drinking the water and getting sick do not disappear.

The EPA exists to protect people, not to protect the profit margins of the people poisoning them.

Every American deserves to know what is happening. #TrumpMakesUsSick

https://t.co/5DwXgxBybt

[Janice Blake @JanzaBlake]

June 9, 2026 https://t.co/9WIn9eNvhM
"Trump’s nomination of Blanche directly challenges Republican senators to collude with him to flout the will of rank-and-file Republicans and break the law."

[Prof. Frank McDonough @FXMC1957]

9 June 1973. Super horse Secretariat, ridden by Ron Turcotte, won the Belmont Stakes to become the 9th horse to win the US flat racing Triple Crown (Kentucky Derby, Belmont Stakes and Preakness Stakes). The horse still holds the fastest time record in all 3 races.

[Boze Herrington, Library Owl 😴🧙‍♀️ @SketchesbyBoze]

The novelist Sharon Kay Penman famously owned a private library of niche books on medieval history, and once spent $300 to acquire a book about plants of the Levant so she could check one fact. I hope one day to own a home library that is similarly vast and niche.

[WWII Memorial Friends @WWIIMemorial]

U.S. Army Second Lieutenant Walter David Ehlers of Junction City, Kansas, was awarded the Medal of Honor for his extraordinary actions on June 9-10, 1944, near Goville, France.

Ehlers joined the Army in October 1940. He and his older brother, Roland, served in the same unit and participated in the fighting in North Africa and Sicily. By D-Day on June 6, 1944, Ehlers was a staff sergeant and squad leader in the 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division. On June 9, he led his unit’s attack against German forces and single-handedly defeated several enemy machine gun nests. The next day the platoon came under heavy fire. Ehlers was wounded but managed to cover the platoon’s withdrawal.

He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions on June 9-10, 1944. On July 14, 1944, Ehlers learned that his brother, Roland, had died on Omaha Beach when a mortar shell struck his landing craft. He went on to work for the Veterans Administration and as a security guard at Disneyland, California. He died in 2014 of kidney failure at the age of 92. He is buried in Riverside National Cemetery in Riverside, California.

#WeRememberThem

[VenetiaJane's Garden @VenetiaJane]

It is said that as Venus ran through the forest seeking her beloved Adonis, briar thorns pricked her feet. Where her blood fell, red roses grew. White roses sprang from her tears as she mourned him, and as the sun set, its golden rays transformed some to yellow. #RoseWednesday

[Janice Blake @JanzaBlake]

"Under the protection of the Israeli army"

And yet they are called "settlers" (sounds benign)

If Palestinians attempted this kind of action, they would be detained...or shot.

[Ihab Hassan @IhabHassane]

BREAKING: After setting the Christian village of Taybeh on fire, Israeli settlers are now at the entrance of the Christian city of Bethlehem, throwing stones at cars — under the protection of the Israeli army.

[Breaking the Silence @BtSIsrael]

While attention is again focused on Iran, a major shift is unfolding in the West Bank. For the first time since the Oslo Accords, Palestinians are being expelled from Area A, under PA administration. The IDF is seizing land near Jenin to build a military base. Why it matters 🧵

[Janice Blake @JanzaBlake]

@SaulStaniforth Despicable thievery.

[Janice Blake @JanzaBlake]

@washingtonpost An embarrassment. A disgrace.

Certainly not how a "Great" country treats participants in one of the most important international sporting events in the world!

[WWII Memorial Friends @WWIIMemorial]

U.S. Army Private Joe Gandara was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions on June 9, 1944, near Amfreville, France.

Gandara was born and raised in Santa Monica, California. He was the son of Mexican immigrants. He enlisted in the Army as a high school student in February 1943. As a paratrooper of the 82nd Airborne Division, Gandara served in D-Day, among other battles.

On June 9, 1944, Pvt. Gandara’s detachment came under heavy fire from a German force, pinning him and his comrades to the ground for four hours. Gandara voluntarily advanced alone, firing his machine gun from the hip. As he directed hostile fire away from his detachment, he successfully destroyed three machine guns before he was fatally wounded.

Gandara was initially rewarded a Distinguished Service Cross for his actions, however, it was upgraded to a Medal of Honor after the 2002 Defense Authorization Act called for a review to investigate discrimination against Jewish American and Hispanic American Veterans. President Obama awarded him the Medal of Honor on March 18, 2014. His niece, Miriam Adams, accepted it on his behalf.

#WeRememberThem

[sarah @sahouraxo]

BREAKING:

Israeli settlers are burning Taybeh in occupied Palestine.

A village that has stood for thousands of years.

A place where Jesus once walked.

Home to the oldest living Christian community in the world.

And not a peep from Western mainstream media.

[Janice Blake @JanzaBlake]

@SketchesbyBoze 😳Kids in our family are still reading...

[B'Tselem בצלם بتسيلم @btselem]

New footage obtained by B’Tselem uncovers the moments when the Abu Haikal family was shot. Seven-month-old Sam Abu Haikal was killed in the shooting, and both his parents were injured. The footage clearly shows that the Israeli soldier fired at the car as it was slowing to a stop. The car was far from the soldiers and posed no danger to them whatsoever.

Moments later, in another video obtained by B’Tselem, seven-month-old Sam’s father, Fahed, is seen just after his son was shot. Fahed is holding baby Sam in his arms, trying to stop the bleeding from his head with his hands, while Sam’s mother, Daniyah, who was also injured by the gunfire while holding her son, is seen sitting on the ground, next to the car.

Last Friday, 5 June, an Israeli soldier fired at a Palestinian family driving home from a family visit, as they sat in their car in the Tel Rumeidah neighborhood in Hebron. The family was shot as the car was slowing to a stop at the soldier’s command. Sam, a seven‑month‑old baby who was in his mother’s arms in the back seat, was struck in the head and pronounced dead shortly afterward. Sam’s parents were also injured by the gunfire; his mother is still in the hospital. After the shooting, the soldier who fired and another soldier who was with him left the scene without checking the car or offering any assistance to the critically wounded baby or to his mother.

In the past two and a half years, Israel has killed tens of thousands of children in Gaza and the West Bank. The immunity it gets from the international community has led to a reality where, under Israeli rule, Palestinian lives are entirely disposable – even a seven‑month‑old baby.

[Janice Blake @JanzaBlake]

@AaronBastani Absolutely embarrassing!

[Hillary Clinton @HillaryClinton]

As a World Cup host, the U.S. shouldn't be flippantly barring officials from entering the country to do their jobs.

It's terribly backward.

It's also counterproductive.

Global sports competitions should improve international exchange and relations, not the reverse.

[Janice Blake @JanzaBlake]

Yes. Embarrassing.
The Trump Administration has embarrassed this country.

Great?
Not with these people in charge.

[James Melville 🚜 @JamesMelville]

Well said Ian Wright.

[WWII Memorial Friends @WWIIMemorial]

U.S. Army Private First Class Charles Neilans DeGlopper of Grand Island, New York, was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions on June 9, 1944 in Normandy, France.

DeGlopper joined the Army in November 1942 and trained at Camp Croft, South Carolina, before being deployed overseas in April 1943, where he served in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and France.
On June 9, 1944, regimental commander Colonel Harry Lewis was ordered to make a crossing of the le Merderet River and help attack the La Fière Bridge from the opposite side. Themselves under attack, C Company 1st Battalion was cut off from the rest of the battalion. Despite coming under increased fire, PFC DeGlopper stood up and began firing at the attacking Germans to suppress their fire and relieve the battalion.

Although wounded, PFC DeGlopper continued to stand and fire, and when hit yet again, still fired although kneeling and bleeding profusely. Meanwhile, as the Germans were distracted and occupied with PFC DeGlopper's automatic fire, the remainder of C Company was able to break off and head for La Fière to join the rest of their battalion.

For his actions on June 9, 1944, DeGlopper was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. He was just 22 years old.

#WeRememberThem

[Janice Blake @JanzaBlake]

What a bozo!
Does the man not understand that mail-in votes can only be counted when they arrive at the polling place, and that they can be mailed up to end of day on voting day?

[Aaron Rupar @atrupar]

RAJU: The president keep saying the California election was rigged. What evidence have you seen to show there has been widespread fraud?

SCALISE: You had wide changes after election night in the results

RAJU: They're just counting the ballots

SCALISE: Look, whether you can prove fraud or not, it does undermine voter integrity in the vote

[Janice Blake @JanzaBlake]

@halbritz Hegseth is an incompetent egomaniac...just like his boss.