Mark’s roundup of the horrific failure of Russian forces trying to cross the Donets near Lysychansk is worth reading.
But it raises a whole bunch of questions that are not being canvassed anywhere that I have seen. They go like this:
Where was the reconnaissance ahead of the action?
How did they not know that Ukrainian weapons were within range of their crossing? Is Ukrainian camouflage now so good they can’t be found?
Has Russia run out of drones?
Where was their artillery?
Both ahead of the landing to prepare the ground and to counter fire when the Ukrainians opened up?
Have their batteries been pushed back so far they can’t provide useful service?
Have they run out of ammunition?
Have they already been taken out by the 155’s and other munitions?
Where was the airforce to give cover for such a major event?
Even as close as this was to the Donbas line of contact, is the RUAF incapable of providing support?
Or are they too scared of losing more jets and choppers that they can’t afford the risk?
Where was their anti-aircraft batteries when the Ukrainian jets turned up to “chip in”?
Jesus, its starting to sound like the jolly old Brits calling in in to say could they join the show and chip in a bit of bombing with tea and muffins for afters?” Chip in FFS?
How in hell are they flying so close to “Russian held territory” (which should now be enclosed in quotes) without so much as a popgun going off?
Where are the S300/400 batteries?
Have they all been blown up?
Have they run out of rockets?
Where the hell is the mind of whoever ordered that fucking mess?
Are they all now so punch drunk or just drunk with vodka and despair that they are sending totally unprotected troops on suicide missions?
Over 50 vehicles, possibly as many as 1500 troops, blown to bits with no protection, support, warning or any chance of returning fire because there is nobody to shoot at. Clusterfuck doesn’t begin to describe it. And the survivors trapped on the wrong side of the river being hunted through the forest like deer.
At a rough guess this was between 2 and 3 BTG’s rendered inoperable, maybe even deleted entirely, with up to 2,000 troops involved, shredded by how many Ukrainians? An engineer, some spotters a few gunnery teams way the hell over there somewhere and a couple of pilots. The force ratio is nuts.
Something very wrong is happening to the invader’s forces, and it is going to get much worse and quite quickly.
Latest appears to be that they have solved the issue of where Gerasimov was on May 9 [tweet at the link, reporting that Gerasimov is de-facto suspended from his responsibilities.]
But it still doesn’t tell us why he was promoted to full command what, a week ago, and why he is now gone? Did Ukraine, in fact, nail him in Izyum, or wound him too badly a) to appear on the dais and b) to continue in the role. […]
One more thing. Apparently that move to the border north of Kharkiv has consequences. [tweet and image at the link, in which mysterious explosions rock Russia as fire breaks out in Belgorod]
The pace is picking up, the break is near, I think it all goes to hell for Russia by the end of the month. 19 days. […]
“Commenting on NATO membership for Finland and Sweden, Russia’s dep representative to the UN [Dmitry Polyanskiy] says these countries will become ‘potential military targets for Russia’ as soon as the alliance’s subdivisions arrive. Then he floats nuclear war….”
Have threatened Sweden & Finland that them joining NATO means I will have to sink my ships on their coast as well.
lumipunasays
Is this thread moving over to a new page?
lumipunasays
Re SC at 3 – That’s a good one, but weirdly enough, something like that could actually happen.
Over the years, Russian warplanes have semi-regularly “by accident” dipped briefly into the airspaces of Finland and other small countries in the Baltic Sea region. This is thought to be intended as low level intimidation and/or testing the effectiveness of our airspace monitoring. Last winter, a Russian civilian airplane applied a permit to make a weird detour across Finland for no apparent reason.
Now, as tensions increase, some security experts have predicted that Russia might do something more showy in this vein. For example, a Russian submarine might show up in Finnish territorial waters and make its presence very notable by needing to be rescued after “accidental” grounding in a shallow. It’d be be a showy military-diplomatic incident without (presumably) sparking an actual war. Frankly, I don’t quite understand the logic here, but this kind of speculation is currently seen on Finnish media.
So I was reading a few more reactions to Hulu’s Under the banner of Heaven. This review was OK, and it noted some facts I didn’t know or had forgotten:
…Mormonism does have a persistence of right-wing extremists who operate both within the mainstream church and among its fundamentalist offshoots. The Laffertys were not only religious extremists, but they were also involved in far-right politics, including opposing federal authority and taxes. This isn’t just an accident in modern Mormonism. Ezra Taft Benson was a senior leader who rose to the office of president of the church in the second half of the 20th century. Benson was drawn to the John Birch Society and other extremist ideologies, and his teachings continue to contribute to the radicalization of many Latter-day Saints.
So, it isn’t just fundamentalist polygamous Mormons who embrace these ideas. This brand of Mormonism inspired an online collective of Mormon separatists and fascists known as #DezNat (short for Deseret Nationalism) in recent years. It also inspired the Bundy family who led an armed stand-off against the federal government in 2014 and an armed takeover of federal property in 2016, which led to the death of one of their men. The Bundys are members of the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in good standing.
Would we who are scholars of religion not all agree—and who ought to know this better than we do—that on balance, in the long perspective of human history, religions have done more harm than good and that the good they do is almost always inseparable from the harm? I think we would. This is not to deny that religions have done and continue to do good things. But that I even have to utter such a correction—and that we scholars of religion feel compelled to do so, always, right after we speak what we all agree is a simple truth—shows the power of the idea that, in the end, religions are essentially good. It is so powerful and deeply embedded that rarely do we—who ought to know better—pause to stare into the depths of the truth that religions have, over time, done more harm than good before we scramble up toward the warm sunlight of good religion.
…
What I want to offer here is a phenomenology of the disgust of a scholar of religion, of its dangers, but also of what I have come to see not only as the inevitability of disgust in the life of a scholar of religion, but more, its usefulness on many levels, emotional, psychological, existential, and intellectual.
…
It feels to me that disgust is the final step in the explication of the idea of lived religion. On the other side of disgust is a clearer vision of how religion is actually lived in everyday life, with its intimate cruelties, its petty as well as profound humiliations, its sadism and its masochism, its abuses of power, and its impulses to destroy and dominate. We know there is more to religion than this. But we ought to know as well, and never forget, that there is nothing to religion without this and that even the more of religion, religion’s really realness, is implicated in horrors.
(I could live without the gratuitous dig at atheists, but overall I was fairly surprised by the piece.)
lumipunasays
Reportedly, the UK yesterday signed some kind of outstanding mutual security assurances with Sweden and Finland, just in time for our upcoming Nato application period. So, my thanks to all UK citizens who support this sort of thing.
It seems a bit unclear what exactly the UK is committed to, but we’ll take anything. In recent weeks, there’s been speculation on Finnish media on whether the US or some other major Nato country might provide us a “full security guarantee” during the application period. Experts have dismissed this as an unrealistic wish, while pointing out that we can expect guaranteed intelligence and material support from several countries. That in itself is very significant, since Finland’s own military has a high potential for making use of such support.
Presumably, “mutual assurance” means that we’d also help the UK against Russian aggression, though I’m not sure how that’d work out logistically. Sweden at least has a relatively strong navy and air force, whereas Finland mainly just has a strong infantry and field artillery. In Nato, we’ll be able to provide some amount of air, logistical and intelligence support for the Baltic countries.
New Lines – “Is Putin Sick – Or Are We Meant to Think He Is?”: “An oligarch close to the Kremlin was recorded on a tape saying the president is ‘very ill with blood cancer.’ Is this true, idle speculation or disinformation designed to make an erratic and paranoid dictator vulnerable?…”
Reuters is reporting that Ukrainian forces have set on fire a Russian ship in the Black Sea:
Ukrainian forces have damaged a modern Russian navy logistics ship in the Black Sea, setting it on fire, a spokesman for the Odesa regional military administration in southern Ukraine said on Thursday.
Spokesman Serhiy Bratchuk said in an online post that the Vsevolod Bobrov had been struck near Snake Island, the scene of renewed fighting in recent days, but did not give details. The tiny island is located near Ukraine’s sea border with Romania.
WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol issued subpoenas on Thursday to five Republican members of Congress, including Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, who had refused to meet with the panel voluntarily….
The panel said it was demanding testimony from Mr. McCarthy, of California, who engaged in a heated phone call with President Donald J. Trump during the Capitol violence; Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, who coordinated a plan to try to replace the acting attorney general after he resisted Mr. Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud; Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, who was deeply involved in the effort to fight the election results; Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona, the former leader of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus; and Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama, who has said Mr. Trump has continued to seek an unlawful reinstatement to office for more than a year.
All five have refused requests for voluntary interviews about the roles they played in the buildup to the attack by supporters of the former president who believed his lie of widespread election fraud.
Mr. McCarthy told reporters on Capitol Hill on Thursday that he had not yet seen the subpoena.
“My view on the committee has not changed,” he said. “They’re not conducting a legitimate investigation. It seems as though they just want to go after their political opponents.”…..
The subpoenas come as the committee is ramping up for a series of public hearings next month to reveal its findings…..
Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and the vice chairwoman of the committee, said the decision was not made lightly. “It’s a reflection of how important and serious the investigation is, and how grave the attack on the Capitol was,” she said….
Mr. McCarthy has long feared being subpoenaed in the investigation. In recent months, he has been in discussions with William A. Burck, a longtime Washington lawyer, about how to fight a subpoena.
Pres. Biden tweeted: “In remembrance of today’s tragic milestone, I’ve ordered the United States flag to be flown at half-staff in memory of the one million American lives lost to COVID-19.”
US Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has blocked the passage of a $40 billion aid bill to Ukraine. Paul demanded changes to the legislation that would include implementing a special inspector general to oversee how the aid is spent, according to CNN.
“We cannot save Ukraine by dooming the US economy,” Paul said.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Republican Leader Mitch McConnell offered to allow a vote on the Republican senator’s amendment. But CNN is reporting that Paul insisted that it be added to the actual bill.
“The package is ready to go,” Schumer said. “The vast majority of senators on both sides of the aisle want it. There’s now only one thing holding us back the junior senator from Kentucky is preventing swift passage of Ukraine aid because he wants to add at the last minute his own changes directly into the bill. His change is strongly opposed by many members of both parties.”
In both a tactical and strategic sense, it certainly seems as if Ukraine has played its hand smartly. In the most heavily contested areas of the Donbas, they’ve used intelligence about Russian actions, defensive positions built up over eight years since the previous invasion, and dogged persistence in the face of almost constant hammering by artillery, to slow Russian advances in the area to a crawl. Meanwhile, in areas where Russia has drawn down its forces to reinforce that effort in the Donbas, Ukraine has gone on the attack. Most notably, they’ve moved quickly to recapture villages and towns north of Kharkiv, pressing Russian forces kilometers away from Ukraine’s second-largest city and, in some areas, right back to the Russian border.
Ukrainian leadership is well aware that before it can make extensive gains in any area, it has to have some measure of air support, and some ability to push back at Russian artillery. In many areas, that means waiting until new equipment promised by the West is in place, and new training being offered to Ukrainian soldiers is completed.
In some cases, even that may be not enough. Much of the Donbas is not only territory that Russia has held, and fortified, since 2014, it’s also close enough to Russia to be covered by anti-aircraft systems positioned across the border. It’s certainly within easy range of Russian planes and helicopters and it’s the only area of Ukraine that those aircraft feel remotely comfortable flying over. All those factors that have made it so difficult for Russia to capture territory inside Ukraine, go into effect for Ukraine when it’s operating in or near territory that has long been held by Russia. Meaning that Ukraine needs the same kind of massive advantage if it wants to recapture territory without suffering horrendous losses.
Even for recapturing a city like Kherson or Mariupol, where Russia doesn’t have the advantage of long-established fortifications and reliable air support, it’s hard for Ukraine to advance without having at least a localized advantage in numbers. Traditionally, it requires a 3-1 advantage. Better tactics and better technology can shave down that number, but they can’t necessarily make it go away.
For the world of watching keyboard warriors, the fact that Ukraine hasn’t swept back into Kherson—which seemed like a possibility in the week following the Russian retreat from Kyiv, when Ukrainian forces in the Kherson area appeared to be recapturing villages at a steady clip—is frustrating. It has to be far, far more frustrating for the people held hostage in a city that has become a very large-scale prison.
I have a friend in Kherson and the situation is incredibly bad.
They said to me:
“I am reading a lot of shit about Kherson, unfortunately it’s nothing compared to reality. It is much, much worse”
Ukrainians are facing a dire situation, which I’ll lay out in a short thread
Escape routes out of the city are blocked. My friend has attempted to get out several times – the last driver they were in contact with was captured and had their car destroyed.
There are now many Russians in Kherson who arrived for the 9th May parade. Many of them now work at the market and sell Russian products. My friend says that when they go out now they don’t see familiar faces. Russians are arriving to replace Ukrainians and live in their homes.
For example, a story of a Russian person moving into an apartment block, becoming admin of the block and sending messages to residents about how they want Ukrainians to burn.
There are checkpoints between Kherson and all other cities – the Russian army check all papers and search anyone who comes into the city.
People are forced to undress and show any tattoos, to check for any “pro-Western” or patriotic iconography. […]
[…] That incredibly bad situation includes ongoing efforts to turn Kherson into an outpost of Russia. Kherson has been taken off the Ukrainian internet and placed on a Russian network. Russian cell towers are going up. Ukrainian products are being replaced on the shelves with ones brought in from Russia as Russian troops insist that business be done in rubles. There are checkpoints throughout the city where Russian forces demand strip searches at gunpoint. And, “My friend says that when they go out now they don’t see familiar faces. Russians are arriving to replace Ukrainians and live in their homes.”
In the last week, Ukraine announced that a counteroffensive was underway in Kherson as well as in Kharkiv and near Izyum. But unlike the Kharkiv area, where there has been the constant excitement of villages and towns captured, including some very fast and unexpected movements by Ukrainian forces, even reports of heavy fighting in the Kherson area have resulted in few changes on the map. Part of the explanation for this can be seen on this map of where Russian cellphones are being used in Ukraine. [available at the link]
This map shows a significant number of Russians positioned across the entire Kherson region. A month ago, some reports had indicated that Russian soldiers were packing up and getting ready to go back across the Dnipro River. Instead, Russia seems to be digging in. As one visiting Russian official told the people in Kherson last week, they expect Russia to be there “forever.” [map available at the link]
Rather than pulling out, Russia has been shoving into this area. That’s because they’re supporting two different actions out of Kherson. First, there’s the push toward Kryvyi Rih. Strategically this move for Russia appears pointless. It gets them none of the ground they have set as strategic goals. It moves their forces into a vulnerable position. It gains them nothing except that Kryvyi Rih is Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s home town and Vladimir Putin wants to hurt Zelenskyy. It’s also an industrial center, but count on the personal motive as the real driver here. [map available at the link]
The bigger show is going on between Mykolaiv and Kherson. There was a point, almost a month ago now, when Ukraine was retaking settlements in this area rapidly, was pushing toward Kherson from both north and south, and seemed ready to drive Russian troops back across the bridges. This is not currently the case. Russia remains on the west bank in force, struggles over towns are going on at multiple positions along the line, and nothing seems to be moving all that quickly.
Unlike Kharkiv, if Ukraine is going to mount a major counteroffensive at Kherson, they’ll be doing it into the teeth of serious Russian opposition. On the other hand, Kherson is one part of the area Russia now occupies where they’re unlikely to feel safe providing extensive air support and are also less likely to have significant air defense. So Ukrainian armor may be better able to maneuver without a response from above.
However, there’s one other big difference: Kharkiv was already in Ukrainian control. Kherson is not. Every day that Russia remains in control of the city, they do damage to it in ways that may be more subtle than the artillery that leveled Mariupol and has so damaged Kharkiv, but it’s just as real.
With that kind of incentive, Ukraine may be prepared to initiate that offensive, even if the odds are less than great.
UKRAINIANS CAPTURING RUSSIAN STUFF THEATER
Rather than looking at Russian stuff blowing up, today it’s Russian stuff that Ukraine is driving away more or less intact. Showing once again that Ukraine understands that you need combined arms, they start with an APV…[tweet and video at the link]
Then add a tank …[Tweet and video at the link]
Then throw in some artillery (with an appearance from the 101st fighting tractors)… [tweet and video at the link]
And finish off with a bit of specialist kit in the form of a TOS thermobaric missile system. [tweet and video at the link, showing a thermobaric MLRS fully loaded and apparently in perfect condition]
…Dmitri’s refusal to fight highlights some of the military difficulties the Russian army has faced as a result of the Kremlin’s political decision not to formally declare war on Ukraine – preferring instead to describe the invasion, which will soon reach its fourth month, as a “special military operation”.
Under Russian military rules, troops who refuse to fight in Ukraine can face dismissal but cannot be prosecuted, said Mikhail Benyash, a lawyer who has been advising soldiers who choose that option.
Benyash said “hundreds and hundreds” of soldiers had been in touch with his team for advice on how they could avoid being sent to fight. Among them were 12 national guardsmen from Russia’s southern city of Krasnodar who were fired after refusing to go to Ukraine.
“Commanders try to threaten their soldiers with prison time if they dissent, but we tell the soldiers that they can simply say no,” Benyash said, adding that he was not aware of any criminal cases against soldiers who refused to fight. “There are no legal grounds to start a criminal case if a soldier refuses to fight while on Russian territory.”
Many soldiers, therefore, have chosen to be fired or transferred rather than going into “the meat grinder”, he said.
…
Pointing to Russia’s military laws, Benyash said it would be more difficult for soldiers to refuse to fight if Russia were to declare a full-scale war. “During wartime, rules are totally different. Refusal then would mean much harsher penalties. They would be looking at time in prison.”
While the exact number of soldiers refusing to fight remains unclear, such stories illustrate what military experts and western governments say is one of Russia’s biggest obstacles in Ukraine: a severe shortage of infantry soldiers.
Moscow initially put about 80% of its main ground combat forces – 150,000 men – into the war in February, according to western officials. But significant damage has been done to that army, which has confronted logistical problems, poor morale and an underestimated Ukrainian resistance.
“Putin needs to make a decision regarding mobilisation in the coming weeks,” said Rob Lee, a military analyst. “Russia lacks sufficient ground units with contract soldiers for a sustainable rotation. The troops are getting exhausted – they won’t be able to keep this up for a long period.”
Lee said one option for the Kremlin would be to authorise the deployment of conscript units to Ukraine, despite Putin’s earlier pledges that Russia would not use any conscripts in the war. “Conscripts could fill some of the gaps, but they will be poorly trained. Many of the units that are supposed to train conscripts are fighting themselves,” Lee said.
But without conscript battalions, Russia could soon “struggle to hold the territory it currently controls in Ukraine, especially as Ukraine receives better equipment from Nato,” he said.
Russian authorities quietly stepped up their efforts to recruit new soldiers as it became clear that a quick victory in Ukraine was unattainable.
…
But analysts say voluntary recruits and mercenary groups are unlikely to lead to a substantial increase in the number of new soldiers, compared with the numbers that a partial or a full-scale mobilisation would bring.
…
Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment, said the authorities may be worried that a general mobilisation would antagonise large sections of the population that support the “special operation”.
Russians “might be in favour of the conflict, but they don’t actually want to fight,” he said, adding that a general mobilisation would entail “colossal losses of untrained soldiers”.
And while the current status of the conflict gives Russian soldiers a legal path to refuse participation, some soldiers have complained that it has also led to them not being adequately cared for.
A junior sergeant said he was injured during one of the recent Ukrainian attacks on the Russian border territory where he was stationed. His superiors argued that he should not be given the monetary compensation of up to £2,500 that wounded Russians are entitled to by law because his injury took place on Russian soil – meaning it did not fall under the rules of Russia’s “special military operation”.
“It is unfair, I am fighting in this war just as the others in Ukraine, risking my life,” the soldier said. “If I don’t get the compensation that I am entitled to soon, I will go public and make a major issue of it.”
KGsays
lumipuna@7,
I wouldn’t place too much faith in a security assurance from the UK – this is Johnson and his cronies we’re talking about, who are currently preparing to renege on the international treaty they signed with the EU, specifically to the part of that treaty entitled the “Northern Ireland Protocol”. Johnson regards international treaties, as he regards all promises and agreements, as things to be made when it suits his interests, and broken likewise.
Wonkette: “‘Queen Of Canada’ Telling Followers Not To Pay Their Bills Is Making An Old Cult New Again”
In the fall of last year, there were some rumors going around that former Trump national security advisor and current who-even-knows-what General Michael Flynn was perhaps a Satanist or secretly a member of a weird New Age cult, after video surfaced of him doing a strange prayer during a speaking engagement. This is because that prayer, to St. Michael, was extremely similar to one written by Elizabeth Clare Prophet, the leader of the Church Universal and Triumphant (CUT) cult that you may remember from when they were all hoarding guns and living in bunkers in Montana back in the 1980s.
As I pointed out at the time, this was highly unlikely and not just because Flynn is a practicing Catholic. The big tell was that he wears black and red all of the time. In CUT and other Ascended Masters groups, those colors are largely forbidden. It’s all purple, white, gold and green.
Why am I bringing this up? Because there is another QAnon-adjacent person who does appear to be reviving the Violet Flame — Romana Didula, self-appointed Queen of Canada. Didula has been popping up in the news every so often these days, most recently because she issued a royal decree announcing that no one need pay their utility bills anymore, and a bunch of her followers got their heat and electricity turned off and now owe thousands of dollars to their utility companies. [Tweet available at the link]
Via VICE:
The bill-payment claims are causing direct harm to her followers, with many saying in their group chat that they’ve racked up thousands of dollars of bills. Many of Didulo’s followers are vulnerable people, including seniors on fixed incomes, who could face steep consequences for these decisions. A page created by Didulo which allows her followers to ask her questions is filled with questions about bill payments.
“Dear Queen Romana I received a 24-hour notice for the power bill. Should I make a payment? Or will it be shut off?” reads one.
“Queen Romana please What do I say to the City of Red Deer trying to shut off my water on Monday,” reads another. Some said that when they reach out for help about the situation, they’re mocked for their beliefs.
You’ll notice that her name on her Telegram channel is “Her Majesty I AM Queen Romana.” Her followers have taken to calling themselves “I AMs.” This is actually significant, and I will try to explain why as efficiently as possible.
The “Ascended Masters” thing largely originated with Madame Helena Blavatsky, who is largely considered kind of the godmother of Theosophy/New Age bullshit, in the 1800s. Blavatsky claimed to have come up with Theosophy, her system of belief, by channeling “Mahatmas” or “Masters of Ancient Wisdom.” (From the beginning, New Age stuff was always highly appropriative of Eastern religions.) Another New Agey lady, Alice Bailey, also claimed to channel a Master, an imaginary Tibetan named Djwal Kul. The “masters” were basically people who had been reincarnated to perfection and then just hung out in the ether waiting to get channeled by con-artists. They were also sometimes called “The Great White Brotherhood,” which is perhaps why theosophy was so popular among Nazis. [What a farce.]
Then, by the 1930s, you get “beloved messengers” Guy and Edna Ballard, who found the “I AM” Activity. The “AM” stands for Ascended Masters, which were pretty much the same deal as Blavatsky’s Mahatmas/Great White Brotherhood. Their personal favorite Ascended Master was St. Germain, who was kind of sort of the same person as the Comte de St. Germain but also possibly an alias adopted by Sir Francis Bacon after he faked his own death and “ascended” using alchemy. […]
Guy Ballard supposedly met St. Germain on Mount Shasta in California, and was told that he was the reincarnation of George Washington, which seems very likely. For her part, Edna was Joan of Arc and Benjamin Franklin. This is not important, just hilarious.
A big part of the “I AM” Activity and subsequent groups like CUT and the Bridge To Freedom are “I AM” Decrees. Here is Elizabeth Clare Prophet of CUT doing one. [video at the link]
In Ascended Master groups, decrees are basically prayers, usually said very fast over and over again for HOURS in hopes of manifesting them into reality. This is different from Queen Romana’s royal decrees, but who knows where she’s going with this.
Romana also uses a number of terms heavily associated with Ascended Master and other New Age groups — light, flame, etc. In addition to calling her followers “I AMs,” she also calls them “Light Holders,” a term favored by Canadian “mystic” Manly P. Hall. Her signature color is a particular shade of purple that tends to be popular among Ascended Master groups. It’s highly unlikely that all of this is a coincidence. You can see the same color in the Elizabeth Clare Prophet video above.
It’s actually surprising that she’s the first to do this. While we think of right-wing groups as being Christian and New Age stuff as being for hippie dippie liberals, the Ascended Master groups tend to be extremely far right and “anti-communist.” The whole reason CUT was out there in Montana hoarding guns in bunkers was because they thought the communists were going to launch an attack, possibly a nuclear one. It’s also just about as confusing and bizarre as the QAnonsense, and thus should appeal to the same people.
Basically, although she seems like a regular old kook who may not be all there, she’s actually cobbling a bunch of New Age crap together to create a new cult of her own. The references she uses are some pretty deep cuts and it’s unlikely she’d be familiar with them without having some kind of background in New Age bullshit.
There is a reason there are people out there are refusing to pay their utility bills for her, and it’s because this is some tried and true brainwashing magic.
“Forced labor is already unconstitutional and what is forced birth other than forcing a woman to labor against her will?” remarked Elie Mystal, a justice correspondent at The Nation, following the leak of a Supreme Court draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade. Mystal is also author of the New York Times bestselling book, “Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution,” in which he points out problems with – and solutions for – reversing systemic issues created by America’s founding document. He joins WITHpod to discuss his objections to conservative interpretations of rights, abortion rights law, changes he’d make to the Constitution, and revisions he’d make to the structure of the Supreme Court and more.
LOL – “That’s how you end up at the Olive Garden, folks.”
(Taking this opportunity to renew my recommendation of Silvia Federici’s Caliban and the Witch.)
A panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected a judge’s argument that those under 21 were historically “believed unfit” for “responsible firearm possession and use.”
An appeals court panel ruled on Wednesday that California’s ban on the sale of semiautomatic weapons to adults under the age of 21 violated the right to bear arms found in the Second Amendment of the Constitution.
Judge Ryan Nelson, writing for a two-to-one majority in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, struck down a ruling by a federal judge in San Diego that upheld what Judge Nelson called an “almost total ban on semiautomatic” rifles for young adults.
“America would not exist without the heroism of the young adults who fought and died in our revolutionary army,” Judge Nelson wrote. “Today we reaffirm that our Constitution still protects the right that enabled their sacrifice: the right of young adults to keep and bear arms.”
Judge Nelson rejected an argument, made by a lower court judge, that young adults “were considered minors or ‘infants’ for most of our country’s history without the rights afforded adults” and were therefore unfit for “responsible firearm possession and use.”
The office of Attorney General Rob Bonta of California, the case’s defendant, said it was reviewing the decision.
“California will continue to take all necessary steps to prevent and reduce gun violence,” it said in a statement. “We remain committed to defending California’s common-sense gun laws, which save lives and make our communities safer.” […]
In what she described as a “genuinely terrifying” incident, Senator Susan Collins called 911 after receiving a copy of the United States Constitution in the mail.
Collins recalled the feeling of abject fear after opening her mail and recognizing the eighteenth-century document.
“I had never read it before, so it took me a moment to figure out what it was,” she said. “Once I saw that it had been written in an old-timey way, I put two and two together.”
After she called 911, a squad car from the Bangor police arrived and carefully removed the Constitution from the premises.
“I exhaled when I realized that the danger had passed,” Collins said. “But it was a close call.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell blasted the person or persons who mailed the Constitution to Collins.
“I recognize that emotions are running high right now, but there is no excuse for making a United States senator read the Constitution,” he said.
White House COVID-19 coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha issued a dire warning Thursday that the U.S. will be increasingly vulnerable to the coronavirus this fall and winter if Congress doesn’t swiftly approve new funding for more vaccines and treatments.
In an Associated Press interview, Jha said Americans’ immune protection from the virus is waning, the virus is adapting to be more contagious and booster doses for most people will be necessary — with the potential for enhanced protection from a new generation of shots.
His warning came as the White House said there could be up to 100 million infections from the virus later this year — and as President Biden somberly ordered flags to half-staff to mark 1 million deaths.
“As we get to the fall, we are all going to have a lot more vulnerability to a virus that has a lot more immune escape than even it does today and certainly than it did six months ago,” Jha said. “That leaves a lot of us vulnerable.”
Jha predicted that the next generation of vaccines, which are likely to be targeted at the currently prevailing omicron strain, “are going to provide a much, much higher degree of protection against the virus that we will encounter in the fall and winter.” But he warned that the U.S. is at risk of losing its place in line to other countries if Congress doesn’t act in the next several weeks.
Also, speaking of a need provide vaccination assistance to other nations, Jha cast the urgency in terms of the benefits to Americans, even if they never travel overseas.
“All of these variants were first identified outside of the United States,” he said. “If the goal is to protect the American people, we have got to make sure the world is vaccinated. I mean, there’s just no domestic-only approach here.”
[…] The Food and Drug Administration is to meet in June to determine the specific strains of the virus that the fall vaccines will target, and Jha said it takes two to three months for manufacturers to develop them. Right now the U.S. has run out of federal COVID-19 response funding to place new orders of vaccines.
“If we had the resources we’d be there having those conversations today,” said Jha. “The window is really closing on us if we want to be in the front of the line.” […]
Experts believe Russia is experiencing a shortage of troops. State TV exchanges seem to confirm that notion. Using a lie that “NATO is about to start a war against Russia,” pundits discuss how to lure new Russian citizens and people from impoverished regions into the military.
Video with subtitles at the (Twitter) link.
“The fact that Finland and Sweden are joining NATO supposedly isn’t directly related to Russia…” The hell? I think everyone’s been quite clear that it’s directly related to Russia.
Getting closer to the D.C. area, leaders of The People’s Convoy say that this time around, truckers will seek to enter D.C. proper with the hopes of occupying the city.
“We are not doing circles around D.C. again,” the trucker Mug Pig says. “Hopefully, when we go to D.C., we are in D.C.” Fellow convoy leader “Santa” agrees, saying the group will enter the city only once.
Worth noting here: The convoy might be smaller this time around, but they are incredibly violent. The group remains a party to a police investigation over the firing of a gun near Portland and has ties to the extremist group the Proud Boys.
on Abe Drayton’s Oceanoxia which raises some really points I think.
.*
ABC TV’s National Press Club on channel 24 right now has the very omimpressive Penny Wong and Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne holding a foreign policy debate right now and repeated on c 2 from 12.30 pm noon here . (SA time.)
StevoRsays
^ Fix : That’s meant to be : “very impressive Penny Wong..” & “really good, thought-provoking” points. Sigh, sorry.
The Adelaide Refugee Vigil is on at 5 pm in Rundle Mall as usual this evening too :
Adelaide vigil for Manus and Nauru
Adelaide Vigil members invite you to join us for this week’s vigil, in RUNDLE MALL, at the intersection with Gawler Place, near the giant silver pigeon.
Late last year the Australian Government announced its plan to abandon the 110 refugee men remaining in Papua New Guinea, having detained them there, illegally, since 2013. That has now been in effect since January 1st, and continues to cause much anxiety.
A new Memorandum Of Understanding was signed with Nauru, enabling the continuation of Australia’s offshore human warehousing to continue there, into the future.
Although most of the Manus and Nauru refugees medevacced to Australia have at last been released into “community detention”, the government’s own figures record 6 as remaining in closed detention in Australia. 216 remain without resettlement in Papua New Guinea and Nauru.
Please help us to keep a spotlight on this wrong, perpetrated in our name, and join us in standing for the freedom, safety and human rights of the refugees the Australian government wants us to forget. Over 200 still being held in inhumane conditions after almost 9 years of punishment on #Manus, #Nauru and now also Port Moresby PNG and Australian Immigration Detention.
The only laws that have been broken in their seeking of asylum are those which Australia itself has an international obligation to uphold, through its signing of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention.
Via the Adelaide vigil for Manus and Nauru fb page.
Think this tweet / meme seen the other day :
Middle Age Riot
Allowing Donald Trump back on Twitter is like surgically implanting a hemorrhoid
Recently posted to nextdoor.
“Related to political insults, fair is fair in many places. I won’t reflect Trump’s bigotry at his supporters, but insults in general are fair game. “Hand-wringers” for people who can’t deal with education about racism, sex education, gender, other people getting abortions…
I’m thinking about other things that Trump does that become fair game unless his supporters make another choice.”
“Hand-wringer'” was a shift from “pearl-clutcher” because I saw the usefulness of an non-sexist choice.
And the “related to political insults” part has to do with me labeling “fake news” as a political pejorative and pointing out that without an actual fake thing it’s just an insult.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From their most recent summary:
The UK’s ministry of defence has said the failed crossing of the Siverskyi Donets river by Russian forces in the Donbas showed the pressure Russian commanders were under.
Ukrainian military forces released footage on Thursday that they say shows destroyed Russian military vehicles and a pontoon bridge in eastern Ukraine. According to the Ukrainian forces, the images were taken along the Siverskyi Donets River.
The first war crime trial since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine has opened in Kyiv in a watershed moment. Vadim Shysimarin, a 21-year-old Russian commander of the Kantemirovskaya tank division, allegedly killed a civilian on 28 February in the village of Chupakhivka while fighting in the Sumy region in north-east Ukraine.
…
The Ukrainian counteroffensive around the north-eastern city of Kharkiv is “starting to look very similar to the counteroffensive that ultimately drove Russian troops away from Kyiv and out of western Ukraine entirely”, the Institute for the Study of War has said in its latest assessment of the conflict.
Swedish membership of Nato would have a stabilizing effect and would benefit countries around the Baltic sea, Sweden’s foreign minister Ann Linde said today, the day after neighbour Finland committed to applying to join the 30-nation alliance.
The EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, has said that the European Union would provide another €500m (£425m) worth of military support to Ukraine, and that he was confident a deal could be reached in the coming days to agree an embargo on Russian oil.
British foreign secretary Liz Truss said it was vital to keep up the pressure on Russia by supplying more weapons to Ukraine and imposing further sanctions. “It is very important at this time that we keep up the pressure on Vladimir Putin by supplying more weapons to Ukraine and by increasing the sanctions.”
The US justice department secretly issued a subpoena to gain access to details of the phone account of a Guardian reporter as part of an aggressive leak investigation into media stories about an official inquiry into the Trump administration’s child separation policy at the southern border.
Leak investigators issued the subpoena to obtain the phone number of Stephanie Kirchgaessner, the Guardian’s investigations correspondent in Washington. The move was carried out without notifying the newspaper or its reporter, as part of an attempt to ferret out the source of media articles about a review into family separation conducted by the Department of Justice’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz.
It is highly unusual for US government officials to obtain a journalist’s phone details in this way, especially when no national security or classified information is involved. The move was all the more surprising in that it came from the DoJ’s inspector general’s office – the watchdog responsible for ethical oversight and whistleblower protections.
Katharine Viner, the Guardian’s editor-in-chief, decried the action as “an egregious example of infringement on press freedom and public interest journalism by the US Department of Justice”.
She added: “We will be asking the DoJ urgently for an explanation for why and how this could have occurred, and for an apology. We will also be seeking assurances that our reporter’s details will be erased from DoJ systems and will not be used for any further infringements of press freedom.”
The leak inquiry was conducted on behalf of the DoJ by the inspector general’s office of an outside government department, housing and urban development (Hud). Its investigation focused on allegations that an employee within the DoJ’s inspector general’s office had leaked sensitive information to three news outlets – the Guardian, the New York Times and NBC News.
The Guardian was the only one of the three outlets to have a subpoena issued relating to its reporter’s phone account….
A female student in Nigeria was beaten to death and set on fire by fellow students who accused her of posting “blasphemous” statements in a WhatsApp group, two witnesses have said.
The school, located in Nigeria’s northwestern state of Sokoto, was immediately closed down following the attack.
Two suspects were arrested in connection with the murder of the student, who was identified as Deborah Samuel, said a spokesperson for the Sokoto state command.
“There is a WhatsApp group being used by the students, and her Muslim colleague student posted an Islamic piece. She criticised the posting,” said one of the witnesses, who declined to be named.
“She composed an audio that contains blasphemous comments on the prophet of Islam and posted in the group. That is what triggered everything.”
School security and police attempted to rescue the girl but were overwhelmed by the students, the witnesses said.
“Police have fired teargas on the students … then began firing shots in the sky to disperse the students, but they resisted,” said Summayya Usman Inname, a student in her second year.
“The police sacrificed the lady after the students began throwing sticks and stones at them, then the students used stones and sticks to beat the lady. After being beaten, she was set on fire.”…
I can’t speak to the accuracy of all the points made, but I like this format. Some of the issues raised in the questions and answers were new to me.
blfsays
KG@15 notes teh “U”K’s current alleged-government “are currently preparing to renege on the international treaty they signed with the EU, specifically to the part of that treaty entitled the ‘Northern Ireland Protocol’. ”
Indeed. The States has been dropping hints that if teh “U”K drops the NI protocol, then there will not be a trade agreement with the States to replace the EU-wide agreement. The States is sending a bipartisan delegation to drive home the point; this is not surprising since Ireland (the island) is a big deal in the States, who helped to negotiate the Good Friday Agreement and are some sort of a guarantor of that agreement. The States friendliness with Ireland is not just a dummie thing, teh thugs have generally been very supportive as well. Broadly, teh “U”K is looking, if not at a “trade war” with the States (unlike the EU, e.g., UK should not fear EU trade war, says [former “U”K brexit minister David] Frost as he backs ripping up protocol), then at nothing better than WTO terms (with exceptions for the few areas where new agreements have already been agreed).
Off-the-top of my head, almost the only change I can guess at is if Putin orders the thugs to stop supporting Ireland. Keep an eye on what RT-in-the-States (Tucker Carlson, et al.) are bellowing.
A snippet from the above-linked Frost article:
Earlier this week Frost told the US president, Joe Biden, who has invested much of his career in supporting peace in Northern Ireland, to butt out of UK business.
I get slightly frustrated when we are told by a third party, albeit a very important one in this context, how to manage these issues, he told a[n unnamed] thinktank in the US. It is our country that faced terrorism, faced the Troubles. […] Most people were very affected in one way or another by this.”
(Rolls eyes, shakes head.) Putin’s acolytes will have to do better than that.
blfsays
KG@492(previous page) observes “great care should be taken to minimise the risk of a direct Russia-NATO clash, and I am alarmed by some of the gung-ho sentiment (On to Moscow!!!) I see in some Daily Kos comments, for example.”
Indeed, I concur, especially on the taking great care part. Those comments at Kos — and as an aside, many thanks to Lynna for their continuing excerpting of their Putin’s invasion coverage — of the onward to Moscow! variety, whilst probably not always tongue-in-cheek, I’ve chosen to read that way (presuming Nato remains not directly involved): Ukraine hasn’t the resources to do that (attack Moscow city), which is c.700km from Kyiv (over 400km at the nearest point on the border), and it’s difficult to see any rational justification to do so. Doing-so would perhaps finally motivative the Russians (along with giving Putin an excuse to declare war and order a general mobilisation, etc.); with allowances for the fog of war and some regrettable individual-level incidents, Ukraine to-date doesn’t seem to that stupid.
Carefully-targetted raids on militarily-justified targets just over the border in Russia are a different matter (e.g., on artillery or anti-aircraft, military fuel and ammo dumps, or train tracks leading into Ukraine) — and Ukraine may be doing some of that, albeit to-date (as far as I am awares) have never announced (Russian-occupied territories excepted?), and if asked, have either been silent, or denied responsibility.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan remarked to journalists after leaving Friday prayers in Istanbul that Turkey would not welcome either Sweden or Finland from joining the Nato.
“We are currently following developments regarding Sweden and Finland, but we don’t feel positively about this,” he said.
“We don’t want to commit a mistake,” he added. “Scandinavian countries are like guesthouses for terrorist organisations. To go even further, they have seats in their parliaments too.”
Erdoğan’s comments were primarily directed at the militant group the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which Turkey regards as a terrorist organisation, although they appeared to encompass the communities of Kurdish origin in Scandinavia as a whole.
Accession to Nato requires consensus from all member countries.
Sweden has a large Kurdish diaspora, with the community considered to be one of the largest outside of the Middle East. Prominent Swedish citizens of Kurdish origin currently include six members of parliament. The Turkish authorities are yet to provide any evidence for their claims that the parliamentarians in question have links with the PKK or similar groups outside Sweden.
The Kurdish-speaking population of Finland was estimated at just over 15,000 people as of 2020, less than one percent of the population.
Turkey has been a Nato member since 1952 and its membership remains a cornerstone of its foreign policy towards Western countries. Despite this, Turkey recently decided to withdraw from a scheduled NATO military exercise in Athens in May due to disagreements with Greece.
Israeli forces have attacked a funeral procession for a Palestinian American journalist shot dead this week, kicking and hitting people with batons and causing mourners carrying her coffin to lose balance and drop it to the ground.
Police said mourners were “disrupting public order”. Footage showed the coffin of Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Aqleh on mourners’ shoulders outside St Joseph’s hospital in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem as police rushed in and attacked people, several of whom held Palestinian flags. The sound of a stun grenade could be heard.
Israel forbids public displays of Palestinian flags and often prevents people from hoisting them at rallies and protests in the city.
A senior Palestinian figure, Hanan Ashrawi, tweeted that “savage [sic] Israeli ‘special forces’ viciously attack the funeral procession bearing the coffin” of Abu Aqleh as it left St Joseph’s hospital. “The inhumanity [sic] [of] Israel is on full display,” said the former Palestine Liberation Organisation official.
Police said they had held talks with Abu Aqleh’s family in order to “enable a respectable funeral. Unfortunately, under the auspices of the funeral and taking cynical advantage of it, hundreds of people began disrupting public order before [the funeral] even began.
“As the coffin was about to exit the hospital, stones began to be thrown at officers from the hospital’s plaza, and the officers were forced to use riot dispersal means.”
Police released a video in which an officer outside the hospital grounds addresses the crowd. “If you don’t stop these chants and [Palestinian] nationalistic songs we will have to disperse you using force and we won’t let the funeral take place,” the officer says.
Abu Aqleh’s coffin left the hospital grounds by vehicle and arrived at a Jerusalem church for her funeral.
The 51-year-old reporter was shot in the head on Wednesday morning in the West Bank city of Jenin during what her colleagues at the scene said was a burst of Israeli fire on a small group of journalists covering an expected Israeli military raid.
The Israeli military said its troops shot back after coming under “massive fire” in Jenin and that “there is a possibility, now being looked into, that reporters were hit – possibly by shots fired by Palestinian gunmen”. However, the Israeli military chief, Lt Gen Aviv Kochavi, later appeared to back away from those assertions, saying: “At this stage we cannot determine by whose fire she was harmed and we regret her death.”
Video of the incident showed Abu Aqleh was wearing a helmet and body armour clearly marked “press”. Ali Samodi, a producer for Al Jazeera who was shot in the back, told the Guardian from his hospital bed that contrary to claims made by Israeli officials, there were no gunmen standing near the journalists when they were targeted.
There has been a little bit of Finnish reaction to those comments by Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. He said that Turkey was “currently following developments regarding Sweden and Finland, but we don’t feel positively about this.”
At the G7 foreign ministers meeting in Germany, Reuters is quoting Finland’s foreign minister Pekka Haavisto as saying that issues need to be taken step-by-step and that the process needs patience. He said that he would be meeting Turkey’s foreign minister in Berlin tomorrow.
Ukrainian MFA Dmytro Kuleba re #12: “We could have already started using the new U.S. assistance package to more effectively save lives of Ukrainians who defend the democratic world. @POTUS, @SecBlinken, @SenateGOP, @SenateDems and American people were in strong support, and @RandPaul delayed so much needed support.”
[…]
America’s conspiratorial thinkers appear to have stood ready to accept false claims on such seemingly unrelated issues as the COVID-19 vaccine and the war in Ukraine, according to our ongoing research in the COVID States Project. In an era of heightened political polarization, conspiratorial thinking by even a relatively small segment of the public, especially when disproportionately aligned with one political party, could have outsized and potentially catastrophic consequences for key policy initiatives aimed at responding to crises. Whether policies are aimed at containing the emergence of contagious virus variants or preventing a third world war, tsunamis of misinformation threaten to undermine the post-World War II global order.
In our recent survey of all 50 US states plus the District of Columbia, we asked respondents to assess the accuracy of eight widespread false claims. Four of those claims were about the COVID-19 vaccine, while the other four pertained to the war in Ukraine. We also queried respondents about their attitudes and behaviors regarding both crises.
The results contain both good and bad news. The good news is that in both cases, most Americans did not believe false claims about either crisis (see Figure 1). The bad news is that relatively large percentages of respondents were unsure about the accuracy of the false claims.
Beginning with the good news, belief in false claims about the COVID-19 vaccine ranged from a low of 5 percent who believed “the COVID-19 vaccine contains microchips that could track people” to a high of 11 percent who believed that “the COVID-19 vaccines can cause infertility, making it more difficult to get pregnant.” The percentages are a bit lower for Ukraine, ranging from a low of 4 percent who believed that “Ukraine’s government is controlled by Nazis” to a high of 7 percent who believed “the US is assisting Ukraine in developing chemical and biological weapons in secret Ukrainian laboratories.”
[…]
It is distressing that any Americans believe these claims. Yet these numbers are not so different from the 11 percent who in 2019 reported “somewhat” or “strongly” believing that the US faked the Apollo moon landing. They are well below the 26 percent of Americans who in 2019 “somewhat” or “strongly” believed that the US government is housing aliens in Area 51 or the 36 percent of Americans who in 2007 believed 9/11 was an inside job perpetrated by the US government. […]
[… T]he bad news, much larger percentages of respondents were unsure about the accuracy of the individual false claims — far more than the 7 to 9 percent that expressed uncertainty about those other conspiracy theories. When uncertainty is added in, the overall percentages of respondents who either believed or were unsure about the various false claims surrounding the COVID-19 vaccine and war in Ukraine ranges from about one quarter to one-half of all respondents in each case […]. Overall, half of all respondents believed or were unsure about at least one false claim about Ukraine; while the corresponding figure for the COVID-19 vaccine is 62 percent. Those are big numbers.
Even more concerning, misperceptions are linked to attitudes. In the case of COVID-19 vaccines (Figure 3), people who hold two or more misperceptions are over four times more likely than people with no misperceptions to indicate that they will not take the COVID-19 vaccine (60 percent vs 13 percent).
Holding misperceptions about Ukraine, in turn, strongly predicts warmer, more favorable feelings toward Russia and colder, less favorable feelings toward Ukraine. […]
Our survey also suggests that many of the same people believe false claims about both crises. We considered a variety of socio-economic, demographic, and political factors that might influence people’s likelihood of believing false claims about Ukraine, including age, education, income, gender, region, geography, trust in government, and political party. Most had little or no effect. The exception is believing COVID-19 false claims […]. Compared to those with no vaccine misperceptions, people who believed at least one false claim about the COVID-19 vaccine were almost six times more likely to also hold at least one false belief about Ukraine (8 percent vs 45 percent).
[… T]he association of demographic, geographic, and political factors with false beliefs about Ukraine, holding at least one COVID-19 vaccine misperception was about 10 times better at predicting Ukraine misperceptions than the next best predictor, trust in the government […]
Attitudes and misperceptions about the two global crises are not uniformly distributed across the United States population. Notably, we find greater partisan polarization around beliefs in false claims about COVID-19 vaccines than around beliefs in false claims about Ukraine. […]
These patterns illustrate the complex policy challenge of responding to conspiratorial thinking. Playing whack-a-mole with individual false beliefs in particular may not be a successful strategy. We may instead need to address the underlying willingness to accept false claims in general. To borrow from the public health perspective, successful strategies need to address both the supply and the demand side of misinformation. […]
[…]
Typed beneath Ministry of Health letterhead, the message makes the baseless claim that the Covid-19 vaccine will become mandatory across New Zealand on June 1. In fact, the opposite is true — vaccine mandates were never universal and are on their way out, with most scrapped early last month. In many hundreds of social media posts […] the letter is presented with superimposed red type that falsely states, NZ ISSUES $15,000 FINE OR 6 MONTHS JAIL FOR THE UNVAXXED.
The contents of the letter appear to be a mishmash of historical instructions mixed with original disinformation. Quite apart from the untruthful central claim, it is immediately apparent from the language of the letter that it is bogus.
[…]
Among those who have shared the misinformation is Joey Gilbert, who is currently in the Republican Party primary race for the Nevada governorship. Population control, was the would-be politician’s assessment […]
Some of the details pointing to an obvious fake include a “dubious footer on the supposed letter, which included hyperlinks that are tricky to click on printed paper and a purported Bloomfield signature that didn’t match other examples from the director general of health.” (I should point out including links in PDFs which are then printed is common practice, albeit if intended to be printed, the links are explicitly stated, e.g., https://etc.)
The requests say that while the networks may have “rightfully implemented graphic content policies to protect their users,” an archive is necessary for potential war crimes trials.
[…]
The letters were signed by Reps Carolyn Maloney, D-NY, chair of the Oversight Committee; Gregory Meeks, D-NY, chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee; Stephen Lynch, D-Mass, chair of the Oversight and Reform subcommittee on national security; and William Keating, D-Mass, chair of the Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Europe, energy, the environment and cyber.
They specifically request the social media companies “to flag or mark content as containing potential evidence of war crimes and other atrocities.”
[…]
While the lawmakers’ letters don’t have the power of subpoena that would allow them to seek legal enforcement, social media companies have historically complied with requests like this one.
[…]
The letters cite a 2021 report from the University of California at Berkeley’s Human Rights Center that found human rights investigators “are increasingly losing the race to identify and preserve information that may have legitimate human rights and historical value before it is removed,” and implore the companies to create “digital lockers” to safely store evidence of potential war crimes.
A report from the nonprofit Institute for Strategic Dialogue noted that conspiracy theories questioning the existence of the massacre in Bucha were shared more in the second week in April on Facebook than posts claiming the slaughter actually occurred.
“‘The Liberty Report’ hosted by Rand Paul’s dad began on Kremlin propaganda network RT. When RT became too publicly toxic, the show was moved to YouTube where it still pushes Kremlin propaganda 5 episodes/week.
Episode list is on IMDB…”
IMDB link at the (Twitter) link. You’ll be surprised, I’m sure, to learn that most of the other content is anti-vax garbage and homicidal lies about public health measures during the pandemic. Ron Paul’s role in moving people to the far right over the years isn’t sufficiently appreciated.
[…]
Images released by the family showed Marcos Jr visiting the home of his mother, Imelda, who had displayed Picasso’s Femme Couche VI (Reclining Woman VI), or a replica, above the sofa.
On September 30, 2014, the government seized a Picasso Reclining Women VI from the Marcoses’ San Juan home. What’s it doing there in Imelda Marcos’ home in recent photos? […] https://t.co/nN4ySIK6Iq
It is unclear if the painting, one of eight targeted for seizure by anti-corruption authorities in 2014, is genuine, but the unexpected appearance of the nude in blues and greens reclining on an orange and yellow bed has added to fears the family will use its now-increased power to brazenly further stifle efforts to recover ill-gotten wealth.
[…]
“Mrs Marcos has had a habit of buying fake paintings, as well as lending fake paintings for display,” [a former commissioner for the presidential commission on good government (PCGG), Ruben] Carranza said.
But he added: “The fact that she’s now displaying it just shows not just the duplicity of Mrs Marcos — but that she has to display the duplicity and the extravagance that she thinks she’s displaying for Filipinos to see … That says something even worse.”
He added: “It shows this really, absolutely uncaring attitude for Filipinos. They’ve not only now been led to believe that {the Marcoses} have gold. Now, they’re leading them to believe, again, that they have so much wealth that they can just display it whenever they please,” said Carranza.
For years, there has been speculation online that the Marcoses have huge sums of gold, which was given to Marcos Sr by a wealthy family as payment for acting as their lawyer. According to the story, the gold would be shared with the people if the family regained power.
Marcos Jr has either downplayed or denied the abuses that occurred in the Phlippines under his father. As president, he would have the power to appoint the commissioners of the PCGG, granting him huge influence over the body that was set up to recover the family’s wealth.
The PCGG has reportedly retrieved about $5bn, while a further $2.4bn was bogged down in litigation, and more remains missing, according to recent reports.
The Picasso was supposed to have been seized by the government in 2014, but a former commissioner on good government, Andres Bautista, told the Rappler news site […] he believed the [seized] item was a fake.
“Personally I know that what we seized was a fake. It was a tarpaulin so it’s still with them,” he told the site.
[…]
The Star Inn at Vogue, named for the hamlet in which it is situated, has received a message from the magazine’s owner asking for the change because a link between the two businesses is likely to be inferred.
Dear Vogue (allegedly a magazine),
This village is named Vogue, and has been since the 17th C (we realise research is not your strong point, so to help you out, that’s over 300 years ago). Your alleged magazine, as you should be aware but probably are not, was founded in 1916 here in England (and a few years earlier in New York). So our village, Vogue, has existed for 200 years-and-a-bit longer than your alleged magazine. You owe us considerable royalties and fines for the unlicensed use of our name.
However, we are willing to overlook these violations of logic and moral rights provided you indicate an understanding that neither a village nor a pub — which is also older than your alleged magazine — is magazine, not even allegedly.
Sincerely yours with a large added feck off,
– The bemused international readers of the Grauniad
[…]
“If someone had obviously taken the time to look us up, it wouldn’t have taken five minutes to say: ‘Oh, there’s a place called Vogue,’” said Rachel [Graham, one of the pub’s co-landlords], who is not a reader of the magazine.
[…]
[Mark Graham, the other co-landlord, in their reply (a “categorical no”)] added: “I presume that at the time when you chose the name Vogue in the capitalised version you didn’t seek permission from the villagers of the real Vogue. I also presume that Madonna did not seek your permission to use the word Vogue (again the capitalised version) for her 1990s song of the same name.”
[…]
The pair bought the pub after going out for a bike ride and found it closed for the afternoon. They were disappointed to not be able to stop and have a pint. If they had the pub, they thought at the time, it would have been open.
Not long after, an ad popped up in the local paper and they bought it.
According to statements that Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials have made on state-run media, there are three goals for the “special military action” in Ukraine.
One is to secure all of Donetsk and Luhansk oblast and bring them into Russia. The idea that either will be an independent “people’s republic,” or that there might be some kind of referendum to determine their fate is now old hat. They’ll just be part of Russia. And like it.
The second is to secure a land bridge between the Donbas and Russian-occupied Crimea. Mariupol still sits in the middle of this space like a big middle finger to Putin’s ambitions, but except for the resistance still striking out from Azovstal, this is the one part of Putin’s plan that is more or less going to plan.
The third goal is … denazification … or demilitarization … or something like that. Which Putin seems free to redefine at every speech. At the moment, it seems to be simply an excuse to kill anyone who opposes being ruled by Russia. Which is a number roughly equal to everyone.
Of course, those goals have only the loosest connection to what Russia is actually doing in Ukraine. Fighting is going on far outside the Donbas, and Russia now appears to have decided that Kherson is an independent republic. Strike that. Russian protectorate. Strike that. Russian colony. Putin is also continuing to fling missiles everywhere in Ukraine, almost all of them at civilian targets. When the first “hypersonic” missile was launched into Ukraine, it was a big deal. Now Russia has launched somewhere around a dozen, mostly into Lviv, Odesa, and other cities in the west. These seem to have no objective other than causing death and destruction. He’s killing people, because he can.
The U.S. Department of Defense assesses that Putin’s plans have not changed from the beginning. Sure, he lost the Battle of Kyiv, but that was just a setback. Yes, capturing the Donbas and a land bridge to Crimea is the bare minimum that Putin can call a “victory.” But there’s absolutely no reason to think Putin will stop there if those goals are achieved.
In fact there is no red line, neither in the sense of goals achieved, or materiel losses, that will cause Putin to call a stop. He won’t stop if 50,000 Russian soldiers are dead. He certainly won’t stop if his forces enjoy enough success to achieve goals one and two. Putin will stop when he is made to stop. When it becomes clear that every day the invasion continues things are going to get worse for both Russia and the Russian military, and most importantly, that they’re going to get worse for Vladimir Putin.
Moscow refreshes its geopolitical messaging
Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyanskiy, announced that Moscow now opposes Ukrainian membership in the European Union. Polyanskiy said the policy shift is a response to EU Foreign Policy chief Josep Borrell Fontelles declaring in early April that the war with Russia “will be won on the battlefield.” EU membership can no longer be part of a peace agreement with Ukraine, Polyanskiy said on Thursday. […]
Halt, in the name of the law
Russia’s Justice Ministry has proposed legislation that would disbar defense attorneys who are licensed to practice the law in unfriendly countries. The bill would also bar all lawyers from those countries from working in Russia. The government’s current list of unfriendly countries includes all EU members, the United States, Great Britain, Canada, South Korea, Japan, Ukraine, Taiwan, Norway, Australia, and several more nations.
Rise of the neofascists
While explaining to a constituent why state officials denied a permit for a local concert, the governor of Russia’s Komi Republic said that the event’s organizers planned to incite anti-Putin slogans. Governor Vladimir Uyba also accused State Duma deputy Oleg Mikhailov (who was not involved in the concert planning) of being a neofascist. Uyba added that all the neofascists deserve a wooden stake on their graves.
Er, that’s the undead — like vampires or Putin — who get staked.
A revealing court reading
The judge who rejected Holod Media editor-in-chief Taisia Bekbulatova’s lawsuit challenging her foreign agent status read aloud in court on Wednesday a document from Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service that explained Bekbulatova’s designation as the state’s response to Holod Media’s work to discredit Russia’s political system. The document is noteworthy because Rosfinmonitoring doesn’t typically use such language and instead pretends that it’s focused solely on foreign financial flows. The woman presiding at Wednesday’s hearing wasn’t the court’s usual judge, raising the odds that this disclosure was an accident.
📺Too-smart-for-its-own-good TV
Early in the morning on May 9, Russian Smart TV owners saw an anti-war message appear in the channel descriptions on their devices. “The blood of thousands of Ukrainians and hundreds of their murdered children is on your hands. The TV and the authorities are lying. No to war,” read the message, which appeared in the descriptions of a number of different channels. Additionally, on the morning of May 9, hackers attacked the video service Rutube, causing the site to crash.
🪖A secret mobilization?
The wife of a Moscow subway worker claims that her husband and his colleagues were summoned to a staff meeting and told to undergo health exams for potential volunteer deployment to Ukraine. Managers allegedly threatened anyone who refused with termination or even prosecution for violating the laws of war, the man’s wife told Verstka.media.
Some snippets from that interview (Meduza edits in {curly braces}):
I’d seen many Soviet rulers in my day, but they were totally different. They had their faults, to be sure, but the current leadership has certainly surpassed the old methods. {Putin and his people} have built an entire system for themselves, they hoard money and spend it only on weaponry. They’re inculcating even the youngest generations with militarism. They put kids in military caps, but rarely do you see dove imagery anymore. It’s as if there haven’t been horrible wars before, as if they’ve forgotten everything. And all around us are the government’s disciples. I blame them, too: they support the state and turn people against peace. They brag about murdering people!
[… T]oday {Russia’s} ideals have changed: it’s all about owning everything, subjugating everyone, annexing as much {territory} as possible.
The question that’s being decided right now is: How much longer can the current government survive? The fate of Russia is being decided — and the rest of the world, too. Maybe the horrors that have come to pass will let us pivot somehow. […]
A few more details to add to the Ukrainian update:
[…] The M777 howitzers sent by the U.S. have gotten most of the attention, but there are other systems that have been provided to Ukraine that could also make a huge difference. Among them are M113 APCs. We last saw them in Georgia, being lined up for shipment. [tweet and video at the link in comment 45]
Now they are actually rolling through the mud in eastern Ukraine, and it looks like some Ukrainian troops are enjoying the ride. [Tweet and video at the link in comment 45]
As with Popasna, Rubizhne is one of those locations where Ukrainian forces have repelled one advance after another during weeks of heavy fighting. The city has gone down almost street by street, but in the last few days it was clear that remaining troops were being forced to step back to the south, especially after Russian forces captured the village of Vojevodivka, which guarded the road connecting Rubizhne and Severodonetsk. [map at the link]
Capturing Severodonetsk is a major goal for Russia, as it is now the only large Ukrainian holding on the east bank of that ubiquitous Siverskyi Donets River. With forces pushing up from the breakthrough at Popasna, and Severodonetsk under attack from three sides, Ukraine has to be considering pulling back from these easternmost areas under its control. Reports indicate that Russian troops are now pushing into the city from both north and south.
Progress out of the Izyum salient continues to be all but nonexistent, and the fast action of Ukrainian forces north of Kharkiv has caused Russia to shift some tactical groups north to protect against a possible breach of their supply lines. But in this one area, Russia seems to be grinding out yardage, and it’s not clear that Ukraine is capable of holding this last position east of the river. Ukrainian commanders on the ground at Severodonetsk say they expect an “all out ground assault” by Russian forces within the next day.
Pulling surprises out of their helmet seems to be a Ukrainian specialty. They need a big one in Severodonetsk. [That’s the Severodonestsk subject matter I should have included in comment 45]
blfsays
A comment on a report (twitter) linked-to by the article excerpted by Lynna@45, about Putin’s “army” again failing to bridge a river:
If they keep going they’ll eventually have a bridge of sunken tanks…
When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that’s what you’re going to get, Lad, the strongest castle in all of England.
Ah which point I started LOLing so much the mildly deranged penguin took the cheese and exited via a new penguin-shaped hole she punchedran through the wall at some considerable speed…
(How many quotes / scenes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail have been used to describe Putin’s antics and his war? The black knight comes up frequently, and I recall seeing “run away, run away” also used; probably others that I’m now forgetting…)
As the days lengthen and spring turns to summer, millions of people in England begin to head for the great outdoors to soak up the tranquility of the countryside. Since Covid lockdowns ended, people have been encouraged to make the most of the physical and mental health benefits of getting active in England’s green spaces.
However, as the environment reporter Helena Horton tells Michael Safi, they might be surprised to learn that they have no legal right of access to most of the country. Only about 8%, in fact.
And despite its messaging around the importance of leading a healthy and active lifestyle, the government does not appear inclined to change the law. A review of the accessibility of England’s countryside was recently shelved, with a minister telling parliament that the countryside is a ‘place of business’.
There are invisible barriers, too. The journalist and author Anita Sethi argues that for many minority ethnic Britons, the countryside can seem unwelcoming and inaccessible. A Natural England study showed that only 1% of visitors to national parks were from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. She describes participating in a recent event in the Peak District to mark the 90th anniversary of the Kinder Scout trespass in 1932. The Kinder in Colour walk highlighted the issues of racial inequality that still remain, she says.
This week, Grace speaks to Nick Hayes, author of The Book of Trespass: Crossing the Lines that Divide Us, about the radical history of English trespassers, how the enclosure of common land formed the foundations of English capitalism, and how we can fight to enforce our rights to the commons and our right to roam against the Conservatives’ assault on our basic freedoms.
Listening reminded me of a fun chapter in Peter Mitchell’s Imperial nostalgia called “The adventures of the Imperial Wonder Boy: Rory Stewart and the fantasy of innocence”:
For Stewart, walking is a guarantor of contact with the authentic. In imperial fashion, it combines the figure of the prophet and the mystic (he usually carries a long stick) with that of the ethnographer; it is a strenuous exercise of his mettle as a man alone in a fantastically exotic world, and it collapses Afghanistan and Middlesbrough, the Scottish borders and Nepal into the same field of action: one through which he travels, encountering other people, the numinous, and himself with romantic immediacy.
Such a striking contrast between the entitlement people like this feel not just to domestic spaces but to global spaces, including places that have just been invaded, and the exclusion of so many others.
[… S]anctions are forcing Russia to use computer chips from dishwashers and refrigerators in some military equipment, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Wednesday.
“We have reports from Ukrainians that when they find Russian military equipment on the ground, it’s filled with semiconductors that they took out of dishwashers and refrigerators,” Raimondo told a Senate hearing, noting that she recently met with Ukraine’s prime minister.
[…]
In her Senate remarks, Raimondo also pointed to recent reports that two Russian tank manufacturers have had to idle production because of a lack of components. The White House, too, has previously highlighted those reports, saying Uralvagonzavod and Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant have halted production.
[…]
In a novel move that the United States has used only once before — against China’s Huawei — it is also requiring companies worldwide to abide by the rules and block such sales to Russia if they use US manufacturing equipment or software to produce chips. Most chip factories around the world use software or equipment designed in the United States, analysts say.
Yes indeed! In fact, I myself doubt there is any modern fab (semiconductor chip fabrication plant) which doesn’t use one, and probably both (software & equipment). The equipment isn’t always made in the States, but it very likely is designed in the States. Banning the use of such equipment and software (to make chips in, or exported-to, Russia) is a devastating move.
Modern fabs easily cost over one billion dollars each, with much of that cost being the equipment. None of that is easy to replicate (or even build). It takes years to build a single modern fab, and if you have to design and build your own equipment and controlling software as well… I’m guessing the software is (relatively) easy to pirate (steal), but cloning modern equipment, not so much…
Previous research has shown Russia’s military has long relied on Western electronics. Russian military drones shot down over Ukraine in recent years have been full of Western electronics and components, according to investigators from the London-based Conflict Armament Research group, which dissected the drones.
Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said Kyiv hopes to arm a million people as the country prepares for a “new, long phase of war”.
…
He warned that “extremely tough weeks are ahead” and that Ukraine needed “unity, cohesion, will and patience” during this extremely difficult period.
The UK has issued sanctions against a dozen members of Vladimir Putin’s family and inner circle, including his long-rumoured girlfriend, arguing that given the Russian president officially owns only modest assets, these are the people who help support his lavish lifestyle.
The Foreign Office announcement means asset freezes and travel bans will be imposed on, among others: Lyudmila Ocheretnaya, Putin’s former wife; Alina Kabaeva, a media executive and the Russian president’s presumed partner; and Anna Zatseplina, Kabaeva’s grandmother.
The Foreign Office statement noted that Putin’s official assets ran to little more than a small flat in St Petersburg and two Soviet-era cars, despite his very obvious enormous personal wealth, including a yacht and the vast Putin’s Palace mansion on the Black Sea coast.
The sanctions targeted what the statement called a “wallet” of relatives and associates. The statement said: “Putin relies on his network of family, childhood friends, and selected elite who have benefited from his rule and in turn support his lifestyle. Their reward is influence over the affairs of the Russian state that goes far beyond their formal positions.”
Those named in the latest sanctions comprise seven family members and five people listed as financiers of Putin’s lifestyle.
Kabaeva, a former Olympic rhythmic gymnast, holds several powerful positions and has long been rumoured to be Putin’s girlfriend. She chairs the board of Russia’s National Media Group, which controls several television stations. Zatseplina is associated with Gennady Timchenko, a billionaire with close links to Putin.
Kabaeva, who is originally from Tashkent in Uzbekistan and won gold in the 2004 Athens Olympics, spent more than six years as an MP for Putin’s United Russia party. In 2014, she stepped back from politics to begin her role with National Media Group, despite her apparent lack of relevant experience beyond hosting a TV chat show.
Ocheretnaya and Putin divorced in 2014, but she had since, the statement said, “benefited from preferential business relationships with state-owned entities and exhibited significant unexplained wealth”.
The other family members issued with sanctions are Igor Putin, a businessman and cousin of the president; Mikhail Putin, another businessman believed to be related to the president; Roman Putin, who is Igor Putin’s son and runs a consulting firm; and Mikhail Shelomov, a business owner and Putin’s first cousin, once removed.
Russian state-owned utility Inter RAO […] will stop exporting electricity to Finland from Saturday because it has not been paid, the company’s Finnish subsidiary said on Friday.
Inter RAO has not received payments for electricity sold via pan-European power exchange Nord Pool since May 6, the subsidiary said […].
[…]
Power imports to Finland will be halted from 1 a.m. local time on Saturday (2200 GMT on Friday) “for the time being,” Finnish grid operator Fingrid said in a separate statement, citing RAO Nordic.
Fingrid added there was no threat to Finnish supplies and that power from Russia accounted for some 10% of Finland’s total consumption.
“Missing imports can be replaced in the electricity market by importing more electricity from Sweden and also by domestic production,” it said.
Fingrid three weeks ago prepared for the prospect of Russia cutting electricity flows to Finland by restricting the transmission capacity by a third.
[…]
Asked whether payments had been required to be made in roubles, the [Nord Pool] spokesperson told Reuters: “We have never had settlements in roubles, only in euros, Norwegian crowns, Swedish crowns and Danish crowns, in line with our standard procedures.”
[…]
The not-excerpted Grauniad report suggests the problem is, in part, linked to Finland’s intention to join Nato.
As Fingrid says, it’s probably a lot of nothing, and if indeed linked to the forthcoming Nato application, another example of Putin shooting off his own feet. The European / EU electricity interconnect allows power to be distributed from whereever it is generated to where it is needed, so in principle, power generated in Portugal or Ireland could be used in Finland. (Ireland is not (yet) directly connected to the continent, all power interconnects go via the UK.)
Is it possible that Elon Musk will fuck up so much that he does not succeed in buying Twitter? Or will he, perhaps, be so dizzy from pivoting that all of his business deals fall apart?
Elon Musk continues to be a hot mess whose billions of dollars give him the power to inflict his hot messiness on the world. On Friday, just days after saying he would reverse Donald Trump’s Twitter ban, he tweeted that his deal to buy the company is “temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users.” Two hours later, he followed up to say that he was “still committed” to buying the social media platform.
Sure he is.
Musk’s initial tweet caused an 18% drop in Twitter stock, which recovered slightly after his second tweet. That’s on top of a drop in Twitter share prices that left the company worth $9 billion less than Musk had agreed to pay for it. (If nothing else, this whole saga is showing how imaginary and whim-driven the “value” of many companies is.)
One particularly striking thing about Musk’s “on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users” thing is that there have always been questions about how many spam and fake accounts there are on Twitter, but Musk suddenly put the deal on hold (via tweet) after the company came out with an estimate that those accounts are less prevalent than some have suspected. This raises questions about whether the estimate provided an excuse for something Musk was looking to say anyway. Or maybe it simply caught his attention for a minute, he fired off an ill-considered tweet, and then backtracked when he realized that could be a problem. Either way, it’s a poor advertisement for how he’ll run one of the world’s major social media platforms […]
Multiple analysts said Musk’s tweets did suggest he’s looking to get out of the deal to buy Twitter or trying to renegotiate.
[…] Twitter’s isn’t the only relevant stock to have dropped since Musk’s purchase was announced. Tesla stock has also dropped by nearly 30% over the past month—but rose some on Friday after his tweets about Twitter. Since Musk’s personal wealth is largely in the form of Tesla shares, the drop in the value of those could be a barrier to closing the deal.
If Musk walks away from Twitter, he will owe the company a $1 billion breakup fee, and vice versa. The more his erratic behavior is on display, the cheaper that seems.
SC @49, I was reminded of a similar situation in the USA. Of course, the US has a lot more public land, but many low-income people are barred by entrance fees they cannot afford. Access to National Parks should be free, in my opinion, but the entrance fees can be quite high. For example, $35 per vehicle or $20 per person (by foot, bicycle, ski, etc.) per day to enter Yellowstone National Park. We pay taxes to support public lands, but many policy decisions have reduced taxpayer funded support for public lands, and those same policies have, via entrance fees, increased the commercial or capitalist aspects of maintaining public lands.
I live close enough to Grand Teton and to Yellowstone national parks to make day trips to those areas, but I can’t afford to go there.
Native American communities, many of them on the borders of public lands, are comprised mostly of low-income persons who cannot visit the lands on which their tribes used to roam.
We do have some national forest land, and Bureau of Land Management lands, to which I have free access. There are few or no facilities, and the “roads” may require a four-wheel-drive vehicle and an experienced driver, but there are plenty of places for primitive camping or hiking. National forests may have official campgrounds, but camping fees are charged there and you don’t really get away from other people, so I avoid those.
I had this image in my head last night and was ready to mock it up and write about it this morning, but it turns out someone on Reddit scooped me a few weeks ago: [image at the link, it’s a startling map showing Russian goals from March to June 2022]
Now, the memester predicted that the tiniest encirclement wouldn’t be Russia’s stated goal until June of this year, but only because he underestimated Russia’s incompetence. Turns out that now, mid-May, was more like it.
Russia’s original stated goals are reflected in the March 2022 arrows—come down from the north, through Kyiv, and also from the south, from Kherson, Mykolaiv, and Kryvyi Rih. […]
By April, we were onto the new plan, the one supposedly focused 100% on the eastern Donbas front. Russia had learned from its mistakes, and would now concentrate its efforts on a single axis! After weeks of hard fighting, they had captured Izyum and were thus supposedly primed to head south for a wide encirclement. This was important because about a third of Ukraine’s army is on a line of defensive trenches that Russia has been mostly unable to pierce. [map at the link]
The idea, of course, was that Russia would not just cut off supply lines to those Ukrainian defenders, but would then be able to hit them from the backside. As you might imagine, most of these defenses point east. They’re generally not designed to protect against someone sneaking up on your weaker defenses. Furthermore, you can see that the avenue of attack would capture the administrative boundaries of the Donbas region (the dotted red line), which is made up of Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts.
That plan always had a fatal flaw, however: [map at the link]
Russia sucks at logistics, so the idea that they’d be able to manage a 300+ kilometer encirclement (~200 miles) was patently ludicrous. Furthermore, that entire line would be vulnerable to flank attacks from the other two-thirds of the Ukrainian army outside of that “cauldron.” Sure, spread your forces that far out, Russia! Ukraine would be able to puncture any part of it with concentrated force.
Anyway, the southern half of that pincer never budged. Russia was too fixated on killing the Mariupol Azov remnants in the Azovstal fortress/steel factory. Still is. And like everything else this whole war, Russia wasted units around Kherson, where it is still trying to push toward Mykolaiv and Kryvyi Rih, even though they have nothing to do with the Donbas. (It has its own “land bridge” dream to reach through Odesa to the Transnistria region in Moldova, but they could always pivot to that later in the war, instead of continuing to dilute themselves ineffectively.)
Remember that weird push westward from the Izyum salient? That was exactly geared toward the wider encirclement. But like everything else Russia has attempted this war, that effort stalled. And so they began to push into a yet tighter circle, this time toward Slovyansk and Kramatorsk. [map at the link]
Yet nothing moved, and hasn’t for weeks. Same with the southern edge of that pincer, around separatist-held Horlivka. And as with all the other plans, this was doomed to fail for one major reason—there was no way Russia would be able to handle Slovyansk (pre-war pop. 111,000) and Kramatorsk (pop. 157,000) in a timely manner. Both are much better fortified than Mariupol, and there’s been more time to stock its defenders with supplies. Also, they aren’t as isolated as Mariupol, giving Ukrainian forces ample opportunities to punch through any siege.
Furthermore, we now know full well Russia’s urban warfare strategy: Systematically level a town block by block, then march into the ruins claiming the rubble for Mighty Russia. Yet that strategy is slooooow, and any artillery targeting Slovyansk and Kramatorsk would be in range of Ukrainian artillery both on its western flank, but remember, also on its eastern flank. [map at the link]
This new “Slovyansk salient” would be even more exposed than the Izyum salient, which has been under severe stress for weeks now. But ultimately, this strategy was doomed by Ukraine’s liberation of territory around Kharkiv, which put Russia’s key supply railhead into Ukraine in range of Ukrainian artillery. The Izyum salient was already stuck in the mud. Cutting off its main supply line from Russia is its death knell.
But then a funny thing happened—Russia finally started moving! And it happened in two fortuitous places, Rubizhne and Popasna: [map at the link]
It took months of systematic obliteration, but Russia finally controls their rubble. By closing the loop around those two cities, Russia would essentially have the entire Luhansk Oblast under its control, allowing it to trumpet some sort of victory.
Now if you look closely at the image, you’ll see the Donets River, and how important it has been to the area’s defense. Ukraine is left with just two major cities on the north bank—Severodonetsk and Lyman, both under fierce assault as I type this. Remember, Russia has lost a ghastly amount of personnel and equipment just to get to the river, and it hasn’t even finished doing that. Crossing it will be a challenge. Russia has tried twice in the last several days and has lost two battalion tactical groups in the process. [tweet and images at the link]
[…] There are more than 5,000 square miles of the Donbas’ territory still in Ukrainian hands. Despite broad attacks along that entire front, Russia has only managed to notch gains in that tiny northeastern corner. Yet that movement is precisely why Russia seems likely to give up that Izyum salient, moving much of the combat power it had amassed there to the east, where it might have some opportunities to press their advantage without depending on threatened supply lines near Kharkiv.
And still, what happens if Russia takes that corner of territory? What then? They must still traverse layers of Ukrainian defensive positions to crash upon Slovyansk and Kramatorsk. As always, there’s no scenario in which Russia has the manpower, equipment, and logistical juice to seriously challenge those cities, all the while Ukraine gets stronger, their reserves training and equipping with NATO gear.
Russia’s slow pace of advance now ensures this war will last well into this year (and likely longer), allowing time for a full Ukrainian transition to NATO-standard weapons. Indeed, Ukraine General Staff is arguing they can be fully transitioned by the end of summer. That may be little consolation to those who would rather see peace break out, global food deliveries reestablished, an end to needless death, and money spent on more fruitful endeavors than weaponry. But Vladimir Putin cannot retreat now without delivering the glorious (and easy) victory he promised his nation, and Ukraine sees no reason to surrender given Russia’s sorry battlefield performance. It really believes (and I agree) that with the right gear, it can recapture everything lost to Russia since 2014, including the entirety of Donbas and Crimea. And as long as the Ukrainian people are prepared to make that sacrifice (and they appear so), it makes perfect sense for the West to help it achieve its goals.
This is kind of funny, and may be a schadenfreude moment. Steve Benen posted this summary of a Washington Post report:
In a move that’s certain to enrage his former boss, former Vice President Mike Pence touted Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s record this morning and announced plans to appear with the Republican governor ahead of the state’s May 24 primary. Donald Trump, on the other hand, has made defeating Kemp one of his top 2022 priorities.
[…] On a related note, Kemp’s GOP rival, former Sen. David Perdue, recently filed a lawsuit alleging fraud in the 2020 election in which he was defeated. Yesterday, a Georgia judge dismissed the case.
Trump’s plans to control the state of Georgia’s governorship are in disarray.
For those wondering what it would take to remove Postmaster General Louis DeJoy from his post, there were some developments of note in the Senate yesterday. C-SPAN’s Craig Caplan reported:
[The] Senate today by unanimous consent confirmed Dan Tangherlini (D) and Derek Kan (R), President Biden’s two nominees to serve on the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors, which now has a majority of the Senate-confirmed Biden appointees on the USPS board.
[…] It wasn’t long after DeJoy, a former Republican fundraiser and deputy RNC finance chair, became the postmaster general that he became highly controversial. He is, after all, facing an FBI investigation over a campaign-finance scandal, among other ethics allegations.
DeJoy’s problematic policies haven’t been well received either: He has, among other things, implemented changes intended to make some mail service “permanently slower.”
President Joe Biden does not have the legal authority to fire the postmaster general, though he probably wishes he did. Early last year, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters, “I think we can all agree — most Americans would agree — that the Postal Service needs leadership that can and will do a better job.” She added months later, “We are, of course, deeply troubled, continue to be deeply troubled, as many Americans are, by the earlier reporting on Postmaster General DeJoy’s potential financial conflicts of interest and take serious issues with the job he’s doing running the Postal Service.”
The governing board of the U.S. Postal Service has the power to remove DeJoy, and the confirmation of some Biden nominees to the board increased the odds that it might take such a step, but those efforts fell short: Ron Bloom, a Democratic Trump appointee, threw his support behind the postmaster general. Republican members on the board were in the minority, but with Bloom backing DeJoy, it didn’t matter.
So, Biden decided late last year to replace Bloom with Tangherlini, who served as the administrator of the General Services Administration during the Obama administration. The Democratic president also announced that Kan, a Republican and the former deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, would replace Republican John Barger, an outgoing USPS board member.
Yesterday, those nominees proved so uncontroversial, that they were confirmed without opposition. It took six months, but they were confirmed easily.
Where does that leave us? The Postal Service’s governing board has nine members, but no party is permitted to have more than five members. That’s where this gets a little complicated.
It’s tempting to simply count members by party, which shows the board with four Democrats, four Republicans, and an independent. But with one of the Democrats having been appointed by Trump, and one of the Republicans having been appointed by Biden, the partisan lines aren’t as neat as they might appear.
The better way is to count members by president: Biden now has five appointees on the USPS board (three Democrats, one Republican, and one independent), while Trump has four appointees (three Republicans and a Democrat).
In other words, if we put party affiliations aside, Biden’s picks now have a majority, even if Democrats don’t. And while it’s possible that some of the incumbent president’s nominees will go their own way and ignore the White House’s wishes, if Biden’s appointees follow the Democratic president’s vision, this could spell trouble for DeJoy and his controversial postal plan.
This morning I was blessed with a lovely email from Monica Cole, the woman with One Million Moms living inside her head, all about how they and the SPLC-designated anti-LGBTQ hate group the American Family Association are asking their supporters to pray and fast in hopes of ensuring that God will overturn Roe v. Wade.
Dear Robyn,
The fight to end abortion in America is a spiritual battle. That is the best way to understand the events of the past week – indeed of the past 50 years, since the Roe v. Wade decision effectively legalized abortion on demand in all 50 states.
Our battle plan for the reversal of Roe v. Wade includes prayer and fasting. We invite you to join us in taking this pledge.
Honestly, I’m not even mad at that. They should absolutely fight the abortion battle on the spiritual plane, with prayer and fasting. That is far preferable to fighting it on the earthly plane with horrific legislation (which they are of course also doing anyway). It’s really the next paragraph where things go off the rails.
The Left – and the media – would have you believe the issue of abortion has divided America into two warring camps. On the one side are Christians and people of good will who believe abortion ends a human life. On the other are those who would defend even the murder of a child after being born alive.
Is that how we’re framing things? Really? We’re the ones saying that they’re holy people of good will and that we want to do infanticide on newborn babies (probably so we can sacrifice them to Moloch)? That sure doesn’t sound like us. Perhaps she is confusing us with Texas Governor Greg Abbott who is totally okay with killing newborn babies if their parents are immigrants. Or, or God! God is pretty into killing newborn babies, either for real because he feels like doing a plague or for pretend because thinks it would be funny to tell a guy to kill his baby and then yell “psych!” He also likes killing fully grown adults by turning them into pillars of salt for looking the wrong direction.
Faced with the prospect of allowing voters in each state to decide what to do about abortion – and not, as the Left has claimed, with the end of legalized abortion itself – the pro-abortion crowd, the media, and the Biden administration have gone to war with anyone who disagrees with them, including the Supreme Court.
We also want voters to decide what to do about abortion, but for themselves, not for other people. The only people who have “gone to war” here are those who think they should get to make that decision for other people just because they happen to live in the same state, everyone else is responding to the attack.
The Left is literally at war with America. This is no exaggeration. This war includes fire-bombing a family policy group in Wisconsin. A pro-abortion terrorist organization has claimed responsibility for the attack, stating that “Wisconsin is the first flashpoint, but we are all over the U.S., and we will issue no further warnings.”
In violation of federal law, abortion extremists are protesting outside the homes of Supreme Court justices. The Biden Administration has specifically encouraged these illegal acts, an arguably impeachable offense. Senate Democrat Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has also said he doesn’t have a problem with the protests. And the Department of Justice – perhaps too busy going after parents at school board meetings – has been totally silent.
Still, none of these people are our enemies, and we are not at war with them. “For we are not contending with flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places,” teaches Paul in the book of Ephesians.
The rulers and powers of this present darkness are working hard to make sure legalized abortion remains the law of the land. We must respond by entering into this spiritual battle with faith and courage.
These people sure have a hard time figuring out if they are at war or not!
The letter then asks that supporters do five magic prayers to ensure that SCOTUS overturns Roe for sure.
1. We pray that the Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade once and for all.
2. We pray for each of the U.S. Supreme Court Justices. We pray that the Holy Spirit will strengthen their minds and their wills so that they will truly understand how precious each life is and vote in favor of reversing Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs case.
3. We pray, in particular, for Chief Justice John Roberts, that he will be filled with the wisdom, courage and prudence he needs to lead the court to a majority consensus to overturn Roe.
4. We pray that the Lord Jesus Christ will bind any evil spirits, powers and forces seeking to keep Roe in place and defeat their wicked strategies.
5. We pray for God the Father’s mercy and forgiveness over our country for the millions of lives lost and destroyed through abortion.
And then, after that, they want those supporters to give up something pleasant for three weeks.
We are also asking each of you to join us in making some sacrifice for the reversal of Roe v. Wade this year. Perhaps pause your digital TV subscription for a month or give up some pleasant food – ice cream, sweet tea, candy, etc. – as Daniel the prophet did as he prayed to God (Daniel 10:3). During this time of fasting, focus your prayers toward ending abortion.
Remember, this is war. In war, you have to make certain sacrifices. During World War II, people were forced to go without sugar, coffee and meat. That was for four years. This is for one month. Just pick one thing and sacrificially offer it up in prayer for God’s mercy over our nation’s sin of abortion and for God to bring about the reversal of Roe v. Wade via the Dobbs decision.
5 prayer requests and 1 sacrifice. Unified in prayer across the country, God can heal our land from the blight of abortion, bring victory in this battle, and truly change our country for generations to come.
Let me get this straight. God is an all-powerful immortal deity who really, really, really hates abortion and is, in some capacity, involved in the creation of human babies. He once got a virgin pregnant with himself. But he can’t just make sure that everyone who would get an abortion if they got pregnant does not get pregnant in the first place, while also denying some people who actually do want to get pregnant the ability to do so. And he could end abortion, which is one of the main things he hates outside of the people he made not being heterosexual, but he won’t do it unless Sheila from Bismarck, North Dakota, doesn’t eat Twinkies for a month or continue binge watching Dynasty? Is that how this all works?
I would have to think that if God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit were that upset about abortion, they would not need such bribes in order to prevent them or overturn Roe. Also it’s not totally clear what that would even do for them. Is it like a Tinkerbell scenario we’re talking here? They want to prevent abortions but they just can’t unless enough people out there stop putting sugar in their tea? If that is the case, are they really all powerful?
This is all purely hypothetical since I don’t believe in God, but I have to think that if I were an all-powerful immortal deity, I would be a tad confused by this entire arrangement.
Wonkette: “Pandemic Investigation Finds Meat Industry Acted Like Common Scooby Doo Villain”
Probably the worst effect of Donald Trump’s presidency was that there was so much widespread incompetence, corruption, and downright criminality that it’s nearly impossible to keep track of it all. Trump and his Team of Evils got away with stuff that would have sunk prior administrations every damn day. Steve Bannon’s approach to misinformation — “flood the zone with shit” — applied equally to misbehavior in office. There was far more than any of the official watchdogs in government, or the unofficial ones in the media, could keep track of. So much criminality, so little time, and so little brain space for all of it.
As a prime example, take this report released yesterday by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, which found that the meatpacking industry was thick as thieves with Trump’s Department of Agriculture, where career staff were sidelined so that political appointees could do everything possible to keep meat plants running during the pandemic, worker safety be damned. At least 269 workers died during the pandemic, and more than 59,000 became infected, all while the industry resisted any attempt to protect workers from spreading infection.
Worse, the report presents evidence that the industry pushed “flimsy if not false” claims of an impending meat shortage to justify keeping plants running near capacity, no matter what, although internal industry documents showed management knew there was no such shortage. Ultimately, the report says, the industry enlisted the USDA and the White House in an effort to avoid oversight from state and local health authorities. Donald Trump’s April 2020 executive order demanded that meat plants stay open, to keep meating America with all the meat the meat industry could meat at us.
As Wonkette’s Evan Hurst noted at the time, Trump’s HEREBY DECLARE was a hell of a departure from how Trump handled other aspects of the pandemic:
Trump has been reluctant to use actual powers he has, like invoking the Defense Production Act to make sure doctors have PPE and hospitals have ventilators, but he sure did invoke it to make sure America’s delicious meats are able to make their full journey from the plant all the way into his Big Macs which go in his mouth. How can the White House chef burn him steaks and slather them with ketchup if the meat plants are closed? Clearly an untenable situation.
Well gosh, what a coincidence Donald Trump took such meaty action to protect the meat industry, which was worried about being sued by workers forced to process animal carcasses in close quarters, with little protective equipment. The report details that the executive order was actually proposed and drafted by lawyers at Tyson Foods, with input from other companies. […] Tyson and industry lobbyists then shared the draft “with allied USDA officials who had previously helped them lobby or interfere with decision-making by other arms of federal and state government.”
In the days leading up to President Trump’s issuance of the Executive Order, meatpacking industry representatives and companies—Smithfield and Tyson in particular—engaged in constant communications with Trump appointees at USDA, the National Economic Council, and the White House. […] The eventual order adopted the themes and statutory directive laid out in Tyson’s draft, invoking the Defense Production Act to ensure meatpacking plants “continue operations.”
That was just how the Trump administration worked: Why bother regulating industries during a deadly pandemic when you can just let the industry tell you what it would like to do?
Not that the executive order was a complete freebie; the report also notes that the day after President Meat Sweats ordered more meat, the White House demanded tribute, requesting in an email to various meat trade groups that the companies “issue positive statements and social media about the President’s action on behalf of the industry, about the Order itself and about how it will help ensure the food supply chain remains strong.”
A flack at the “North American Meat Institute” obligingly sent back not only a press release, but a set of talking points the White House might use to thank the industry for thanking Trump.
The report concludes that the meatpacking companies
knew the risk posed by the coronavirus to their workers and knew it wasn’t a risk that the country needed them to take. They nonetheless lobbied aggressively—successfully enlisting USDA as a close collaborator in their efforts—to keep workers on the job in unsafe conditions, to ensure state and local health authorities were powerless to mandate otherwise, and to be protected against legal liability for the harms that would result.
As the Washington Post (free link) reports, the committee combed through a wealth of information, including
a review of 151,000 pages of documents, more than a dozen survey calls with industry union representatives, former Agriculture Department and Occupational Safety and Health Administration officials, and state and local health authorities. The subcommittee also held a staff briefing with OSHA and the USDA.
Some of the details are simply astonishing, like the quote from a meat industry lobbyist that graces the cover of the report, “Now to get rid of those pesky health departments!” Yes, someone said that in a real email, not in an episode of Scooby Doo. [Image at the link]
That quote’s from page three, in which the committee explained that well into the pandemic, the industry was still refusing to take science-based measures to keep workers from getting infected on the job.
For example, as late as May 22, 2020—well after the efficacy and necessity of coronavirus precautions such as testing, social distancing, and personal protective equipment were widely recognized—an executive at Koch Foods told a meatpacking industry lobbyist that temperature screening was “all we should be doing.” The lobbyist agreed, saying “Now to get rid of those pesky health departments!”
In a footnote, we find that’s from an email by one Ashley Peterson, who was and is the “Senior Vice President of Scientific and Regulatory Affairs” for the “National Chicken Council.” After all, a temperature check found one worker who was sick, the worker went home, and later tested positive, so clearly that was the only sick worker at that plant. (Also, no, temperature checks alone were never sufficient to safeguard against infections at work) [Image at the link]
[…] We left a message for Dr. Peterson at the Chicken Lobby seeking comment, and will update when / if we hear back from her. [tweet at the link]
In another fun incident, we learn that Foster Farms enlisted help from a Trump USDA appointee, Undersecretary of Ag Mindy Brashears, to prevent a local health department from ordering protections for workers. The chicken company, it turns out, had hidden death counts of workers in reports to the county as “resolved cases.”
According to officials from this health department, during a call with Foster Farms and Brashears’ office, someone working for either Foster Farms or USDA callously referred to these death counts as “toe tag resolutions,” likely alluding to the toe tag that is often put on a corpse at the morgue.
[…] Also too, the report notes that the meatpacking companies fairly regularly “lobbied the White House to make clear that—despite concerns by state and local health departments—meatpacking companies should not have to address coronavirus risks if it would impact productivity.” Because heavens, you wouldn’t want either a meat shortage or a loss in profitability, now would you? The lobbying was particularly intense in seeking protection from liability for workers getting sick, a matter of such importance to then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that he fought tooth and nail to have it included in federal stimulus bills, even after Trump lost the 2020 election. Poor sad Mitch, it never did get passed.
In conclusion, this report makes clear that the meat industry and the Trump administration didn’t give two good shits about worker safety, because there was a lot of money to be made. Besides, it wasn’t like anyone important was dying — just low-income workers, many of them Latino, and as a Smithfield pork plant spokesperson memorably said, “Living circumstances in certain cultures are different than they are with your traditional American family,” so probably the workers were getting sick at home and then tainting the company’s immaculate slaughterhouse with filthy non-American virus.
At least the workers’ health made for a fun betting pool among Tyson plant managers, allegedly.
See? We still can’t get our heads around all that shit. It’s infuriating, and nobody’s going to go to jail.
Wonkette: “Time For Another Episode Of ‘Regular Normal Conversations,’ With Tucker Carlson And Glenn Greenwald!”
You probably think the appropriate question about this clip of Tucker Carlson and Glenn Greenwald talking on Tucker’s “If Little House On The Prairie Was A Gay Porn” daytime set is “why?” But you are wrong, the question is “why not?”
Glenn Greenwald tells Tucker that tweeting death threats and watching porn is an “outlet” for people who harbor a desire to murder and rape. He and Tucker argue that removing those “safety valves” of expression lead to things like January 6th.
[Video available at the link]
We really do not know what is happening here or why these two guys think this is a normal talk, but we’re just going to describe it for you and you can see what you think.
Glenn says “everybody knows” that people who actually send death threats online are probably not actually going to come kill you. That’s probably correct.
Tucker giggles in his soprano register because Glenn is very funny.
Glenn says “watching pornography is an outlet and alleviates the desire to go rape,” like that is a perfectly normal thing to say. He says “when you give people a channel to express themselves” — you know, by sending death threats online or watching porn — then they just won’t go off killing and raping. This is why before the internet existed, all people were murderers and rapists.
Glenn says that QAnon is a “protest movement” that’s about “upsetting elites.” This is true because as we all know, elites get very upset when friendless losers on the internet believe Donald Trump is running a secret crime-fighting superhero outfit with the resurrected John F. Kennedy Jr. to fight child trafficking. Elites are like “UGH! I’M UPSET!”
Glenn says when you tell these people “they can no longer use the internet to gather with like-minded people and exchange grievances and organize, what do you THINK is going to happen?”
Tucker says “Well exactly!”
Glenn says this is what happened on January 6, that people were thinking “we don’t really have the democratic process or the basic civil liberties that we were taught as children, we can expect by being in the United States, and so gathering together and protesting and storming things is the only thing we have left.”
Tucker says “Well yeah! Because they took away the pressure release valves!” You know, the venue for sending journalists death threats and the masturbation internet time.
Now if you are wondering when every Big-Lie-believing QAnon brain wizard lost their internet access, or what in the hell Glenn is talking about when he suggests these people have lost “democratic process” or “basic civil liberties,” please remember that these men are not like the rest of us and who knows, maybe they just hallucinate all the time, like housecats, oh well fuck it.
At the bottom of that page is a link to other passes. They include a free lifetime pass for people with permanent disabilities, a free annual pass for kids in fourth grade, a free annual pass for federal volunteers, an $80 lifetime pass and a $20 annual pass for seniors (defined as 62+), and an $80 annual pass for everyone.
If you have PayPal I’d be happy to chip in a little for you to get a pass. :)
Ukrainian military authorities loaded the bodies of Russian soldiers onto refrigerated rail cars on Friday, saying they were prepared to return the bodies to Russia in accordance with intern[ation]al law, Reuters reports. The authorities loaded the bodies after fighting in the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions. From the news agency:
Volodymr Lyamzin, the head of Ukraine’s civil-military cooperation, said his country was acting in accordance with international law and was ready to return the bodies to Russia.
“According to the norms of international humanitarian law, and Ukraine is strictly following them, after the active phase of the conflict is over, sides have to return the bodies of the military of another country “Ukraine is ready to return the bodies to the aggressor, he said.
Lyamzin said there were several refrigerator trains stationed in different regions across Ukraine where the bodies of Russian soldiers were being kept.
Several hundred bodies were being stored at a facility on the outskirts of Kyiv filmed by Reuters.
The United States accused Russia of using the UN Security Council to spout disinformation and conspiracy theories about biological weapons in Ukraine, to distract from its invasion of the country, Associated Press reported.
US deputy ambassador Richard Mills called the Russian claims of alleged US involvement in a biological weapons program “categorically false and ludicrous.”
He warned the council Friday that Moscow’s actions follow a pattern of accusing others of violations it has perpetrated or intends to perpetrate, adding that they need to be watched closely “for the possibility of a false flag chemical or biological attack by Russia’s forces”.
UN deputy disarmament chief Thomas Markram reiterated to the council what his boss said at council meetings on March 11 and March 18 on similar Russian allegations: the United Nations is not aware of any biological weapons program in Ukraine.
Russia’s UNAmbassador Vassily Nebenzia had earlier said in the meeting that he had called for a third council meeting because his government continues to receive “very worrying documentary evidence” that the US defense department is directly involved in carrying out “dangerous biological projects that look like a secret biological military program” in Ukraine.
“Very worrying documentary evidence” pictured here (Twitter link).
US sending 10,500 new troops to Europe for new rotation
The US is sending 10,500 new troops to Europe to replace soldiers who were earlier deployed, the Pentagon’s spokesperson John Kirby also announced in his briefing today. He said the deployments were “one for one unit replacements” and that the turnovers would happen in the coming weeks and into the summer: “It will be a rotation over time.”
Kirby explained:
These are not permanent moves. These moves are designed to respond to the current security environment. Moreover these forces are not going to fight in Ukraine. They are going to support the robust defense of Nato allies.
Still, as the New York Times noted, the move suggests that the temporary expansion of troops is likely becoming more permanent.
US official: Ukrainian artillery is frustrating Russian offensive.
Intense fighting is taking place between Izyum and Slovyansk, but the Russians have not been able to make much progress, according to a senior US defense official quoted by CNN.
The vast majority of the 89 howitzers the US has given to Ukraine are “in the fight,” the official told CNN. 370 Ukrainian soldiers have completed training on how to use the howitzers.
The US State Department issued a statement on the events @ #35/39:
The United States again extends our deepest condolences to the family and loved ones of Shireen Abu Akleh, a renowned Palestinian American journalist. We were deeply troubled to see the images of Israeli police intruding into her funeral procession today. Every family deserves to be able to lay their loved ones to rest in a dignified and unimpeded manner. We remain in close contact with our Israeli and Palestinian counterparts and call on all to maintain calm and avoid any actions that could further escalate tensions.
Referring to what they did as “intruding into her funeral procession” is ridiculous.
Re 52, Finnish news are saying that RAO cites the bank embargo and difficulties in payment traffic as the reason why they’re cutting exports. There seems to be widespread opinion (in Finland) that the timing and the short notice are highly suspicious. Anyway, this isn’t causing any major problems here.
Ukraine has “likely won the battle of Kharkiv”, the country’s second largest city, the Institute for the Study of War has said in its latest assessment of the conflict.
Ukrainian forces prevented Russian troops from encircling, let alone seizing Kharkiv, and then expelled them from around the city, as they did to Russian forces attempting to seize Kyiv.
Russian units had “generally not attempted to hold ground against counterattacking Ukrainian forces over the past several days, with a few exceptions.”
Reports from Western officials and a video from an officer of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) indicate that Moscow is focused on conducting an orderly withdrawal and prioritizing getting Russians back home before allowing proxy forces to enter Russia rather than trying to hold its positions near the city.
The US-based think tank said Ukraine would now likely “attempt to disrupt ground lines of communication (GLOCs) between Belgorod [in Russia] and Russian forces concentrated around [the Russian-occupied city of] Izyum, although Russia is using several GLOCs, including some further away from current Ukrainian positions than any Ukrainian counteroffensive is likely to reach soon.”
Russian troops had “made no progress” with an attempted ground offensive from Izyum, it continued, adding: “We had previously hypothesized that Russia might give up on attempts to advance from Izyum, but the Russians have either not made such a decision or have not fully committed to it yet.”
Meanwhile, it said, the main Russian effort was aimed at encircling the cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk in Luhansk.
Russian troops attacking from Popasna to the north made no significant progress in the last 24 hours. Russian forces coming north-to-south have failed to cross the Siverskyi Donets River and taken devastating losses in their attempts.
The Russians may not have enough additional fresh combat power to offset those losses and continue the offensive on a large enough scale to complete the encirclement, although they will likely continue to try to do so.
Other key takeaways included:
– Russian forces have likely secured the highway near the western entrance to the Azovstal Steel Plant but fighting for the facility continues.
– Russian forces in Zaporizhia Oblast are likely attempting to reach artillery range outside Zaporizhia City.
– Ukrainian forces are reportedly attempting to regain control of Snake Island off the Romanian coast or at least disrupt Russia’s ability to use it.
StevoRsays
Kinda random thing here but in case anyone’s interested I noticed today that Mahonia – at least, I think but am not 100% sure Mahonia aquifolium or Oregon Grape or Holly-leaved Barberry ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahonia_aquifolium ) – has really sepctacularly vivid bright yellow wood beneath its bark.
StevoRsays
@60. Lynna, OM : Wow. As if watching porn and sending death threats online is mutually incompatible with raping and oh, say , attacking the Capitol building and trying to lynch congress people. Basic logic – how does it work again? How many people / death threats does it take again to consider death threats seriously or asusme all of them are merely “venting” and not to be taken seriously?
As ways of venting and expressing emotions go, sending death threats to others is certainly NOT ok.
Porn, maybe? But the idea that porn deters rape, I think is dubious and unproven at best. Pretty sure I’ve heard the case – which I’m also not sure about – that porn may actually encourage, normalise and incite such sexual crimes as well. Almost certainly depending on exact types of porn consumed.
StevoRsays
@62. SC (Salty Current) :
Lyamzin said there were several refrigerator trains stationed in different regions across Ukraine where the bodies of Russian soldiers were being kept. Several hundred bodies were being stored at a facility on the outskirts of Kyiv filmed by Reuters.
So very many dead Russians and Ukrainians alike and for what? Putin’s ego & imperial dreams?
So much damage done and grief and suffering caused so needlessly.
SC @61: “If you have PayPal I’d be happy to chip in a little for you to get a pass. :)”
Thank you, SC, that’s very kind. I have other, nearby public lands I can visit, so I don’t think a National Park pass for me is a good use of your money.
You are right, though, that it is infuriating to know that high entrance fees keep low-income people out of our national parks. Congress could change that … but not with so many Republicans against that, and against so many other things that they would classify as “welfare.”
Followup to SC @66: “Referring to what they did as “intruding into her funeral procession” is ridiculous.”
NBC News:
The funeral of a slain Palestinian American journalist descended into chaos Friday after Israeli security forces stormed and beat the crowd carrying her coffin, which was at one point dropped by the pallbearers.
The Lancet, one of the world’s most prestigious medical journals, issued a dire warning on the front page of its latest edition: “If the US Supreme Court confirms its draft decision, women will die,” the journal’s editorial board wrote.
It’s said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result. If that’s the case … Russia qualifies.
We saw it in the early days of the war in Hostomel airport northwest of Kyiv. Russia made an unsupported airborne landing on the base. Got wiped out. Tried it again. Same result. There may have been a third attempt, but the airport wasn’t captured until the spearhead of Russia’s attack, on the ground, arrived a few days later.
We’re currently seeing it on Snake Island, of “Russia warship, go fuck yourself” fame. Over the past week, Russian forces have been wiped out several times (here, here, here, and here), and yet last night we saw Russian troops landing there once again. (Russia state media tried to claim that it was Ukrainians who were defeated on the island … using the Ukrainian armed forces video (with their logo on the top right corner) featuring the Bayraktar TB-2 drone interface, of which Russia has none. The destruction of the ship, when Ukraine has no navy, was a nice touch of hilarity.)
But nothing is as dramatic as the saga of the riverside crossing at Bilohorivka, where Russia didn’t just suffer one disastrous river-crossing attempt, but three of them over the past few days. [map at the link]
Rubizhne, top right, was captured by Russia this week. Severodonetsk, on the right, is currently hell on earth, Russia’s current number one target, being hit on three sides and under relentless months-long bombardment. As I noted earlier, Severodonetsk is on the north side of the river, so its Ukrainian defenders can, if needed, retreat across the river to Lysychansk, where the river provides natural protection.
Given that Russia will eventually need to cross the river, they clearly thought, why not now, allowing them to completely surround Severodonetsk, cutting off its defenders, and short-circuiting any fall back positions in Lysychansk. Bilohorivka was such an obvious place to make the attempt, that this Ukrainian army engineer claimed to have guessed it ahead of time (account is unconfirmed, but much of it checks out).
Russia made its first effort May 8, and it was utterly decimated, destroying several dozen vehicles. The bridge lay half-sunk. [image at the link]
Russian command and control structure is highly centralized, giving local commanders zero ability to deviate from stated orders. So if high command said “get to Bilohorivka,” well, who was to say something like, “Guys, Ukraine has our number, maybe we should look for a new place to cross?” Nah, giving local commanders, or any commanders for that matter, the gift of “free thinking and initiative” might lead to a military coup. Best to keep them stupid. Hence … try number 2: [image at the link]
You can see the remnants of that first bridge just above it, either completely submerged or towed away during the second attempt. More charred vehicles were added to the list.
Then someone from Moscow or Belgorod called and screamed, “do we have Bilohorivka yet?” And since the answer was no, then yeah, sigh, there they went again. [image at the link, showing bridge attempts numbered 1, 2 and 3]
[…] The vehicle count keeps rising as the OSINT folks find more vehicles amongst the wreckage. The latest? 82 [destroyed Russian vehicles, + two boats]
Those 82 vehicles include eight in the river. The tally includes 14 tanks and 62 infantry fighting vehicles. A Russian battalion tactical group (BTG) has 10 tanks and 40 IFVs, but there’s no such thing as a full-strength BTG in Ukraine. Likely never was. So Russia just lost two BTGs worth of troops attempting to make the same compromised river crossing three times. Can you imagine the drone operator calling it in?
Drone operator: ”Another crossing!”
Artillery fire direction: “Shit! What are the coordinates?”
Drone operator: “Uh, same ones!”
Artillery fire direction: “Ha! Okay, I really thought you were kidding the second time! That was crazy. But seriously, what are the new coordinates?”
[…] But hey, why stop when they’re so close to succeeding? Here’s hoping they’re stupid enough to give it a fourth shot.
And if you think I’m joking, from that InformNapalm report:
After [the third attempt], other servicemen of the brigade began to write “refusal”, but the zampolits [political commissar] tried to intimidate them with prison terms and exert psychological pressure.
Also, InformNapalm sources report that they saw a car in this direction today, which is visually very similar to the mobile point of psychological work of the Russian Armed Forces. Probably for the psychological treatment of the servicemen of the brigade, which suffered heavy losses.
If that report is correct, it means Russia is literally trying to force its soldiers to give it yet another shot. Hopefully those soldiers choose wisely—prison seems far preferable than whatever fate met the poor souls on those three bridging attempts.
I simply cannot bear to think that all of those soldiers died because Putin is delusional. What a waste.
I am writing these words having just returned from the funeral of Shireen Abu Aqleh in Jerusalem. It is hard to describe the exact emotions which every Palestinian is feeling. One thing is certain: this has been the most incredible outpouring of emotion I’ve seen in Palestine.
Shireen was known to every Palestinian household. During the second intifada – a formative experience for many Palestinians – she was the face that delivered us the news. The TV screen became a window to everything going on: the F16 strikes, the Apache helicopter strikes, the tanks on the streets. And Shireen was out there, bringing the news to our homes.
We grew up watching her and she became an icon, inspiring a generation of Palestinian journalists. This is why Shireen’s killing during an Israeli raid on a refugee camp in Jenin shook all Palestinians to the core. We feel like we have lost a mother; I personally have lost a major inspiration in my journalistic life. On the day she died, every Palestinian was heartbroken.
Today in Jerusalem, thousands of Palestinians came to commemorate Shireen’s memory. There were people as far as the eye could see. Jerusalem never looked more Palestinian. And even in our grief, Israeli forces unleashed violence against the mourners and pallbearers. If you do that with the world’s gaze upon you, it is because you believe there will be no consequences.
Shireen has united Palestinians of all political affiliations and persuasions behind our national flag – to mourn, protest and make sure her loss is not in vain. What has made it all the worse is the Israeli propaganda machine, which swung into action as soon as news broke of Shireen’s killing….
Israeli officials know the weight of this news. By spreading disinformation and false propaganda, they hope to muddy the waters and obscure the truth of what happened in Jenin.
I do not expect justice for Shireen Abu Aqleh. According to the International Federation of Journalists, Israeli forces have killed at least 46 Palestinian journalists since 2000, while Palestinian ministry of health data records 50 Palestinians killed in 2022 alone. Why should we expect Israel to investigate Shireen’s death thoroughly? Israel’s record speaks for itself. It should play no part in an investigation of Shireen’s killing….
North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has declared the country’s first Covid-19 outbreak a “great disaster” as it reported 21 more deaths.
State media said 174,440 people were newly found with fever symptoms on Friday alone as the country scrambles to slow the spread of Covid-19 across its unvaccinated population.
North Korea said on Saturday that a total of 27 people have died and 524,440 fell ill amid a rapid spread of fever since late April. It said 280,810 people remain in quarantine.
State media did not specifically say how many of the fever cases and deaths were confirmed as Covid-19 cases.
During a meeting on anti-virus strategies on Saturday, Kim described the outbreak as a historically “huge disruption” and called for unity between the government and people to stabilise the outbreak as quickly as possible.
The meeting discussed “promptly distributing emergency drugs” and introducing “scientific treatment tactics and treatment methods for different patients, including those with special constitutions”, KCNA reported.
Kim said he had “faith that we can overcome this malicious infectious disease within the shortest period possible,” the report added.
The country imposed nationwide lockdowns on Thursday after confirming its first Covid-19 infections since the start of the pandemic.
Kim said they would be following the Chinese model of virus prevention.
“We should take lessons from the experiences and fruitful achievements in preventing virus of the China’s Communist party and its people,” he said.
…
Experts say a failure to control the spread of Covid could have devastating consequences in North Korea, considering the country’s poor healthcare system and that its 26 million people are largely unvaccinated.
North Korea has so far shunned offers of Covid vaccines from China and Russia, and via the World Health Organization’s Covax scheme, apparently because administering the jabs would require outside monitoring….
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
The G7 said they will “never recognise” borders changed by force by Russia as they vowed to expand sanctions, Reuters reports.
After three days of talks in northern Germany the G7 foreign ministers said:
We will never recognise borders Russia has attempted to change by military aggression, and will uphold our engagement in the support of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, including Crimea, and all states,” the G7 foreign ministers said in a statement after three days of talks in northern Germany.
We reaffirm our determination to further increase economic and political pressure on Russia, continuing to act in unity.
The ministers also criticised Belarus over its stance on the war.
We… call on Belarus to stop enabling Russia’s aggression and to abide by its international obligations,” they said.
The major of Kharkiv, Ihor Terekhov has told the BBC the Russians have withdrawn from the Kharkiv city area.
He said that “due to the efforts of Kharkiv territorial defence and Ukrainian Armed Forces, the Russians have withdrawn out far from the city area in the direction of the Russian border.”
He added that it was now “calm in Kharkiv and people are gradually coming back to the city.”
There was ”no shelling in the city for the last five days” he said explaining that there was only “one attempt” from the Russians to hit the city with a missile rocket near Kharkiv airport but, he said, “the missile was eliminated by Ukrainian Air Defence.
According to Reuters, Finland’s president, Sauli Niinistö, has been in contact with Vladimir Putin to tell him about plans to join Nato.
ravensays
The future was overrated. Here it is, 2022 and I get up in the morning and usually, some high official in Russia is threatening to kill me and a few tens of millions of people with nuclear weapons.
Moscow Will Respond if NATO Moves Nuclear Forces Closer to Russia’s Border
By Reuters May 14, 2022, at 3:55 a.m.
(Reuters) – Moscow will take adequate precautionary measures if NATO deploys nuclear forces and infrastructure closer to Russia’s border, Russian news agencies quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko as saying on Saturday.
“It will be necessary to respond … by taking adequate precautionary measures that would ensure the viability of deterrence,” Interfax agency quoted Grushko as saying.
Moscow has no hostile intentions towards Finland and Sweden and does not see “real” reasons for those two countries to be joining the NATO alliance, Grushko added.
Finland’s plan to apply for NATO membership, announced on Thursday, and the expectation that Sweden will follow, would bring about the expansion of the Western military alliance that Russian President Vladimir Putin aimed to prevent.
This doesn’t mean much.
The whole point of nuclear weapons is that you don’t have to be close to anything to use them. You can be on the other side of the earth. ucusa.org: “It would take a land- based missile about 30 minutes to fly between Russia and the United States; a submarine-based missile could strike in as little as 10 to 15 minutes after launch. Moving the missiles to near the Russian border cuts the flight time to Russia from 10-30 minutes to 5 minutes. Hardly worth the effort.
It also makes them easier for Russia to find and destroy.
Moscow has no hostile intentions towards Finland and Sweden …
.1. This is the country that has threatened Sweden and Finland for the last two centuries.
.2. Russia fought two wars with Finland in the mid-20th century and stole and ethnically cleansed 11% of their best land, Karelia.
.3. Russia lately has conquered two parts of Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, part of Moldova i.e. Transnistria, destroyed Chechnya twice, and is now trying to genocide Ukraine and Ukrainians.
I don’t see any reason why anyone would believe them at this point.
The right-wing freakout over peaceful protests outside the homes of Supreme Court justices and chalk on the sidewalk in front of Republican senators’ homes, built around the seeming belief that any kind of protest at all is an act of violence, is actually a piece of classic right-wing projection. Conservatives assume that all protests feature intimidation and menace, bellicose threats, and acts of violence, because they themselves know no other way of protesting, as we’ve seen over the past five years and longer—especially on Jan. 6.
So it’s not surprising that the right-wing response to protests over the imminent demise of the Roe v. Wade ruling so far is riddled with white nationalist thugs turning up in the streets, and threats directed at Democratic judges. Ben Makuch at Vice reported this week on how far-right extremists are filling Telegram channels with calls for the assassination of federal judges, accompanied by doxxing information revealing their home addresses.
One Telegram channel features a roster of targets accompanied by an eye-grabbing graphic with an assault-style gun, complete with their photos, bios, and personal contact and address information, including two federal judges appointed with Democratic backgrounds: a Barack Obama appointee of color, and a Midwestern judge of Jewish ethnicity. Joining them on the roster are people like Apple CEO Tim Cook, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, several bankers, and officials who served on a federal vaccine board.
[…] this particular channel has been repeatedly taken off Telegram, only to promptly reconstitute itself. Now in its fifth iteration, he reports that federal law enforcement is aware of the channel and is investigating the threats.
The anti-abortion right’s entire track record of protest, in fact, is brimming with case after case of violence and the politics of menace. Between 1977 and 2020, there have been 11 murders of health care providers, 26 attempted murders, 956 reported threats of harm and death, 624 stalking incidents, and four kidnappings, accompanied by 42 bombings, 194 arsons, 104 attempted arsons or bombings, and 667 bomb threats.
Meanwhile, right-wing pundits are frantically indulging in groundless claims of imminent left-wing violence: “Pro Abortion Advocates Are Becoming Violent After Supreme Court Leak,” read a Town Hall headline over a piece that documented some minor shoving incidents outside the Supreme Court building among the protesters there.
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board speculated: “We hate to say this, but some abortion fanatic could decide to commit an act of violence to stop a 5-4 ruling. It’s an awful thought, but we live in fanatical times.”
A right-wing extremist was charged only three weeks ago in South Carolina with threatening federal judges, along with President Biden and Vice President Harris. The man—a 33-year-old inmate at the Department of Corrections and Proud Boy named Eric Rome—sent letters he claimed contained anthrax to the federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon, and left threatening voicemails: “Our intent is war on the federal government and specifically the assassination of the feds Marxist leaders Joe Biden and Kamala Harris,” Rome said on a voicemail, citing a laundry list of offenses: “the theft of the last presidential election, promoting critical race theory in our schools, the vax mandate and using Marxist media outlets, notably CNN, to brainwash our citizens,” according to the indictment. [Irony meter warning regarding that “brainwash our citizens” phrase]
In his most recent threat in March, Rome threatened two unnamed South Carolina federal judges with death by stabbing: “Vacate the benches and we may let you live,” he wrote. […]
U.S. federal judges faced more than 4,500 threats last year, according to U.S. Marshals Service, which noted that it is concerned about the rise of domestic extremism in America.
A guide prepared for law enforcement in anticipation of social turmoil over abortion notes that while anti-abortion extremists have engaged in an extended litany of violence, that has not been the case among abortion-rights defenders: “Pro-choice extremists have primarily used threats, harassment, and vandalism, but has not resulted in lethal violence.”
[…] A May 5 bulletin detailed the response by white supremacists: “A neo-Nazi channel responding to the leaked Supreme Court draft signaling an overturn of Roe v. Wade posted a previously circulated pro-life graphic calling to ‘bomb’ reproductive healthcare clinics and to ‘kill’ pro-choice individuals,” the bulletin said.
SITE Intelligence Group chief Rita Katz told Politico that misogyny is common in these quarters: “For far-right extremists, the focus on Roe v. Wade isn’t simply about religion or conventional debates about ‘when life starts,’” she said. “It’s about the toxic resentment of feminism that unites the entire spectrum of these movements, from Neo-Nazis to QAnon.”
Shortly after the Jan. 6 insurrection, the violent factions involved in it like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers began forming alliances with Christian nationalists focused on abortion and attacking Planned Parenthood clinics. […]
They clearly see the protests over the imminent Supreme Court ruling as prime opportunities for more violence targeting their most hated enemies: women.
A federal counterterrorism official involved in tracking potential threats related to the Supreme Court decision told Yahoo News that authorities fear the ruling will revive the attacks on both judges and providers. […]
A state judge in Georgia laughed former U.S. senator and Trump-endorsed gubernatorial candidate David Perdue out of court, saying in essence that he had no idea what he was talking about when he filed suit late last year over the 2020 election results in Georgia.
Just days after announcing his campaign to become Georgia’s next governor, Perdue sued Fulton County, alleging that through “acts and omissions,” the county “circumvented the majority of the people” in Georgia. Perdue, who lost a special Senate election that year to Sen. Jon Ossoff (D), sought access to ballots in order to conduct a “forensic inspection.”
“Clearly,” the suit alleged, “unlawful counterfeit absentee ballots were counted and certified in the General Election.”
Superior Court Judge Robert C.I. McBurney didn’t buy it.
Perdue’s claims, McBurney wrote, consisted of “speculation, conjecture and paranoia — sufficient fodder for talk shows, op-ed pieces and social media platforms, but far short of what would legally justify a court taking such action.” He said the plaintiffs had failed to state a proper claim for declaratory relief, and granted defendants’ motion to dismiss the case.
Perdue’s suit, which echoed another unsuccessful water-muddying suit in the state, had asked the court’s permission, McBurney wrote, to “effectively empower Petitioners’ unnamed ‘forensic experts’ to intrude upon the sealed ballot materials of tens of thousands of Fulton County voters, hunt for speculative voter fraud or error, and then determine for themselves what the ‘actual’ vote count should have been in the Election.”
“This quixotic journey will not take place,” he said.
The suit was part of an act that Perdue has played for months now: In challenging Gov. Brian Kemp (R), who Donald Trump faulted for not stealing the 2020 election in Georgia on Trump’s behalf, Perdue has gone all in on the Big Lie. Contrary to Kemp, Perdue has said, he would not have certified the 2020 election results as governor.
Trump has failed to rally Republicans to Perdue’s side. Several high-profile GOP politicians, including two current governors, have announced their support for Kemp. On Friday, Kemp notched another big name: Former Vice President Mike Pence.
Given all the reporting on how reluctant Perdue was even to enter this race, I (still) can’t help but wonder what Trump said to him/has on him/promised to him that caused Perdue to set himself up for the certain humiliation to come when he loses the primary. Trump will just drop him like he’d never heard of him before; he’d already said at that rally that if Perdue loses he (Trump) will have wasted a lot of time.
Of course, I personally find Trump to be not only easily resistible but out and out repulsive, which makes it really difficult for me to figure out why more people don’t feel similarly.
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Mike Pence’s moral core is pretty fluid. Pence is the king of platitude speak. Droning on and on and on spouting nice words without saying a fucking thing.
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Perdue also was the record holder for the most insider trades while a Senator. By a lot.
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Is there ever going to be an antidote to this cult? The attorney who filed this law suit should have his/her license revoked.
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going in and stealing equipment, or allowing others to steal election equipment so you can investigate some cockamamie theory is also not legal.
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Still the Pence endorsement is nice poke in the eye to Trump
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They keep confusing asserted conclusions for evidence.
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Fox News is number one because they are the very best as presenting baseless speculation as established fact.
A 5-week-old child was killed Monday after a car crash ended police pursuit of her mother. Candace Gill, 38, is alleged to have stolen baby supplies from a Monroe, Louisiana, Walmart, according to local CBS affiliate KNOE 8. Another passenger, Edward Williams, died at the scene.
These tragic deaths are indicative of a significant problem, one the potential overturning of Roe v. Wade will make worse: Raising children is increasingly out of reach for many people in the United States. These deaths come on the heels of reports of baby formula shortages across the country, while price-gouging corporations blame rising prices on inflation while amassing record profits.
In fact, Walmart’s 2022 fiscal year profits—$572.75 billion—were up 2.4% from the 2021 fiscal year.
States like Louisana already have a poor safety net, and Congress (rather, Republicans plus two Democratic senators) stands in the way of extending President Joe Biden’s Child Tax Credit expansion, which cut poverty by at least 30%. Congress is also unable to take action on rising housing prices, childcare costs are as high as college tuition; factor in rising food costs, and life is untenable for many within the United States.
Standing in line at the supermarket and this lady with a small kid is counting change to pay for eggs and a quart of milk. Tell me why another lady behind me saw me reach for my wallet and said “wanna go half on some more food for her?” GIRL, YES. I love good people https://twitter.com/malika_imani/status/1524478249291726851
According to official reports, police pursued Gill for this minor property theft—from a multibillion-dollar company owned by one of the wealthiest families in the world—onto a highway. While being pursued by police, Gill crashed, killing her infant she was only trying to care for by the desperate means at her disposal. She fled the scene, and was apprehended the next day.
[…] The scenario is reminiscent of the man killed by police in Kissimmee, Florida, on April 27, after a confrontation in a Target parking lot sparked by the alleged theft of Pokemon cards and pizza. Two others—just 18 and 19—were also shot, but survived.
[…] Undoubtedly, many people believe the man killed in the chase, and Gill—who will most likely spend years behind bars, the death of her infant boring deep into her psyche—deserve their “punishment.” The number of ways our government has failed them, perhaps even before their own births, and so many other victims we don’t know, is a stain on our society.
[…] what fuels poverty? Wage theft and other corporate crimes often outpace amounts stolen through theft or burglary. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found in 2017 that $8 billion is stolen from workers annually. The L.A. Times reported that in 2020, losses to “organized retail crime [were] $2.1 billion,” but even that report show corporations are vastly over reporting retail theft. Of course, corporate crimes, and those of wealthy individuals among the top 1%, are rarely criminally prosecuted. On the rare occasion when there is any accountability, it is often barren of any meaning of justice.
These two cases are just the most recent evidence of a growing mound of lost and striving souls, crushed by a boot worn by the wretched, the shameless, the contemptuous, and the corrupt. These cases don’t demonstrate the GOP’s claims of rising crime so much as display our flawed social and political values. These values, if we can call them that, are leaving many people treading water in a deep and churning sea, as others sail past on hundred-million-dollar yachts—with the police knocking off anyone attempting to grab on for dear life—or the life of their 5-week-old infant.
Over the past few years the resonance of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel, The Handmaid’s Tale has proved itself, over and over again. The confirmation hearings of Donald Trump’s Supreme Court appointees Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, for example, both drew protesters wearing the emblematic red robes and white, winged bonnets that “handmaids” in Atwood’s novel are required to wear to identify themselves. In 2017 the novel was expertly serialized by Bruce Miller as an award-winning television drama series, currently filming its fifth season.
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s leaked disclosure of its stunningly virulent repudiation of the constitutional right to terminate one’s pregnancy, Ms. Atwood, in an article for the Atlantic titled “I Invented Gilead. The Supreme Court is Making It Real,” reflects on the eerie convergence of her work of speculative fiction and the reality now looming in the United States as a consequence of this court’s action.
The idea that a toxic strain of latent religious fanaticism lurking below the surface of American culture could uncurl its hideous tentacles to seize complete control over basic concepts of bodily autonomy and the right to determine one’s reproductive choices formed the basis for Atwood’s nightmarish novel. She sees the same impulse emanating today from the U.S. Supreme Court as it weaves intricate, sophistic arguments to impose its own religious predispositions by pointing to the Constitution’s silence on the issue of abortion. This comes at a time when women in particular […] had historically managed to swim on the surface of American life, with millions achieving the social and economic status traditionally enjoyed by men.
As Atwood observes, in the eyes of the religious right it was long past time to reach up and yank them down beneath that surface, where they “belonged.”
It is now the middle of 2022, and we have just been shown a leaked opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States that would overthrow settled law of 50 years on the grounds that abortion is not mentioned in the Constitution, and is not “deeply rooted” in our “history and tradition.” True enough. The Constitution has nothing to say about women’s reproductive health. But the original document does not mention women at all.
Atwood notes that if the operative standard is really what the Constitution says or does not say then women would never have had the right to vote, a right secured only by an amendment to the document well over a hundred years later (and one opposed by “originalists” on the same grounds that Alito relies in his opinion). She also points out that if, as Alito states, reliance on our country’s “deeply rooted traditions” were the relevant criteria, then forced sterilizations of men and women, legitimized by the Supreme Court in 1927, would still be the law of the land.
Her point is that the so-called “traditions” upon which Alito places such emphasis are peculiarly arbitrary, particularly when they are ultimately the products of subjective, religious-based moral judgments, such as the notion of when “life” begins.
The hard line of today’s anti-abortion activists is at “conception,” which is now supposed to be the moment at which a cluster of cells becomes “ensouled.” But any such judgment depends on a religious belief—namely, the belief in souls. Not everyone shares such a belief. But all, it appears, now risk being subjected to laws formulated by those who do. That which is a sin within a certain set of religious beliefs is to be made a crime for all.
As she observes, one of the amendments (actually the first one) that did make its way into the original Constitution was the prohibition of any attempt by the state to establish a religion. By grounding its argument on the premise that it can act as a moral arbiter, the Court has crossed that line and invented the foundation for further erosion and elimination of rights based on religious convictions.
[…] Along those lines, Atwood ridicules Alito’s reliance on 17th century theological dogma and jurisprudence as precedent for rolling back a right that has existed in this country for half a century. She warns of the implications of using as a point of reference a culture in which women were burned as witches and convicted and charged with crimes through baseless accusations: “[Y]ou should take a close look at that century. Is that when you want to live?”
Theocratic dictatorships do not lie only in the distant past: There are a number of them on the planet today. What is to prevent the United States from becoming one of them?
[…] Atwood draws a grimmer analogy for the idea of forcing birth of children on people who (for whatever reason) do not want their reproductive lives to be decided for them: she calls it a form of slavery:
Women who cannot make their own decisions about whether or not to have babies are enslaved because the state claims ownership of their bodies and the right to dictate the use to which their bodies must be put. The only similar circumstance for men is conscription into an army. In both cases there is risk to the individual’s life, but an army conscript is at least provided with food, clothing, and lodging. Even criminals in prisons have a right to those things. If the state is mandating enforced childbirth, why should it not pay for prenatal care, for the birth itself, for postnatal care, and – for babies who are not sold off to richer families – for the cost of bringing up the child? [***]
No one is forcing women to have abortions. No one either should force them to undergo childbirth. Enforce childbirth if you wish but at least call that enforcing by what it is. It is slavery: the claim to own and control another’s body, and to profit by that claim.
[…] If Americans simply yawn, check their messages, and march right back into the booth to vote for the Republicans who created this nightmare?
Thanks to Atwood, we can never say we weren’t warned.
lumipunasays
raven at 80:
The whole point of nuclear weapons is that you don’t have to be close to anything to use them. You can be on the other side of the earth. ucusa.org: “It would take a land- based missile about 30 minutes to fly between Russia and the United States; a submarine-based missile could strike in as little as 10 to 15 minutes after launch. Moving the missiles to near the Russian border cuts the flight time to Russia from 10-30 minutes to 5 minutes. Hardly worth the effort.
It also makes them easier for Russia to find and destroy.
There seems to be a strong consensus in Finland that we should not agree to host any foreign bases or nuclear weapons once in Nato. This stance is in part to avoid needless confrontation with Russia, so they can’t plausibly claim to feel threatened. Whether that makes any real difference (the actual placement of Nato “nuclear umbrella” weapons) is outside my expertise.
The Finnish discourse on this is almost comical, because it doesn’t seem like anyone (in practice USA or the Nato central organization) is interested in having a base in Finland. Likewise, the Nato nuclear powers (USA, France, UK) don’t seem to be handing out nukes to others like candy. However, if there was a US base in Finland, I wouldn’t trust it to remain nuclear free regardless of what was publicly agreed.
“We are going to see more deaths and more injuries,” Ghazaleh Moayedi, an ob-gyn in Dallas, said. “I don’t have to speculate about that at all.”
Savita Halappanavar’s water broke just after midnight on October 22, 2012, in a hospital in Galway, Ireland, in her seventeenth week of pregnancy. This meant two things: the fetus could not possibly survive, and Halappanavar was at risk of infection if the fetus was not immediately expelled or removed. She begged doctors to terminate her pregnancy—or, put another way, to treat her miscarriage—but they refused. A fetal heartbeat could still be detected, and the Eighth Amendment to Ireland’s constitution effectively banned abortion. After two days, Halappanavar developed sepsis; on October 28th, she went into cardiac arrest and died, at the age of thirty-one. An inquest into Halappanavar’s death found that even as her temperature and heart rate soared, even as she was entering septic shock, doctors continued to monitor the fetal heartbeat. “They were worried that, if they did a termination, they might be accused of performing an illegal act by not complying with the Eighth Amendment,” the doctor who led the inquest later said. A national outcry over Halappanavar’s death catalyzed a movement to repeal the amendment, which Ireland’s voters accomplished by referendum in 2018, with a two-thirds majority.
If, as expected, the Supreme Court abolishes the constitutional right to abortion in its forthcoming decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, scenarios such as the one that killed Savita Halappanavar will become more likely to occur in the United States. Twenty-six states are likely to ban or criminalize abortion if Roe is overturned, including thirteen with “trigger bans.” These typically include a “life of the mother” exception, but the language of these exceptions varies in its scope and specifics state to state. Texas’s current six-week ban—its proponents call it the “heartbeat bill”—allows exceptions for “a medical emergency.” North Dakota would permit abortion “to prevent the pregnant female’s death.” Louisiana invokes “death or substantial risk of death,” or “permanent impairment of a life-sustaining organ,” but also requires “reasonable medical efforts under the circumstances to preserve both the life of the mother and the life of her unborn child.”
The questions implicit in these phrases—What constitutes an “emergency”? How does one define “substantial” or “reasonable”?—are left unanswered. “These laws presume a certainty that doesn’t exist in medicine,” Cara Heuser, a maternal-fetal-medicine physician in Salt Lake City, said. “How ‘life-threatening’ the situation has to be—I don’t know what that means.”
“In states where abortion becomes illegal, and particularly in states where there are criminal penalties for doctors or anyone who assists in an abortion, I fear that it will send a chill through the entire medical community,” Audrey Lance, an ob-gyn in Michigan, said. “People are going to be scared to intervene until the last minute or perhaps until it’s too late.” According to the Guttmacher Institute, the reproductive-rights think tank, as many as twenty-two states are likely or certain to enforce felony bans on abortion, with potential penalties including jail time and fines. A doctor who is inclined to provide an emergency termination would have to weigh her medical judgment against the possibility of criminal charges, losing her license, and never being able to practice medicine again. “There’s a very real fear: Will they force people to prove that they really had a miscarriage?” Heuser said.
Roughly ten to twenty per cent of known pregnancies end in miscarriage. Yet none of the state bans overtly differentiate between the management of miscarriage and abortion, which share the same objective: to empty the uterus. The two procedures also employ the same tools and techniques, depending on the stage of the pregnancy and the health of the pregnant person: medication or dilation and curettage (D. & C.) for early abortions; and dilation and evacuation (D. & E.) or induced labor for later abortions. (In his draft opinion reversing Roe, Justice Samuel Alito refers to D. & E. as “a barbaric practice.”) Although the two sets of care are near-identical in their mechanics, “when someone is starting to bleed, their cervix is open, their water breaks—that’s not an induced abortion,” Ghazaleh Moayedi, an ob-gyn and complex family-planning specialist in Dallas, said. “This is not a person who comes to you and says, ‘I want to end this pregnancy.’ This is a person who is saying, ‘I am having a pregnancy complication, and I need you to help me.’ ”
That cry for help often goes unheeded in the presence of a fetal heartbeat, even if the demise of the pregnancy is inevitable. In 2015, the A.C.L.U. filed suit on behalf of a Michigan woman, Tamesha Means, against the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the body that writes the religious and ethical directives that must be followed by Catholic hospitals, which, as of 2016, accounted for about fifteen per cent of acute-care hospitals nationwide. The directives state that abortion is “never permitted,” barring “a proportionately serious pathological condition of a pregnant woman.” Means’s water broke at eighteen weeks, but she was sent home from a Catholic hospital, Mercy Health Partners, mid-miscarriage—twice—despite excruciating pain and possible infection. (The suit was dismissed on appeal, in 2016, partly for reasons of jurisdiction, although the court acknowledged that Means “suffered physical and mental pain, emotional injuries, a riskier delivery, [and] shock and emotional trauma.”) A report found that Means was one of five women in a seventeen-month period who suffered prolonged, dangerous miscarriages while under the care of doctors at Mercy Health Partners.
Several physicians told me that hesitation to provide emergency-miscarriage care is not peculiar to Catholic or other religious institutions. Even in states where abortion rights are broadly intact, many hospital systems do not permit terminations for any reason; patients in need must be transferred elsewhere. Heuser, who serves as a consultant for general ob-gyns across her hospital system in Salt Lake City, told me, “I have got calls from the E.R., saying, ‘This patient is bleeding, but there’s still a heartbeat—I don’t know what to do.’ And I have had to say, ‘You are allowed to treat the patient. You need to save the patient. This is a medical emergency.’ If you hem and haw because you aren’t sure about the law or the rules—that’s dangerous for patients.”
Leilah Zahedi, a maternal-fetal-medicine physician in Tennessee, told me about a recent referral. “The patient was eighteen or nineteen weeks pregnant. She came in almost fully dilated and bleeding heavily, but the fetus still had a heart rate. The provider who transferred her was prohibited from giving her care, per the statutes of the hospital—it would have been considered an abortion. She transferred her to us because I am the only provider who is trained to do D. & E.s” in the area, Zahedi said. “When the patient reached us, within two minutes she lost 500 cc.s of blood. I said, ‘We’re done.’ I took her to the O.R. Her case was done in five minutes. She ultimately lost 2,500 cc.s of blood and needed a blood transfusion.”
Tennessee’s trigger ban would criminalize abortions “except in extreme cases where it is necessary to prevent death or serious and permanent bodily injury to the mother.” Zahedi asked, “What if this same situation happens then? Do I have to watch the patient bleed to death? Do I have to call a lawyer before I save her life?”
The United States has the highest maternal-mortality rate among industrialized nations, at about twenty-four deaths per a hundred thousand live births; the numbers for Black women alone are more than twice as high. A study published last year in the journal Contraception found an association between restrictions on abortion access and increased rates of maternal mortality, particularly for Black and Native American women. “Women of color may be disproportionately affected by abortion restrictions because they already experience higher structural barriers to healthcare,” the study’s authors wrote.
All of the ob-gyn practitioners I spoke to are haunted by post-Roe nightmares to come, and these are not limited to life-or-death scenarios. “People really focus just on imminent death,” Moayedi told me. “What we don’t always capture is morbidity—the actual sustainable harm that people also experience from pregnancy complications.” A miscarriage-related infection known as a septic embolus can restrict blood flow to the extremities and cause necrosis; vasopressors, which are medications used to stabilize blood pressure during sepsis, can also choke off blood flow in this way. Moayedi told me about patients she has treated who have had to have limbs amputated, “because physicians refused to intervene in a timely fashion in their miscarriages.” […]
With unconfirmed reports that Ukraine has pushed Russia mostly out of its territory north of Kharkiv, we have been speculating where Ukraine would counter next—toward the railhead northeast of Kharkiv in Vovchansk, or the the logistical hub at Kupiansk, where three major rail lines connect. Both those locations would cut off the flow of supplies to the Izyum salient and Russia’s 22 battalion tactical groups (BTGs) in the pocket—the largest concentration of Russian forces anywhere in Ukraine. [map at the link]
Ukraine took a look at both of those critical logistical centers, and then decided to hit the salient directly instead. [Tweet and image at the link]
NASA FIRMS satellite data, designed to track forest fires, gives us a perfect indication of the direction of combat: [Map at the link]
The woods to the west of Izyum, where any Ukrainian counteroffensive would originate, are lit. It’s happening.
Also note how, east of Izyum, the line of fire exactly follows the north bank of the Donets River—those are either Ukraine’s last positions on that bank (just Lyman and Severodonetsk at this point), or Russian forces who have reached the waterline being shelled by Ukrainian artillery.
We can even see the massive artillery barrage at Russia’s ill-fated Bilohorivka river crossing attempt. […] Meanwhile, those fires north of Kharkiv are on newly liberated Ukrainian territory, which means Russia is firing artillery on those positions either to slow down their advance, or simply out of punitive anger. Much of Russia’s military strategy appears to be a manifestation of Vladimir Putin’s aggrieved, irrational rage.
Back to the Battle of the Izyum Salient, Russian telegram claims five Ukrainian brigades are moving in on Izyum from the north, looking to directly cut off supply lines to the bulk of the Russian forces in the salient. That would be the equivalent of 10-15 Russian BTGs which seems … fantastical. Given how well Ukraine has fought, Russians may be mythifying them so they seem 10 feet tall and three times their number. But for context, a Ukrainian brigade is around 1,600 troops and 200 armored vehicles. If these reports are correct, we’re talking about 1,000 armored vehicles, and a metric buttload of artillery, raining on Russian positions. Ukraine had 20 brigades pre-war, with another four in reserve, which are likely already in action. More are being created from reservists, but there’s no indication they’ve had to be fielded just yet. So five brigades would be a massive commitment of forces.
Regardless of their actual size (and I do hope it’s five brigades), those Russian sources on telegram also say Ukraine has crossed the Donets for the attack. So if Ukraine is crossing the Donets to attack Izyum’s supply lines, then this seems like a logical place to do so: [map at the link]
And that NASA FIRMS map certainly supports the notion of ongoing operations both in that pocket, and on the east side of the Donets in the pink (contested) territory just west of Izyum. [map at the link]
Remember, Ukraine doesn’t announce operations in advance. Looking at FIRMS imagery over the past several days, we can actually see the counter-offensive began on May 10-11: [maps at the link]
Russia abandoned Kharkiv because it had no reserves left. Ukrainian general staff and the Pentagon have said Russia has 19 BTGs in reserve in Belgorod, so why weren’t they rushed to Kharkiv to defend their supply lines? If there’s anything left in Russia, it’s likely shattered remnants and troops refusing to deploy or redeploy.
Now, with Russia already at its limits, Ukraine is taking direct aim at the largest concentration of Russian forces in Ukraine.
Guys, 20-25% of Russia’s entire Army is in that pocket.
Something big is happening.
I mean big, as in war-altering.
We were looking at Izyum’s supply hubs in Kupiansk and Vochansk. Ukraine is going straight for the jugular instead.
More like 30 in the full-time professional forces, actually. Unlike most western countries, Ukraine counts airborne/air assault/air mobile forces separately from the “ground forces” (aka “army”), even though they all fight on the ground. And the airborne etc troops are the elite.
The more I’ve looked into Ukrainian capabilities (at least on the ground) since Feb 24, the more I’ve thought “WTF was Russia thinking?”.
The world’s cryptocurrencies and NFTs and Dutch tulip markets all went into the shitter this week, with enormous losses in value in the weird janky digital “money” that seemed kind of fishy to most people. How bad was the collapse? Something called Luna that was worth $85 last week is suddenly worth a penny now, and that is apparently a really big deal, CNET reports. Big swings in cyrpto currencies like bitcoin and ether are “notoriously volatile assets reacting to tempestuous economic conditions.” But this Luna thing is like, bigger, and maybe you’ll understand the following two paragraphs:
What’s much more unusual, and much more important, is the collapse of the luna cryptocurrency and its associated TerraUSD (UST) stablecoin. You may not have heard of UST before, or know what a stablecoin is, but it’s a big deal. Billions of dollars in crypto wealth has been vaporized, sending shockwaves throughout the whole market.
There are two intertwined stories here: That of the UST stablecoin and that of luna, both of which are part of the Terra blockchain. The UST coin is designed to retain a value of one US dollar at all times, but depegged on Saturday and has since fallen to as low as 30 cents. Then there’s luna, the centerpiece of Terra’s ecosystem. Its value has collapsed in one of the most stunning crypto crashes ever recorded.
[…] Now, before you go getting your hopes up that this means the end of the crypto mining bidness, which uses extremely powerful computers to do math calculations that prove the computers’ worthiness to poop out more crypto, which eats up tons of (often coal-generated) electricity and is therefore a terrible thing for the planet, I need to tell you that nobody who follows this stuff thinks this is in any way the end of the crypto business. Well, shit.
We were going to try to summarize how the Terra / Luna thing went bad based on the CNET article, but […] I couldn’t follow it […]
But I didn’t give up, dear reader! I abandoned my initial backup plan of listing all the possible alternative phrases to “down the shitter” and instead looked at the good old New York Times, which explains this week’s crash wiped out more than $300 billion in imaginary but also very real computer wealth, and that’s something I can more readily get my head around:
The moment of panic amounted to the worst reset in cryptocurrencies since Bitcoin plummeted 80 percent in 2018. But this time, the falling prices have broader impact because more people and institutions hold the currencies. Critics said the collapse was long overdue, while some traders compared the alarm and fear to the start of the 2008 financial crisis.
The crash, the Times says, is part of an overall trend of investors getting itchy about risk, what with war and inflation and interest rates, only moreso with crypto, which has fallen more steeply than stocks: The S&P 500 is down 18 percent in 2022, but Bitcoin is worth 40 percent less than it was at the start of the year. “In the last five days alone, Bitcoin has tumbled 20 percent, compared to a 5 percent decline in the S&P 500.”
The Times also explains that the TerraUSD implosion happened because for all the talk of its value being tied to the dollar, it wasn’t actually backed by other assets; its was tied to this Luna thing that was allegedly more stable, but wasn’t, and oopsie! The whole wobble even affected the value of another stablecoin called “Tether,” which actually is backed by cash and other assets, but it lost value from its usual one Tether thingy to one dollar rate. That was bad, although Tether at least recovered.
Reuters reports that today, after all that imploding, crypto is starting to stabilize, and that, hooray hooray, “broader financial markets have so far seen little knock-on effect from the cryptocurrency crash.” Terra, however, remains in the shitter, although it’s up from a penny to 11 cents today.
In conclusion, we can say with absolute confidence that in no time at all, crypto bros will have forgotten all of this and will continue to be insufferable. Or not. I’m just glad my money is safe where it’s always been, spent before I can invest it.
In conclusion, what do you get when you cross a mafioso with a deconstructionist?
The more I’ve looked into Ukrainian capabilities (at least on the ground) since Feb 24, the more I’ve thought “WTF was Russia thinking?”.
Yep, that was my train of thought too. Lately, I’ve come to the conclusion that Russia was not actually thinking. Not sure what they were doing, but “thinking” doesn’t seem to evident.
FBI says Buffalo shooting is being investigated as a hate crime
Saturday’s mass shooting in Buffalo is being investigated as a hate crime, the FBI said.
Stephen Belongia, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Buffalo Field Office, said the FBI is assisting in the investigation as well during a news conference.
Erie County Sheriff John Garcia called the shooting “pure evil” during the news conference.
“It was straight-up, racially motivated hate crime from somebody outside of our community, outside of the city of good neighbors as the mayor said, coming into our community and trying to inflict that evil upon us,” Garcia said.
Out of the 13 victims, 11 are Black while two are White, according to Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia.
Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said the supermarket shooting suspect was wearing tactical gear and livestreaming as he entered the store.
“At approximately 2:30 today, an individual who the mayor stated is not from this area and is from hours away, drove to Buffalo and went to … the Tops market. He exited his vehicle, he was very heavily armed. He had tactical gear. He had a tactical helmet on. He had a camera that he was livestreaming what he was doing,”
The suspect is an 18-year-old White male, he said.
He shot four people in the parking lot, Gramaglia said, three of whom died.
The suspect went inside the store, where a security guard and former Buffalo police officer engaged him.
“Because he had heavily armored plating on, the bullet had no round. The suspect engaged our retired officer and he was shot and deceased at the scene. He continued to work his way through the store,” Gramaglia said.
He made his way back to the front of the store, where patrol officers were able to talk him into dropping his gun after he “put the gun to his own neck.”
Police arrested the suspect and transported him to Buffalo Police Headquarters.
At least 10 people are dead. White supremacist terrorist.
Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas has been briefed on the shooting in Buffalo, according to an official tweet from the department….
Buffalo supermarket shooting live-streamed on Twitch, platform says
Twitch, the popular live-streaming platform best known for gaming, confirmed on Saturday that the Buffalo supermarket shooting suspect used its platform to stream a live broadcast during the attack.
“We are devastated to hear about the shooting that took place this afternoon in Buffalo, New York,” the company said. “Our hearts go out to the community impacted by this tragedy. Twitch has a zero-tolerance policy against violence of any kind and works swiftly to respond to all incidents.”
Twitch said that the user “has been indefinitely suspended from our service, and we are taking all appropriate action, including monitoring for any accounts rebroadcasting this content.”…
Thousands of people were taking part in protests across the US on Saturday to decry the supreme court’s expected reversal of the landmark 1973 law that made abortion legal in America.
Organizers said there were more than 380 protest events in cities including major ones in Washington DC, New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago to demand that the right to an abortion is not stripped away by the court, which is dominated by rightwing justices.
Gathering in large groups and holding signs that included slogans such as “Reproductive justice for all” and “We will not go back”, and chanting “My body, my choice”, the protesters have been spurred by the leak of a supreme court draft opinion on 2 May….
…
The prospect of looming bans on abortion in dozens of US states has provoked international, as well as domestic alarm. On Saturday, Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to health, told the Guardian that the US should not drop federal protections for abortion.
“It sends chills down my spine to think that the court is being brought on to play – as a very powerful player – to decide on an issue of human rights that has jurisprudence, and has a basis in legal findings, that will actually lead to restriction of rights,” said Mofokeng….
…The murder has not only laid bare the ability of an individual to fool authorities but also exposed fault lines in a society that has been grappling with a wave of femicides whose ferocity has stunned the nation. Crouch was one of 17 women whose lives were cut short at the hands of their partners in Greece in 2021.
Almost every one of the victims – including a 43-year-old pharmacist who was strangled by her husband in a village outside Kavala last week – had, before her death, tried to end an abusive relationship.
Hundreds of people in Nigeria’s north-western city of Sokoto demonstrated on Saturday over the arrest of two students after the murder of a Christian student accused of blasphemy, residents said.
Africa’s most populous country is roughly divided between Muslims and Christians but religious tensions and deadly clashes are not uncommon, particularly in the north.
…
Early on Saturday, Muslim youths took to the streets of the city, lighting bonfires and demanding the release of the two suspects, despite the earlier deployment of police to maintain order, residents said.
Some of the protesters besieged the palace of Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, the sultan of Sokoto and the highest spiritual figure among Muslims in Nigeria, after he condemned the killing and demanded those involved face justice.
“It was more of a riot by a mob of young men and women who were demanding the release of the two people arrested over the killing of the Christian student,” said a Sokoto resident, Ibrahim Arkilla.
“The crowd which made bonfires on the streets were also demanding the police stop the manhunt for those identified to have taken part in the killing,” said Arkilla, who witnessed the protests.
A large number of protesters gathered at the palace chanting “Allahu Akbar”, said Bube Ando, who lives nearby. “Some among the security men deployed to protect the palace tried to ask the protesters to leave but they became unruly.
“Policemen and soldiers who stood outside the palace hurled teargas canisters and fired into the air and succeeded in dispersing the crowd,” he said, without giving details about whether anyone was hurt.
The mob retreated downtown where they tried to loot shops belonging to Christian residents but were dispersed by security patrol teams, said another resident, Faruk Danhili.
The protests subsided, Danhili said, but the city remained tense and most streets were deserted.
Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari, has “strongly condemned” the murder of Samuel. “No person has the right to take the law in his or her own hands in this country. Violence has and never will solve any problem,” he said in a statement on Friday.
“Ukraine just won the Eurovision Song Contest: Kalush Orchestra. ‘Save Mariupol, Save Azovstal’, the band’s singer appealed to the audience. By Eurovision rules, next year’s contest is hosted by the winning country. President Zelenskyy says it will be in Mariupol in 2023.”
“An arena full of Europeans screamed ‘Glory to the heroes’ in response to ‘Glory to Ukraine’. Unbelievable. Thinking of all our ancestors who died (were killed by Russia) so we could see this happen.”
“Ukraine’s commentator can’t stop his tears when he says we will win the war just as we won #Eurovision. Dedicates this victory to UA army that defends us and says it’s so deeply important for Ukrainians now.
P.s. he was commenting from a bunker”
The suspect in the shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, has been identified as Payton Gendron, 18, Buffalo City Court Chief Judge Craig Hannah told CNN.
The suspect was arraigned in Hannah’s courtroom.
They just said on air that this will be the only time they name him.
The worst thing that can happen is being alone in hard times.
Ukraine goes through the worst times possible but we not alone, wholeheartedly thank you for standing for us, supporting us, cheering us up during last three months and tonight.
If only you knew how much it means!
So, it’s quite likely that Twitch removing this channel violates Texas’ new social media content moderation law, which is now in effect. Just to give you a sense of how messed up the law is.
Just to drive this point home, in the run up to the law passing, an amendment was proposed making it clear that sites could still take down “domestic terrorist” content. And the Republicans rejected it.
To recap: Many outlets, inc @CBSNews, arrived around 12 noon in Bucks County to cover surging Sen. candidate Kathy Barnette at an event publicly listed as her final rally before she faces voters. From the start, a security team of at least 5 physically blocked us from entering…
The guards refused to give names or say whether they worked for Barnette or Trump-endorsed PA GOV candidate Mastriano. Whenever we stepped forward, they blocked us. We were civil & careful to not physically provoke in order to avoid altercation, but still rep. tried to move fwd.
We pushed for a spokesperson for the campaign to appear. Anyone. Give us clarity. Why were we not allowed to come in? What’s the deal? The security guards said nothing, kept blocking us. When we pushed harder for an answer, they brought more guards over and…
produced a letter purportedly from the venue saying we couldn’t even sit or move toward the bar/food area on the premises even though it was open to the public. We were stopped from even doing that by guards who warned us not to move an inch past them.
When a veteran cameraman with a 6ABC cap understandbly grew frustrated, he was confronted by this unnamed man below….
To conclude, what struck me was how no explanation was offered. No Barnette or Mastriano aides formally addressed the press despite repeated calls to do so. No one offered explanation for conduct of guards + refusal to allow reporters to simply cover a now major Senate campaign….
Chris Hayes: “Trump and his allies in right-wing media are being put in the exact same position they put establishment Republicans in back in 2015. They’re closing ranks against an outside candidate with extremist, noxious views and calling her unelectable.”
blfsays
MAJOR TRIGGER WARNING: The linked-to below video is scary, and at one point, heart-stopping, to the point where if you have certain medical conditions you might want to take precautions.
Rob Grigjanis@91, A question / clarification, please, if I may: You refer to Ukraine’s Army (pre-invasion) as “professional”. In States(? Nato?)-speak, than means paid all-volunteer, i.e., no conscripts / draftees, albeit some countries (such as the States) do have a “backup” draft registration system in-place should it ever be “necessary” to (re-)activate the draft / conscription. Is that, or something recognisably similar, what you meant by “professional”? (I realise that you might be referring to only a part of Ukraine’s forces; e.g., the link below says “The Ukrainian Naval Infantry was the first service to convert to being staffed by fully professional marines”, albeit it’s unclear from the link whether-or-not those marines are still all-volunteer.)
The Ye Pfffft! of All Knowledge article explains conscription was ended in 2013, “[h]owever, due to the 2014 Russian military intervention in Ukraine conscription, as well as a partial mobilization, was reinstated in 2014.” President Zelenskyy had apparently intended to end conscription next(?) year, but Putin’s war might interfere with that intent.
[…]
Boris Johnson will vow not to scrap the Brexit deal governing Northern Ireland and instead back reform that has “the broadest possible cross-community support”, in an attempt to cool tensions over the issue.
In a shift in tone before emergency talks in Belfast on Monday, the prime minister will make it clear that he has no intention of scrapping the so-called Northern Ireland protocol, which he claims is causing significant disruption to trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Officials said that Johnson was intending to deliver a “tough message” to the leaders of Northern Ireland’s parties. He will plead with them to “get back to work”, after the Democratic Unionists [teh “D”UP] blocked the election of a speaker at the Stormont Assembly on Friday. The move means the assembly is unable to function.
DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson said that his party’s move was a protest at the impact that the protocol was having on trade crossing the Irish Sea. Such goods have a series of checks that have placed a de facto trade border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In an attempt to push the DUP into re-engaging, Johnson will say that any action by his government to alter the protocol must lead to all parties coming together to form an executive and assembly.
[…]
However, he will call for reforms to deal with the trade issues that UK government figures say is imperilling the Good Friday agreement. Critics say that repeated threats to the protocol by UK figures have caused far more significant dangers to the historic agreement.
It comes as the US takes a close interest in the treatment of Northern Ireland. President Biden last week urged Johnson not to rip up the Northern Ireland protocol. A powerful delegation of US congress representatives is also due to fly to London within days, in another sign of concern in the White House.
[…]
This is Johnson, so I don’t trust the claims. Even so, being told-off by Biden, the eminent arrival of the bipartisan delegation, and the signals there won’t be a States–”U”K trade agreement if the Good Friday Agreement is endangered (including scrapping the NI Protocol) have perhaps begun to penetrate his skull — albeit will perhaps exit the other side, as there nothing inside to engage with.
[…]
Whenever Boris Johnson’s government wades into battle over the Northern Ireland protocol, it wields one assertion like a broadsword: that the protocol is ruining the region’s economy. Checks on goods entering Northern Ireland are disrupting trade, increasing prices and bankrupting businesses, and the damage will worsen unless the protocol is changed, goes the argument.
[…]
The problem with this justification for slashing the protocol — and risking a trade war with the EU [and no States–”U”K trade agreement –blf] — is that it is bogus. A growing body of evidence suggests Northern Ireland has adapted and started to profit from its new situation, with the benefits of full access to the EU single market and the rest of the UK outweighing the costs of administering checks on some goods entering the region from Great Britain.
“Every piece of evidence presented so far shows a positive impact,” said Stephen Kelly, head of Manufacturing Northern Ireland (MNI). The protocol initially disrupted supply lines but is now cushioning the region from the costs of Brexit, he said. “Our members have largely gotten to grips with it. Three-quarters of them say there are opportunities and {they} are grasping those opportunities.”
[…]
Stuart Anderson, a spokesperson for Northern Ireland’s Chamber of Commerce, said the protocol affected different sectors in different ways, good and bad, and that overall business sentiment was positive. “We’re seeing an improving picture. About 65% of members say despite initial headaches they have adapted well,” he said. Just 8% of members reported serious problems.
Anderson said it was difficult to say if the protocol was a net plus or minus since its costs blurred into global supply chain costs.
Data gives reason for optimism. Manufacturing jobs are growing four times faster in Northern Ireland than the UK average. Since the middle of 2021 the region has recorded inflation below the UK average, with groceries 8% cheaper, according to analyst Kantar.
A report by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research last week said Northern Ireland’s economic output had slightly outperformed the UK average. “This is partly an outcome of the Northern Irish protocol and its special status in the Brexit arrangements, including better trade and investment conditions as part of the EU’s single market and customs union,” it said. […]
Another (prolonged) episode of non-functioning N.Ireland “government”-by-toddlers could be damaging.
Italian police thwarted hacker attacks by pro-Russian groups during […] the Eurovision song contest in Turin […]
Reuters reports that during voting and the performances, the police cybersecurity department blocked several cyber attacks on network infrastructure by the “Killnet” hacker group and its affiliate “Legion”, police said.
The police also gathered information from the pro-Russian group’s Telegram channels to prevent other critical events and identified the attacks’ geographic location.
On 11 May, “Killnet” claimed an attack on the websites of several Italian institutions, including the Senate, Italy’s upper house of parliament, and the National Health Institute (ISS), ANSA news agency reported.
Officials said that Johnson was intending to deliver a “tough message” to the leaders of Northern Ireland’s parties.
This is, as one would expect, dishonest. Only one party, the “Democratic” Unionists, is preventing the functioning of the devolved assembly and executive.
blfsays
KG@112, Yes, however, recall that both of the two major parties in Stormont are not-yet-potty-trained toddlers. Scolding just teh “D”UP would cause them to throw another tantrum, probably by engaging in some whataboutism, which Sinn Féin would throw a tantrum about, repeat… Of course, scolding both of them might also trigger tantrums, which is why experienced people are useful — which Johnson is not, in addition to being unreliable. He could, of course, do some good, but probably by having his mouth duck-taped shut so those experienced people can talk teh “D”UP down without triggering the other bunch of toddlers.
Proud Ukrainians revelling in their Eurovision song contest victory have renamed a train route in its honour, Reuters reports.
[…]
The head of the railway service announced that the number 43 train from Kyiv to Ivano-Frankivsk will be renamed the Stefania Express.
Train stations in Kyiv, Kalush and Ivano-Frankivsk will play the song when the train pulls in, he said.
Rob Grigjanissays
blf @107: Yeah, “professional” was the wrong term. I was referring to combat units which are not part of the Territorial Defence. But since 2014, the regular armed forces would include mobilized reservists.
[…] Ohio Gov Mike DeWine (R) signed a new law Friday mandating that rape victims send thank you notes to perpetrators for the gift of parenthood. “Parenthood is God’s gift to these women, so it’s only polite that sexual assault victims rush out and write a heartfelt note the moment they discover they’re pregnant,” said state Rep Jean Schmidt (R), sponsor and author of the new law, who emphasized that victims should mail notes no later than three days after receiving a life-changing positive pregnancy test, lest they risk coming across rude and ungrateful to their rapist. “Face-to-face interaction is preferred, but at the very least a nice greeting card is required. Throwing in a gift basket wouldn’t be overdoing it either. I recommend all Ohio women keep some stationery and postage stamps on hand, just in case, since you never know when you might need them.” […]
lumipunasays
My recent comment seems to have been eaten. Nothing important.
The claims by the British government that its threats to rip up the Northern Ireland protocol [post-brexit EU–”U”K border in the Irish Sea] are intended to protect the Belfast Agreement [Good Friday peace Agreement] and the peace process are not taken seriously by anyone — not by the Irish Government, not by the European Union or any of its member state governments, not by President Joe Biden or the US Congress, not by the majority in the North who voted for parties that favour either retention or consensual reform of the protocol and not even — one suspects — by the DUP, who has surely been double-crossed enough times by Boris Johnson by now.
The British government has the formidable capacities and counsel of an extensive and expert foreign service at its disposal. It can read the foreign press. And while the effluvia (analysis is too generous a term) of some of the British media and several dim-witted Tory backbenchers on the protocol confirm only the invincible ignorance of much of that tribe about Ireland, Johnson and those around him are not stupid: they know exactly what they are doing, even if they might not be particularly skilful or consistent at doing it.
They are not protecting the peace process in the North and the delicate balance of its power-sharing architecture. They are trying to exploit it for their own political purposes. […]
[… T]here is clearly a problem with the protocol. It’s not as significant as some unionists make it out to be, and their fears about its implications for the constitutional status of Northern Ireland are vastly overdone. […]
The problems — both practical and political — are eminently fixable with patience, a willingness to compromise and goodwill. The Irish Government and the EU have demonstrated these; they have often been lacking on the British side [including, in my opinion, both sets of toddlers in N.Ireland –blf].
[… T]he emerging political landscape of Northern Ireland, now with its third, unaligned bloc in the middle, is unsuited to the Belfast Agreement structures, which presume a two-sided, not a three-sided, politics. But what hope have the two governments adjusting the balance of the Stormont [N.Ireland’s government] institutions when Dublin doesn’t trust a word that London says?
Johnson says that he might scrap the protocol to preserve the Belfast Agreement; the truth is that nobody in Dublin believes he cares a fig for the agreement [or, in my opinion, understands anything at all about it or its importance –blf]. “They {the British} are more concerned with keeping Brexit alive and using it as a wedge issue,” says one person familiar with the thinking in Merrion Street [Irish government]. Government Buildings gossip suggests that [Taoiseach (Prime Minister)] Micheál Martin’s telephone call with Johnson on Tuesday was “the single worst call he’s ever had with anyone”.
That opinion column was full of Irish political jargon, my apologies if I missed, or mis-explained, any with my editorialising.
blfsays
My recent comment seems to have been eaten.
Is potato.
Sorry! That’s Russian (and not just the cuisine), albeit I believe the joke was, at one time, true of Finnish cuisine.
[…]
In a sign of how sexism and misogyny were so embedded in Northern Ireland, official minutes once recorded Ian Paisley Jr [Dr “No”‘s son] shouting moo, moo, moo at a female politician.
I assume, being one of the infamous toddlers, he’d just learned the word.
The outburst against Monica McWilliams in 1997 was part of a boorish, sneering culture that deterred women from entering politics and sought to intimidate the few who dared.
Change has come. Of the 90 newly elected assembly members who trooped into Stormont to sign the roll on Friday, 32 are women — a record 35%. Four of the top 10 candidates who polled highest in last week’s election were women. The leaders of the biggest and third-biggest party, Michelle O’Neill of Sinn Féin and Naomi Long of Alliance, are women.
[…]
Some wonder if this election represented progress, as a vicious brand of sexism and misogyny threaded the campaign, leaving some candidates shaken and fuelling demands for greater oversight of social media platforms.
“It was an absolute nightmare, it was purposeful, cruel and malicious,” said Cara Hunter, who won a seat for the Social Democratic and Labour party (SDLP) in East Derry despite being targeted for sexual harassment.
Anonymous trolls circulated a 40-second clip from a pornographic film, which they falsely claimed featured the 26-year-old. It was shared via WhatsApp and forwarded thousands of times.
[…]
Other candidates suffered more direct abuse. Three men in east Belfast surrounded Hannah Kenny, of the People Before Profit party. “They blocked her path, gripping her by the arm and throat before detailing the violence they would subject her to if she returned to the area,” the party said in a statement.
[…]
Amnesty International cited research showing female politicians were 27 times likelier than male counterparts to face online abuse. A Belfast Telegraph survey in 2020 found that more than a quarter of female MLAs had been sexually harassed in their political careers and 70% had received sexist comments.
[…]
Some of the elected toddlers electors are toddlers.
[…] Ukraine officially picked up a small town here, Russia did the same over there. While much of the front line was on fire (Ukraine claimed 14 separate attacks), the situation on the ground remained essentially unchanged. […]
I wrote earlier that pro-Russian Telegram sources claimed Ukraine was assaulting Izyum from across the Donets River (bottom arrow in image below), but several sources claim the assault is actually coming down from Chuhuiv (top arrow). [map at the link]
If Chuhuiv is the the source of the counter-offensive, it would likely travel that main highway southeast toward Izyium, rather than east toward Kupiansk. Russia has moved a great deal of combat power to Shevchenkove, between Chuhuiv and Kupiansk, to protect its critical supply depot from any Ukrainian advance. Getting through those two cities would be expensive to Ukraine in military resources and lives. And there’s no need, as we’ve can now so clearly see with Ukraine’s push toward Izyum itself.
In short, if Ukraine collapses that Izyum pocket, there is no longer a need for Russia to maintain operations in either Kupiansk or Vovchansk—the two logistical hubs feeding the war machine in the Izyum salient. After a week of debating “Kupiansk vs Vovchansk,” it turns out that the best answer is “C: Take away the reason for both.” […]
On another topic, it’s nice seeing our defense tax dollars doing something productive.
Ukrainian soldier says that the Ukrainian side used freshly delivered American M777 howitzers to smash 70+ Russian military vehicles to pieces as they tried to cross the Siverskyi Donets River on May 9th. https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1525649916961464320 [video at the Twitter link]
The claim by Ukrainian servicemen’s is that American-donated M777 howitzers destroyed the 80+ vehicles at Russia’s unimaginably disastrous Bilohorivka river crossing attempt. I’m looking forward to a translation, but it definitely looks like an “America, FUCK YEAH” moment we liberals can rally behind.
This whole debacle has been fun to track on pro-Russia social media. The Institute for the Study of War claims, in tonight’s update, that they’ve seen pro-Russia telegram shaken by the carnage:
Prominent pro-Russian Telegram channels (with approximately 300 thousand followers) largely criticized Russian General Staff for failing to learn from previous combat mistakes and expressed concern that censorship and self-censorship was depriving them of situational awareness. Other pro-Russian Telegram channels noted the slow pace of Russian offensive operations in northern Kharkiv Oblast, blaming it in part on ineffective aerial reconnaissance and the negative effects of bad morale within the Russian military. Some Telegram channels reported receiving criticism for “misrepresenting” the performance of the Russian military.
I must frequent a different corner of Telegram and pro-Russia Twitter, because what I’ve seen is totally different—the invention of a fantastical alternate reality where most of the destroyed vehicles are Ukrainian. [Oh, FFS. That really smells like desperation.]
The theory is as such: most of the destroyed vehicles are BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles, and supposedly Russia no longer fields those ancient vehicles. On-the-ground photos show Russian uniforms in those BMP-1s, but hey, those could be faked, right? That’s what the propagandists say. Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) analyst Henry Schlottman, the authority on the composition of Russian army units, certainly claims Russia fields them. […]
Oryx has tracked 43 BMP-1s lost by Russia, like this, this, this, and this, all with prominent Russian invasion markings. Oh, and here’s one still in Russia’s hands, at least a few weeks ago: [video and embedded links are available at the main link]
Furthermore, Russia has been forced to dig into its operational reserves to backfill combat losses while reconstituting shredded units. There aren’t a lot of modern infantry vehicles in those reserves. This is the crap they’re pulling out.
Of course, there’s a lot more than just BMP-1s at the Bilohorivka disaster site! There are 14 T-72s, which are standard Russian issue (though Ukraine has captured a bunch), as well as BMP-2s, and engineering and support equipment that only Russia fields. So how do they explain that?
Well, they say there was a big battle on the spot. Sure, Russia no longer holds the bridgeheads but their losses were just a fraction of the overall total destroyed vehicles. You see, Russia destroyed all those Ukrainians in BMP-1s before tactically retreating back across the bridge, which then Ukraine destroyed after the fact … er … three times. [photo at the link]
Then Russia released video saying “nuh uh, we destroyed Ukrainian bridge!”
At Western #Izyum Russians destroyed enemy pontoon bridge. [tweet and video at the link]
Except … all I see is Russian shooting at a river, then dropping artillery on a river, with no vehicles anywhere around. Who knows, maybe they did compromise a working bridgehead. But it would still mean the tally is as follows:
Destroyed Russian pontoon bridge: 82+ vehicles
Destroyed Ukrainian pontoon bridge: 0 vehicles
But really, that kind of propaganda isn’t designed to convince people, it’s designed to give their partisans crap to spew. Nothing else. There’s a term for that kind of fantasy-making in this war, and it’ll hop over to our own political discourse before long: copium. People will invent what they need to cope with the news they don’t want to see.
The separatist city of Donetsk is having serious problems with their drinking water supply. But they can’t do anything about it because they’ve conscripted the people who used to maintain it.
This is a coherent, organized ideology. And that ideology has a name. It’s called fascism. The argument that Tucker Carlson is making and that JD Vance and others are making is that American freedom that American culture in that in order for it to be saved, we have to deal with the problem of American democracy.
And the great flaw in American democracy, according to them, is that it treats everyone equally. And because it treats everyone equally, his vote, their vote, a group vote, a group of people that look alike to them, white people who have a similar worldview, their vote, their power, in their view, is lessened. And so, therefore, democracy becomes the opposite of freedom, because freedom cannot be something where they and people who are less than them are treated equally.
[…] So I’ll just tell you what happens at the end of all of this after you dehumanize everybody That’s when the killing start. And we can watch that play out in Ukraine.
[…]
In an interview, he took issue with a 2015 tweet from [fellow thug nutcase candidate Kathy] Barnette in which she wrote that Pedophilia is a Cornerstone of Islam. Oz, who would be the nation’s first Muslim senator, described the comments as “disqualifying”.
“It’s reprehensible that she would tweet out something that is defamatory to an entire religion,” Oz told the Associated Press. “This state was based on religious freedom. I’m proud as a Pennsylvanian to uphold those founding beliefs that every faith has its merits.”
[…] Barnette told NBC News that she did not make the statement, though it was still live on her Twitter feed on Saturday.
[… Hair furor] himself has warned that Barnette’s background hasn’t been properly vetted.
Wonkette: “Racist Kills Ten People In Hopes Of Convincing Nation To Not ‘Replace’ Him”
Yesterday, in Buffalo, New York, an 18-year-old named Payton Gendron walked into a Tops Supermarket in a notoriously segregated part of the city and streamed video of himself shooting 13 people, killing ten of them, in the deadliest mass shooting we’ve seen all year. In his manifesto, which is now offline, Gendron explained that his reason for doing this was because he was upset about the “Great Replacement” — the far-right white nationalist theory that there is a conspiracy on the Left to take over the world by “replacing” white people with people of color, whom they imagine will be more “obedient” to Democrats. Frequently this is described as a plan being orchestrated by “The Jews,” but more mainstream adherents like Tucker Carlson tend to skip over that part in hopes of making it sound somewhat less batshit.
Gendron drove 200 miles from Conklin, a town on the Southern tier of New York state, in order to kill Black people. More than that, he wanted to scare Black people. Because that’s what terrorism is, isn’t it? It wasn’t just about taking those ten lives, destroying those ten families, on that particular day, it was about trying make people scared to get food, to go to the grocery store, to do anything because there could be another one of him anywhere.
In his manifesto, Gendron explained that he hadn’t considered himself a racist before the pandemic, but that during it, he spent a lot of time on 4chan and the Daily Stormer and became increasingly convinced of this evil imaginary plot. Then he read about other white supremacists who had committed mass murder because they, too, were convinced liberals were trying to replace them — Brenton Tarrant in New Zealand, Dylann Roof in the States … and he thought to himself “Why not me?”
This theory, whether it’s been called that or not, has been around for decades. Most people will date it back to the work of French crackpot Renaud Camus’ 2011 essay “Le Grand Remplacement,” in which he claimed that white citizens of European countries were being replaced by Black and Middle Eastern immigrants, or back to the “White Genocide” nonsense of 1990s white supremacists, but it’s always been there. A major feature of early 1900s anti-Semitism and racism in the United States was that Jewish people were supporting Black civil rights struggles because they wanted to replace WASPs with Black people and then take over the world.
It’s a theory favored by people who have become so sour and rotten on the inside that they really just can’t imagine that anyone would actually help other people or care about other people, or human rights or equality without it being part of a nefarious plot of some kind. It’s also a theory deftly employed by people like Tucker Carlson who are looking to make people sour and rotten on the inside — because really, who else would listen to that nonsense?
But the truth is that yes, we want a country without people like Peyton Gendron in it. Not because he’s white, but because he is a racist mass murderer. I think I can speak for most people when I say that we could generally do without white supremacists going on killing sprees in grocery stores or mosques or churches or schools or anywhere else for that matter. Perhaps if these people are so very worried about being “replaced.” they should try not being racist mass murderers. They should try being less terrible in general.
Because the other truth is that no one gives a damn about trying to “replace” these people, we just want them to stop being assholes.
[…] like many major American cities, Buffalo bears a tell-tale scar of long-standing segregation, a highway built in the 1950s and 1960s that cut directly through a Black neighborhood, severing those communities and stifling economic development for decades to come.
That highway, the Kensington Expressway, is about two blocks from the Tops supermarket, where at least 10 people were shot and killed on Saturday. (Also near the scene of the shooting is City Honors High School, a magnet high school regularly ranked as one of the best in the country that has struggled to improve its disproportionately low Black enrollment.)
The destruction caused by the Kensington Expressway’s construction included the razing of Humboldt Parkway, a tree-lined public space designed by the legendary architect Frederick Law Olmsted. It has been described as the “spine” of the Black middle-class neighborhood that was emerging at the time.
Pollution from the expressway, which helped give residents of mostly white suburbs easy access to the city center, has done long-term damage to the health of the people living near it. The road also cut Black residents of the East Side off from key community institutions like banks and grocery stores, according to a 2018 report from the Partnership for the Public Good.
The very existence of the Tops grocery store was a hard-won victory for East Siders. The neighborhood is a food desert, and residents had been campaigning for a store like Tops for more than a decade when it finally opened in 2003, according to The Buffalo News.
The dearth of options helped to make Tops a neighborhood establishment. Many families were shopping for their Sunday dinners there when the shooting began. The suspected gunman said in his manifesto that, in addition to targeting the area for its Black population, he had researched the days and times when Tops was busiest.
The Buffalo Community Fridge network, a mutual aid group that stocks community refrigerators with fresh produce and prepared meals for neighbors […] said it received many donations on Saturday, after its call to support residents affected by the shooting was shared on social media. The group is organizing volunteers to buy and distribute food in the area on Sunday.
In recent columns, I’ve written about the British becoming a nation of somnambulists, given the plentiful number of newspaper headlines warning that we are “sleepwalking into…” (insert your own ending). I’ve also in the not too distant past written about doom loops, so you can imagine my unalloyed delight when I read the following headline: “Work-shy Britain is sleepwalking into a doom-spiral of class war and decline.” It was as if all my Christmases had come at once. I’m pleased to say that the article beneath was suitably apocalyptic, rich in “vortexes of decline”, “farragos of broken promises” and the private sector succumbing to “the dead hand of woke capital”. I do so love to see a pen fully loaded with purple ink.
The Grauniad column referred to is The shifting patterns of English, “A series exploring the nuances, good and bad, of English”, by Jonathan Bouquet, a subeditor for the Observer (or “Sunday Grauniad”); it has been running since 2018. The Grauniad used to have a similar column of its own — name and author now escapes me — which was a must-read when I was living in teh “U”K.
[…] It is not unusual for French swimming pools to issue strict swimwear regulations; in most, swimming caps and body-hugging, lycra outfits are a must. But in Grenoble, Mayor Éric Piolle wants to make the rules more permissive, especially for female swimmers.
“Our wish is to get rid of absurd restrictions,” he said. “This includes {allowing} bare breasts and swimming costumes that give extra coverage for sun protection or for beliefs. It is not about taking a position for or against the burkini specifically,” he said.
[…] The planned change in Grenoble comes after protests in the city that began in 2018. In 2020 and 2021 a group of activists from the community grassroots association Alliance Citoyenne protested by wearing burkinis in Grenoble’s swimming pools.
One of these was Taous, a Muslim who lives in Grenoble and wears a hijab. “I love the feeling of being in the water, but those protests were the first time I’ve been able to put my feet in a swimming pool in France,” she said. When her children go to the pool, Taous watches rather than swimming with them.
She is adamant the rules should change not just to allow burkinis, but to allow more choice for all women. “The rules are not specifically about burkinis,” she said. “They are also planning to allow women to show their breasts if they want to. It’s really a question of feminism and letting women wear what they want to. I believe in each woman’s right to choose.”
[…]
In Grenoble, local politicians were quick to counter the mayor’s plans to allow burkinis in swimming pools. In May, the president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, Laurent Wauquiez, accused the mayor of submitting to Islamism and threatened to cut grants to the town if the measure was passed.
Dozens of local officials have also signed appeals to cancel the town hall vote on the measure, which they say has been imposed by minority groups with the sole objective of permanently testing the sensitivity of our institutions to religious symbols.
[…]
In 2010, France became the first European country to ban the full-face veil in public places. [sadly, that ridiculous law is still in-place –blf] Today, The French Football Federation bans female players from wearing hijabs (scarfs which cover the hair) even though the international football governing body FIFA does not.
[…]
In May 2022, a survey run by French right-wing news channel Cnews found that 73 percent of people in France would prefer that burkinis were banned in swimming pools.
This is largely because they are seen as a religious symbol, rather than a swimming costume. “I get women, often older women, coming up to me asking if they can wear burkinis too because they don’t want to show their body” Taous says. “I say, of course you can. They are available for everybody to buy. You don’t have to be a Muslim.”
Meanwhile, support for burkini-wearers has been quietly growing. In 2018, a rule change in Rennes municipal swimming pools authorised burkini-wearing.
In light of Grenoble’s proposed rule changes, more than 100 high profile feminist organisations, and feminists including Caroline De Haas and Alice Coffin, have publicly supported an open letter written by Alliance Citoyenne entitled ‘In May wear what you want!’
[…] Mayor Piolle has tried to calm tensions. “In Grenoble we are planning a change to swimming pool rules to ensure equality of access to public services, and the freedom to dress or undress,” he said in a tweet. “The burkini is a non-subject.”
Marina Ovsyannikova, the Russian journalist who interrupted the state’s Channel One television main news program with a protest against the invasion of Ukraine, said her RT-employed ex-husband is suing her and threatening the custody of her two children.
[Via Kevin Rothrock:]
Marina Ovsyannikova […] says her RT-employed ex-husband is suing her, potentially threatening her custody of their kids (ages 17 and 11).
She’s currently in Berlin & says she won’t return to Russia until the Putin regime falls. Her ex is raising the kids now & refuses to let them leave the country to be with their mom. The son is apparently a Z-head & now considers her a traitor. The daughter just wants mom back.
lumipunasays
blf at 119:
Is potato.
Sorry! That’s Russian (and not just the cuisine), albeit I believe the joke was, at one time, true of Finnish cuisine.
To some extent yes, though Finnish or (I think) Russian cuisine was never as potato-heavy as, say, Irish.
lumipunasays
At 491 on the previous page, raven quoted this excerpt from a 2003 article discussing the Finnish sentiments toward territories that were ceded to Russia after the 1939-40 Winter War. I wasn’t initially going comment on it for further background, but now I just stumbled on a very touching music video on YouTube. Posting the video here requires some tl;dr style background.
Finland: Soviet Annexation Of Karelia Still A Taboo Subject https://www.rferl.org/a/1103688.html
From Radio Free Europe, a US government funded source.
The entire population of the ceded territory — 420,000 men, women, and children — was forcibly resettled to other parts of Finland. That former Finnish territory now constitutes part of Russia’s Republic of Karelia.
and
Reenpaeae also deplores the fact that the once-fertile region of Karelia has degenerated into a wasteland during the past six decades. “Russia and the Soviet Union has achieved nothing during the 60 years they have had Finnish Karelia. The former Finnish Karelia is now a wasteland, and without people, without any activities,” he said.
The claim that Karelia is sparsely populated is not true, however. After the Finnish population was deported, the Soviet leadership resettled some 200,000 people from Belarus and Central Asia to the region. But there has been an outflow of population from the region in recent years, possibly because the economy is predominantly agricultural.
About half of historical West Karelia still remains within Finland, although the ceded portion was more fertile and more populous. As noted above, the area was settled by ethnic Russians and various other Soviet peoples – their descendants today are generally Russian speaking. Building a whole new society from scratch wasn’t entirely successful, but nowadays the local economy is not bad by the general (low) standards of rural Russia.
The best farmland was in the southernmost part of ceded Karelia (around the towns of Vyborg, Priozersk and Roschchino, going by their modern Russian names), which is not actually part of the Republic of Karelia, but another federal region of Russia called Leningrad Oblast (the periphery of St. Petersburg). This part has some decent economic activity, thanks to the vicinity of the big city, and also in part thanks to Finnish tourism. Since Soviet times, farming was concentrated in larger villages while smaller villages were often abandoned to forest. In the post-Soviet free market, farming has declined (much like in many rural areas of the West) but urban middle-class dacha plots proliferate.
North of Lake Ladoga, there’s much less economic activity and remaining population. By the way, this sort of relatively remote rural area would be struggling economically even if it had remained within Finland. Here, too, tourism and dacha settlement have brought some new life in recent years. Here, within the Republic of Karelia, towns such as Sordavala, Pitkyaranta and Suoyarvi have retained their Finnish names, albeit with a modified spelling in Latin Russian writing. In the far north, there are some ceded territories that are now almost entirely uninhabited, but not very many people lived in those areas to begin with.
The Republic of Karelia is mostly based on historical East Karelia, which is old Russian territory. It was established in the 1920s as an autonomous region for the Karelian people, whose language is closely related to Finnish. At the time, East Karelia had already become majority Russian speaking, while West Karelia was mostly Finnish speaking. Nowadays, Karelian language is an endangered minority language in Russia, as well as in Finland where the descendants of ethnic Karelian refugees have tried to maintain their language in diaspora. Many Finns aren’t even aware or don’t acknowledge Karelian as a separate language and ethnicity. The term Karelian is commonly used to include ethnic Finns of Karelia, including those living in postwar diaspora.
In East Karelia, Karelian language traditionally survived in remote rural communities, which have become largely deserted in late soviet and post-Soviet times. The language and culture has become increasingly threatened by displacement since WWII, and it didn’t help that the border between Finland and USSR was effectively closed for many decades. It also doesn’t help that the border has been largely closed again since 2020 due to the covid pandemic and Russia becoming a rogue state, with no end in sight. From the 1990s to 2010s there was much hope for building all kinds of cross-border economic and cultural collaboration, which would’ve been a lifeline for the ethnic Karelian community.
The topic of returning ceded Karelia to Finland was a Finnish fever dream during the 1941-44 Continuation War, then a taboo during Cold War, then it briefly resurfaced when the USSR collapsed. By then it was already unrealistic, thanks in part to the aforementioned ethnic restructuring and the decades-long rooting of the new settlers. In Finland, the surviving first-generation refugees were already quite elderly, but many of then at least got the chance to once more visit the ruins of their old home. Now, they’ve largely passed away and the new generations are gradually getting over the trauma of displacement. The topic was slowly fading further into irrelevancy even before the recent high political tensions.
Speaking of getting over that trauma, I found this recently published Karelian language music video from the folk band Loimolan Voima:
It’s narrated from the POV of someone born during WWII to a Finland-Karelian refugee family. The video apparently includes someone’s home video footage from a 1990 reconnection trip to the (long-abandoned) village of Vegarus and nearby places in the formerly Karelian-speaking Suoyarvi area. The lyric translation below is mine; it’s slightly haphazard and incomplete, as I don’t fully understand Karelian (The captioning on the video helped a lot).
Hail, Vegarus
I arrived in this world when the land was on fire
The fathers at the border were paying the ultimate price
The sky burned, I was born far from home
I was told, there never was a place
On earth like the one we left
Suddenly, we survived in strange places
I grew older, the sickle and hammer prevailed
Our own land … was behind the curtain
The grand utopia, the seventy-year regime
Finally, the border fell in the woods of Karelia
With my mother I got to see the birthplaces and the shores
She praised the Lord, bowing there with linen on her head
No longer do I travel the road myself
Nothing can break the connection within me now
Vegarus is near me, the fathers’ land even nearer
Whatever you … in the world, you can’t take it with you
Don’t let the home fall into oblivion
Go and light a candle for the memory
Though I’ve lived my life being lost
In Husanvuara I feel again like at my own home
At my own home
Hail, Suojärvi, hail, old Vegarus
As … I’ve longed here all my life
Hail, Suojärvi, hail, old Vegarus
New York Rep. Elise Stefanik was catapulted to a top House Republican leadership position after Republicans purged Rep. Liz Cheney from the role as punishment for speaking out against Donald Trump’s violent attempted coup. Stefanik has since proven to have no moral boundaries whatsoever, eagerly embracing the farthest-right conspiracy theories culled from QAnon, from neo-Nazi groups, and other extremists—but we knew that, due to her fervent prior backing of an actual attempted coup and her devotion now to sabotaging investigations of that coup.
Stefanik was quick to express vague sympathy over the murder of 10 Americans [in Buffalo] at the hands of a white supremacist citing the neo-Nazi “great replacement” theory, a white nationalist conspiracy theory that claims world elites (billionaire George Soros is frequently mentioned, or just nameless “Democrats”) are importing non-white immigrants in great numbers so as to dilute America’s “whiteness.”
But Stefanik, like Tucker Carlson, has been a promoter of that same neo-Nazi conspiracy theory. She is one of the House Republicans that helped mainstream it into the party proper. […]
Stefanik did not just embrace the “great replacement” theory as a one-off nod to the party’s white supremacist base. Stefanik launched a Facebook ad campaign pushing the conspiracy theory that was considered abhorrent at the time, and looks even more grotesque now that it has yet again become the cited impetus for a mass murder.
[Stefanik’s] promotion of fringe-right conspiracy theories includes the frothing QAnon-premised claim that opponents of Trumpism are secretly pedophiles, […]
Like Tucker Carlson, she uses violence-provoking conspiracy claims to further her own career […] The “great replacement” conspiracy is now widespread in Republican rhetoric; there is now no great difference between the spittle-flecked conspiracies of neo-Nazism and those of Republican Party “leadership.”
The Republican Party is a cesspit. From national leaders to minor state functionaries, its officials stoke violence like it is nothing to them. Party propagandists invent new hoaxes for every situation, hoping that the resulting extremism boosts them even if it kills others. It makes perfect sense that the fascist supporters of an attempted coup would expel Liz Cheney from leadership while embracing this perpetually amoral liar and propagandist; that is who they are.
[…] singer and former board member of the National Rifle Association Ted Nugent was a guest at Donald Trump’s American Freedom Tour held at the Austin Convention Center this Sunday. Before Donald Trump himself rallied Republican convention go-ers ahead of the upcoming midterms and touted his endorsements for the likes of Ken Paxton, Nugent was able to provide “words of wisdom” for the GQP:
…force, if I do say so myself, everybody in your life, to think of what the enemies of America have done in the last 14 months. […] They lied, they cheated, they scammed, and everyday, the Democrats violate their sacred oath to the Constitution.
[loud cheers from the crowd]
And if you can’t impress your friends on that, they shouldn’t be your friends. So, thank you for inviting my beautiful wife, Shemane, and I, and my friends, and my guitar. This is a 1966 Gibson from Kalamazoo, Michigan
[cheers]
Does it sound as good out there as it does up here?
[loud cheers]
By the way, if you don’t eat enough medicine and you’re not clean and sober, you can’t play licks like that.
[some laughs]
So I love you people madly, but I love you more if you went forward and just went berserk on the skulls of the Democrats and the Marxists and the Communists.
[roaring loud cheers from the audience]
[…] Ahead of the Republican primary election for US Senate in Pennsylvania, Dr Mehmet Oz has proudly touted his long list of endorsements, which includes Nugent himself; furthermore, Ted Nugent will appear at Dr Oz’s “Tele-Town Hall” later this evening.
Once again, the conspiracy theories promoted by Fox News and Republican elected officials have resulted in an act of racist domestic terrorism. Ten Americans are dead in Buffalo, New York after a white supremacist citing both the “great replacement” conspiracy theory and “critical race theory” set out to murder Black Americans, part of an ongoing pattern of violence premised on once-underground conspiracy claims that have moved from far-right fascist and neo-Nazi groups into mainstream Republican discourse. Both Fox News and the party it caters to could halt the promotion of such propaganda whenever they wanted to; instead, they have embraced the lies while turning a blind eye to the resulting violence. Yet again.
Some international commentators are said to be confused or rolling their eyes already because on Sunday, Finnish government signed a formal resolution about seeking Nato membership, which was billed in the media as “Finland decides to join Nato”. This was after the president and prime minister on Thursday formally announced their intent of seeking Nato membership, which was also billed in the media as “Finland decides to join Nato”. Today, the parliament is expected to vote in favor of the government acting according to the abovementioned resolution, which will be presumably also billed in the media as “Finland decides to join Nato”.
After that, there should be a few days of negotiating a membership deal for Finland and several months of waiting for it to be ratified in 30 Nato countries. After that, Finnish parliament will have to once again vote in favor of the abovementioned membership deal (which will be presumably billed in the media as “Finland decides to join Nato”) so that the government can sign it.
(Just to make things more confusing, a few weeks ago there was fake news circulating claiming that Finnish parliament had already voted in favor of Nato membership. What actually happened was that majority of the MPs had individually announced their support for Nato membership by then.)
State MP will face motion to expel him from parliamentary Liberal party after he said he was ‘praying’ for an abortion ban in Australia
Victorian state MP Bernie Finn will face a move to expel him from the parliamentary Liberal party after he repeatedly expressed his opposition to abortion.
Guardian Australia understands the motion to expel Finn has the support of senior opposition MPs and is expected to pass at a meeting next Tuesday.
If passed, Finn would be forced to sit on the crossbench in the upper house and would be unable to run again as a Liberal at November’s state election. The motion would not expel Finn from the Liberal party, meaning he could retain his membership.
Finn was criticised this month after saying on Facebook he was “praying” for abortion to be banned in Australia.
His comments came after the leak of a draft decision showing a majority of US supreme court justices may overturn Roe v Wade, which ruled abortion was a constitutional right.
In his post, Finn said “killing babies is criminal”. When a woman commented that she did not support abortion but believed there should be options for women who are victims of rape, Finn replied: “Babies should not be killed for the crime of his or her parent.”
After Finn’s comments, the opposition leader, Matthew Guy, said the Liberal party was “absolutely sick” of Finn’s social media posts and said he should consider if he wished to remain a Liberal MP.
Finn resigned as the opposition’s whip in the state’s upper house days later, but that has not stopped members of his party moving against him.
In a statement on Monday, Guy said it was “imperative” that Liberal MPs were “solely focused on recovering and rebuilding Victoria”.
“A continued lack of discipline and repeated actions detrimental to the party’s ability to stand up for the interests of Victorians has left no other option but to consider Mr Finn’s eligibility to represent the Liberal party,” he said in a statement.
Guardian Australia has confirmed with several Liberal party sources the motion to expel Finn is expected to take place at a party room meeting next Tuesday.
One Liberal MP, who requested anonymity, said Finn’s views were “repugnant and do not represent the party”.
Several federal Liberal candidates in Victoria are under pressure to retain high-profile seats from progressive independent challengers.
The Liberal party’s preselection for the state’s upper house is expected to open in the coming weeks.
Finn had previously faced criticism for his social media use. He once likened the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, to Adolf Hitler, and shared pro-Trump conspiracy theories including the claim that the former president was “improperly” removed from office.
He has been an upper house MP since 2006. Between 1992 and 1999 he was a lower house MP for the electorate of Tullamarine before it was abolished in 2002.
Earlier this year, Guy dismissed reports Finn would be challenged for the No 1 position on the Western Metropolitan upper house ticket. He described Finn as a “very loud and proud conservative”.
Guardian Australia has contacted Finn for comment.
For those not in-the-know, the Liberal party here in Oz is the largest conservative political party in the nation. Them throwing this meatbag out is rare evidence of them havimg a spine (though I remain cynical about their motive).
KGsays
lumipuna@131,
Interesting snippet: Denys Prokopenko, commander of the Azov Regiment, is of Karelian ancestry, and apparently views Ukraine’s struggle as linked to the cause of Karelian independence from Russia. Prokopenko has been in the regiment’s predecessor, the Azov Battalion, since 2014, when it was an openly neo-Nazi formation, and was in his youth a member of the Dynamo Kyiv Ultras.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Putin warns Finland and Sweden any military expansion ‘would demand a reaction’
Vladimir Putin said Russia had no issue with Finland and Sweden, but that the expansion of military infrastructure on their territory would demand a reaction from Moscow, as the Nordic countries move closer to joining NATO.
Putin, speaking in Moscow at a summit of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), said NATO’s expansion was a problem for Russia and that it must look closely at what he said were the US-led military alliance’s plans to increase its global influence.
Ukraine’s Kharkiv governor says Ukrainian troops have reached Russian border
The governor of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region has said that Ukrainian troops defending Kharkiv have reached the state border with Russia.
Reuters said it could not independently verify the comments made by Kharkiv region governor Oleh Sinegubov on the Telegram messaging service. It was not immediately clear how many troops had reached the Russian border and where.
Kharkiv region governor Oleh Sinegubov wrote on the Telegram messaging app that troops of the 227th Battalion had restored a sign on the state border.
“We thank everyone who, risking their lives, liberates Ukraine from Russian invaders,” Sinegubov said.
If confirmed, it would suggest a Ukrainian counter-offensive is having increasing success in pushing back Russian forces in the northeast after Western military agencies said Moscow’s offensive in the Donbas region had stalled.
Ukraine has been retaking territory in its north-east, driving Russian forces away from Kharkiv, the second-largest Ukrainian city.
Ukraine’s defence ministry said in a Facebook post that the 227th Battalion of the 127th Brigade of Ukraine’s armed forces had reached the border with Russia, adding: “Together to victory!”
McDonald’s to exit Russia and sell its portfolio of restaurants in the country
American fast-food giant McDonald’s will exit the Russian market and sell its business in the increasingly isolated country, the company said on Monday.
Many western businesses have pulled out of Russia since its invasion of Ukraine in February.
Earlier on Monday, the French automaker Renault announced it had handed over its Russian assets to the government in Moscow, marking the first major nationalisation of the economic disentanglement.
McDonald’s closed all of its 850 restaurants in the country, where it says it employs 62,000 people, in March.
But the company decided to take a step further, saying in a statement:
After more than 30 years of operations in the country, McDonald’s Corporation announced it will exit the Russian market and has initiated a process to sell its Russian business.
The humanitarian crisis caused by the war in Ukraine, and the precipitating unpredictable operating environment, have led McDonald’s to conclude that continued ownership of the business in Russia is no longer tenable, nor is it consistent with McDonald’s values [LOL].
It said it was looking to sell “its entire portfolio of McDonald’s restaurants in Russia to a local buyer”.
The company added that after the sale, the restaurants would no longer be able to use the McDonald’s name, logo, branding or menu.
Russia, where McDonald’s directly manages more than 80% of the restaurants bearing its name, accounts for 9% of the company’s revenue and 3% of its operating profit….
Hungary has been accused of “holding the EU hostage” over its refusal to agree an oil embargo against Russia, as the bloc struggles to reach consensus on its latest sanctions aimed at eroding the Kremlin’s ability to wage war.
Unfortunately the whole union is being held hostage by one member state.
He was referring to Hungary, which continues to block the oil embargo, despite being offered an extension on phasing out Russian crude until the end of 2024….
lumipunasays
KG at 138,
That’s interesting. The wiki says that Prokopenko’s grandfather fought for Finland in Winter War, but the translated snippet of the source doesn’t actually say that. Also, how’d the family then end up living in Soviet Ukraine by 1991 (since Propkopenko was apparently born there)?
My best guess is the grandfather actually lived in East Karelia at the time, was forced to fight on the Soviet side and saw his brothers get killed in that war, while generally disapproving communism and (Russian) imperialism. Hence, the family has strongly sympathized with the Finnish side and kept up the memory of Winter War (which wasn’t much talked about in the later days of USSR). It’s also plausible the brothers (and some other family members?) were murdered during 1930s if the family was anti-communist.
AFAIK the movement for Karelian (republic) independence is extremely fringe, to the point that its suppression under current Russian regime doesn’t really make any noise. Finnish language sources note that Prokopenko has been seen displaying a flag that unofficially represents Karelian ethnicity and desire for cultural autonomy, historically also a desire for independence or political autonomy.
Anyway, now he’s apparently about to die in the ruins of Mariupol. Shit.
A group of Republican senators is calling for the country’s television ratings system to warn parents about “sexual orientation and gender identity content” on children’s TV shows.
In a two-page letter dated May 4, Sens. Mike Braun, R-Ind., Roger Marshall, R-Kan., Mike Lee, R-Utah, Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., and Steve Daines, R-Mont., made the request to the chairman of the TV Parental Guidelines Monitoring Board.
The TV Parental Guidelines is a television and film content rating system that Congress, the broadcast industry and the Federal Communications Commission created in 1996 “to give parents more information about the content and age-appropriateness of TV program.” The rating icons — including TV-G, TV-PG and TV-MA — are typically displayed at the top of a screen as a program begins.
“In recent years, concerning topics of a sexual nature have become aggressively politicized and promoted in children’s programming, including irreversible and harmful experimental treatments for mental disorders like gender dysphoria,” the letter reads. “To this end, we strongly urge you to update the TV Parental Guidelines and ensure they are up-to-date on best practices that help inform parents on this disturbing content.”
…
Wednesday’s letter suggested that parents’ “rightfully expressed outrage” should be directed beyond the classroom and at broadcasters for creating children’s shows with LGBTQ characters and storylines. It also argued that content on sexual orientation and gender identity “harms child actors.”
“The motivations of hyper-sexualized entertainment producers striving to push this content on young audiences are suspect at best and predatory at worst,” they wrote.
…
In particular, the senators slammed the Walt Disney Co., which conservatives have targeted in recent weeks since the company’s CEO criticized the Florida legislation in March….
…
Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of LGBTQ media advocacy organization GLAAD, said in a statement that the senators’ request for an LGBTQ content warning was part of a “growing trend” of lawmakers “fighting and losing against the growing tide of LGBTQ acceptance.”
“What viewers and voters most need a warning about is how this is part of a larger extremist agenda to target their basic human rights,” she said. “No one wants to go back in time. We need representatives who support everyone’s right to be themselves and have the same chances to contribute and succeed in American life.”
The senators requested the TV Parental Guidelines Monitoring Board to respond by May 18 and urged for members to provide the senators with an in-person presentation on the matter.
Return of the Moskvich
The Russian government has taken control of an auto manufacturing plant that previously belonged to the French company Renault and will use it to bring back the Moskvich, an iconic Soviet-era (and later Russian) car that was last produced in 2001. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced the nationalization on Monday.
The Renault factory in Moscow was originally the Moskvich factory.
Air travel in Russia gets worse
Russian air passengers may soon face massive lines as they go through security. That’s because the foreign technology used to inspect luggage will begin to expire, leaving officials with no choice but to conduct manual inspections, according to Kommersant. Because international sanctions will prevent the machines’ manufacturers from supplying Russian airports with replacements, Russia’s Airport Association has requested that the Transportation Ministry extend the current machines’ certification periods.
Reading between the lines here — and extrapolating from my knowledge of how payment cards work (there are some similarities) — I presume what is about to happen is some sort of certification of approval is about to expire, and those machines cannot get re-certified (or upgraded) or replaced. Russian-extended or approved certificates (or just ignoring the problem) will get around that hiccup within Russia, unless the equipment “self-bricks” on expiry (unusual, but possible). I have no idea if international destinations will be happy with Russian-originating flights using out-of-date / questionable certification.
richardhsays
blf@142:
“I have no idea if international destinations will be happy with Russian-originating flights using out-of-date / questionable certification.”
I can guess. Never mind the security certification, how about the certificates of airworthiness of the aircraft?
blfsays
richardh@143, At least one Russian-certified aircraft was found at(?) an international destination (as far as I can recall, this was mentioned previously in this series of poopyhead threads). I don’t recall either the details or the outcome, but yes, They™ weren’t impressed.
diannesays
Russian air passengers may soon face massive lines as they go through security.
How extremely different from the situation in the US.
Ferdinand Marcos Jr is set to achieve a landslide victory in the Philippines presidential election. His father’s authoritarian regime was ousted by the People Power Revolution movement in 1986, so why have the public voted the family back in?
Boni Ilagan fought against the former Marcos regime at great personal cost. In 1974 he was jailed and tortured for campaigning against the government’s martial law. His sister and fellow activist Rizalina Ilagan disappeared and her remains were never recovered. He tells Michael Safi how disturbing it is for him to see the family returning to office. “It’s grotesque,” he says. “I cannot seem to fathom why we’ve come to this.”
The Guardian’s south-east Asia correspondent Rebecca Ratcliffe explains how misinformation and the rewriting of history during the campaign made this result possible.
The co-hosts and Bill Weinberg––the noted journalist, podcaster, and anarchist raconteur––engage in a wide-ranging critique of Noam Chomsky’s statements about the Putin regime’s war against the Ukrainian people, and of Chomsky’s ideology and political activity over the last several decades. They discuss Weinberg’s recent CountervVortex podcast episode, “Against Chomsky’s Genocide Complicity,” Chomsky’s statements on the war against Ukraine in recent interviews in Current Affairs and Truthout, and the open letter in which Chomsky’s Ukrainian translator called him out. Weinberg provides a synopsis of Chomsky’s most sordid political interventions during the last 45 years. He and the co-hosts also discuss Chomsky’s top-down “realist” orientation to world affairs, centered on struggles between “great powers,” and whether it has anything in common with either anarchism or Marxism. Finally, they discuss the so-called “Chomsky rule,” which is meant to justify centering one’s politics around opposition to the violence perpetrated by “one’s own” state. What is the logic of this “rule,” what are its ethics, and what accounts for its widespread appeal?
The Swedish government has confirmed it intends to apply for membership of Nato, joining neighbouring Finland in a dramatic decision that marks one of the biggest strategic consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to date.
“There is a broad majority in Sweden’s parliament for Sweden to join Nato,” said the prime minister, Magdalena Andersson. “This is the best thing for the security of Sweden and its people. We will inform Nato we want to become a member of the alliance.”
Andersson told reporters after a parliamentary debate on Monday that Sweden would be “in a vulnerable position” while the application was processed, but that ministers saw no direct military threat from Russia at present. She said she felt “confident there is support for this among the Swedish people”.
The Finnish government confirmed its intention to join Nato on Sunday, shortly before Andersson’s ruling Social Democrats abandoned decades of opposition to back a Swedish bid for membership, making Monday’s debate in the Riksdag a formality.
Andersson said Sweden’s Nato ambassador would formally hand over Stockholm’s request to the alliance headquarters in Brussels “within the next few days”, adding that the application would be submitted simultaneously with Finland’s….
:)
Norway, Denmark and Iceland have issued a joint statement offering their support to Finland and Sweden in case the two Nordic nations were to come under attack during their Nato applications….
The European Union and the United States have agreed closer cooperation to counter disrupted supply of commodities and food caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and to combat disinformation from Moscow….
Russian forces have shelled frontline positions in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas area as fighting becomes increasingly focused on Severodonetsk, the easternmost city still held by Ukrainian forces after more than 11 weeks of war.
Serhiy Haidai, the governor of Luhansk region, said on Monday that Russian strikes had hit a hospital in the city over the weekend, killing two and injuring nine, including a child – and several other locations had been targeted.
Ukrainian forces repelled 17 attacks on Sunday, he added, and destroyed 11 Russian armoured vehicles. The air force command said Ukrainians downed two helicopters, two cruise missiles and seven drones.
The Russians are gradually mounting an assault on Severodonetsk, an industrial city that had a population of 100,000 before the war, as the effort to complete a wider encirclement of Ukraine’s defending forces in the Donbas appears to have failed.
Overnight the US Institute for the Study of War said it believed “Russian forces have likely abandoned the objective of completing a large-scale encirclement of Ukrainian units from Donetsk City to Izium” in favour of capturing the remainder of the Luhansk region, of which Severodonetsk is part.
A smaller-scale encirclement of Severodonetsk also failed last week after Russian forces were defeated with heavy losses in a series of unsuccessful attempts to cross the Siverskyi Donets River at Bilohorivka. The river is increasingly becoming a dividing line between the two sides in the Donbas – the name given collectively to the Donetsk and Luhansk regions – and around Kharkiv to the north.
Whether by battlefield success or strategic Ukrainian retreat, Russia is seeing some success in the Lyman-Severodonetsk axis. [map at the link]
It seems fated Russia eventually swallow up Lyman and Severodonetsk, just off the right edge of the map above—they are the last two remaining Ukrainian strongholds north of the Donets River. And given Russia’s severe troubles fording that river, Ukraine will have more defensible territory on the southern bank when and if they’re pushed back. [Severodonetsk is on the administrative border of the Donbas region.]
That Russian Popasna salient on the bottom-right of the map above could be more problematic. There’s no river down there to provide fall-back protection if Ukrainian defensive lines collapse. Luckily, Russia has been unable or unwilling to fully exploit that breakthrough, but they will continue their drip-drip-drip of of cannon-fodder charges until Ukrainian defenses are worn through. Or at least, that’s their hope.
Quick aside: Remember when everyone (including the Pentagon and UK intelligence) said Russia had a big, massive offensive in store for the eastern Donbas after their humiliating Kyiv retreat? Remember how I laughed off the possibility, given Russia’s complete inability to demonstrate any ability to launch large-scale coordinated attacks? I don’t pretend to always be right, but I am so glad I called this one correctly. Our biggest fear should be Russia learning from its mistakes. (And maybe nuclear annihilation, on further thought…)
Not going to lie, I have no idea why Ukraine fights so hard for Lyman and Severodonetsk. Neither have any particularly strategic value. They’ve both been mostly emptied of civilians, flattened by Russian artillery. But Russia’s gains in the area (like everywhere else on this front) have come at a frightful cost, so perhaps there’s no reason to abandon meticulously created defensive emplacements until they actually need to abandon them? Russia is certainly telegraphing uncertainty about its ability to capture the city, leading to those disastrous bridging attempts to surround Severodonetsk.
Those rash, desperate river crossings underscore just how important Severodonetsk is to Russia’s war planners at the moment. It clearly needs a victory to parade on state TV, to motivate flagging morale, and to give its aimless slog purpose. The victory doesn’t need to be strategic. In reality, it would be an even smaller target than its already shrunken territorial ambitions: [map at the link]
Russia is running out of troops and heading to the point of culmination, a word you’ll be hearing more and more—the point where an army is so degraded that it can no longer fight. Ukraine went on the counter-offensive around Kharkiv, and Russia had nothing. This supposedly mighty superpower, the world’s second-best army, pathetically retreated in the face of lightly armed territorial defense troops. Russia couldn’t even muster any reserves from Belgorod, just a stone’s throw away. They’re running on fumes.
Russian private military companies are reportedly forming combined units with airborne elements due to significant losses in manpower. Denaturing elite airborne units with mercenaries is shocking, and would be the clearest indication yet that Russia has exhausted its available combat-ready manpower reserves. The Russian 810th Guards Naval Infantry Brigade is reportedly receiving personnel from other Black Sea Fleet units, including navy ship crewmembers. Newly formed or regrouped units are unlikely to be effective in combat.
Russia has had to withdraw at least some of its forces from the Izyum salient—its largest concentration of troops in all of Ukraine with about 20-25% of its total battalion tactical groups—to guard its critical supply hub at Kupiansk. Russia shouldn’t overly sweat it, because Ukraine is pressing directly on Izyum instead from the west and likely its northwest. [NASA FIRMS maps at the link]
Meanwhile, Russia is having a tough time with people doing shit despite its threats. There’s Kyrgyzstan:
There is growing speculation that Kyrgyzstan might try to withdraw from the Eurasian Economic Union over Western sanctions. Russian media is warning of dire consequences.
Finland and Sweden, of course:
Dmitry Kiselyov’s reaction to plans by Finland and Sweden to join Nato: “Do the Nordic states want things to heat up?”
Nuclear bomb mushroom clouds are propagandist Dmitry Kiselyov’s favorite recycled TV backdrop & threat. In 2015 it was so outrageous, Russian opposition politicians called for adding him to Magnitsky List sanctions. Now, it’s same old same old.
There was Poland.
Propagandist Olga Sakabeyeva threatens #Poland on state-owned TV channel Russia-1.
And Iceland…
Russia threatens Iceland for “organizing 13 flights to transport military equipment from Albania, Slovenia, Italy, Croatia and Portugal” to Ukraine. Russia hopes “that the Icelandic authorities are aware of the level of responsibility.”
They’re threatening UK:
Russia threatens to nuke UK with terrifying ‘Satan 2’ missile in SECONDS […]
They even threaten a singing competition.
Very scary nationalist “journalist” Yuliya Vityazeva proposes blowing Eurovision up with a “Satan” nuclear missile.
Russia is a bankrupt nation with a bankrupt army and a bankrupt leader who has lost his mind. They dominated their region and struck fear into its neighbors by pretending to have a functioning superpower-class military. Instead, the only acceptable responses to threats like the ones above look like this: [map and tweet available at the link]
My mortal enemy in Christ, you can’t cross a single river. And you want to jump in head first, into the Finnish Murder Aqua Park™.
The more Justice Clarence Thomas tries to defend the Supreme Court’s reputation, the more he ends up doing the opposite.
It was 10 days ago when Justice Clarence Thomas appeared at a judicial conference and argued that the judiciary is threatened if Americans are unwilling to “live with outcomes we don’t agree with.” Left unacknowledged was Ginni Thomas’ political activism, and her efforts to overturn the 2020 election because she wasn’t willing to live with an outcome she didn’t agree with.
But if the conservative jurist’s rhetoric represented a failure of self-awareness on May 6, Thomas’ arguments took a more self-defeating turn a week later.
At an event on Friday night, the justice reflected on the recent leak of a draft ruling, telling an audience, “What happened at the court is tremendously bad. I wonder how long we’re going to have these institutions at the rate we’re undermining them.”
[…] what Thomas seemed oblivious to was his own role in undermining public confidence in the institution on which he serves.
The justice appeared at a conference organized by conservative political organizations — the American Enterprise Institute, the Hoover Institution, and the Manhattan Institute — and seemed eager to frame disputes in a left-vs-right dynamic in which he gladly took a side. The New York Times reported:
Justice Thomas said the left had adopted tactics that conservatives would not employ. “You would never visit Supreme Court justices’ houses when things didn’t go our way,” he said. “We didn’t throw temper tantrums. It is incumbent on us to always act appropriately, and not to repay tit for tat.”
[WTF?]
Part of the problem was Thomas’ use of words such as “we” and us,” and his willingness to publicly present himself to conservatives as a fellow ideologue. But just as notable is the degree to which the justice is wrong: A year after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, for any prominent political voice to insist the right doesn’t “throw temper tantrums” is to suggest an alarming detachment from current events.
Thomas added that conservatives had “never trashed a Supreme Court nominee.” I realize that two months ago may seem like ancient history to some, but as regular readers may recall, during Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Americans saw Republican senators go after Jackson with “barely coded appeals to racism.”
GOP senators’ antics were disrespectful, and at times embarrassing. The Washington Post’s Michael Gerson went so far as to argue that the ways in which GOP senators approached this fight reflected “a Republican Party in decay.” One Republican senator even launched an attack ad targeting Jackson with deceptive slander after she’d already been confirmed.
Perhaps Thomas could elaborate on what he means by “trashed”?
But perhaps most glaring of all was the justice’s willingness to defend Senate Republicans’ abuses. Politico reported:
Thomas also ventured into discussion of some topics sitting justices rarely opine on publicly. He defended the Senate’s refusal to consider Judge Merrick Garland when President Barack Obama nominated him in 2016 to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. The Senate was simply following a policy articulated by then-Sen. Joe Biden, when he chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee, of not confirming a Supreme Court nominee in the last year of a president’s term, Thomas asserted.
[Adhering to Republican talking points! And wrong on many levels.]
Again, it’s a problem that Thomas, an ostensibly neutral arbiter on the nation’s highest court, found it necessary to publicly defend Republicans’ tactics. That simply isn’t his job. If the justice is concerned about public respect for and confidence in the Supreme Court, rhetoric like this is exactly the sort of thing he should avoid.
But it’s a bigger problem that Thomas’ defense of GOP senators’ efforts was factually incorrect. Republicans were wrong about what Biden said in 1992, and Thomas echoing talking points that were discredited six years ago only added insult to injury.
The justice specifically said on Friday that under the made-up Biden rule, “you get no hearing in the last year of an administration.” That’s not even close to what Biden actually said, and the fact that a sitting justice peddled a bogus, partisan argument like this is exactly the sort of thing that further undermines the institution.
Last fall, Thomas insisted that justices aren’t “politicians.” Then why does he keep acting like one?
Former House Republican Conference chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) tore into her party’s leaders on Monday morning for fueling white nationalist “great replacement” fearmongering.
This comes amid allegations that the racist great replacement conspiracy theory inspired a white gunman to allegedly fatally shoot 10 people in a Black neighborhood grocery store in Buffalo, New York on Saturday.
“The House GOP leadership has enabled white nationalism, white supremacy, and anti-semitism,” Cheney tweeted, directly denouncing the colleagues she once joined in GOP leadership before they ousted her. “History has taught us that what begins with words ends in far worse.”
The Wyoming Republican called on the leaders to “renounce and reject these views and those who hold them.”
Cheney’s condemnation comes as Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who replaced Cheney as conference chair, is under fire over her campaign ads on Facebook that accused Democrats of plotting a “PERMANENT ELECTION INSURRECTION” with their immigration policies.
Though Stefanik is by no means the only Republican to peddle the racist conspiracy theory, which baselessly suggests Democrats are trying to bring in immigrants to widen their voting base, her ads have come under fresh scrutiny in the wake of the shooting in her home state.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) put Stefanik directly on blast after the shooting on Saturday and compared her to Cheney, who was kicked out of her leadership position for acknowledging that ex-President Donald Trump played an incitement role in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.
“Did you know: @EliseStefanik pushes white replacement theory? The #3 in the house GOP,” Kinzinger tweeted. “@Liz_Cheney got removed for demanding truth.”
[…] on Monday morning, Stefanik’s campaign issued a caustic defense stating, “Any implication or attempt to blame the heinous shooting” on the New York Republican “is a new disgusting low for the Left, their Never Trump allies, and the sycophant stenographers in the media.”
Stefanik’s senior adviser, Alex DeGrasse, insisted that the GOP lawmaker “has never advocated for any racist position or made a racist statement.” [Utter bullshit]
Meanwhile, Stefanik’s Twitter feed on Monday shows the lawmaker doubling down on the racist conspiracy theory she promoted in her ad campaign. […]
Americans are addicted to guns, and like most junkies, they’ll blame anything but guns for the damage caused by their beloved death machines. This explains the sadly predictable response from gun lovers after a white supremacist gunman murdered 10 people in Buffalo. (The shooter is 18, so he was legally able to buy a gun but not a beer.)
GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene bemoaned the “severe mental health crisis” in America that presumably led to the shooting. She tweeted, “Instead of investing billions in foreign countries, we should only be investing in our own people and our own problems.” So, she responds to a racist murder spree with more of her racist xenophobia. I’m too old and depressed for this level of irony.
This morning, Greene replied to a tweet where the killer said he chose Buffalo because of its relatively large Black population. She ignored his stated racial animus, and instead focused on his claim that he chose New York because of its gun control laws. She wrote, “When people can’t carry, they are defenseless.” This is dumb and offensive even for Greene. Retired police officer Aaron Salter, who worked security, was armed, but firing at the shooter didn’t work because he was wearing body armor. The shooter then killed Salter. The average person isn’t going to the grocery store dressed for combat. You’re better off using Instacart and rolling the dice on bad produce picks.
Deranged people have absurdly easy access to guns. That’s the problem, but we still get the most ridiculous deflections. Right-wing media quickly dusted off its favorite gun violence scapegoat, video games. [video at the link]
Fox News anchor Jon Scott wondered what went through the mind of the 18-year-old shooter, who had “his whole life in front of him, but now his life is essentially over” because of how he murdered all those Black people, whose lives are literally over. It’s kinda early to start centering the white supremacist but this is Fox News.
SCOTT: It seems like these things have gotten so much worse since video games became so realistic and violent.
Correlation is not causation, asshole.
Scott further pondered if video games “desensitized” people to the impact of violence. His guest blamed the decline of the family unit. Meanwhile, both these fools were on a network that has arguably desensitized viewers to overtly racist rhetoric.
This wasn’t Scott’s first bullshit rodeo. He also linked video games, without a shred of evidence, to the racially motivated mass shooting at an El Paso Walmart in 2019.
From Reason:
Scott wonders if these guys “raised on a diet of violent video games—if they actually start pulling the trigger of a real weapon and they see real death and they find it’s not as satisfying as it was when they’re playing on a television screen.” He wonders out loud if this is why the alleged shooter, Patrick Crusius, stopped shooting.
The National Rifle Association has also grossly tried to blame fake violence for causing the real violence it enables. Look, I’d probably suggest pulling from shelves any KKK-approved Great Replacement Theory video games where white-only avatars murder 72-year-old Black grandmothers. However, studies consistently show that playing violent video games doesn’t lead to violent behavior. It’s the prevalence of guns that leads to gun violence. In Japan, people play more video games than their American counterparts, but the nation has 96 times fewer gun homicides. However, Japan has stricter gun control laws and doesn’t waste time chasing down strawmen.
I admit I prefer the First Amendment to the Second, but it’s not like we’ll ever make racists go away. We can make it harder for them to kill us.
“Once Upon a Time in Londongrad, a six part series based on BuzzFeed News reporting, airs on Sky Documentaries and streaming service NOW from 31st May!…”
Trailer at the (Twitter) link. This looks amazing. I don’t know if we in the US will have access.
The Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that Swedish and Finnish delegations should not bother coming to Ankara to convince it to approve their NATO bid because they harbour terrorists.
In a news conference, Erdogan said Turkey would not approve their bids to join NATO, calling Sweden a “hatchery” for terrorist organisations, and adding they had terrorists in their parliament.
Ankara says Sweden and Finland harbour people it says are linked to groups it deems terrorists, namely the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group and followers of Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara accuses of orchestrating the 2016 coup attempt.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 151
GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene bemoaned the “severe mental health crisis” in America that presumably led to the shooting.
Gee, Maj. does that mean that you’re going to support making sure every American can see a mental health professional and get treatment regardless of their ability to pay for it?
No! Of course not! That would be just a much “COMMUNISM!!!” as gun control.
When right-wingers start to target the mentally ill (that is, when they aren’t denying its existence, or claiming it’s actually demonic possession), they aren’t looking to treat them, they want to vilify them as potential criminals who are just a “bad day” away from murdering people and preemptively imprison them. They seek to criminalize the mentally ill as a scape goat rather than deal with the real issues.
f there is one thing the far right is sure of this week, it is that its number one mission is proving the Buffalo shooter was either a liberal, a federal agent or someone brainwashed by the FBI to shoot up a Tops grocery store in Buffalo, New York, in hopes of making racist conspiracy theories seem like a bad thing. You know, because otherwise everyone thought Great Replacement/White Genocide stuff was perfectly reasonable.
Far-right talk show host Stew Peters thinks he has proof the shooter is a liberal, and that proof is that he is supposedly a furry, which means he cannot possibly be a white supremacist.
In a Telegram post Sunday, Peters wrote, “The Feds knew about the NY shooter, who was a mentally-disturbed ‘furry’, and they let it happen. They WANTED it to happen.” [sic] He then shared a post from Georgia GOP gubernatorial candidate Kandiss “God, Guns and Babies” Taylor featuring an image from the shooter’s livestream where his phone shows that he had been looking at a picture of a sexy cartoon dog.
It turns out the Buffalo shooter yesterday was a furry,” Taylor wrote. “In my list of executive orders, I explicitly addressed and received blowback for tackling the perversions of the furry culture. Twisting the minds of Generation Z MUST END!” This is true. Kandiss Taylor has been freaking out about furries for some time now. One of her “executive orders” she’d sign as governor involves instituting a dress code in schools that will ban “furry” attire. [image at the link]
In his post, Peters then wrote that “The gun didn’t do it. A ‘white supremacist’ didn’t do it. A sick and demented furry did it,” adding that “When Kandiss Taylor is elected governor, GA will be furry-free…” [Tweet at the link]
[…] Peters followed that post up with an “explanation” of what furries are for his audience:
For those asking, a “furry” is someone who identifies as an animal. There are school districts with freak show, nose ring-wearing, purple haired ANTIFA crackpot groomer rapists for teachers that are bending a knee to this sickness and offering students litter boxes in the classroom.
Fact: Furries are not Conservative “white supremacists”.
[Oh, FFS!]
Furries don’t “identify” as animals, and no one is putting litter boxes in classrooms for them. That’s not a thing. This is not to say there aren’t people who claim to identify as animals, but they’re not furries. They call themselves Otherkin or “therians,” and sure, they’re a tad ridiculous, but they’re not bothering anybody.
Also, while looking at this picture does not necessarily mean alleged shooter Payton Gendron is a furry, neo-Nazi furries are in fact a thing and have been for a while now. The Daily Beast’s Kelly Weill reported in 2017 that the Rocky Mountain Fur Con in Denver had to be canceled due to an influx of fascist furries, organizing themselves under the #AltFurry hashtag.
Of course, none of this matters to a guy who has been ranting for over week about how the US is giving $40 billion to Satanic Nazi cannibals in Ukraine so they can eat Russians. (We can assume the money is for seasonings and side dishes.) [image at the link]
I wish I were joking, but I’m not.
Frankly, the only difference between believing Stew Peters’s nonsense and believing that one is an elf trapped in a human body who remembers the language they spoke on their elf planet back when they were elves in elf bodies or the parent of 2,000 alien-human-hybrid babies is that the latter two aren’t harmful to anybody.
May 15, 2022: Dmitri Alperovitch talks with Michael Kofman (Research Program Director in the Russia Studies Program at the Center for Naval Analysis) and Dara Massicot (Senior Policy Researcher at the RAND Corporation and formerly an analyst on Russian military capabilities at the US Department of Defense) about the new developments in the war in Ukraine on Twitter Spaces. In-depth analysis of why the Russian military has performed so poorly at each stage of the conflict, botched river crossings in Donbas, possibility of annexation of Kherson and other parts of occupied Ukrainian territories and implications of such action on the possible employment of nuclear weapons in this conflict.
This is the video to which they’re referring early on: “The Occupant.”
The Siverskyi Donets River has already played an outsized role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. East of Izyum, Russian forces attempted to cross the river three times with disastrous consequences […] In the east, Ukrainian forces in Severodonetsk, the last Ukrainian stronghold on the east side of the river, may be forced to move back to the west bank of the river, using its natural protection to halt a Russian advance. In the north, Ukrainian forces moving northeast from Kharkiv raced to the town of Staryi Saltiv in an attempt to capture the bridge there, then bombarded a sequence of towns further north in hopes of finding an intact crossing that would allow them to bring forces to the east side of the river, menacing Russian supply lines.
Unfortunately Russia blew up that series of bridges in the north, just as Ukrainian forces have taken down several bridges in the east. […] Ukrainian forces were just as hemmed in by the river’s rapid flow, which has been bolstered by recent spring rains, as the Russians have been in their own attempts to cross.
Except … maybe not. Because it seems that Ukraine has crossed the river anyway, and at a position that could be incredibly important: Staryi Saltiv.
The bridge at Staryi Saltiv is incredibly long, over a kilometer and a half, because the river there is not a river but a lake—a reservoir held back by a large hydroelectric dam. So of all the places that Ukraine might cross, at first glance this would seem among the least likely. However, from the moment Ukraine maneuvered around other villages and shocked Russian forces by capturing Staryi Saltiv, Ukraine began an artillery bombardment of the area directly along the eastern end of that bridge. It certainly seemed that they had some interest in what was going on across the river. [map at the link]
Every single village and town on this map was held by Russia when the Ukrainian advance out of Kharkiv (just off map to the left) began three weeks ago. That little curve of yellow line represents the actual border, where Ukrainian forces posed for a picture on Sunday before installing a bright new boundary marker.
Now there are reports that Ukraine has sufficiently repaired the lengthy bridge to move forces across and establish a bridgehead on the eastern bank. There are even reports that Ukraine has moved out from that location to capture two nearby villages. None of this has officially been confirmed by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. However, it is coming from some of the reliable sources that first reported the Ukrainian advance on Ternova last week. There are other, even less confirmed reports that Ukraine may have crossed the river at another point further north, using a pontoon bridge. Take both of these reports with a good dash of salt, but since there are Russian Telegram messages complaining about the Ukrainian forces on “their” side of the river, maybe not that much salt.
From this bridgehead, Ukraine could go … just about anywhere. They might move north to threaten the rail and road junction at Vovchansk. They might move southeast toward the even more critical supply depot at Kupyansk. Mostly they are loose in Russia’s backfield, able to maneuver toward towns and cities in a way that will require Russia to turn still more forces away from the salient at Izyum, or the battles in the east.
In fact, former Russian military officer Igor Girkin, who is still stinging from the fact that he didn’t become the leader of the Donetsk area after the 2014 invasion, reports that Ukrainian forces on the east side of the river are already probing toward Vovchansk. [Tweet, in Russian, with map, is available at the link]
Russia’s primary response to the wave of Ukrainian advances from Kharkiv has been to withdraw its forces across the border. Only in a very few remaining villages are Russian forces continuing to fight west of the Donets rather than simply move on. However, just because Russia is pulling out of the Kharkiv area doesn’t mean the Ukrainian forces that won back that area are content to simply sit on the recaptured land.
Now Ukraine is threatening Russian supply lines in the rear. And Ukraine is pushing hard against the Izyum salient in a series of attacks that seem designed to destroy Russian forces positioned there. And Ukraine is continuing to keep Russian advances in the east to a snail’s pace. And Ukraine is feeling much more free to involve its air force directly in combat (even though Russia claims to have somehow shot down dozens of Ukrainian jets in just the last week).
Russian army standard procedure when your comrades are running over a mine and are smoldering and barely alive: Speed up right beside them to distract the other mines. If they are surprised enough, they won’t explode and everybody will be fine in the end.
It is possible, though not yet confirmed, that the Azov regiment my have surrendered in Mariupol … with some kind of prisoner exchange as part of the deal.
Zelenskyy is planning to provide details during his evening broadcast.
Putin involved in war ‘at level of colonel or brigadier’, say western sources
Vladimir Putin has become so personally involved in the Ukraine war that he is making operational and tactical decisions “at the level of a colonel or brigadier”, according to western military sources.
The Russian president is helping determine the movement of forces in the Donbas, they added, where last week the invaders suffered a bloody defeat as they tried on multiple occasions to cross a strategic river in the east of Ukraine.
The sources added that Putin is still working closely with Gen Valery Gerasimov, the commander of the Russian armed forces, in contrast to claims made by Ukraine last week that the military chief had been sidelined.
“We think Putin and Gerasimov are involved in tactical decision making at a level we would normally expect to be taken by a colonel or a brigadier,” the military source said, referring to the ongoing battle in the east of Ukraine.
Moscow’s armies have so far failed to achieve a breakthrough in the Donbas, where they have been mounting an offensive for a month that has failed several times encircle the smaller Ukrainian forces.
No further detail to back up the statement was provided, although it was implied the assessment about Putin’s close personal involvement was based on intelligence that had been received.
Less than a year after a white teenager in upstate New York was investigated for making a threatening statement at school, he legally purchased a firearm, which he is accused of using to gun down 10 Black people in a racist rampage, authorities said.
The massacre at Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo on Saturday should have been thwarted by New York’s red flag law, which aims to stop people from buying or possessing firearms when they show they’re threats to themselves or others, gun policy experts said.
“It was designed exactly for this circumstance,” said David Pucino, the deputy chief counsel at Giffords Law Center, a gun-safety group.
Instead, after Payton Gendron appeared on the radar of New York State Police in June over a chilling comment about a murder-suicide he made in the classroom while he was still a minor, he was evaluated and cleared, paving the way for him to legally buy the semi-automatic rifle he is accused of using in the shooting 11 months later, law enforcement officials and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said.
No official involved in the investigation in June initiated a court process that could have helped prevent Gendron from buying the rifle, a New York State Police spokesperson said Monday.
Now, state legislators are looking into whether those involved followed the proper protocol. “I’ve asked for the investigation of exactly what transpired there,” Hochul told Buffalo’s WKSE radio on Monday.
…
Enacted in 2019, New York’s red flag law empowers school administrators, law enforcement officials, prosecutors and family members to pursue court intervention when they believe they know someone who is at high risk of harming themselves or others.
Under the law, a judge could “very quickly” issue an extreme-risk protection order, which could order someone, a minor or an adult, to surrender any firearms, as well as not to try to have or buy any.
Such an order doesn’t come with criminal charges or penalties. It is meant to keep guns away from dangerous people, gun policy experts said.
…
Since New York’s red flag law went into effect on Aug. 25, 2019, 1,464 extreme-risk protection orders have been issued, a New York Unified State Courts spokesperson said. State Sen. Brian Kavanagh, who sponsored the legislation, said at least 530 orders were issued in the first year the law was implemented.
While there’s no way to measure whether any one order helped avoid a specific tragedy, Kavanagh and Pucino said peer-reviewed evidence has found that red flag laws in Indiana and Connecticut have prevented gun deaths, including suicides. …
Chaos enveloped Twitter after the social-media company discovered that the Elon Musk who had offered to buy it three weeks ago was actually a bot.
The bid for Twitter is believed to be the largest corporate takeover ever proposed by a bot, mergers-and-acquisitions experts say.
A visibly embarrassed Parag Agrawal, the C.E.O. of Twitter, explained to reporters how the company was persuaded that the Elon Musk bot was actually Elon Musk.
“The bot account had a blue check, indicating that it had been verified,” Agrawal said. “It now appears that the bot had somehow been given the blue check by another bot.”
The C.E.O. said that Twitter was conducting a “thorough internal review of procedures” to insure that it is not purchased by a bot in the future.
“The bot appeared to be an actual human being, which should’ve been our first clue that it wasn’t Elon,” he said.
The Ukrainian General Staff announced Monday that more than 260 soldiers, many of them wounded, had been evacuated from the besieged Azovstal steel plant in the southern port city of Mariupol.
The announcement was made in a video statement by Deputy Minister of Defense Hanna Malyar. Her remarks and those of others appeared to indicate that the siege of Azovstal was ending.
Fifty-three severely wounded soldiers were taken Monday from Azovstal to a medical facility in Novoazovsk, a southeastern border town in Donetsk province held by Russian-backed separatists, she said.
She said another 211 Azovstal defenders had been evacuated to the Ukrainian-held town of Olenivka through a humanitarian corridor as part of “an exchange procedure.”
“‘Mariupol’ Garrison has completed their combat mission. The Supreme Military Command has ordered the commanders of the units stationed at Azovstal to save the lives of military personnel,” she said.
Ukraine needs Ukrainian heroes alive,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday. He thanked the Ukrainian military and negotiators, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations for their help in arranging the evacuation.
“The work continues to bring the boys home, and this work needs delicacy. And time,” he added.
Malyar said that measures aimed at rescuing the remaining defenders at the sprawling steel plant continue to go on.
“Thanks to the defenders of Mariupol, we have gained critical time to build reserves, regroup forces and receive assistance from partners. All defenders of Mariupol have completed the tasks given by the command in full,” she added.
“Unfortunately, we do not have the capacity to relieve the siege of Azovstal by military means. The most important common task of Ukraine and the whole world is to save the lives of the defenders of Mariupol,” she stressed.
Her statement confirms Russian news media reports earlier Monday by the Russian Ministry of Defense which said an agreement had been reached regarding the evacuation of wounded Ukrainian soldiers from the Azovstal plant and a ceasefire had been established.
Denys Prokopenko, the commander of Azov special regiment, said on Telegram that the defenders have completed their task and he wants to save the lives of those under his command.
“The Mariupol defenders have completed their task despite all the difficulties,” Prokopenko said. “For 82 days they drew fire from overwhelming forces of the enemy and allowed the Ukrainian army to regroup, train more personnel and receive a large number of weapons from partner countries.
“No weapon will work without professionally trained soldiers, making them the most valuable element of the army. In order to save lives, the entire Mariupol garrison is carrying out the approved decision of the Supreme Military Command and hopes for the support of the Ukrainian people”.
Novoazovsk is only 28 miles east of Mariupol. So it might offer the closest medical facility to the Azovstal plant. If that’s the case, it might raise hopes that once treated and stabilized the wounded soldiers could be taken to Ukrainian-held territory.
The evacuation is likely to mark the end of the longest and bloodiest battle of the Ukraine war.
Mariupol has been besieged by Russian forces since March 1. Nearly all the city has been destroyed and thousands of residents have been buried in mass graves.
Since the end of April, the last Ukrainian stronghold in the city was the sprawling Azovstal steel plant built in the Soviet era with a vast network of underground tunnels and bunkers.
Earlier this month, civilians sheltering in the plant were evacuated. But an estimated 600 wounded soldiers suffering from lack of food, water and medicine remained in the plant.
On Saturday, the plight of the Azovstal defenders was brought to worldwide attention by the winning Ukrainian band, Kalush Orchestra, at the Eurovision Song Contest 2022, an event viewed by tens of millions of people.
After the performing their song about motherhood, “Stefania,” Kalush’s frontman Oleh Psiuk put his hand on his heart and shouted: “I ask for all of you, please help Ukraine, Mariupol. Help Azovstal right now.”
But the next day, Russian forces dropped incendiary or phosphorus bombs on the steel plant, Ukrainian officials said. Even worse Russians reportedly signed the bombs with their response to the Kalush band’s plea. [Disturbing tweet and photo at the link]
KGsays
Anyway, now he’s [Denys Prokopenko] apparently about to die in the ruins of Mariupol. Shit. – lumipuna@140
This is still a developing story, but it seems – fortunately – probably not. The UN and International Red Cross appear to be involved, so Putin may be reluctant to break whatever agreement has been made. If Prokopenko does make it out, it will be interesting to see what use he makes of his “hero” status (which is admittedly justified – there’s no reason a neo-Nazi can’t be brave).
On whatever’s going on at the steel plant in Mariupol (e.g., evacuation), I wouldn’t be too surprised if the reason Putin is allowing it is to free up the besieging forces to be marched elsewhere for more raping and pillaging. With the added benefit of being able to claim it was done for “humanitarian reasons”, perhaps doubly-so if there is an exchange.
blfsays
KG@164 writes, “[Erdoğan’s] price for allowing [Finland and Swedento join Nato] looks like being NATO subscribing to his persecution of the Kurds in Syria and in Turkey itself”.
This is all my own speculation, but that seems like something which could be (distastefully) fudged: Turkey’s “internal” affairs are not Nato’s business, and Nato is “not” involved in Syria, so “Ok” (through gritted teeth). Pushing his luck to try and get other Nato countries, Finland, or Sweden, to subscribe to his authoritarian take is perhaps — hopefully — a step too far, albeit maybe there is another fudge in the guise of a “(joint?) investigation” (again through gritted teeth), possibly involving the OSCE, which could also cover the Fethullah Gülen feud.
KGsays
I’d like to recommend the BBC series Putin, Russia and the West. Originally broadcast in 2012, it was recently re-broadcast, and is available on BBC iPlayer (I don’t know what the availability of this is outwith the UK, but I’d be surprised if there’s no way to access it). Obviously it doesn’t cover events since 2012, but in some ways that’s an advantage, as it doesn’t view everything as leading up to the current invasion of Ukraine. The level of access the BBC got to key players (other than Putin himself) is astounding – I’d forgotten how (relatively) open Russia was ten years ago. I’ve watched the first 2 of the 4 episodes, and even though I have been following international politics throughout the period covered, there were many events I’d completely forgotten.
KGsays
blf@165,
Yes, I’m sure. If, as appears, there has been an agreement, it’s because both sides see what they would gain from it as outweighing what they would lose. I speculate that Putin is preparing to try to negotiate a ceasefire, consolidate his territorial gains (probably annexing them to Russia), rebuild his forces, and wait for NATO/EU solidarity to crumble before renewing the attack.
@166,
Two of Erdoğan’s specific complaints are the failure to extradite people he wants to imprison\torture\kill, and Sweden’s ban on arms sales to Turkey. Submitting to him on either of those would be a fundamental betrayal of democratic values – which is not to say it won’t happen. As I’ve noted before, NATO is not and never has been about defending democracy.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their most recent summary:
More than 260 Ukrainian soldiers, many of them wounded, have been evacuated from the besieged Azovstal steel plant in the port city of Mariupol, appearing to cede control of the city to Russia after 82 days of bombardment.
Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, said late on Monday that 53 heavily wounded soldiers were evacuated to a hospital in the Russian-controlled town of Novoazovsk and that more than 200 others were transported through a corridor to Olenivka. An “exchange procedure” will take place to bring evacuees home, she said.
It was unclear how many soldiers remained in the steelworks or the exact number who left, but Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said: “We hope to save the lives of our boys. I want to underline: Ukraine needs its Ukrainian heroes alive. This is our principle,” he said in a video statement.
Ukraine deputy PM Iryna Vereshchuk this morning said of the wounded servicemen: “After their condition stabilises, we will exchange them for Russian prisoners of war. We are working on the next stages of the humanitarian operation.”
…
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny is due to appeal against a nine-year prison sentence he was handed in March on charges that he and his allies say are politically motivated
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has posted that he has held talks with German chancellor Olaf Scholz.
US treasury secretary Janet Yellen called for US allies to step up financial support for Ukraine on Tuesday, saying that funds announced so far would not be sufficient for the country’s short-term needs as it battles a Russian invasion.
Rachel Maddow remarks on the pattern of racists using violence to try to terrorize minority populations, subverting democracy, and evangelizing their hateful ideas, and outlines the challenge of reporting on racist extremists without elevating their public profile.
There was a historical-background segment preceding this clip, but it’s not included.
The satellite and drone imagery from above Bilohorivka tells a tale of folly and destruction. Dozens of Russian tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and trucks lay destroyed, some sinking into the waters of the Donets River by a broken pontoon bridge, pointing to the latest disaster in Russia’s three-month war in Ukraine.
The toll of Russia’s attempts to cross the river, part of its costly offensive in the east, are staggering: more than 485 killed and as many as 80 vehicles destroyed, according to one estimate, although no numbers of casualties have been confirmed.
As Russia continues to hide the scale of its losses in Ukraine, more and more information has leaked out, angering the families of Russian soldiers and discouraging even previous supporters of the invasion.
“I look at my government totally different since the war started,” said Tatyana Efremenko, 39, whose son Nikita Efremenko was a conscript on the Moskva missile cruiser when it was sunk in a Ukrainian missile strike one month ago. She is still searching for her son. “There are some very harsh things I would like to say about our leadership, but maybe best if I don’t because they would put me in prison for it.”
In Russian-controlled east Ukraine, wives of fighters have complained on camera that their husbands were left behind as Russian soldiers retreated across the border near Kharkiv. “They aren’t deserters, just those who managed to get away with their lives,” one woman yelled at a local official.
Kyiv has said that it has the remains of thousands of Russian soldiers, but Moscow won’t accept them because that would force it to admit the high death toll in the war.
As evidence of the Bilohorivka rout became clear over the last week, even some pro-Russian cheerleaders appeared to be losing faith in the wisdom of the country’s military leadership.
“Until we know the name of the ‘military genius’ who put a battalion tactical group by the river and he doesn’t answer for it publicly, then there will never be reforms in the army,” wrote Vladlen Tatarzky, the pseudonym used by a Russian blogger and former soldier who has more than 300,000 subscribers on Telegram. He has generally supported the war. “How can one not remember comrade Stalin here, who despite the difficult military situation was not afraid to take difficult personnel decisions? If this isn’t done, then no mobilisation will save us.”
Rob Lee, a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Eurasia Program who documented some of that backlash to the war, noted that another popular blogger wrote that it was “idiocy or sabotage to make such a mistake three months into the war”.
And Igor Girkin, a Russian proxy field commander during the 2014 war who has been critical of the government during this conflict, appeared to feel vindicated: “I have already said several times what needs to be done in the current situation, when it has become clear that our forces are unable to deliver even a limited defeat to the enemy in ground combat and when we must prepare for a drawn-out, difficult, full-scale war.”
That criticism has even reached state television. In a rare condemnation of Kremlin policy on a political talk show, defence columnist Mikhail Khodaryonok suggested that the government was in denial about the war and the chance for victory against highly motivated Ukrainian forces armed by the west.
“The main deficiency of our military-political position is that, in a way, we are in full geopolitical isolation and that, however much we would hate to admit this, virtually the entire world is against us,” he said. “And it’s that situation we need to escape.”
But Russia has continued to cover up or minimise its losses during a disastrous three-month campaign in Ukraine.
A month after the sinking of the Moskva, the Russian government has only confirmed the death of one crew member and said another 27 were missing.
But the families of crew members say that the death toll could be as high as 200, and many have not received any confirmation about what happened to their husbands, brothers, and sons.
“No one is telling me anything,” said Efremenko, whose son disappeared on the ship, in an interview. “They asked me to sign a document which says I accept that my son died and then they want to compensate me for his death. They have sent the same document to all the parents of all the other missing conscripts, too.”
Efremenko said that she was in a Telegram chat with more than 80 family members of those who were missing. Many have been told not to speak to the press or go public. “They are trying to buy my silence, but it won’t happen,” she said. “I will look for my son until the end.
“I promised the authorities that I wouldn’t talk publicly about my son, but already a month has passed and people are forgetting about Moskva. People are moving on, but we still have so many unanswered questions: why the hell were conscripts there? Why were they fighting? No one has been able to tell me this.”…
There has been no further updates on the big news of the day—reports by Russian sources that Ukraine had crossed to the east of the Donets River, directly threatening Russian supply lines at Vovchansk. Ukraine doesn’t announce liberated towns until days after the fact. Russia doesn’t know what half its troops are doing at any given time, why give them a head’s up? It also prevents the embarrassment of losing territory after announcing a liberation. One more reason: Ukraine doesn’t want people prematurely streaming back to their homes until the area is clear of invaders, mines, booby traps, dead bodies, and other dangers.
NASA FIRMS satellites track forest fires … and war fires. Let’s see what it tells us. [map at the link]
There are two supposed crossings over the Donets, east of Kharkiv. The first is at Staryi Saltiv, where a long bridge was expeditiously repaired, and the second was further north at Rubizhne, where Ukraine reportedly laid a pontoon bridge. This tells us that only the Staryi Saltiv crossing is seeing action large enough to be picked up by satellite heat sensors. [map and tweet at the link]
Looking at the FIRMS imagery, something is happening at Ukrainian-held Bazaliyevka, east of Chuhuiv, bordering Russian-held territory. If something is happening there, I could find no report about it anywhere. The forested area east of Izyum remains on fire, as Ukraine reportedly pushes toward Izyum’s western edge.
In the Lyman-Severodonetsk axis, Russia continued to edge closer to those two cities: [tweet and map at the link]
As Russia’s war machine falters, its ambitions shrink by the week. I’ve trotted this image out the last few days because it really brings home just how pathetic those “victories” above are to Russia’s war effort. [map at the link]
Meanwhile, this video Monday night from Russian state-run TV’s number one show is getting a great deal of attention: [video at the link] [See also, SC’s comment 171]
[Julia Davis] Meanwhile on Russian state TV: in a rare moment of clarity, senior military analyst Mikhail Khodaryonok is back with another candid assessment. As usual, it lands like a lead balloon. Follow the thread for his previous observations, including those before Russia invaded Ukraine.
Russia’s economy is not able to keep up with Putin’s failing war against Ukraine. The situation is so dismal that even the most pro-Kremlin propagandists have been forced to acknowledge the grim reality of a pariah state fighting a war of aggression.
Senior military expert on Russian state TV argued that mobilization wouldn’t accomplish a whole lot, since outdated weaponry can’t easily compete with NATO-supplied weapons and equipment in Ukraine’s hands and replenishing Russia’s military arsenal will be neither fast nor easy.
Every time he’s on, everyone jokes “off to the gulag it is!” Yet he returns. Julia Davis claims they keep him around to “help temper the expectations, while other pundits promise fast, easy victories.” Kamil Galeev has a nice thread on this Mikhail Khodaryonok: “Out of all people in the room he is the most sober one. Why? Well, may be because he’s the only one with the substantial military experience. He’s a career officer of the air defence who turned to a pundit career only after retirement.”
You may also remember Khodaryonok as the author of a prescient February 2 article in a Russian military publication warning against the war, “Some representatives of the Russian political class today claim that Russia is able to inflict a crushing defeat on Ukraine in a few hours (called shorter terms) if a military conflict begins. Let’s see how such statements correspond to reality.” His predictions were controversial in Russia—that “[n]o one will meet the Russian army with bread, salt and flowers in Ukraine,” and warned that even Russian-speaking Ukrainians would resist. He mocked the idea of a blitzkrieg that would take out Ukrainian defenses in hours. He reminded readers of the “open shock” of Russian aircraft losses to Ukrainian defenses in the 2014 war, and how air superiority didn’t help Russian in the First Chechen war or Afghanistan anyway.
He predicted that “There is no doubt that some reincarnation of Lend-Lease modeled and likeness of World War II will begin on the part of the United States and the North Atlantic Alliance countries,” and that “There may be an influx of volunteers from the West, of whom there may be a lot.” And to those who scoffed at the quality of Ukraine’s military, he had a sage warning, “If until 2014 the Armed Forces of Ukraine were a fragment of the Soviet army, over the past seven years a qualitatively different army has been created in Ukraine, on a completely different ideological basis and largely on NATO standards. And today very modern weapons and equipment are coming and continue to arrive in Ukraine from many countries of the North Atlantic Alliance.”
He concluded, “In general, there will be no Ukrainian blitzkrieg. Statements of some experts such as ‘The Russian army will defeat most of the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in 30-40 minutes’, ‘Russia is able to defeat Ukraine in 10 minutes in case of a full-scale war’, ‘Russia will defeat Ukraine in eight minutes’ have no serious reason.”
In print and on TV, he’s been the sole voice of reason inside Russia’s tightly controlled media bubble. For whatever reason Putin keeps around, it’s too bad no one is actually listening to him.
Tucker Carlson is in a weal position when it comes to the mass shooting in Buffalo:
[Tucker] Carlson regularly offers up takes like, “In order to win and maintain power, Democrats plan to change the population of the country,” and, “As with illegal immigration, the long-term agenda of refugee resettlement is to bring in future Democratic voters.” But on Monday night, following the shooting, this was his take on the alleged shooter’s explicitly racist, “great replacement”-fueled manifesto: To Carlson, it was “not recognizably left wing or right-wing: it’s not really political at all.”
That’s a conspicuously weak attempt from Carlson. He did, of course, also attack “professional Democrats” who have “begun a campaign to blame those murders on their political opponents.” Because if the shooter didn’t express recognizably right-wing positions to justify his mass murder, then it’s really unfair to blame Carlson, isn’t it? Except, of course, the shooter directly echoed Carlson, among other “great replacement” proponents and white supremacists.
Carlson isn’t alone among Republicans promoting the very same ideas in the shooter’s (heavily plagiarized) manifesto. Rep. Elise Stefanik, the third-ranking House Republican, has echoed Carlson’s claims with Facebook ads warning of “Radical Democrats” with a “plan to grant amnesty to 11 MILLION illegal immigrants will overthrow our current electorate and create a permanent liberal majority in Washington.” She’s just one of the Republican lawmakers promoting a version of the great replacement theory in an effort to terrify white people into turning out and voting Republican.
President Biden could point to plenty of very specific ties between the ideas that motivated the Buffalo shooting and prominent Republicans. It’s time for him to go beyond calling out the general subject of racism and white supremacy and name names.
The right-wing U.S. Supreme Court issued not one, but two abhorrent decisions on Monday. The first was a win for Ted Cruz, and a case that opens “the floodgates to wantonly bribing politicians,” Daily Kos’ Rebekah Sager writes. His lawsuit “challenged a 2002 campaign finance rule barring politicians from repaying loans to their own campaigns from donations exceeding the federal limit of $250,000 received after Election Day.”
The second decision on Monday was a devastating loss for immigrants. Amy Coney Barrett authored a 5-4 decision ruling against a Georgia man who lawfully entered the U.S. decades ago, but now faces deportation to India after checking the wrong box on a driver’s license form, CNN reports. Neil Gorsuch dissented in the decision, which advocacy organization People For The American Way (PFAW) said “deals a severe blow to immigrant rights.”
PFAW said in a statement received by Daily Kos that right-wing justices ruled immigrants “cannot appeal certain decisions of Immigration authorities in federal court even when they are premised on serious factual errors.” Pankajkumar Patel has lived in the U.S. since 1992 and had a green card application pending when he mistakenly checked a box on the driver’s license form that said he was a U.S. citizen.
While he initially faced a charge of making a false statement, that was dropped. But the federal government continued its effort to deport not only Patel, but also his wife and son also.
Patel fought the deportation, but both an immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals ruled against him. Patel “noted there was no reason to intentionally check the wrong box because under Georgia law, he was eligible to receive a license without being a citizen because he had an application seeking lawful permanent residence and a valid employment authorization document,” CNN continued. His appeal to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals was also unsuccessful because it said it didn’t have jurisdiction in the matter.
This paperwork error could now be enough to tear him and several of his family members from their home. But right-wing justices’ decision also represents a direct threat to an untold number of immigrants with legal status.
“In a 5-4 opinion, SCOTUS ruled that no matter how egregious the [immigration judge] had erred, no court has subject matter jurisdiction to review, correct, or undo an administrative decision denying discretionary relief based on error of facts. No matter what,” tweeted immigration attorney Nicolette Glazer.
Gorsuch, who sided with Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, seemed to get it. Broken clock, etc. “On the majority’s telling, courts are powerless to correct bureaucratic mistakes like these no matter how grave they may be,” Gorsuch wrote in the dissent. “Until today, courts could correct mistakes like these.”
Glazer tweeted that without intervention from the Biden administration, or a private bill from lawmakers, Patel and his family will be “shattered.” Balls And Strikes reported last year how “harsh consequences for mundane mistakes are common in the U.S. immigration system, which almost never extends the benefit of the doubt to those caught within it.”
No grace is extended to immigrants for a mistake when representatives of the federal government fail to follow rules on official forms with no repercussions. Recall when U.S. border agents reportedly listed “Facebook” as migrants’ addresses on government forms critical to their cases. “Some wouldn’t have any addresses listed at all,” legal advocates said at the time. This matters because if a court date changes, migrants need to be informed or they could lose their case.
This anti-immigrant court decision is also another example of why Democrats need to ditch the Jim Crow filibuster and expand the court.
“This Supreme Court, dominated by Trump-appointed, far-right justices, is pursuing a scorched-earth campaign against a wide range of our rights and freedoms,” PFAW President Ben Jealous said in the statement. “Today the victims are immigrants to this country, who are being stripped of their right to a day in court to resolve unjust administrative hurdles related to their status. This Court becomes more extreme and dangerous by the day.”
Clinton McCracken suffered relentless homophobia at school, with the exception of one class: art. His art teacher, Mrs Smith, was the only teacher who created an environment where he felt safe. Now an art teacher himself, he tries to make LGBTQ students feel protected in his classes.
But when teachers like Clinton enter their classrooms in July [or after it takes effect in July], this will be more difficult. The parental rights in education bill, dubbed the “Don’t say gay” bill, will restrict discussions on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, argues that this bill is for parents who want their children to “get an education, not an indoctrination’”. But critics say the bill will harm LGBTQ children and leave teachers fearing lawsuits.
Journalist Michael Sainato tells Michael Safi what the bill will mean for teachers and students in Florida.
Here’s a link to the Guardian UK-politics liveblog. From their summary:
Micheál Martin, Ireland’s taoiseach, has criticised the UK government for introducing measures to deal with unsolved crimes committed during the Troubles without Dublin’s support. Martin said any changes to the mechanisms agreed in the 2014 Stormont House agreement should be made in conjunction with the Irish government and the Stormont parties and involve “serious and credible engagement” with victims. He was speaking as the UK government announced plans introduce a form of statute of limitations for people involved in killings during the Troubles who cooperate with a Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery. The Stormont House agreement said unsolved crimes from the Troubles should be investigated by a historical investigations unit.
Liz Truss has claimed the east-west relationship between Great Britain and Northern Ireland has been “undermined” by the Northern Ireland protocol as she confirmed plans to table legislation that would scrap parts of the agreement. The foreign secretary told MPs during her statement that 78% of people in Northern Ireland thought the protocol needed to change, according to a poll from December. Truss seems to have been referring to polling from Lord Ashcroft published in December. The figure 78% only appears once in that report in relation to the protocol, in a passage saying 78% of unionists thought the protocol had been a major cause of food shortages. The same poll found, amongst the Northern Ireland population as a whole, only 42% of people said the protocol should be scrapped (33%) or needed serious reform (9%).
Maroš Šefčovič, the European Commisison vice-president in charge of Brexit negotiations for the EU, issued to the Truss statement. In it he stresses the EU’s desire to reach a negotiated settlement with the UK on changes to the Northern Ireland protocol, and says “the potential of the flexibilities” proposed by the EU have “yet to be fully explored”. But Šefčovič says the UK plan to ignore parts of the protocol “raises significant concerns”. If the UK goes ahead with this, Brussels will respond “with all measures at its disposal”, he added.
Ed Miliband, the shadow secretary of state for climate change and net zero, accused Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, of missing three chances to act on energy bills in the last seven months. The chancellor told MPs in the Queen’s speech debate that it would be a mistake for the government to try using unrestrained borrowing and spending to address the cost of living crisis. Sunak said that history showed that an “unconstrained fiscal stimulus” at such a time risked “making the problem worse”.
Two byelections in Wakefield and in Tiverton and Honiton will take place on 23 June with the Conservatives fighting to keep the seats from Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Both seats will be fought after the Tory MPs resigned following scandals. The former Wakefield MP Imran Ahmad Khan resigned after being found guilty of child sexual assault against a 15-year-old boy. In the Devon seat, Neil Parish resigned as MP after admitting watching pornography twice in the House of Commons chamber.
“ALERT: Michigan Court of Claims judge suspends enforcement of the state’s 1931 abortion ban, which could be instated if Roe is overturned. Says Planned Parenthood has ‘strong likelihood’ of winning an ongoing legal challenge over the law.”
Full decision in the MI Planned Parenthood case for those interested.
I’ve just skimmed, but looks like it rests primarily on the right to bodily integrity under the Due Process Clause of the Michigan Constitution (relying, in large part, on precedent from Flint water case) [interesting!].
For those wondering, yes–this decision preliminarily blocks Michigan’s 1931 law criminalizing abortion from taking effect.
And because it relies on the Michigan Constitution (not the US Constitution) that’s effective even if SCOTUS overrules Roe.
It’s not the final say; the MI Supreme Court will presumably have last word.
But crucially, it means that if Roe is overruled tomorrow, the Michigan’s 1931 law can’t be enforced. That’ll remain true until and unless the injunction is lifted (by this court or appeals court).
Also on the merits, the decision looks like it rests entirely on due process grounds. It doesn’t rule on the Equal Protection arguments, instead reserving consideration of those for a later time.
(This doesn’t change the net result).
This is great news. But I emphasize that this isn’t settled, & the imminent overruling of Roe continues to require all hands on deck.
Specifically, if you’ve gathered signatures/volunteered/donated to @mireprofreedom ballot initiative, keep it up! (If not, consider starting)!
Litigation will continue & hopefully be successful, but the ballot initiative’s the most direct way ordinary folks can work to ensure continued recognition of the right to an abortion in the MI Constitution.
From the latest summary at the Guardian Ukraine liveblog:
The fate of more than 260 Ukrainian soldiers who have ended weeks of resistance at the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol remains unclear, after the fighters surrendered and were transferred to Russian-controlled territory. Ukraine’s deputy defence minister said they would be swapped in a prisoner exchange, but some Russian officials said they could be tried or even executed.
Eight people have died and 12 wounded after Russia launched a missile strike on the village of Desna in the northern Ukrainian region of Chernihiv, according to Ukraine’s state emergency service. The regional governor, Viacheslav Chaus, said Russia launched four missiles at around 5am local time on Tuesday. Two of the missiles hit buildings in the village, he said.
Peace talks between Russia and Ukraine have stalled, according to both sides….
France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, promised his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, that French arms deliveries to Kyiv would intensify in the coming days, the Élysée said. Zelenskiy said he had a “long and meaningful” conversation with Macron where they discussed “the course of hostilities, the operation to rescue the military from Azovstal and the vision of the prospects of the negotiation process”.
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said Russian forces may have suffered “impressive losses” since their invasion of Ukraine. He told reporters: “If it is true that Russia has lost 15% of their troops since the beginning of the war, this is a world record of the losses of an army invading a country.” Borrell also said all EU member states will support Finland and Sweden in joining Nato.
Finland’s parliament has overwhelmingly approved a government proposal to join Nato, a day after Sweden confirmed its intention to join the alliance. Finnish president, Sauli Niinistö, said he was sure both countries would overcome Turkish opposition to their historic membership bids.
Niinistö and Sweden’s prime minister, Magdalena Andersson, will meet the US president, Joe Biden, on Thursday, the White House said. The leaders are expected to discuss Finland and Sweden’s Nato applications, European security and support for Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion, it said.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has said that Finland and Sweden joining Nato would probably make “not much difference”. The two Nordic countries “have been participating in Nato military exercises for many years,” Lavrov said.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has said that by abandoning Russian energy supplies, Europe risked paying the most expensive energy prices in the world. Speaking at a meeting with domestic oil managers and government officials, Putin said it was impossible for some European countries to quickly ditch Russian oil.
It’s one of the most crowded nights on the 2022 primary calendar: On May 17, Idaho, Kentucky, North Carolina, Oregon, and Pennsylvania will settle hundreds of primaries and even some general elections; some South Carolinians are voting too. High-profile tests for Donald Trump’s candidates in Pennsylvania’s statewide elections, and for progressive candidates in House races, have drawn the lion’s share of attention. But there is a lot else that matters on these states’ ballot, starting with heated elections for prosecutor and secretary of state.
Here are 49 elections to watch in that period, and why they matter, as prepared by editor Daniel Nichanian. More elections may be added to our cheat sheet through election day.
Check back on and after Election Night as Bolts will fill in each result. And support us to help sustain this work….
Bloomberg is reporting that the US government is preparing to block Russia from being able to pay off debt held by US bondholders, a move that would lead Russia closer to default on its debt.
In early April, the US government banned Russia from using money held in US banks as a way to financially squeeze the Kremlin.
The last time the Russian government defaulted was in 1917 during the Bolshevik Revolution. Defaulting will make it harder for the Russian government to borrow money in the future, potentially creating a dire financial situation in the country.
A couple weeks ago there was this discourse along the lines of “As Victory Day comes, what can Russia claim as a victory thus far in the dragged-out operation in Ukraine?”
I thought about joking that, for two and a half months, Russia’s heavy sacrifices have kept Russian borders safe from the Ukraine/Nato invasion that was supposedly a threat last winter.
One thing that’s happened very publicly over the almost three months since Russia rolled across the border into Ukraine is that NASA FIRMS data has become a widespread way of tracking activity on the ground. Sometimes it’s used to confirm chatter already flowing through social media, or statements from official releases. Sometimes a big blob of bright red spots in FIRMS gives everyone a heads up that activity is underway in an area, or at a level, that’s totally surprising. Sometimes FIRMS data has everyone talking about a massive firefight when what they’re really seeing is a medium-sized forest fire.
The ‘F’ in FIRMS is for Fire, of course. The full title is the Fire Information for Resource Management System. It uses two orbital instruments—MODIS and VIIRS—that are found on several satellites (MODIS is on Terra and Aqua satellites, VIIRS on NOAA-20). Neither of these instruments was expressly designed to track combat or monitor the impact of artillery. That they have turned out to be pretty darn good at it is certainly a boon to those trying to suss out the truth in a complex battlefield where both sides have many understandable reasons for being less than 100% transparent.
So, when someone tells you a story based on FIRMS data, be cautious about how easy it is to put multiple interpretations on what’s being displayed. After all, neither the MODIS spectroscope nor the VIIRS infrared imager is capable of telling whether that artillery flash came from Russian or Ukrainian fire. When those impacts trigger an actual fire on the ground, it can make even a minor skirmish seem like a major battle. There are huge caveats.
And now, here’s a story based largely on FIRMS data. [map at the link]
One of the nicer features of the FIRMS website is that it will create a map that doesn’t just show you where hot spots have been over a designated period, it will color-code those spots to show which are more recent. Yellow dots are over a day in the past. Orange dots are slightly newer. The dark red dots happened within six hours of the map being created, which in this case was at 10 AM ET on Tuesday.
On Monday, the first stories that Ukrainian forces had crossed the Siverskyi Donets River began to circulate. Though there was no official confirmation from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, there was enough social media chatter—including a lot of pissed-off statements from Russians on Telegram—that this story was reported on Daily Kos, as well as a number of other sites. However, many news sites have not run with this story, even though the evidence seems at least as good as previous events, such as the unlikely recapture of Staryi Saltiv itself, or the Ukrainian advance to the Russian border along the west side of the river.
According to the social media posts, many of which at least claim to be reports of soldiers on the ground, Ukraine managed to cross the river at two locations: At Staryi Saltiv, where they apparently repaired the existing bridge well enough to bring vehicles across, and east of Rubizhne, where Ukraine did what has given Russia so much trouble by constructing a pontoon bridge to replace the destroyed bridge.
What story does the FIRMS data tell? On Sunday, there seemed to be a cluster of artillery strikes in two locations—one of those is on the eastern bank of the river around the village of Zarichne, about 2 kilometers north of the bridge crossing. The other appears to be … in the middle of the river. Just looking at the FIRMS data, this makes no sense at all. How could there be fire in the river? And why?
That answer requires looking at a map that gives more detail, like this one made with Google Earth. [map at the link]
What the FIRMS map shows as an area of water, is actually a series of marshes and islands south of the bridge and at the north end of the reservoir formed by the dam down at Staryi Saltiv. What the FIRMS data is telling us here may be that Ukraine crossed the river in this area, constructing the pontoon bridge south of the bridge that Russia destroyed, and using the low-lying land east of Rubizhne as part of their route. If that’s true, then the hot spots from 3-4 days ago in this area are likely Russia attempting to disrupt the Ukrainian effort.
What comes next on the FIRMS data—those orange blocks—may be an indicator of how well the relative crossing operations went. On the south, the action moves from Zarichne another 2km north to an area between the town of Metalivka and the village of Bereznyky. This seems like a very good indicator that Ukrainian forces have crossed at Staryi Saltiv, advanced into Zarichne, and are continuing to the north.
However, there’s no matching collection of strikes to show that Ukrainian forces are also proceeding from the crossing at Rubizhne. Instead, there is a tightly packed collection of hot spots on the west side of the river, between Rubizhne and Verkhnii Saltiv, both of which are thought to be under Ukrainian control. This fire was almost certainly directed across the river by Russian forces and could mean that the northern crossing was less successful than the one at Staryi Saltiv. It’s extremely unlikely that Russian forces administered anything like the defeat that Russia faced in its three disastrous attempts to cross the same river further south, but Ukraine might have only been able to get limited forces across. It might have lost any bridgehead at Rubizhne.
Or not. This is, after all, a level of guesswork not far removed from skillful examination of a calf’s entrails.
What’s clear is that the bombardment of the west bank is no longer underway, while the artillery strikes on the east bank near Metalivka continue. This might also be an indicator. If Ukraine was able to get people across the river at both locations, the sites now under fire from the Staryi Saltiv crossing should be getting hit from both sides. […] This is, after all, the same “Kraken” forces who have not just driven back Russian troops from the area around Kharkiv, but constantly turned up where they were not expected.
The distance from Kharkiv to Staryi Saltiv, is almost exactly the same as the distance from Staryi Saltiv to the Russian road and rail hub at Vovchansk. But to interrupt the flow of supplies, Ukraine doesn’t have to get to Vovchansk at all. They could push east at any point, cutting across the line miles south of the junction. [map at the link]
The idea that Ukraine successfully brought forces across the river and is advancing on Russian supply lines is attractive not just because it holds out an opportunity to significantly derail Russian progress farther south, but because it shows Ukraine being successful at just the operation which has given Russia so much difficulty. It’s pleasing in its symmetry. […]
And it’s exactly because that interpretation is so pleasing … that it should be taken with a whole shaker full of salt. Still, here’s looking at you, Vovchansk, with a lean and hungry look.
[…] Earlier this year, America’s Voice and Immigration Hub said they’d documented hundreds of right-wings ads and messages by Republicans leading into the midterms, including the kinds of “invasion” claims made by Stefanik on the House floor. This wording was infamously used by the white supremacist terrorist who went to El Paso with a stated goal of murdering Mexicans in 2019. One analysis previously found that the insurrectionist president had used this rhetoric at least 19 times during rallies. It was at one of these rallies where in May 2019 he chuckled and joked at a supporter’s suggestion of shooting asylum-seekers at the southern border.
The New York Times reports that during a rally this week for noted medical con artist and Pennsylvania senate candidate Mehmet Oz, he continued to use this word. Even after numerous racist mass shootings. In the same week. There are no other conclusions to make other than he wants more Black and brown people dead.
The same can be said for right-wing Gov. Greg Abbott, whose very state was jolted by a racist mass killer. Abbott faced intense backlash over an anti-immigrant fundraising letter he’d sent out just days before the El Paso shooting, eventually issuing a nonapology apology that claimed “mistakes were made.” By someone, somewhere. It’s a mystery. But despite a racist citing a fake “invasion” to murder 23 people and injure another 23, Abbott and other state Republicans have again used this vile term. “We are being invaded,” Lieutenant Gov. Dan Patrick said last June, The Texas Tribune reported at the time. “Abbott said Wednesday that ‘homes are being invaded,’” the report continued.
”Rep. Jodey Arrington (TX-19) was on FOX on June 4 claiming, ‘the federal government has failed to protect against this invasion,’” America’s Voice and Immigration Hub said in their report. “And Rep. Bob Good (VA-05) falsely claimed in a press release on July 21, that there is a ‘raging border invasion.’ Other Republicans like Rep. Tom Tiffany (WI-07), Rep. Madison Cawthorn (NC-11), and Texas gubernatorial Republican party candidate Don Huffines have been running Facebook ads using ‘invasion’ to build their campaign coffers.”
The organizations noted that Lindsey Graham, once a GOP champion of comprehensive immigration reform, has also been no stranger to using this rhetoric.
“They can’t claim ignorance and say they didn’t know this language could potentially lead to violence because it happened before,” Mario Carrillo, a Texas-based organizer with America’s Voice, told Texas Tribune about Abbott and Texas Republicans. In a tweet, El Paso Rep. Veronica Escobar was blunt: “If people die again, blood will be on your hands.” Now 10 innocents in Buffalo are dead because of racist rhetoric, and Stefanik, a federal lawmaker who spewed this replacement theory, has shown not a lick of remorse. Kevin McCarthy, who publicly lied about urging the insurrectionist president to resign over the Jan. 6 insurrection, went to the border to lie about immigrants rather than fess up to his own lies.
America’s Voice said that “in the past year alone, Republicans have ran over 100 different ads with ‘invasion’ rhetoric,” its searchable GOP ad tracker had found. Once again: It’s not the fringe, it’s the GOP.
According to specialists, Ankara is above all shedding light on Swedish support for the PKK in order to regain influence within the military alliance. “Turkey’s relationship with NATO has been very complicated for several years. It had come to the point of talking about its exclusion. For Turkey, it is a question of avoiding being marginalised,” said Massicard.
Turkey has adopted this position in the hopes of obtaining compensation from the organisation’s members, in particular the United States. In 2020, Washington imposed sanctions on the Turkish defence industry, following the latter’s purchase of the Russian S 400 anti-missile system. Turkey was also excluded from the US F-35 stealth fighter programme, for which “it had placed an order and paid a down payment of $1.4 billion”, according to Courrier International. A gesture by Joe Biden on this issue would undoubtedly overcome Ankara’s reluctance.
Wonkette: “Steve Bannon Says His Kinder, Gentler Racist Nativism Different From Buffalo Shooter’s Icky Murder-y Kind”
In the wake of the revelation that the 18-year-old white supremacist shooter in Buffalo was brain-poisoned by the Great Replacement Theory lie, Steve Bannon is flooding the zone with an epic quantity of shit.
“He’s Azov, a gay guy, he’s got all these insignias. He comes across – he said he’s a left-wing authoritarian, an eco-authoritarian,” he babbled to Rudy Giuliani on Monday. “It’s in the manifesto, which they won’t release. I don’t know, just release it, it’s not gonna warp people’s mind. People can make decisions.” [video at the link]
Okay, first of all, Peyton Gendron’s screed is a simple Google search away for anyone who chooses to read it. Is Bannon pissed that a mass shooter is being cancel-cultured by responsible media outlets who don’t want to inspire the next massacre while giving free publicity to the bad ideas that inspired the current one? We don’t know, but he’s been flogging vile nativist ideas himself for years. And anyone who did read this demon’s scribblings would immediately understand that, shitposting aside, he’s not a gay eco-terrorist Ukrainian right-wing paramilitary trooper.
FFS, the man carried a gun with a racial epithet scrawled on it into a store he chose specifically because its clientele was predominantly Black, and shouted racist slurs as he went on a killing spree.
Azov? Fuck right off.
“Parents got to be on top of stuff. Why are the parents that – is this kid going to church? Is he in church?” Bannon wondered, as if being heavily churched has ever stopped a racist mass shooter before. Then he seamlessly pivoted to chastising the media for “inappropriately” blaming Tucker Carlson, who mainstreamed the very ideas about white replacement that inspired this attack. [video at the link]
“This situation up in Buffalo stinks to high heaven, and of course the mainstream media’s focused on the wrong thing,” Bannon tut-tutted. As if the problem is the media’s impropriety, not the 10 people dead because the country is awash in toxic racism.
Now watch this asshole try to distinguish his brand of poison from the low rent, generic version flogged by the racist killer. [video at the link]
“We are inclusive nationalists, right?” he said, invoking “Hispanics in the Rio Grande Valley” and “African Americans in droves who are understanding the lies and misrepresentations of the Democratic party.”
“We’re winning. This is about the sovereignty of the United States and the citizens of the United States,” he rambled, before going on a riff about ceding control of the country to globalists at the World Health Organization. Oh, hey, you know who else didn’t like (((globalists?)))
Bannon credited his “inclusive nationalism and participatory populism” with the 80-to-100 seat gain he thinks the GOP will make in November. Although, we can’t help but notice that the GOP’s plan to achieve this relies on both a massive gerrymander and making sure that broad swathes of the population cannot participate in elections.
“We’re not going to stop, we are ascendant,” ranted the man who used to work at the White House and who now vlogs into a microphone all day, just 18 months after his party’s standard-bearer was soundly rejected by the American people.
Look, it’s all shit right now, no doubt. But Bannon’s little freakout is because the media is finally learning to talk about his “movement” accurately. Because the bogeyman of the week is GRT, not CRT. Because nobody outside of Fox News is talking about a lone wolf — they’re talking about young men getting radicalized by Bannon and Carlson and their ilk. Because mealy-mouthed euphemisms like “racially tinged” and “controversial” are getting replaced by “racism” and “white supremacist.”
It’s not going to happen all at once — shit, it took ’em four years to start saying Trump lied — but it is happening. Just ask Elise Stefanik. And that little tantrum there was Bannon trying desperately to regain control of the narrative.
[…] It was a thought about Finland, a free country, joining NATO. Literally all people who love democracy and freedom think this is a good idea. The only people who don’t like this idea are Putin and his sycophants. Hell, Putin even tried to cut off the electricity, but Finland was like fuck off and now Putin is paying lip service to how it’s fine totally fine for Finland and Sweden to join NATO.
Which brings us to:
I get there’s nothing going on at home that Congress could be worrying about, but after decades of not being in NATO and being just fine isn’t the notion of eliminating this buffer zone a little bit how the Ukraine invasion started?
Wow, Junior, how did you hit so many of Vladimir Putin’s sweet spots in so few characters?
Suggesting Finland is “just fine” and shouldn’t worry about anything, despite how its hostile neighbor — which has attacked it before […] — is currently committing war crimes and genocide on another peaceful neighbor? Check.
Suggesting Putin deserves to have a “buffer zone” from NATO, because whatever Putin wants Putin gets, if it’s what you say Junior loves it, especially later in the summer? Check.
Suggesting Putin simply had to invade because Ukraine was about to join NATO (it wasn’t), thereby eliminating that “buffer zone”? Check.
Suggesting “the Ukraine invasion started” for any other reason besides how the garbage dictator in Russia with all the stupid-looking fillers in his face was feeling murder-y and decided to start killing people to fulfill his clownish dreams of a reconstituted Russian Empire? Checkity check check check!
Boy, Junior. You sure did learn from the best, when it comes to being on Putin’s side instead of America’s side.
We’d say your father must be impressed, except we know he’s never impressed with you. […]
Rightwing pundits got busy Monday on the very important project of distancing themselves and their racist panic over immigration from the ideas espoused — and put into action Saturday — by the 18-year-old white supremacist who shot 13 people in a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, killing 10 of them. In what’s become a mandatory feature of racist mass shootings, the shooter posted an online manifesto explaining why he had to kill innocent shoppers to save white culture, complete with racist memes and nonsense shitposting, like claiming he loves the environment and considers his political orientation as “authoritarian left wing,” which righties have dutifully cited as proof that the massacre was clearly caused by Elizabeth Warren or possibly Antifa […]
And just like the other racist mass murderers, the Buffalo murderer said he was acting to stop the “great replacement” of white people by immigrants and minorities, a racist conspiracy theory that’s just the latest variation on the centuries-old white anxiety that white supremacy is doomed, and must be preserved at any cost. In the most far-Right versions, it’s a devious Jewish plot, because what good is a devious plot that’s not driven by the Jews? The goal of these nefarious plotters is to “import” brown immigrants, and also to make white people eventually go extinct by having to share their America with people who aren’t white.
In its slightly more genteel versions, pushed by more mainstream rightwing sources like Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and others, the explicitly antisemitic language may be reduced to dogwhistles so the plot is blamed on “elites,” “globalists,” or “George Soros,” or it may be left out altogether to blame Democrats (the distinction almost doesn’t matter, since Dems are of course tools of the elites, the globalists and George Soros).
Naturally, folks on the right who’ve been pushing “Great Replacement” drivel are furiously distancing themselves from the shooter, some by positing alternative theories (It was furries caused the shooting!) or by insisting that their own Great Replacement rhetoric is totally not to blame for the shooting, because they didn’t turn up in the manifesto’s Works Cited list.
You know we’ve reached a whole new level of hair splitting when people pushing racist conspiracy theories say their hands are clean because while they and the shooter are both spouting the same toxic crap, the shooter never personally referenced them. And while it’s true that there’s no evidence the shooter ever watched Carlson, that’s hardly a defense of pushing the very same rhetoric that motivated the shooter. Hooray, Tucker isn’t responsible for this horrific shooting. Maybe he’s working to incite the next one.
Matt Walsh: But My Paranoia Is REAL!
For example, take Matt Walsh (please!), one of the second-tier pundits at Daily Wire, AKA Ben Shapiro’s Internet Whine-A-Torium. Last summer, Walsh indignantly insisted that the “Great Replacement” IS TOO a thing that is real and is a deliberate Democratic plot, and how dare anyone say it’s a creation of far-right racists! The he talked loudly and volubly about how you’re not allowed to talk about that, and while no one stopped him, a lot of people said he was defending a racist trope, and that’s totally the same as censorship.
Naturally enough, Walsh reacted to accurate media reports that the “Great Replacement” is a racist conspiracy theory by indignantly insisting all over again that it IS TOO a thing that is real and is a deliberate Democratic plot, and how dare anyone say it’s a creation of far-right racists! And also time is a flat circle. Video and transcript via Media Matters: [video at the link]
[This] — I was going to call him a kid but he’s 18 years-old — this man’s ideology is a mess — he’s, again, a lunatic — all over the place, he does mention the so-called great replacement theory. And this is what they’re trying to hang around the neck of Tucker Carlson, Fox News, really any conservative, myself included. Because Tucker Carlson and other conservatives have in the past pointed out that the Democrats have been very open about the fact that, you know, they want to minimize what they call whiteness in America. And they want to bring in voters, you know, from other countries.
That is actually a lie, but do go on.
They don’t want voter ID laws, you know, they want to be able to bring in the voters and have them vote because they know they’re going to be voting Democrat. So, they want to replace, especially white male voters, with voters who they think are going to be beholden to them.
Also a lie: we don’t like voter ID when it’s used to exclude otherwise qualified people from voting, and there’s no “voter fraud” crisis to start with. We want people to vote legally. That’s it! As for “bringing in voters,” again, no, that would be bullshit. We want to help people escape war, oppression, gangs, and people trying to kill them, because we’re just monsters that way, shame on us. We actually understand that people are individuals and may not automatically vote one way or another. Also, as a white male, I can say with certainty that my vote will never go to a Republican. Walsh went on lying:
Now, this isn’t a conspiracy theory. There’s nothing wild or speculative about it. It’s just a fact. And one of the ways you know that it’s a fact is the left and the media — The New York Times, CNN — they’ve been very open about it, many times.
Walsh continued in that vein, complaining that discussions about the dangers of white supremacy equal a plot to eliminate white people, and so on […]
Also, Lockdowns Were The Real Shooter
Walsh tweeted that maybe we need to investigate how it was really the pandemic lockdowns that are to blame, because the shooter wrote that he found 4chan racism while he was bored and out of school. This is a great theory, since no teens ever go online when in-person school is in session. [tweet at the link]
Teen murders 10 people, rants extensively about how the Jews are replacing him with Black people and immigrants, so let’s look far more closely at the single line about the lockdown. By that logic, we should lock up Candace Owens for the New Zealand massacre. (We should instead ignore her because she’s A IDIOT.)
In conclusion, Matt Walsh wants you to know his hands are clean and he sleeps fine at night, because he has definitely not personally incited any racist mass shootings, the end.
The Justice Department has asked the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack for transcripts of interviews it is conducting, which have included discussions with associates of former President Donald J. Trump, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
The move, coming as Attorney General Merrick B. Garland appears to be ramping up the pace of his painstaking investigation into the Capitol riot, is the clearest sign yet of a wide-ranging inquiry at the Justice Department.
The House committee has interviewed more than 1,000 people so far, and the transcripts could be used as evidence in potential criminal cases, to pursue new leads or as a baseline text for new interviews conducted by federal law enforcement officials.
Aides to Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee, have yet to reach a final agreement with the Justice Department on what will be turned over, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the confidential nature of the investigations.
On April 20, Kenneth A. Polite Jr., the assistant attorney general for the criminal division, and Matthew M. Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, wrote to Timothy J. Heaphy, the lead investigator for the House panel, advising him that some committee interviews “may contain information relevant to a criminal investigation we are conducting.”
Mr. Polite and Mr. Graves did not indicate the number of transcripts they were requesting or whether any interviews were of particular interest. In their letter, they made a broad request, asking that the panel “provide to us transcripts of these interviews, and of any additional interviews you conduct in the future.”
…
Thus far, the Justice Department’s investigation has focused more on lower-level activists who stormed the Capitol than on the planners of the attack. But in recent weeks, Mr. Garland has bolstered the core team tasked with handling the most sensitive and politically combustible elements of the inquiry.
Several months ago, the department quietly detailed a veteran federal prosecutor from Maryland, Thomas Windom, to the department’s headquarters. He is overseeing the politically fraught question of whether a case can be made related to other efforts to overturn the election, aside from the storming of the Capitol. That task could move the investigation closer to Mr. Trump and his inner circle.
A subpoena reviewed by The New York Times indicates that the Justice Department is exploring the actions taken by rally planners.
Prosecutors have begun asking for records about people who organized or spoke at several pro-Trump rallies after the 2020 election as well as anyone who provided security at those events, and about those who were deemed to be “V.I.P. attendees.”
They are also seeking information about any members of the executive and legislative branches who may have taken part in planning or executing the rallies, or tried to “obstruct, influence, impede or delay” the certification of the election, as the subpoena put it.
The Justice Department’s request for transcripts underscores how much ground the House committee has covered, and the unusual nature of a situation where a well-staffed congressional investigation has obtained testimony from key witnesses before a grand jury investigation….
Russian investigators will interrogate the Ukrainian soldiers who were moved out of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol after Ukrainian forces agreed to a negotiated surrender that effectively ended the weeks-long battle for the besieged site.
Russia’s top investigative body said Tuesday that the Ukrainian soldiers will be questioned as “part of the investigation into criminal cases concerning crimes committed by the Ukrainian regime against the civilian population of Donbas,” according to a statement.
Moscow has claimed, without providing evidence, that Ukrainian troops had used civilians trapped inside the plant as human shields.
At least 264 Ukrainian fighters, many seriously injured, put down their weapons Monday and were taken to Russian-controlled territory while hundreds more remained trapped in the plant Tuesday as delicate negotiations continued.
Ukrainian officials have said they plan to exchange Russian prisoners of war for the Ukrainian soldiers.
Russian investigators will identify the fighters and “verify their involvement in crimes committed against civilians, and the information obtained during the interrogations will be compared with other data available in the criminal case files,” the statement said, suggesting that they may try to prosecute the fighters. […]
Trump and Elon sitting in a tree, legal liability.
GMBigKevsays
My beloved lost their job yesterday. We’d just started talking about getting the money together to try to adopt a kid again… and now it’s probably not going to happen. I’m devastated and they’re numb.
Hungary’s nationalist leader, Viktor Orbán, will be the star speaker at an extraordinary session of America’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) to be held in Hungary this week, in an effort to cement bonds between the radical right on both sides of the Atlantic under the banner of the “great replacement” ideology.
In a speech on Monday, Orbán made explicit reference to the ideology, which claims there is a liberal plot to dilute the white populations of the US and European countries through immigration. Increasingly widespread among US Republicans, the creed was cited by the killer who opened fire on Saturday in a supermarket in a predominantly black area of Buffalo, New York.
Speaking in Buffalo on Tuesday, Joe Biden called it a “perverse ideology” and “a lie”.
“I call on all Americans to reject the lie. I condemn those who spread the lie for power, political gain and for profit,” Biden said. “We’ve now seen too many times the deadly and destructive violence this ideology unleashes.”
Orbán argued this week that the western world was “committing suicide” through immigration.
“I see the great European population exchange as a suicidal attempt to replace the lack of European, Christian children with adults from other civilizations – migrants,” Orbán declared in a speech to mark the start of his fourth term in office. Echoing another popular theme on the American right, he argued that another form of cultural suicide was “gender madness”, a reference to the spread of LGBTQ+ rights in the west.
The prime minister’s choice of vocabulary was not accidental, Hungarian political analysts said, but was rather designed to underline the common ties between his Fidesz party, his self-described “illiberal” form of government, and the American visitors arriving in Budapest for the first ever CPAC meeting in Europe.
…
Alongside prominent Fidesz figures will be an array of other European hard-right leaders, including the former head of the UK Independence party, Nigel Farage, Herbert Kickl, head of Austrian Freedom party, and Santiago Abascal, president of Spain’s Vox party.
The US contingent will include several Republican members of Congress, Donald Trump’s former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and the chairman of the American Conservative Union, Matt Schlapp. Most influential of all, the Fox News talkshow host Tucker Carlson will be attending.
Carlson has arguably done more than anyone to popularise the “great replacement theory” in the US, promoting it in 400 of his shows, according to an analysis by the New York Times.
Carlson has developed particular ties with Orbán, originally through his father, Richard, whose political consultancy, Policy Impact Strategic Communications, is a registered lobbyist for the Hungarian leader. Last year, Carlson broadcast a week’s episodes of his show from Hungary, with a soft interview with Orbán himself, putting both the prime minister and his government in a positive light, and glossing over EU complaints that Orbán has curbed independent media and judicial autonomy, enriched his associates from the public purse and reshaped election laws to his benefit.
Earlier this year, Carlson produced another pro-Orbán programme called Hungary vs Soros: The Fight for Civilization, highlighting another ideological bond: the portrayal of George Soros, a Hungarian-born billionaire and philanthropist, as a malign Jewish financier pulling the strings on immigration and other liberal policies….
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
A Russian tank commander has pleaded guilty to shooting dead a civilian on a bicycle, in Ukraine’s first trial for war crimes committed during the Russian invasion.
Vadim Shysimarin, 21, sat emotionless as prosecutors detailed charges that he had fired his AK-47 at a 62 year-old man from the window of a car in the north-eastern Sumy region in late February.
His commander allegedly told him to kill the man, an unarmed civilian, because he worried the victim might give away the position of Russian forces.
The court, presided over by three judges, will still hear testimony from witnesses including the victim’s wife and another Russian soldier who was in the car with Shysimarin, before confirming the verdict and handing down a sentence.
Prosecutors have moved fast. It is extremely unusual to hold a trial while a conflict is still ongoing, and unprecedented to do it within weeks. The victim was shot dead less than three months ago, in the first days after the invasion.
Ukrainian authorities say justice for atrocities committed by Russian forces is a priority, with investigators at times even risking their lives in areas still laced with mines or threatened by Russian forces to collect evidence that could help secure convictions.
They have the support of several teams of international investigators and forensic experts, but face a mammoth task. Hundreds of civilians were killed just in the parts of Ukraine that have been liberated from Russian forces, and dozens of rapes have been reported.
Already Ukraine’s prosector general has registered more than 11,000 war crimes, which have included attacks on hospitals. Large swathes of Ukrainian territory are still under Russian control, so the toll is expected to rise considerably if those areas can be reached.
Shysimarin, who comes from Ust Illyinsk in the south-east Irkutsk region of Russia, was a commander of the Kantemirovskaya tank division at the time of the killing, which happened on 28 February in Chupakhivka village.
Prosecutors say he shot at a car after his convoy came under attack from Ukrainian forces, then stole the car and drove it away with four other soldiers. He then used an AK-47 to shoot the unarmed man, just a few dozen metres from his home.
The man was speaking on his phone and Shysimarin was ordered “to kill a civilian so he would not report them to Ukrainian defenders”, according to prosecutors.
ravensays
‘The whole world is against us’: Russian military analyst gives damning assessment of Ukraine war on state TV
PUBLISHED WED, MAY 18 20225:55 AM EDT Holly Ellyatt cnbc.com
“The main deficiency of our military-political position is that we are in full geopolitical solitude and — however we don’t want to admit it — practically the whole world is against us … and we need to get out of this situation,” Khodaryonok continued on the talk show, with the other studio guests appearing dumbstruck by his outspoken critique.
Khodaryonok emphasized that even if Ukraine had to rely on hundreds of thousands of conscripts that only had rudimentary military training, what mattered is that their hearts would be in the fight, and that would not bode well for Russia.
This Russian Colonel, Khodaryonok has said something I’ve noticed long ago.
It is obvious that Russia isn’t just fighting Ukraine. They are fighting most of the world.
It is the EU, NATO, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Korea, USA, and Canada supporting Ukraine. Even Russia’s vassal states, the Central Asian republics like kazakhstan, and Belarus have already said it was a bad idea and they aren’t really supporting Russia.
Belarus is pretending to support Russia while being very careful to keep their army away from Ukraine.
China is supporting Russia but without a lot of enthusiasm. They would rather this had never happened so they could continue selling stuff to people and making money. They’ve got their own problems with the Covid-19 virus pandemic lockdowns.
Khodaryonok also pointed out another obvious fact. The Russian invasion is clearly a genocidal attack. They’ve gotten to the point of executing Ukraine civilians, kidnapping 1.3 million Ukrainians including 200,000 children, and searching out and burning books in the Ukrainian language.
So the Ukrainians are fighting like it is a matter of life or death. Because it is.
They’ve got nowhere else to go and no choice here.
The Russian soldiers are just conscripts being used as cannon fodder and they don’t have much at stake here.
Here’s a link to the Guardian US-primary-elections liveblog. From there:
Yesterday was the biggest primary night of the year, with voters in five states – Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Oregon, Idaho and Kentucky – picking the candidates at the center of some of this year’s most contentious battles for control of Congress, statehouses and governor’s offices.
At the moment, the race for the Republican nomination for the Senate seat in Pennsylvania is neck-and-neck between Mehmet Oz, the celebrity physician better known as Dr Oz, and Dave McCormick, a former hedge fund boss. Oz, who is endorsed by Donald Trump, is currently trailing McCormick, but the race remains too close too call.
Many are watching the race to gauge Trump’s enduring grip on the Republican party – one of many tests of the night. While the Oz race is still too close too call, Pennsylvania Republicans handedly nominated Trump’s choice for governor – Doug Mastriano – an election denier who was outside the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.
However, in North Carolina, Republicans ousted Trump’s candidate for Senate – Madison Cawthorn, the scandal-plagued first-term congressman. But in this same state, the Trump-backed congressman Ted Budd bested ex-governor Pat McCrory and a dozen other candidates to clinch the Republican nomination for Senate.
In Idaho, the sitting governor, Brad Little, defeated his far-right lieutenant governor, Janice McGeachin, a Trump-endorsed candidate who twice attempted a power grab to ban coronavirus mask and vaccine mandates when Little was out of state on business.
Whoever wins the Republican primary for Senate in Pennsylvania – Mehmet Oz, the celebrity physician better known as Dr Oz, or Dave McCormick, a former hedge fund boss – will be going up against John Fetterman, lieutenant governor, who easily won the Democratic primary, despite a stroke taking him off the campaign trail in the final weekend before the election.
Is this irony? The Daily Beast is pointing out one piece of the big lie that Donald Trump keeps putting forth about the 2020 presidential election has to do with mail-in ballots: Joe Biden won swing state Pennsylvania, largely in part through the 2m mail-in ballots, to which Trump objected.
Well, with the Republican primary for Senate looking closer than ever, whether or not Trump’s candidate – Mehmet Oz, the celebrity physician better known as Dr Oz – triumphs over Dave McCormick, a former hedge fund boss, will likely come down to the mail-in votes.
It’ll be interesting to see if the Trump team object to mail-in ballots if Oz prevails.
Pollution is killing 9 million people a year, a review has found, making it responsible for one in six of all deaths.
Toxic air and contaminated water and soil “is an existential threat to human health and planetary health, and jeopardises the sustainability of modern societies”, the review concluded.
The death toll from pollution dwarfs that from road traffic deaths, HIV/Aids, malaria and TB combined, or from drug and alcohol misuse. The researchers calculated the economic impact of pollution deaths at $4.6tn (£3.7tn), about $9m a minute.
The overall impact of pollution has not improved since the first global review in 2017, since when 45 million lives have been lost to it. Prevention was largely overlooked in the international development agenda, the researchers said, with funding increasing only minimally since 2015.
Deaths from toxic air and chemicals have risen by 7% since the previous review and 66% since 2000, driven by increased fossil fuel burning, rising population numbers and unplanned urbanisation. This rise was offset by improvements in the “ancient scourges” of water polluted by pathogens and poor sanitation and indoor smoke from cooking fires.
The researchers said pollution, the climate crisis and the destruction of wildlife and nature “are the key global environmental issues of our time. These issues are intricately linked and solutions to each will benefit the others. [But] we cannot continue to ignore pollution. We are going backwards.”
Prof Philip Landrigan, at Boston College in the US and a lead author of the analysis, said: “Pollution is still the largest existential threat to human and planetary health. Preventing pollution can also slow climate change – achieving a double benefit for planetary health – and our report calls for a massive, rapid transition away from all fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy.”
…
The new review, published in the journal Lancet Planetary Health, analysed data from the 2019 Global Burden of Disease project, the most recent available, and found air pollution caused almost 75% of the 9 million pollution deaths.
Toxic chemicals resulted in 1.8 million deaths, including 900,000 deaths from lead pollution, which is more than from HIV/Aids. Lead poisoning could significantly reduce intelligence across large populations, Fuller said, sources of which include water pipes, paint, backyard car battery recycling, as well foodstuffs such as contaminated turmeric.
The number of deaths from chemical pollutants was likely to be an underestimate, the scientists said, as only a small proportion of the 350,000 synthetic chemicals in use had been adequately tested for safety. The cocktail of chemical pollution that pervades the planet has passed the safe limit for the stability of global ecosystems upon which humanity depends, researchers reported in January.
More than 90% of pollution deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries, such as India and Nigeria. While high-income countries, such as the US and members of the EU, had controlled the worst forms of pollution, the researchers said, few less affluent nations had been able to make pollution a priority.
Pollution also crossed international borders, carried on winds or in food exports, said Fuller: “If we’re going to keep everyone safe, we need to help countries that have these toxic problems to stop the pollution at the source.”
Unsafe water causes 1.4 million early deaths a year but this has been falling due to improvements in sanitation and healthcare, particularly in Africa. However, the UN estimates more than 2 billion people still do not have access to clean drinking water.
The researchers called for increased funding for pollution control from governments and donors, better monitoring and a new independent scientific body to assess the problem, modelled on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose influential reports are agreed by all governments.
“Pollution has typically been viewed as a local issue,” said Rachael Kupka, also at GAHP, which includes the UN Environment Programme and the World Bank. “However, it is clear that pollution is a planetary threat. Global action on all major modern pollutants is needed.”
SC @194, OMG, Tucker Carlson and Viktor Orbán, what an evil team. Yuck.
Sc @197, a small bit of almost-good news:
In Idaho, the sitting governor, Brad Little, defeated his far-right lieutenant governor, Janice McGeachin, a Trump-endorsed candidate who twice attempted a power grab to ban coronavirus mask and vaccine mandates when Little was out of state on business.
It was hard to watch local news on TV for the past two weeks. The channels were flooded with anti-Brad-Little propaganda that claimed Little was “anti-Trump” and a “RINO.” Somebody spent a lot of money trying to get Janice McGeachin to win. So glad she didn’t. I particularly disliked her gun, bible and giant pickup truck advert. She is basically a white supremacist, and a religious fanatic … with a gun.
Russia is closing the Moscow bureau of Canada’s broadcaster, CBC, and withdrawing visas and accreditation of its journalists in Russia, its foreign ministry said.
The decision was taken to make “retaliatory measures in relation to the actions of Canada” after Ottawa banned Russian state TV station RT, Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, told reporters.
Zakharova said:
With regret we continue to notice open attacks on the Russian media from the countries of the so-called collective West who call themselves civilised.
She accused Canada of taking a “Russophobic” path including censorship of the media.
The European Commission has proposed an extra €9bn in EU loans to Ukraine to keep the country running as well as a €210bn plan for Europe to end its reliance on Russian fossil fuels by 2027. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said the €9bn support package would “help Ukraine win the war, overcome the consequences of Russian forces’ aggression and accelerate the movement towards EU membership”.
Russia has expelled a total of 85 diplomatic staff from France, Spain and Italy in response to similar moves by those countries, its foreign ministry said. It said it was ordering out 34 embassy staff from France, 27 from Spain and 24 from Italy.
…
Russian authorities have seized Google Russia’s bank account, making it impossible for its Russian office to function, a Google spokesperson said. The US tech giant’s Russian subsidiary has declared its intention to file for bankruptcy after months of pressure from authorities.
The Russian gymnast, Ivan Kuliak, has been handed a one-year ban for wearing the letter “Z” supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine during an event in Qatar in March. The 20-year-old displayed the letter as he stood on the podium at the Apparatus World Cup in Doha.
You’ve seen tankies around. They’re the ones who believe that all the world’s evils are the product of imperialism and the only country capable of imperialism is the United States. It looks like this:
If you’re on the side of the US empire on any issue you are on the wrong side. Doesn’t mean the other side is always necessarily in the right, it just means a globe-spanning empire that’s held together by lies, murder and tyranny will always be in the wrong. Yes it’s that simple.
[…] it may come as a shock seeing them become pathetic apologists for Vladimir Putin’s ambitions to reconstitute the Soviet empire.
In their telling, the Ukraine invasion is the United State’s fault because it “expanded” NATO too aggressively, threatening poor Russia. How would we like it if Mexico joined a military alliance with Russia? We didn’t like it when the Soviet Union tried to place nuclear bombs on Cuba!
In the tankie worldview, no one has agency except the United States. Poland and Slovakia and Romania and Bulgaria didn’t have the ability or right to choose to join NATO. Neither do Finland and Sweden. These are all imperialist provocations and machinations by the American empire. What other option did Russia have but to defend its borders by, uh, explicitly advocating for its own empire?
Their favorite term for the Ukraine invasion is “American proxy war,” and they think it’s particularly brilliant how the United States has gotten Ukraine to do all the dying for America’s imperial glory. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a sadist, allowing his people to die instead of giving Russia everything it wants: full hegemony over a Ukrainian people Vladimir Putin claims do not have a right to exist.
There’s Max Blumenthal, busy trying to excuse away clear examples of Russian massacres and war crimes.
“…reports of a Russian massacre of scores of civilians in the town of Bucha also contain suspicious details suggesting a pattern of information manipulation aimed at triggering Western military intervention”
[Debunked lies.]
Glenn Greenwald, of course.
[Tucker] Carlson pursued the [Ukraine-United States biolabs] story on three different episodes of his show over the past week. On 10 March he brought on writer Glenn Greenwald. “When the government comes out and emphatically denies that they have biological weapons,” Greenwald said. “We know they’re not telling the truth.”
Michael Tracey, who spent some time harassing Ukrainian refugees as they fled the death and destruction in their homelands:
Unfortunately, Displaced Ukrainians are Calling for World War III
Now, those refugees weren’t calling for WWIII. He writes, “And what I can report thus far is that with the exception of just one person, every recently-arrived Ukrainian I’ve spoken to in Poland has expressed strong support for “Closing the Sky” when queried.”
That’s it. Refugees coming from a war zone, in their desperation, wanted a no-fly zone for protection from Russian death. Tracey, the insufferable asshole tankie that he is, turned that into “they want WWIII” because, in his estimation, a no-fly zone would escalate the conflict into nuclear war.
There’s Noam Chomsky.
Noam Chomsky, in an interview this week, says “fortunately” there is “one Western statesman of stature” who is pushing for a diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine rather than looking for ways to fuel and prolong it.
“His name is Donald J. Trump,” Chomsky says.
Jill Stein is a tankie. So is Tulsi Gabbard. British-Lebanese conflict reporter Oz Katerji, currently reporting from the ground in Ukraine, gives the tankies all the scorn they deserve. […]
The tankies […] point to increased defense spending and new riches enjoyed by the military industrial complex and say “aha! It’s all going according to their plan!” as if this unfortunate new round of defense spending hasn’t been fostered by Putin’s actions.
But nothing galls more than their utter disregard for the choices of free nations to decide their own destiny. They have been so impacted by America’s real foreign policy sins that they have lost the ability to understand that the world is a complex place, and sometimes, other people get a say in their own affairs. And sometimes, America is on the right side.
blfsays
Oops! Recently I found my pocket-flask, which I could only recall filling with port before the pandemic. Ugghhh… So I (eventually) “tasted” it, by emptying it into my (emptied) vin glass, and… not port. Whiskey. Probably a single malt, but cannot identify which one. Definitely drinkable. And a rather large pour… Urrph! Tasty, but I’m obviously going to be staying in tonight. If my typeing becones morr errratic youu konw whu.
Ted Cruz on Monday echoed the same racist rhetoric that has now been used by multiple U.S. mass murderers, including in his home state of Texas in 2019. Cruz falsely claimed during an appearance on the right-wing Mark Levin Show that “it is an invasion we’re seeing” at the southern border.
Cruz made the remark just hours after a racist mass murderer who believed in invasion and “great replacement” conspiracies traveled to Buffalo, New York, to kill Black people. The Texas senator’s remark was no fluke: He posted a clip of his appearance to his personal Twitter account the next day. On Wednesday, Cruz again shared a clip.
[…] America’s Voice Political Director Zachary Mueller […] has steadily tracked racist rhetoric spewed by Congressional Republicans, including Elise Stefanik’s now-infamous advertising echoing racist replacement theory.
This invasion rhetoric was also spewed by the racist mass killer who in 2019 drove to a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, to murder Mexicans. The racist mass killer had complained about a “Hispanic invasion” of a state that was home to Latinos way before it was ever part of the United States.
If Cruz valued decency more than his racist voters, he would have never again led that word slip from between his wormy lips. But Mueller notes that not only was he very intentional in what he said, he doubled down, sharing a clip of his appearance the next day. On Wednesday, he tripled down, again sharing a clip that railed on “illegal immigrants” at the southern border. [Tweet and video at the link]
The reality is that many are asylum-seekers who are being blocked from their rights under the Stephen Miller-endorsed Title 42 policy. But Cruz would rather have you be afraid of them than the insurrectionists who tried to overthrow our election. He’d also rather have you be afraid of these families when his father, Rafael Cruz, similarly sought asylum, from Cuba. The elder Cruz has previously described how he bribed a Cuban official in order to pursue safety here.
It’s no surprise that Cruz made this racist “invasion” claim. Levin last year claimed that “we’re losing red-state America, and they are doing it, they are diabolical, and they are evil, they are doing it through immigration,” Media Matters reported at the time. “People are coming in by the hundreds of thousands, by design,” Levin continued. “Most of the media are not there to report it, by design.”
Right-wing media has been essential in amplifying and mainstreaming racist conspiracy theories. In particular, Tucker Carlson has “amplified the idea that Democratic populations and others want to force demographic change through immigration,” The New York Times has reported. “That’s the heart of the ‘great replacement’ conspiracy theory, which is popular among white nationalists and was previously confined to the fringes of U.S. media,” Media Matters continued. It’s now being used by both aspiring and elected GOP officials alike, Mueller noted:
Today, two GOP Senate primary candidates employed the racist conspiracy about a migrant “invasion,” language that is directly linked to the ‘great replacement theory’ and echoed in the manifesto of mass murder who killed 10 of our fellow Americans over the weekend.
“Do the purveyors of replacement theory bear some responsibility when their revisionism motivates murderers? Of course they do,” The Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson wrote on Monday. “This dispute has become tiresome and pointless. There is no moral world in which those who libel outsiders, justify rage, incite bigotry, and allege that enemies have broken down the outer gate are innocent of the likely influence of their words.”
It’s deadly clear that this anti-immigrant rhetoric kills. Yet Ted Cruz hasn’t stopped. Greg Abbott hasn’t stopped. Elise Stefanik hasn’t stopped. In a truly horrific moment following the Buffalo murders, the insurrectionist former president used “invasion” rhetoric during a rally in support of Senate candidate Mehmet Oz. The racists are not only in control of the party, they are the party. Exactly how many more Black and brown people do they want dead?
“Biden in new statement says he ‘strongly’ supports Finland and Sweden’s NATO applications, and says while the applications are being considered the US will work w/them to ‘remain vigilant against any threats’ and ‘deter and confront aggression or the threat of aggression’.”
The interwar French chef and food writer Xavier Marcel Boulestin is insistent that the peas concerned ought to be “as small as possible”, and [Elizabeth] David echoes this, claiming that the dish is “only possible … when the youngest, smallest, tenderest garden peas are available”. Hopkinson and Bareham note in The Prawn Cocktail Years that, “curiously, the dish actually turns out better with tinned rather than frozen ones, and you would be surprised to hear how many people love the taste of tinned peas”, before coming down firmly on the side of fresh. Raymond Blanc believes “freshly picked young peas are always the best”, but admits “frozen peas are excellent, too”, while Anne Willan dares to swim against the tide with her bold statement that “you don’t need baby peas, but rather the big fat ones of mid-season”.
Look, the reason you cannot decide which sort of peas are edible is because (a) They aren’t; and (b) They eat you.
Though I do make a not inconsiderable investment in two huge bags of fresh pea pods, unless you grow the things yourself (or get them direct from someone who does), it’s impossible to guarantee the size of the seeds inside, or vouch for their age (the sugars in peas begin to convert to starch as soon as they’re picked, so even the tiniest of peas can prove a disappointment in the flavour department if they’ve been in transit for several days). As jarred peas are not readily available here (and also come ready cooked, which is not ideal for our purposes), I would recommend frozen peas as the best substitute for homegrown or similarly spanking-fresh examples.
Using frozen peas gives you a few extra milliseconds (as they warm up) to kill them. Going off-planet and using nukes is still, however, a good choice.
If using frozen peas, I’d second Willan’s recommendation in The Country Cooking of France to use larger peas, often sold as “garden peas”, rather than yer actual petits pois — they’re pleasingly fat and buttery, which works well with the dish as a whole. (I know the name of the dish literally calls for petits pois, but I suspect that particular distinction probably has more to do with young sweet peas versus older, mealy ones, rather than the difference between peas the size of a currant and those the size of a raisin — and if petits pois are what you have, by all means use them instead).
In other words, how recently killed they were, and what was then done to further detoxify them.
Nigella Lawson writes in How to Eat that for this dish, she thaws frozen peas before use, which is sensible, because the cooking method favours the minimum amount of liquid, and defrosting allows you to drain the peas before adding them to the pan. If you don’t have time, though, it’s no big deal.
Defrosting the suspended animation peas is very risky, even if you do have an army, space spaceship (preferably Tardis), etc., to cover your back as you make a high-speed strategic withdrawal.
The pro pea propoganta continues on, “[i]f you think the type of pea is contentious, wait until you hear how long you have to cook them for.”
Supposedly, the general area of S.France I live in is famous for its peas, but at least so far, the midly dereanged penguin has manabed to hold them off.
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer announced that the senate will likely approve tomorrow $40bn in funding for Ukraine, and took a moment to chastise Republican Rand Paul for being the only lawmaker to object to the passage of the aid package.
“This should already have been done and over with,” Schumer said. “But it is repugnant that one member of the other side, the junior senator from Kentucky, chose to make a show and obstruct Ukraine funding knowing full well he couldn’t actually stop its passage. For senator Paul to delay Ukraine funding for purely political motives is to only strengthen Putin’s hand.”
Despite the Republican primary for a Pennsylvania seat in the US Senate being too close to call, with heart surgeon-turned-TV celebrity Mehmet Oz and former hedge fund CEO David McCormick deadlocked, disrupter-in-chief [eyeroll] Donald Trump has a top tip.
“The Senate race in PA hasn’t been called yet but Trump on Truth Social is calling for Dr. Oz to go ahead and declare,” a Politico reporter points out on Twitter, citing Trump (who’s banned from Twitter) posting on his own platform Truth Social.
Trump posted: “Dr Oz should declare victory. It makes it much harder for them to cheat with the ballots that they ‘just happened to find’.”
Trump declared he’s won the 2020 election when he distinctly and officially had not. Eighteen months later, despite an embarrassing legal campaign to overturn Joe Biden’s victory and being impeached for inciting the insurrection at the US Capitol by his extremist supporters on January 6, 2021, Trump’s still claiming that campaigning in the midterms on the back of it.
As the Associated Press notes, Oz and McCormick emerged at their election night watch parties to say they will have to wait for vote-counting Wednesday to determine a winner in the battleground state.
So the [?] and the rest of us continue to wait (albeit impatiently) for the actual result to emerge.
The highest ranking Republican official in U.S. government, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, repeatedly refused to denounce “replacement theory” in a press conference Tuesday afternoon. That puts him in company with New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, the third in command among House Republicans who seems to be an adherent of the white nationalist conspiracy theory.
The slaughter of 10 Black Americans in Buffalo by a white nationalist terrorist and the reaction to that carnage clarifies a whole hell of a lot about the Republican Party of 2022 and the individual members of it. Especially McConnell, who controls half of the Senate and is the one person with the most power to turn the white supremacist GOP ship around. He won’t do it.
Asked repeatedly Tuesday about his responsibility as a party leader to condemn the theory, he refused, dancing around the question instead by calling the shooter a “deranged young man,” refusing to acknowledge the motivation behind the massacre. The most he would do is condemn generic racism. “Look—racism of any sort is abhorrent in America and ought to be stood up to by everybody, both Republicans, Democrats, all Americans,” McConnell said.
By the way, Stefanik isn’t trying to redeem herself by denouncing white nationalism either. Instead, she says the Buffalo terrorist attack shouldn’t be politicized. “Our nation is heartbroken and sad and of the horrific loss of life in Buffalo. This was an act of pure evil and the criminal should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Stefanik said. “It is not the time to politicize this tragedy. We mourn together as a nation.”
Back to McConnell. Pressed again on the theory and whether he agreed with Stefanick and Fox’s Tucker Carlson—the theory’s main proponent who has apparently succeeded in making it Republican mainstream thought—that Democrats were purposefully trying to steal elections through immigration, he still wouldn’t answer. Instead he condemned the Biden administration’s policy on the U.S.-Mexico border. “What I’m disturbed about with regard to the Southern border is the relative openness of it. This administration has taken a number of steps in the direction of just throwing our border wide open once again and that ought to be addressed,” he said.
That’s what he’s concerned about. Not the fact that Republican Senate candidates across the country are promoting white nationalism and that he is actively endorsing them and working for their takeover of the Senate. Perhaps it’s because he shares something in common with them? [Tweet and photo at link. The photo shows McConnell standing in front of a huge Confederate flag some KKK dude.]
[…] The website, at http://www.elisestefanik2022.com, drops you on a page with a picture of Stefanik and a campaign slogan that reads: “Let’s keep it white. The Replacement Theory and why I support it.” It’s designed in the simple red, white, and blue cookie-cutter style of most campaign websites. It features all of the receipts from Stefanik […]
It also has a great “About” the candidate section where the answer to “Where I Come From” is simple: “I come from Whites. White people, Mmk? Let’s be clear where I come from because sure, Stefanik doesn’t exactly sound white, but I’m totally white. White White White!” Morton includes some other choice links as well, including “campaign” sites for: QAnon Sympathizer”; then there’s http://www.gymjordan2022.com, that has a nice breakdown in his “Hello, a bit more about me” section that includes “Cover-up” and “sychophant websites!” There’s also a website for Texas’ governor at http://www.governorgregabbott.com, which includes highlights like “Attacked Trans Children And Their Parents,” “Ordered Price Gouging During The Winter Freeze To Protect His Donors,” and “Might Grant Clemency To Police Officers Who Were Indicted For Their Actions Against Protestors.”
That’s not all!
There’s a website set up for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, http://www.governordefailure.com, filled with COVID-19 updates and his many “Don’t Say Gay”-related ideas. There’s also one for Truth Social CEO and thin-skinned lap dog Devin Nunes, which highlights his many crimes and blunders. Surprisingly, the website titled “CongressmanGaetz.com” seems to just direct you to the Wikipedia page for “Sex Trafficking.” Maybe it is still being worked on? Who knows.
Right-wing attempts to take over school boards in Durham, North Carolina, and in several New York counties largely failed in elections Tuesday. The losses come amid Republican efforts to turn the existence of public education itself into a culture war using racism, LGBTQ kids, and pandemic safety measures as their weapons […]
In Durham’s nonpartisan school board election, a stealth slate of five Republicans running under the name “Better Board, Better Schools, Better Futures” were defeated. One of the candidates, Joetta MacMiller, went to Washington, D.C., to protest the presidential election certification on Jan. 6, 2021, and wrote on social media that she had been tear gassed. Another, Curtis Hrischuk, posted climate denial and conspiracy theories about George Soros. A third, Gayathri Rajaraman, said she didn’t want elementary school kids learning history, telling INDY Week that U.S. schools are “distracting and overwhelming them with social topics such as racism, [gender identity] and political viewpoints in school classrooms,” and should be focusing on math and science instead.
While all five of the Better Board, Better Schools candidates were defeated, their ability to run a stealth campaign was a result of state-level Republican maneuvering in North Carolina. State law there calls for school board elections to be nonpartisan, EQV Analytics noted, but “North Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature has been selectively chipping away at this non-partisan status for partisan advantage, passing special ‘local laws’ that make selected Republican-heavy counties’ school board elections partisan while leaving Democrat-heavy counties’ elections non-partisan, with the effect of promoting Republican control in GOP-heavy counties while enabling potential stealth-Republican inroads into Democratic counties.”
It didn’t work in Durham this time, but it’s yet another way Republicans are trying to rig elections for themselves while screaming that Democrats rigged the 2020 presidential election.
In New York State, dozens of right-wing candidates ran for the school board in several counties, emphasizing the familiar cocktail of opposition to respect for diversity, teaching about race or gender, and pandemic precautions. It wasn’t a clean sweep, but, the Albany Times-Union reported, “by 11:15 p.m. Tuesday 27 of those candidates had lost and four candidates had won.”
[…] The results in Durham and New York state aren’t the only recent defeats for right-wing attempts to take over school boards. Something similar happened in New Hampshire in March when, after the state legislature passed a vague law threatening teachers with professional sanctions if anyone didn’t like what they were teaching about race, 29 public education supporters were elected, including in some traditionally conservative towns. Turnout was high there, too.
Republicans have encouraged supporters to storm into school board meetings and used their Fox News platform to set up angry white people as the face of concerned parents everywhere. They’ve made schools a battleground in their latest culture war, proclaiming with absolute confidence that they are representing parents—or the ones who matter, anyway. But in many places, voters are sending a different message.
Hours after a successful heart procedure, Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman easily won his state’s Democratic U.S. Senate primary, defeating Rep. Conor Lamb by more than 30 points.
As for Fetterman’s Republican opponent in the fall, it might be a while before we know for sure: Celebrity TV doctor Mehmet Oz currently enjoys a tiny advantage over former hedge fund executive Dave McCormick, but that may change, and a recount is a distinct possibility.
Over the past decade, the Anti-Defamation League has counted about 450 U.S. murders committed by political extremists. Of these 450 killings, right-wing extremists committed about 75 percent. Islamic extremists were responsible for about 20 percent, and left-wing extremists were responsible for 4 percent. Nearly half of the murders were specifically tied to white supremacists.
Commentary:
[…] The data does not include the 10 people murdered by a suspected white-supremacist gunman at a Buffalo grocery store over the weekend.
The Times’ David Leonhardt added, the American right “has a violence problem that has no equivalent on the left.” He went on to quote Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the ADL, who’s written, “Right-wing extremist violence is our biggest threat. The numbers don’t lie.”
Alas, these are not the only numbers. About a year ago, The Washington Post published these findings:
Domestic terrorism incidents have soared to new highs in the United States, driven chiefly by white-supremacist, anti-Muslim and anti-government extremists on the far right, according to a Washington Post analysis of data compiled by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The surge reflects a growing threat from homegrown terrorism not seen in a quarter-century, with right-wing extremist attacks and plots greatly eclipsing those from the far left and causing more deaths, the analysis shows.
As we discussed soon after, the evidence was striking in its scope and implications: The number of domestic terrorism incidents reached a modern high in 2020, and despite Trump’s debate declarations, it wasn’t the left that was responsible.
The findings came on the heels of an NBC News report that a consensus among former Department of Homeland Security officials — from Democratic and Republican administrations — agreed that among the agency’s recent difficulties was a failure to focus on “the rise of domestic threats” during the Trump era.
The NBC News report added that DHS officials agreed it was a four-year era of “inadequately monitoring and communicating the rising threat of right-wing domestic extremists.”
Around the same time, the New York Times reported that the Trump administration “diverted” federal law enforcement and domestic security agencies, pressuring officials to “uncover a left-wing extremist criminal conspiracy that never materialized,” even as “the threat from the far right was building ominously.”
The report added that the FBI, “in particular, had increasingly expressed concern about the threat from white supremacists, long the top domestic terrorism threat, and well-organized far-right extremist groups that had allied themselves with the president.” Those concerns, however, were not prioritized during the Republican administration.
There’s ample evidence that under Biden, federal officials are “finally catching up“ to the threats posed by domestic extremists. The tragedies, however, continue.
The reality is that many are asylum-seekers who are being blocked from their rights under the Stephen Miller-endorsed Title 42 policy. But Cruz would rather have you be afraid of them than the insurrectionists who tried to overthrow our election. He’d also rather have you be afraid of these families when his father, Rafael Cruz, similarly sought asylum, from Cuba. The elder Cruz has previously described how he bribed a Cuban official in order to pursue safety here.
And, as I like to note, his father got asylum from the murderous (and of course US-backed) Batista dictatorship in the 1950s.
Headed into 2022, Pennsylvania Republicans looked at this year’s gubernatorial race with cautious optimism. Two-term Democratic incumbent Tom Wolf couldn’t run again; polls showed an appetite for change; the prevailing political winds were at the GOP’s back; and a sizable crowd of Republican contenders were gearing up for credible campaigns.
The future appeared bright. That is, until recently, when Pennsylvania Republicans’ cautious optimism turned to “panic.”
Politico reported a couple of weeks ago that GOP leaders in the Keystone State were involved in a “last-ditch, behind-the-scenes effort to stop state Sen. Doug Mastriano, a leading voice in the movement to overturn the 2020 election results, from winning the party nomination for governor in Pennsylvania.” Republicans were convinced that Mastriano’s radicalism was so over the top that he simply couldn’t run a credible race for the commonwealth’s top job.
As of last night, however, we know that the last-ditch, behind-the-scenes effort failed. NBC News reported:
State Sen. Doug Mastriano, a far-right Republican who built a large following seeking to overturn President Joe Biden’s win in Pennsylvania, is the GOP nominee for governor, NBC News projected Tuesday. After 10:30 p.m. ET, Mastriano led his rivals by more than 20 points. He’ll face Democratic nominee Josh Shapiro, the state attorney general, who ran unopposed, in November.
At this point in the vote tallies, it was not close: Mastriano, who recently received Donald Trump’s endorsement, currently leads his next closest primary rival by 24 points.
As the results came in last night, the Republican Governors Association issued a written statement that seemed rather muted, failing to say literally anything complimentary about their party’s nominee. That might be because the RGA couldn’t think of any compelling selling points.
If Mastriano’s name sounds at all familiar, we recently noted on The Rachel Maddow Show that the gubernatorial hopeful appeared at a right-wing event last month where attendees were told, among other things, that a “global satanic blood cult” would soon be exposed and that Adolf Hitler faked his death.
Ordinarily, a major party’s gubernatorial candidate would want nothing to do with such fringe radicalism. Mastriano, however, not only attended the gathering, the candidate was also awarded a sword by QAnon conspiracy theorists at the event.
[…] Mastriano also answered Donald Trump’s call and traveled to the nation’s capital on Jan. 6, 2021.
A Washington Post report noted over the weekend, “[Mastriano] has said he attended Trump’s speech at the Ellipse, and videos show him among a crowd moving toward the Capitol as another man removes a bike rack blocking the sidewalk.”
He’s since claimed that he did not play a role in the insurrectionist violence inside the Capitol itself, but as NBC News’ report added, Mastriano’s campaign “paid to bus people to Washington for the rally that preceded the riot, and he was subpoenaed by the House Jan. 6 committee this year over his efforts to send alternate electors to Congress.”
But to fully appreciate what makes Mastriano’s candidacy so significant, one must focus not just on his Jan. 6 antics, or his right-wing associations, or his Christian nationalism, or his rejection of Covid mitigation policies. What probably matters most — in Pennsylvania and to a national audience — is the gubernatorial hopeful’s election denialism.
The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent recently explained that Mastriano, as a state senator, played a lead role in Trump’s effort to overturn his 2020 defeat, which is highly relevant to the near future: “Mastriano didn’t just try to help Trump overturn the election. At the time, he also essentially declared his support for the notion that the popular vote can be treated as non-binding when it comes to the certification of presidential electors.” Greg added:
What must be conveyed clearly and unflinchingly is this: If Mastriano wins the general election, there is almost certainly no chance that a Democratic presidential candidate’s victory in Pennsylvania in 2024 will be certified by the state’s governor. Consider Mastriano’s own words. During Trump’s 2020 effort to steal the election, Mastriano explicitly endorsed the idea that the state legislature has “sole authority” to reappoint new electors, given “mounting evidence” that Joe Biden’s win was “compromised.”
In reality, of course, there was no such “evidence,” and the Democratic ticket’s victory wasn’t “compromised.” But in recent months, Mastriano has nevertheless based much of his candidacy on the Big Lie and his plans to bring his anti-election attitudes to the governor’s office.
And have I mentioned that in Pennsylvania, it’s up to the governor to appoint a secretary of state to oversee elections?
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro has called Mastriano’s ideas a “danger to democracy.” Election Day is 25 weeks away.
It’s difficult to rank Madison Cawthorn’s many scandals, screw-ups, and failures, but one recent incident was largely responsible for derailing his career. Good news, but with a strange twist.
Ordinarily, when Donald Trump issues an endorsement of an incumbent Republican, the former president characterizes the GOP policymaker as a celebrated hero and a great patriot who has obviously earned voters’ support. When Trump endorsed Rep. Madison Cawthorn, however, the message was noticeably different.
The former president didn’t bother to pretend that the North Carolina Republican has been an amazingly successful congressman — because even Trump realized that no one would take such a claim seriously. Instead, Trump conceded in a written statement that Cawthorn has made some “foolish mistakes,” but he urged voters to nevertheless give the bizarre congressman “a second chance.”
GOP voters in western North Carolina’s 11th district ignored the advice. My MSNBC colleague Ja’han Jones reported overnight:
Far-right Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina lost in the primary election on Tuesday, ending his re-election bid after an ugly (yet entertaining) race characterized by Republican infighting. North Carolina state Sen. Chuck Edwards won the election by a narrow margin, NBC News projected. Cawthorn called Edwards to concede the race […]
The GOP incumbent is now the second sitting U.S. House member to lose in a primary this year, though the other — West Virginia’s David McKinley — was forced to run against a congressional colleague due to redistricting.
As the dust settles, there are three key elements to this that are worth keeping in mind. The first is that electing Cawthorn to Congress never made sense in the first place.
Two years ago at this time, Cawthorn had not yet celebrated his 25th birthday. The motivational speaker nevertheless launched a Republican campaign, at which point there were all kinds of warning signs. As Dana Milbank explained in a recent column, “Cawthorn is a monster of Republicans’ own creation. His character flaws were fully displayed when he first ran for Congress in 2020: nods to white supremacists, extravagant lies, accusations of sexually predatory behavior, overt racism and a long list of driving offenses.”
When he won anyway, many predicted his career would be a disaster. Those predictions were accurate.
[…] one recent incident was largely responsible for derailing his career. As regular readers know, the congressman appeared on a podcast in March and was asked whether the TV show “House of Cards” is realistic. He said he couldn’t help but marvel at the “sexual perversion” of his older colleagues, adding that his congressional colleagues had invited him to orgies and done cocaine in his presence.
House Republicans will tolerate an astonishing amount of misconduct, but this crossed a line: Cawthorn making up nonsense about them was seen as a bridge too far. The North Carolinian conceded that much of what he’d claimed was “exaggerated” — he also claimed not to know “what cocaine is” — but much of the GOP was underwhelmed by his explanation and turned on him with a vengeance.
In the weeks that followed, a series of embarrassing headlines about Cawthorn came to the fore, and the “flood of well-timed leaks“ appeared to be coming from the congressman’s fellow Republicans.
Though GOP leaders are unlikely to admit it, it’s a safe bet that none of them were disappointed with the results of yesterday’s primary in North Carolina’s 11th.
But while Cawthorn’s pre-election history was a mess, and his one term on Capitol Hill was worse, it’d be a mistake to assume he has no future in far-right politics. Yes, Republican officials will probably be eager to help him pack up his office and pay for his airfare out of Washington, D.C., but they don’t always get to decide who maintains influence in GOP politics. […]
So, “nods to white supremacists, extravagant lies, accusations of sexually predatory behavior, [and] overt racism” do not prompt your fellow Republicans to turn against you, but speaking out about the sexual shenanigans and supposed cocaine use of your fellow Republicans will get you kicked to the curb.
[…] To me the most striking thing about last night was how much same-day voting, as opposed to early or mail-in voting, has become a central feature of partisan identity for Trumpy Republicans. If you’re for Trump, you vote in person on Election Day. The other stuff is all suspect. The fairly unique dynamics of the 2020 election and its Big Lie aftermath have ossified into doctrines.
This is a pretty dramatic reversal. Republicans long dominated mail-in and no-excuse absentee balloting. That was particularly the case for older Republicans and it was at least part of the GOP’s traditional turnout advantage. But again, now that’s all out the window.
You could see this play out last night because the sharper election observers rightly cautioned people not to put too much stock in the first numbers in the GOP primaries. Why? Because those were almost all early and mail-in votes. The Big Lie huckster Doug Mastriano was in something like 5th place at one point in the early results. After the Election Day vote came in he ended up totally crushing everyone else. Madison Cawthorn ended up going down to defeat last night by the thinnest of margins. But he was actually way behind based on the first reports. The same day vote almost allowed him to come back. Just came up slightly short. [See? Lots of rightwing extremists still like Madison Cawthorn, racist and white supremacist.]
[…] It’s not like zero Trump Republicans vote early. A few do. Just not many. So presumably those who would struggle to vote in person do use this option. But it does at least open up some vulnerability. It’s just easier to vote on your own schedule and for many by mail. It’s also less risky. If your whole team is voting on Election Day you have extra exposure to the random chance of bad weather and other unpredictable events. I doubt this will be a big issue going forward. But it’s not nothing.
One counter-advantage Republicans have is that they tend to vote in areas with less long lines. Election Day voting is a challenge for Democratic campaigns because people have to wait in long lines. You want to bank as much of the vote as possible before Election Day to avoid that pressure on Election Day, avoid people bailing because they’re waiting for hours. […]
Republicans […] tend to be in suburban and rural areas where lines just aren’t as long. Some of that is the result of election practices targeting Democratic and non-white voters. Some of it is underfunding, which can be a passive form of targeting. But some of it is just inherent to Democratic voters being so concentrated in cities.
The other irony is that Mastriano — Big Lie promoter and Jan 6th organizer — now has the exact result that Big Lie jokers use to discredit Biden’s victory. He was losing and then “suddenly” mid-evening he pulled ahead. Clearly fraud. Or just different kinds of voting being favored by different groups. Presumably his supporters won’t have an issue with this.
The Wonkette article is accompanied by a photo of Janice McGeachin with her bible, her gun, her big-ass truck, and an American flag.
In a setback for the far-Right wingnuts who are trying to take over Idaho, Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin lost her bid to replace incumbent Gov. Brad Little, a more conventional right-wing Republican. The final tally isn’t in yet, but as of 3 a.m. “Mountain Time,” Little had 53 percent of the vote in the seven-candidate Republican primary, with McGeachin well behind with 32 percent. An “Ed Humphreys” managed to get 11 percent, and the other four candidates all got less than two percent of the vote. High Plains Grifter Ammon Bundy had originally filed to run in the GOP primary, but dropped out in February to run as an independent, so look for him to try this fall to capture votes from McGeachin supporters who consider Little — a bog standard very conservative Republican — some kind of radical socialist.
McGeachin had made her absolute devotion to Donald Trump and his Big Lie about winning the 2020 election central to her campaign, which won her Trump’s endorsement. She also blasted Little as a “RINO” for having left it up to local officials to decide whether to require masks during the pandemic, although Little never ordered a statewide mask mandate.
The day before the primary, McGeachin also accused Little of “cowardly parroting leftist talking points” for having expressed sympathy for George Floyd (while also praising law enforcement), and for having condemned violence during the January 6 insurrection. Only a crazy communist would consider violence “inexcusable,” after all. [Tweet and image at the link]
A record number of people moved from California and Washington to Idaho in the last 2 years because they watched their cities burn to the ground as their politicians stood by and did nothing. Brad Little is no better, cowardly parroting leftist talking points.
Fact check: No cities in the United states have burned to the ground, apart from some smaller towns destroyed by wildfires. […]
Adieu, Crazy Bible Gun Lady, For Now
Idaho runs separate elections for governor and lieutenant governor, so McGeachin and Little were not running mates when first elected in 2018. In October 2020, as Idaho faced record rates of Covid infections and hospitalizations, McGeachin went into full right-wing crazy mode, joining Republican legislators in declaring absolute resistance to all government measures aimed at controlling the coronavirus, because Liberty. She’s a darling of the far-right Idaho Freedom Foundation, and we won’t be the least bit surprised if she ends up getting a job there when she leaves office in January. The IFF and the crazies in the Lege even made a fun video! [video at the link]
McGeachin made national news last year when she twice used her temporary powers as governor, while Little was out of the state, to issue batshit executive orders that Little rescinded the minute he returned to Idaho. The first time, in June, she banned all local governments and school districts from requiring face masks, although nobody took it seriously. Then in October, Little was out of the state again, so that time McGeachin issued an order banning vaccine mandates and mandatory testing, and also explored calling up the National Guard to deploy it to the US-Mexico border.
Again, Little rescinded the order and condemned McGeachin’s “political grandstanding,” a charge that might have carried a bit more weight were it not for the reason Little had left the state: He’d flown to Texas, which for you geography fans is nowhere near Idaho, to meet with other Republican governors to complain about the immigration “crisis” at the border. How dare she interrupt his political grandstanding by attempting an even more ludicrous political stunt?
More recently, McGeachin called on Little earlier this month to convene a special session of the legislature so it could fix Idaho’s trigger law banning abortion. She wanted to strip out the existing law’s exceptions for rape, incest, and to save the life of a pregnant person who might die if they continued a pregnancy. McGeachin said those were simply too many loopholes, although the rape and incest exceptions already require that a police report be verified before any procedure.
In a press release, McGeachin explained that even the life-saving exception was likely to be abused:
I believe that life begins at conception, and no child should be killed because of the circumstances surrounding his or her conception. Of course I understand that there are rare medical emergencies in which it may be impossible to save the life of both the mother and the child. In such rare occurrences, a difficult decision may have to be made, but Idaho law must never allow for elective abortion masquerading as medical necessity.
You know how doctors and pregnant ladies are — they’d probably just use medical emergencies as an excuse to sneak in some baby-killing.
One Wingnut Loses, Another Wins
In other Idaho primaries, the lieutenant governor’s race was won by another “establishment” (and still hyper-conservative) Republican, state House speaker Scott Bedke, who defeated an absolutely awful far-right candidate, state Rep. Priscilla Giddings, who was also an absolute trainwreck. She was censured by the state House last year after sharing a blog post that identified by name a 19-year-old intern who had accused then-state Rep. Aaron von Ehlinger of rape. Von Ehlinger resigned from the House and was convicted of rape last month; he’s awaiting sentencing. Giddings was also an antivaxxer long before the pandemic, pushing legislation that would have prevented employer “discrimination” against unvaccinated workers. […]
Oh, yes, perennial candidate “Pro-Life, a person formerly known as Marvin Richardson” — that’s how he’s listed on the ballot — will be back in the fall, as the Constitution Party candidate for LG.
But in a big win for righties, former congressman Raul Labrador has won the R nomination for attorney general, turfing out incumbent AG Lawrence Wasden, who’s very conservative but relatively sane. Wasden has occasionally been a voice of sanity in the state, pointing out when various bills pushed by the Lege are blatantly unconstitutional, and that’s made him some enemies. As Boise State Public Radio reports,
Labrador used those instances as an argument for electing him instead, saying the Legislature doesn’t trust Wasden anymore, even when he gives good legal advice.
Now Labrador can start issuing terrible legal advice that will make right-wing legislators happy, we assume. Wasden, for instance, declined to join Texas’s insane (and unsuccessful) lawsuit to throw out the 2020 election, but Labrador said that was exactly the kind of lawsuit he’d love to get involved with, to fight “federal overreach.” Labrador is a big fan of free speech, like that time in 2017 when his congressional office in Lewiston called the cops to complain of “threats” from elderly voters who were petitioning to preserve the Affordable Care Act. He also drew widespread condemnation when he declared at a town hall that there’s no need for Obamacare, since after all, “nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care.” He later explained that his phrasing “wasn’t very elegant.”
But now that the Supremes are about to overturn Roe, Idaho no longer needs Wasden cautioning that insane abortion bans are unconstitutional, so the state can pursue other extremist legislation, and Labrador will no doubt cost the state millions and millions of dollars defending them against lawsuits.
Idaho’s Two-Party System: Right-wing Republicans And Barking Insane Wingnuts
Since Idaho is such a heavily Republican state, the GOP primary effectively decides most statewide races well ahead of the general election in November, so Little is likely to cruise to a second term against Democratic nominee Stephen Heidt, who was the only Dem on the ballot. […]
Janice McGeachin can crawl off to cry with the Freedom Foundation until the next election cycle. She’ll be back.
Canada’s foreign minister, Mélanie Joly, said Vladimir Putin “cannot imagine a reality in which the press is allowed to operate without taking their marching orders from the government”.
Responding to Russia’s decision to close the Moscow bureau of Canadian broadcaster, CBC, and withdraw visas and accreditation of its journalists in Russia, Joly said Canada would continue to defend the freedom of the press around the world.
The US embassy in Kyiv has reopened after a three-month closure, Reuters reports.
A small number of diplomats will return initially to staff the embassy, according to a spokesperson.
Today we commemorate the victims of the Crimean Tatar genocide. We remember, we will never forget! I thank all Crimean Tatars fighting for [Ukraine’s] freedom! The tyrants of today shall fall and forever be despised just as tyrants of the past.
Crimea will be deoccupied! #CrimeaIsUkraine
Joe Biden is at the Joint Base Andrews in Maryland to receive a briefing from his senior leadership team on efforts to prepare for and respond to hurricanes this season.
He noted that 2021 “was the third most active hurricane season ever recorded”, and given the climate crisis, they would only get worse.
“Given the climate crisis, we expect another tough hurricane season,” Biden said. “Storms are going to be more intense. We’re going to have shorter notice…That’s why the work of these women and men are so important.”
Biden continued: “This isn’t about red states or blue states. It’s about helping communities prepare, having their back when a hurricane strikes and being there to help clear the road, rebuild the main streets so families can get back to their lives.”
Coffee bar fined €1,000 after man complained to police price was not displayed behind counter
A coffee bar in Florence has been fined €1,000 (£846 [c.1050$]) after a customer got steamed up over the price of a humble cup of espresso.
The customer called police after being charged €2 (£1.70) for his coffee[…] at Ditta Artigianale in the centre of the Tuscan city.
The man complained that the price was not displayed on a menu behind the counter. It was this error that landed the bar, which is celebrated for its coffee-making and has won winning several competitions, in trouble.
[…]
In Italy, the average cost of an espresso is €1, although more than 70% of bars increased prices earlier in the year due to supply chain issues and poor harvests. Consumer groups warned that the price of an espresso could rise to an average €1.50 this year.
Where I live in S.France, 1,50€ (c.1.60$) is, in my informal “analysis”, broadly the average for cafes (restaurants can be more expensive).
[…]
[The owner of Ditta Artigianale, Francesco] Sanapo said that Ditta Artigianale […] was somewhat “revolutionary” when it charged €1.50 for an espresso when the bar first opened in 2013. […]
The Florence branch of Confartigianato, an association for small businesses, defended the bar. “This is something that deeply embitters me,” its president, Alessandro Vittorio Sorani, said. “A great deal of work goes into producing a quality product. Quality pays off and benefits everyone.”
Some of the bar’s customers leaped to its defence too. “If this customer went to London he’d get the FBI involved,” one wrote on Facebook.
Can the pastor of a tax-exempt church tell his followers that Democratic voters are demons who are unwelcome in his congregation?
By most measures, Greg Locke was already a controversial Christian pastor. The Washington Post recently published a profile on him, his church in Tennessee, and his millions of online followers.
As the Post put it, Locke’s critics make the case that he’s “spreading a dangerous message of hate that is taking root in some conservative churches.” The same report noted that his ministry has also divided his community outside Nashville, especially after Locke held a book-burning event where he and followers threw copies of the “Harry Potter” and “Twilight” series and Disney merchandise into a giant bonfire.
Locke was also on the steps of the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection, a day after speaking at a pro-Trump rally where he reportedly delivered “one of the clearest and most violent prayers of the day.” The Post added that the pastor has also blessed the members of the right-wing Proud Boys from his pulpit, and relied on its members to provide “security.”
It was against this backdrop that Newsweek took note of an especially memorable sermon Locke delivered earlier this week, which might make him even more controversial.
Ahead of a Monday anti-abortion rally in front of the Supreme Court in Washington D.C., right-wing Pastor Greg Locke told his Tennessee congregation “you ain’t seen an insurrection yet” … The Global Vision Bible Church pastor made the provocative statement during a sermon in Mt. Juliet, near Nashville, on Sunday. During the sermon, the pro-Trump pastor railed against Democrats who he said could not be Christians if they supported abortion rights.
A video of Locke’s tirade has made the rounds via social media — as of this morning, it’s been viewed on Twitter 2 million times — and it’s worth watching if only to appreciate just how enthusiastic the pastor is about his message.
“If you vote Democrat, I don’t even want you around this church. You can get out. You can get out, you demon,” Locke declared. “You cannot be a Christian and vote Democrat in this nation. I don’t care how mad that makes you. You can get as pissed off as you want to. You cannot be a Christian and vote Democrat in this nation…. You cannot be a Democrat and a Christian. You cannot. Somebody say, ‘Amen.’ The rest of you get out! Get out!” [video at the link]
Would have been really nice if everyone had walked out.
As part of the same rant, the pastor added, “I ain’t playin’ your stupid games…. I’m sick of it. Everyone wanna talk about the insurrection? Mmmm. Let me tell you something: You ain’t seen the insurrection yet. You keep on pushing our buttons, you low-down, sorry compromisers, you God-hating communists, maybe you’ll find out what an insurrection is.” [Dude has clearly lost it.]
Clearly, there’s a lot to unpack with a message like this, raising questions about theology, Christian nationalism, and the prospect of religio-political violence. But there’s also a legal question.
[…] under federal tax law, tax-exempt houses of worship are not allowed to intervene in partisan politics. Ministries can obviously speak out on moral and spiritual issues of the day, and they can get involved in ballot referenda related to various policies, but churches and other houses of worship can’t take steps to help (or hurt) candidates or political parties.
This law was created in 1954, thanks to the efforts of then-Sen. Lyndon Johnson, and for the most part, it wasn’t especially controversial — that is, until the religious right political movement started pushing for the law’s repeal, as part of a larger effort to further politicize faith communities.
In fact, Donald Trump was so eager to curry favor with social conservatives that he repeatedly boasted that he’d repealed the law, despite the fact that this never actually happened.
All of which leaves us with a question: Did Locke go too far when he delivered a partisan sermon? Can the pastor of a tax-exempt church tell his followers that Democratic voters are demons who are unwelcome in his congregation?
The folks at Americans United for Separation of Church and State, whom I know well, this week urged the IRS to launch an investigation. Rachel Laser, the group’s president, wrote in a complaint to the agency, “Now, when our democracy is threatened by white Christian nationalism like never before, the IRS must investigate blatant Johnson Amendment violations like Locke’s remarks and enforce the federal law that protects the integrity of both our elections and our houses of worship by ensuring nonprofits don’t engage in partisan politics.”
Whether the IRS will take an interest in the matter remains to be seen.
Followup to comment 222: “You get out you baby-butchering’ election thief!” Greg Locke also said that to the supposed Democrats in his “Christian” congregation. He was really worked up. Spittle flying. Red faced. Looked like heart attack territory to me.
Colorado Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, a hardline Trumper who’s been indicted over an election systems data leak that surfaced at MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s “Cyber Symposium,” is facing yet another ethics investigation — and she has her buddy Lindell to thank for that.
The Colorado Independent Ethics Commission (EIC) on Tuesday approved an ethics complaint against Peters filed by a citizen named Anne Landman, who had previously filed two other complaints against the clerk that have also been approved by the EIC.
The latest complaint alleges that Peters violated Colorado’s Constitution by accepting Lindell’s contributions to her legal defense fund that went far beyond what the state allows elected officials to receive in donations.
The complaint points to an interview Lindell had with local news outlet 9NEWS on April 5, during which the pillow tycoon stated that he’d funneled all the money into Peters’ defense fund himself.
“How much is that?” the 9NEWS reporter asked.
“I don’t know, I probably put in 3, 4, 5, maybe $800,000 of my own money,” Lindell replied.
Under the section of the Colorado’s Constitution cited in Landman’s ethics complaint, the maximum amount or value of a donation/gift is $65.
Oops.
One of Landman’s two previous complaints against Peters alleged that the clerk failed to disclose names and donation amounts in a previous legal defense fund that she has since shut down. The other complaint focused on Peters’ flights on Lindell’s private jet.
The EIC’s new investigation into Peters is just the tip of the iceberg for the county clerk, who was indicted in March over an alleged plot to breach her county election systems’ security protocols. Confidential data from those systems then got into the hands of some in online right-wing circles and ultimately was revealed at Lindell’s absurd “Cyber Symposium” that Peters attended last year.
The charges against Peters include attempting to influence a public servant, conspiracy to commit attempt to influence a public servant, criminal impersonation, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, identity theft, first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty, and failing to comply with the secretary of state.
But Peters is still digging her heels into advancing Trump’s lies about the 2020 election and is currently running for secretary of state with the solid support of the Colorado GOP.
The full text of the ethics complaint is available at the link.
For the past three weeks, the advance of Ukrainian forces out of Kharkiv to capture surrounding villages, march all the way to the Russian border, and even cross the Siverskyi Donets River to threaten Russian supply lines has given supporters of Ukraine a lot of opportunities to cheer. The Ukrainian drive into the Russian salient at Izyum, which still seems to be underway, is an additional cause for optimism. And there’s the massive losses Russia received in not one, not two, but three failed attempts to cross the Siverskyi Donets near the town of Bilohorivka.
On a more strategic level, there is also the estimate, first issued by the U.K. Ministry of Defense earlier this week, that Russia has now lost over one-third of all the forces it brought to Ukraine. Those losses didn’t exit Ukraine in the form of neat little markers taken from a Risk board, one neat little plastic triangle at a time. They went out in the form of a tank here, an artillery piece there, a helicopter downed here, troop transports lost almost everywhere—and every one of those losses was accompanied by the loss of people. That means almost every Russian battalion tactical group (BTG) still on the ground in Ukraine is almost certain to be short of both equipment and experience,—critical factors in operating a military structure that is both fragile and easily disrupted.
If you stop reading at that point, it would be reasonable to think that any day now, Ukrainian forces would be driving the last Russian across the border at bayonet point and Ukrainian commanders would be fighting the urge to chase Russian soldiers all the way to Moscow. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Russian forces have been terribly ineffective over the course of this invasion. What they’ve taken came at high cost, and most of of their gains have been temporary. Ukraine recaptured the area around Kyiv, and Sumy, and Chernihiv. They’ve recaptured almost all the territory north of Kharkiv, fought off what seem to be innumerable assaults by Russia in the east, and seem to be engaged in counteroffensives at multiple points along the line.
But Russian military leaders still have one ace up their sleeve. Which is: They don’t give a f##k about how many men they lose in the field. Repeating an action that resulted in failure may be one definition of insanity. It’s also Russia’s underlying military tactic. And in two key locations, that tactic is bringing Russia close to capturing key objectives.
The first of those locations is Severodonetsk in the east, where its position on the east bank of the Siverskyi Donets River isolates the city from other areas under Ukrainian control and leaves it with Russian forces pushing in from three sides. The second one is Lyman, where the city’s position on the north side of the same river leaves it isolated from other Ukrainian areas, etc. etc. etc. [map at the link]
Much has been made, and rightly so, about Russia’s inability to sustain long supply lines or move quickly toward objectives. Those factors are still in place here. But in this case, the cities being squeezed are practically on the front line with areas that Russia has long controlled. The entire distance from Lyman to Severodonetsk is only about 45 kilometers (28 miles). Russia hasn’t made any big leaps, rapid breakthroughs, or astonishing gains in this area. It’s an open question which is faster: the movement rate of the Russian military, or the speed at which your fingernails grow.
Even so, the news from this central part of the battlefield has consistently been one of Russia taking more villages, more towns, and applying more pressure to the cities at the edge of Ukrainian control. Russian forces have been reported in parts of both Lyman and Severodonetsk and fighting could soon reach a level that forces Ukraine to surrender territory and decamp to the other side of that twisting river. Reports are that getting either troops or supplies into these two cities is already difficult.
Add on the apparent removal of all but a handful of the remaining Ukrainian troops resisting the occupation of Mariupol, and Vladimir Putin may well claim that the “special military operation” has reached its objectives. It hasn’t. That doesn’t mean Putin will not say that it has.
If that happens, be prepared for a string of media outlets to trumpet Russia’s victory in the Donbas, if not the entire Ukrainian invasion. CNN will definitely break out the doom graphics. And definitely expect both Republicans and right-wing media to complain that this is somehow Joe Biden’s fault.
But consider this brief list:
– Seredyna-Buda, along the Russian border in Sumy Oblast
– Ternova, on the Russian border north of Kharkiv
– Bohorodychne, 20 km to the southeast of Izyum
– Dovhenke, 15 km due south of Izyum
– Toshkivka, 5 km north of Popasna
– Pylypchatyne, 7 km west of Popasna
– Novomykhailivka, directly north of Mariupol
– Marinka, just west of the city of Donetsk
– Pisky, a northwestern suburb of Donetsk
– Avdiivka, 5 km north of Donetsk
Those are all places where Russia tried to advance on Tuesday alone. And failed.
The disaster at the attempted river crossing may be the largest and most conspicuous Russian loss of men and materiel, but it’s far from the only one. A military whose presence is already down by one-third is still launching multiple piecemeal attacks every single day. As a result, the percentage of Russian forces out of action increases every day.
How high do those losses need to be before Russian troops can no longer act as a cohesive fighting force? […]
As part of the same rant, the pastor added, “I ain’t playin’ your stupid games…. I’m sick of it. Everyone wanna talk about the insurrection? Mmmm. Let me tell you something: You ain’t seen the insurrection yet. You keep on pushing our buttons, you low-down, sorry compromisers, you God-hating communists, maybe you’ll find out what an insurrection is.”
On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivered his 84th daily update to the people of Ukraine. He also spoke on the phone with the president of the United Arab Emirates in an effort to get a new source of fuel, discussed a new assistance package with the president of the European Union, welcomed the U.S. embassy back to Kyiv, and dealt with the 1,001 items it takes to keep a nation afloat in the midst of a military invasion […]. Zelenskyy goes into the category of leaders who are engaged in trying to save their nation from a heartless enemy that hasn’t just demonstrated disdain for avoiding civilian targets, but has deliberately sought out hospitals, schools, and bomb shelters for destruction.
There’s a second category of leaders like Finnish President Sauli Niinistö and prime minister of Sweden Magdalena Andersson who are not in Zelenskyy’s awful position at the moment, and seem determined to keep it that way. To that end, both Sweden and Finland are working overtime to seek swift membership in NATO. After seeing what Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has been willing to do in Ukraine and how difficult it has been for the world to respond without actually putting their own forces on the ground, Sweden and Finland are determined that they will not stand alone. Nobody wants to be the next Ukraine. They see this as both the best protection for their nations if they are attacked, and the best possible insurance that they won’t be attacked in the first place.
There’s a third category of leaders, like U.S. President Joe Biden, who see clearly that what’s happening in Ukraine is a threat that goes way beyond the borders of one nation. If Russia is able to successfully carve out a chunk of Ukraine, as it already did in 2014, there is no reason to believe that “New Russia” will have any real boundaries. Putin has already established a process in which he funds and arms dissatisfied factions, sends in Russian forces to “assist,” helps those armed dissidents take over some small slice of their host nation, officially recognizes that area as a “people’s republic,” then uses that as an excuse to drag the whole nation into Russia. It’s not just Ukraine: Russia is already working to repeat this process in Moldova and in Georgia. Other nations are sure to follow. Russia can be stopped in Ukraine—at a terrible price—or it can be stopped later at what may be an insupportable cost. Leaders in this category are sweating every day to get more assistance to Zelenskyy because that’s the best way to stop the illegal invasion of Ukraine from becoming Act One in World War III.
Finally, there is a fourth category of leaders: Those who feel like this is a terrific time to leverage a world crisis for their own benefit. Into this category fall Turkey’s autocratic leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Croatian President Zoran Milanovic.
As Sweden and Finland have been moving to get their applications into NATO, Erdogan first made it known that he was going to oppose their joining the alliance. What was his official reason? The first excuse was that Sweden and Finland are “host to many terrorist organizations.” If you’ve not heard of Turkish planes being hijacked by Swedish nationalists or Istanbul being bombed by Finnish terrorists, that’s because what Erdogan actually means is that both nations are actually, by long tradition, accepting of political refugees from around the world. That means that both nations took in refugees from Syria following the Russian invasion there, and it means that they took in Kurdish refugees when Turkey and Russia teamed up to crush much of the Kurdish homeland.
Both Sweden and Finland also assisted Kurdish groups associated with the separatist group PKK, which Turkey classifies as terrorists, in helping them to defeat ISIS in the Middle East. So did several existing members of NATO. So did the United States.
So why is Erdogan so set on not letting Sweden and Finland into the club because they assisted a group supported by many others at the time? Because Erdogan isn’t really concerned about that at all. Instead, the presence of Kurdish refugees in the applicant states is an excuse to push back against the real grit in Erdogan’s clamshell: sanctions over military hardware imposed after Turkey bought military equipment from Russia, which is a NATO no-no. In particular, Erdogan is PO’d because he had ordered 100 F-35 fighter jets from the U.S., which were all put on hold after he turned around and bought S-400 air defense systems from Putin.
So Erdogan is holding up the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO until the U.S. agrees to give him his planes. But he can’t quite say it that way, so he’s making other excuses while waiting to see if he can get what he wants. That includes pumping out propaganda like this, where a Swedish-made missile is explicitly blamed for the death of a Turkish soldier. The really fun thing about this post? The identified weapon is actually not Swedish at all. It’s a Russian RPO-A. […]
Meanwhile, the president of Croatia suddenly determined, just as the applications were coming in on Wednesday, that he had to support his ally Turkey and also oppose the entry of Sweden and Finland into NATO. What is Milanovic’s problem? Is he also concerned about the Kurds? Not exactly. This isn’t about the PKK. Or Turkey. Or Sweden. Or Finland. It’s about this nonsense.
Milanovic is in a bitter verbal dispute with Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic over a number of issues, including whether to support the NATO applications Sweden and Finland submitted on Wednesday.
What does Milanovic want before he lifts his veto over something he has no actual reason to oppose?
Before Croatia’s parliament ratifies NATO membership for the two Nordic nations, Milanovic wants a change of neighboring Bosnia’s electoral law that would make it easer for Bosnian Croats to get their representatives elected to leadership positions.
So Erdogan is holding up the process because he wants his planes. Milanovic saw that when Erdogan threw his tantrum it got attention, so he decided to pile on his pet peeve, which doesn’t even have the kind of secondhand justification Erdogan provided. In other words … they’re jackasses. Jackasses who don’t believe their own nations are under immediate threat. Just be hopeful that no more pop up in the next couple of days.
Earlier this week, Turkey appeared to walk back the threat of blocking the admission of Finland and Sweden, then they immediately turned around and put that threat right back on the table. On Wednesday afternoon, Turkey’s prime minister seemed to make an offer that would was much less odious (and less filled with F-35s) than previous demands. […]
If this one sticks, it’s likely because in a backroom somewhere, Erdogan has been promised his planes.
And now, back to the people actually fighting for their lives against a brutal enemy and really don’t have time to indulge in this foolishness.
I don’t think the headline of this article matches the content.
It’s not like this is a surprise — it was obvious to the world that the Trump misadministration was lashing out wildly against the heroic whistleblower who helped uncover TFG’s [The Former Guy’s] attempt to blackmail Ukraine into manufacturing dirt on Biden. Heck — you’ll remember TFG even got Vindman’s twin brother fired, just because! […]
But this now means the Justice Department, or whatever the Miltitary Legal System is, now has permission, if not a duty, to act. An I.G. has determined a crime was committed.
May this be just one of several nails aimed straight at TFG and his highest henchmen.
Update/Correction 5:34pm ET: A big mistake in my post was pointed out in the comments by Observerinvancouver:
I think this finding relates to Yevgeny Vindman, not Alexander. Alexander is the one who reported the infamous call between TFG and Zelenskyy and who testified at the first impeachment hearing. Yevgeny is Alexander’s identical twin who also worked at the NSC. Both of them were fired.
Big whoops — so this finding relates to the identical twin who was fired for no reason, not Alex Vindman, the whistleblower! Great news, nevertheless.
Stocks plunged Wednesday as deepening concern about the economic impact of high inflation and rising interest rates drove the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its worst day since March 2020.
The Dow closed with a loss of 1,161 points, dropping 3.6 percent Wednesday for its steepest one-day drop since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. The S&P 500 closed 4 percent lower and the Nasdaq closed 4.7 percent lower Wednesday.
Wall Street experts pinned the steep Wednesday sell-off on disappointing first-quarter earnings Target and other major retailers revealed earlier in the day, which traders saw a red flag for the economic outlook.
[…] Target shares fell 25 percent Wednesday after the company reported earnings well below Wall Street analysts’ expectations. The retail giant blamed high gas prices, soaring transportation costs and rising employee compensation for its earnings shortfall, following similarly disappointing earnings reports from Walmart and Amazon earlier in the month.
Shares of Walmart, Amazon, Macy’s, Dollar General and Best Buy also saw steep Wednesday declines, though no sector was spared from the market’s deep sell-off. […]
The US Soccer Federation has finally reached the stunning conclusion that women are people just like the menfolk, and the governing body has reached an agreement to pay its women’s teams the same as their male counterparts. […]
Wednesday’s announcement ends years of contentious negotiations over what should’ve been obvious. Superstars Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe have led this push among women players for equal pay in a field where women kick ass.
Rapinoe and Morgan were members of a gender discrimination suit against US Soccer that was settled in February for $24 million. Here’s Rapinoe discussing the legal victory on “Good Morning America”: [video at the link]
The players will split $22 million in damages, and the USSF will use the remaining $2 million to establish a fund to benefit players in their post-soccer careers and support charitable efforts. The settlement deal was contingent on reaching new collective bargaining agreements.
A major sticking point was World Cup prize money, which is based on how far a team advances in the tournament. The distribution of prize money was absurdly unequal. The US women’s soccer team won back-to-back World Cup titles and a record four overall. However, the system was structured so that they’d receive far less FIFA prize money than male players. For instance, US women received a $110,000 bonus for the 2019 World Cup win. US men would’ve received $407,000 had they won in 2018. But they didn’t. They lost.
The unions for both teams have now agreed to pool FIFA’s payments, starting this year with the Men’s World Cup, where we’re sure the guys will do their best, and then next year’s Women’s World Cup. The arrangement will continue for the 2026 and 2027 tournaments. Each player regardless of gender will receive matching game appearance fees.
From the AP:
Women’s union projections have compensation for a player who has been under contract to increase 34% from 2018 to this year, from $245,000 to $327,000. The 2023-28 average annual pay would be $450,000 for a player making all rosters, with the possibility of doubling the figure in World Cup years depending on results.
During negotiations, women gave up guaranteed base salaries, but US forward Margaret Purce said that’s no big thang because of how much ass they regularly kick now: “I think we’ve outgrown some of the conditions that may look like we have lost something, but now our (professional) league is actually strong enough where now we don’t need as many guaranteed contracts, you know, we can be on more of a pay-to-play mode.”
This is also cool, equitable, and progressive: women had received childcare benefits for decades, but it’s now extended to male players during national team training camps and matches.
Purce went on to say:
I feel a lot of pride for the girls who are going to see this growing up, and recognize their value rather than having to fight for it. However, my dad always told me that you don’t get rewarded for doing what you’re supposed to do — and paying men and women equally is what you’re supposed to do. So I’m not giving out any gold stars, but I’m grateful for this accomplishment and for all the people who came together to make it so.
The US women’s soccer team doesn’t need gold stars, anyway, when it has four Olympic gold medals. This is yet another outstanding achievement from some incredible women.
What is “cool kid church?” It’s the gleaming church-that-doesn’t-look-like-a-church in suburbia. It’s the church with the pastor who’s just a “cool guy” talking with the congregation. It’s the church of modern consumer capitalist America. It’s the church of American suburbia and the upper middle class, preaching a Christian message that provides meaning without producing undue comfort. It’s the church that emphasizes a “relevant” Christianity that will speak to you “no matter where you are on your spiritual journey.” But what do we find as we decode cool kid church? That’s the topic of this episode.
Eleven of the fifteen postwar Prime Ministers went to Oxford. How did their privileged upbringing change the U.K? The FT’s Simon Kuper talks to Ros Taylor about how the entitled atmospheres of Oxford and Eton shaped modern Britain, detailed in his latest book Chums.
“Boris Johnson was probably the best known person at Oxford in his day.”
“It’s a great advantage in politics to have a recognisable brand, and Eton encourages that.”
“Johnson learnt all his debating tricks from the Oxford Union.”
“The problem with being Prime Minister is you have to offer substance, and Johnson can’t do that.”
“Daniel Hannan is the Karl Marx of Brexit. He is one of the most important figures in British history.”
In The Dropout, showrunner Liz Meriwether created a fictional version of audacious megascammer Elizabeth Holmes. How was Meriwether able to humanize a such a dangerous fraudster? Liz joins Virginia for a rousing conversation on all things The Dropout.
I posted about how funny episode 4 of the Hulu series was here several weeks ago. The next episode was OK, but it really got rolling in the last three episodes (6, 7, and 8). I was surprised by how good this was – the writing, the casting, the acting, everything. Like Heffernan, I’ve watched it several times, and keep noticing new things (in episode 6, in a scene where Erica Cheung is filling out her bizarre paperwork, Holmes is leading some media people on a tour, and can be heard in the background saying “This is our state-of-the-art lobby…”).
One aspect of the interview reminded me of something I’ve been thinking about and which I don’t believe has received enough attention. They’re talking about how even if Holmes’s technology had worked (which it couldn’t have done [OMG is that British? Should it be just “couldn’t have”? I can’t remember anymore!]) it wouldn’t have been remotely as revolutionary as all the hype suggested. There’s an element of all of this that probably hasn’t received enough attention:
Elizabeth Holmes, who got state lawmakers and Gov. Doug Ducey to change Arizona law in 2015 to financially benefit her company, goes on trial this week on criminal charges of fraud and conspiracy.
Holmes, the founder and former CEO of Theranos, is accused of knowingly misrepresenting the capability of her finger-prick blood testing technology. The company, which already settled consumer fraud charges in Arizona, went out of business after a Wall Street Journal investigation questioning her claims.
Now she faces a potential 20-year prison term and fines of up to $250,000 on various charges of federal wire fraud.
But it was a different Elizabeth Holmes who showed up in Arizona years earlier and convinced lawmakers and Ducey to alter state statutes to allow people to order more types of blood tests without needing a doctor’s permission. That, in turn, paved the way for Theranos to promote its testing to individuals and some pharmacies.
In a ceremony signing the bill at the company’s Scottsdale offices, the governor said he was “proud to sign” legislation for “reducing burdensome barriers and red tape.”
But two years later, after the company was forced to refund $4.6 million to Arizonans who got her company’s tests and may have been defrauded, an aide to the governor said Ducey had no second thoughts.
“The governor has always said it’s up to any new business models and companies to prove themselves,” said Daniel Scarpinato. “He is pleased the attorney general was able to reach a settlement on this issue.” [!]
Holmes founded Theranos in 2003, at age 19, saying she wanted to change the practice which has forced people to have vials of blood taken for testing. She claimed to have developed technology that would allow accurate tests with just a few drops.
At the 2015 signing ceremony with Ducey, Holmes said she thinks the new law actually would lead to better health. She said anywhere from 40% to 60% of people who get lab orders from their doctors do not bother to follow through.
Holmes said this puts people in control to decide what tests to have. And once they have the results, she said they will take the paperwork and go see a doctor if they have questions.
Two years later, Theranos signed a consent degree with Attorney General Mark Brnovich.
Company lawyers denied Theranos violated the state’s Consumer Fraud Act in selling blood tests where the results were not always accurate. They conceded, though, that more than one out of every 10 of the tests results given to Arizonans by the company were “ultimately voided or corrected.”
The company agreed to provide full reimbursement to anyone in Arizona who got the tests during a three-year period, a figure calculated at $4.6 million. It also agreed to $200,000 in civil penalties, $25,000 in legal fees and to pick up the cost of someone to find the customers and distribute the refunds….
I’ve long argued that almost every aspect of health care needs to be radically overhauled. This wasn’t that, though – it was pretty much the opposite. This was ersatz personal “health freedom” for private profit. It was presented as some sort of consumer empowerment, but, as a doctor in the HBO documentary about Theranos/Holmes points out, people currently aren’t equipped to evaluate most blood tests, and the internet doesn’t help. This episode, propaganda, and law might well have helped to set the stage for the fatal stupidity of the rightwing “libertarian” response to the pandemic.
I’ve been reading Richard Francis’ Judge Sewall’s Apology: The Salem Witch Trials and the Forming of an American Conscience, which is taking months because so many other things keep intruding. The generally accepted idea of the culture surrounding the trials is contested by a number of works, including this one. Several people involved were like, WTF? That’s not logical, what’s in the Bible, how evidence works, at all reasonable,…
The jury felt unease about coming to their verdict, because the chief justice, William Stoughton, made a strange ruling that must have been in response to a query. The court used a formula to express the charges against the accused, one repeated in the subsequent cases: “Ann putnam . . . was & is hurt tortured Afflicted Pined Consumed wasted & tormented.” But, said Stoughton, the jury “were not to mind whether the bodies of the said afflicted were really pined and consumed.” According to Sewall’s old traveling companion Thomas Brattle, now treasurer of Harvard, the afflicted, when not actually in their torments, were perfectly “hale and hearty, robust and lusty.” Stoughton dealt with this awkward circumstance by arguing that the issue was “whether the said afflicted did not suffer from the accused such afflictions as naturally tended to their being pined and consumed, wasted, etc.” Brattle summed up Stoughton’s ruling with terse contempt: “This, (said he,) is a pining and consuming in the sense of the law. I add not.”
“This, (said he,) is a pining and consuming in the sense of the law. I add not.” is a perfect tweet.
[Elon Musk:] In the past I voted Democrat, because they were (mostly) the kindness party.
But they have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican.
Now, watch their dirty tricks campaign against me unfold … [popcorn emoji]
[José Andrés:] @elonmusk I think someone has taken over your tweeter account. Please report,we need to build longer tables, with democrats and republicans of good will coming together to keep building our democracy! But to finger point Democrats for hate…well,obviously you’ve been hacked! [woozy face emoji]
Happy, by species, is an Asian elephant. But can she also be considered a person? [Yes. – SC]
That question was before New York’s highest court on Wednesday in a closely watched case over whether a basic human[-animal] right can be extended to an animal [who isn’t a human].
The advocates at the Nonhuman Rights Project say yes: Happy is an autonomous, cognitively complex elephant worthy of the right reserved in law for “a person”.
The Bronx Zoo, where Happy resides, says no: through an attorney, the zoo argues Happy is neither illegally imprisoned nor a person, but a well-cared-for elephant “respected as the magnificent creature she is.” [Oy.]
Happy has lived at the Bronx Zoo for 45 years. The state court of appeals heard arguments over whether she should be released through a habeas corpus proceeding, which is a way for people to challenge illegal confinement.
The Nonhuman Rights Project wants her moved from a “one-acre prison” at the zoo to a more spacious sanctuary.
“She has an interest in exercising her choices and deciding who she wants to be with, and where to go, and what to do, and what to eat,” project attorney Monica Miller told the Associated Press ahead of the oral arguments. “And the zoo is prohibiting her from making any of those choices herself.”
…
The zoo and its supporters warn that a win for advocates at the Nonhuman Rights Project could open the door to more legal actions on behalf of animals, including pets [elephants are wild and not domesticated animals] and other species in zoos [yes, good!].
…
Lower courts have ruled against the NRP. And the group has failed to prevail in similar cases, including those involving a chimpanzee in upstate New York named Tommy.
But last October, at the urging of a different animal rights group, a federal judge ruled that Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar’s infamous “cocaine hippos” could be recognised as people or “interested persons” with legal rights in the US. The decision had no real ramifications for the hippos themselves, given that they reside in Colombia.
Correction to #240 – Jenny died in 2006. She was 34.
StevoRsays
On the economic reality for Oz the ALP are far better economic managers :
On 11 April, day one of the 2019 election campaign, a delusional Scott Morrison announced to the Australian public that a key reason it should consider re-electing the Coalition into government on 18 May is its economic management credentials.
Indeed, as he held a lump of coal in one hand, and raised the other towards the heavens, the unelected prime minister declared that it had taken the Coalition six years – under Abbott, Turnbull and now him – to turn around Labor’s financial mismanagement and bring about a budget surplus.
And as a couple of switched on members of the audience up the back coughed “bullshit” under their breaths, the rest of the crowd turned to one another somewhat confused, as the thought collectively dawned upon them all, “Hang on, there hasn’t been a budget surplus.”
Here, by way of wrapping up the tenth birthday of the world’s best-performed economy, are several more acute observations. These provide a timely antidote to mendacious media claims that continue to denigrate Labor’s record and cover up the failures of the Coalition.
Australia’s is almost certainly the worst collapse of any economy through the last six years of global economic recovery. IA’s econometrics specialist Alan Austin reveals the winners and losers for 2019.
@ SC (Salty Current) : Thinking elephants, well, mammoths, did you ever read any of Stephen Baxter’s Mammoth books (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mammoth_Trilogy ) written from their point of view? Thought they were pretty good and different & would recommend..
[…]
French mustard producers said seed production in 2021 was down 50% after poor harvests, which they said had been brought on by the changing climate in France’s Burgundy region and Canada, the second largest mustard seed producer in the world.
It has caused French supermarket shelves to run empty of the condiment, including in several stores visited by the Guardian.
[…]
The war in Ukraine has further restricted seed supply, with both Ukraine and Russia being major exporters of the crop […]
I wasn’t aware a problem was developing — and currently have no idea on availability where I live in S.France — but I could only find two jars of prepared mustard in the lair, both “gourmet”, one with truffe & pepper, the other with safran. And no mustard seeds or ground mustard. Hum… what has the mildly deranged penguin been up to?
Nine Republicans voted against a bill in Congress that would help lower-income women secure baby formula for their children.
Many Republicans crossed party lines to vote for HR 7791, the Access to Baby Formula Act, which passed the House on Wednesday with 414 “yes” votes. However, the bill — which comes amid a crisis where parents are struggling to procure baby formula for their children — was voted down by nine Republican lawmakers.
The “no” votes were cast by GOP Reps. Andy Biggs, Lauren Boebert, Thomas Massie, Clay Higgins, Matt Gaetz, Chip Roy, Paul Gosar, Louie Gohmert, and Marjorie Taylor Greene. The bill now goes to a vote in the Senate.
Some of the worst, fascists in the House want to make sure children starve. I’m surprised Madison Cawthorn didn’t vote no just out of post-reelection-defeat spite. I’m sure their opposition is based on a principled stand for “freedom,” “liberty,” and, of course, “limited government.”
With the G.O.P. Senate primary in Pennsylvania too close to call, thousands of American doctors are praying that Dr. Mehmet Oz ekes out a win and quits medicine.
Dr. Harland Dorrinson, a neurosurgeon based in Wichita, Kansas, has been funnelling thousands of dollars to the Oz campaign, all donations from doctors hell-bent on seeing the TV host leave their profession.
“Like doctors all across the nation, I salivate at the thought of Dr. Oz talking about taxes, infrastructure, and foreign policy instead of the healing powers of magic coffee beans,” Dorrinson said.
The physician said that his colleagues’ hearts sank when it became apparent that an easy win for Oz was not in the cards, but they “haven’t given up hope” that his departure from medicine could be nigh.
“If Dr. Oz wins, millions of lives could be saved,” Dorrinson said.
For two solid months, Russia pounded away at the town of Popasna. Again and again, Russian forces crossed the 2 miles from the neighboring town of Pervomaisk, which has been under Russian occupation since 2014. Again and again the forces that survived to reach Popasna were pounded into scrap by artillery stationed west of the town. But gradually, after tremendous losses, Russia wore the defenders in Popasna down. They reduced the buildings in the east of the town to rubble. They reduced the buildings in the south and west of the town to rubble. They reduced the buildings in the north of the town to rubble. Finally, with not a single intact building remaining, Russia took Popasna. Sort of.
“The Russians are not just destroying Popasna,” said the head of the regional military administration. “They are removing it from the map.” Russian drone footage showed the last survivors of the town being blasted out of the rubble with grenades. On May 7, Russia celebrated their capture of a town that no longer existed.
Capturing Erasing Popasna seemed to be an accomplishment. Yes, it took Russian forces over two months to grind out 2 miles of progress despite piling onto Popasna more forces in less space than anywhere else along the entire line of battle. But they got it, by Putin, and then … they seemed to forget what came next.
As kos has detailed, Russia had initially aimed at carving a north-south line through Ukrainian territory far to the west, a line that would have started at the city of Kharkiv and cut all the way down to Zaporizhzhia. That didn’t work out. So Russia cut back its ambitions and instead started down a path that ran southwest from the salient they established at Izyum. Only that attempt ground to a halt, so they started going southeast instead, aiming to cut off a smaller but still substantial chunk that would include the cities of Slavyansk and Kramatorsk. […] Instead, Russia could go from Lyman to the place that used to be Popasna on the map. That would be just a fraction of their original goal, but hey, it has Lyman. It contains Severodonetsk. It puts Russian troops on the other side of the Siverskyi Donets River and pretty much at the boundaries of Luhansk, so get busy with that.
Except that since Russia moved all those forces assaulting Popasna to sitting on the dust that had been Popasna, it seems to have lost track of what to do with them. In the last 10 days, Russia has attacked west out of Popasna. And north out of Popasna. And southwest out of Popasna. And south out of Popasna. [map at the link]
As of Thursday, the situation looked roughly like this: Russia has taken several small villages in the immediate vicinity of Popasna, most of which seemed to have been abandoned without resistance. But an attempt to drive west toward the town of Bakhmut was turned back at the village of Pylypchatyne. Attempts to drive back to the south ran into a wall at Troitske. The line of towns and villages north of of the “mini-salient” pushing out through Popasna has been under almost constant attack, but with the exception of Komyshuvakha, Ukraine seems to have held onto contested positions.
On Wednesday, the Russians made another run at Pylypchatyne and were repelled with heavy losses. Then they moved back inside their own lines, shifted troops from Popasna to the east, and made a run at Toshkivka. But they were thrown back again, and forces returned to sitting on the ashes of Popasna.
It’s not that Russian forces have made no progress since taking Popasna almost two weeks ago, but the loss of the town failed to turn into anything that might be described as a “breakthrough” that allowed Russian forces to flood through a gap in the Ukrainian line. Instead Popasna—a place with no standing shelter, water, or electricity—has become the new base for Russia’s slow crawl.
And without the direct goal of Popasna to capture, Russia seems uncertain of just where it wants to go next. It’s still attacking in directions that make no sense when applied to wider goals. The attempt to move west, which has failed at least twice when it reached Pylypchatyne, at least makes some sense in terms of trying to complete that connection to Lyman, which is only about 50 kilometers to the northwest. But Russia seems likely to abandon that effort, especially after the repeated failed attempts to cross the Siverskyi Donets near Bilohorivka.
Eventually, Russian forces can be expected to go north from Popasna, not just because that’s the one direction where they’ve had some success, but because north from Popasna represents the smallest possible version of Russia’s “cut off Ukrainian forces at the eastern front” plan. If they can manage to keep their forces at Popasna relatively intact and pointing in the same direction, they might even make progress. Then pro-Russian sources can brag about how all those other attempts to cut off larger pieces of Ukraine were always feints. Very expensive feints.
But first expect Russia to make a few more pointless, high-casualty runs in random directions.
In case 2020 didn’t make it clear enough, the 2022 Republican primaries are proof: Any election result that doesn’t go the MAGA way is fraud! Even when all the voters are Republicans. Take Pennsylvania, where the count for the Senate nomination is tightening with every ballot counted. Trump’s favorite, snake-oil salesman Mehmet Oz, is seeing his lead over Dave McCormick shrink. […]
Trump has been pushing Oz to declare victory before the rest of the ballots are counted, obviously not caring at all that it’s Republican voters he wants to disenfranchise. “Dr. Oz should declare victory,” Trump said Wednesday, echoing his own 2020 strategy when he said, “Frankly, we did win this election” even as ballots were still being counted.
It’s a grievance that Trump hasn’t let go of, a key part of the Big Lie. “It was 10 o’clock [on election night], and you looked at the numbers, and I’m sure you felt [I had won]; this election was over,” Trump said weeks after the election while the plot to overturn the election was ramping up. “And then they did dumps. They called them dumps—big massive dumps in Michigan and Pennsylvania and all over.”
Of course, it was a big massive dump of votes from Bucks County that gave Oz his slim lead. […]
Never mind the inconsistency. That vote dump was on his side, so it was clean. The mail-in ballots that are helping McCormick claw the lead back, however, are of course tainted, which means Trump is keeping at it Thursday. “Stop FINDING VOTES” he said on his pallid Twitter replica, Truth Social. […]
Remember when “finding votes” was the whole strategy for Trump?
“All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state,” Trump told Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021, trying to overturn that state’s results. That little foray into finding votes, along with the Trump teams’ other efforts to interfere in the election, has now advanced to a Fulton County, Georgia, grand jury.
Expect plenty more “rigged” screeches from the MAGA crowd if McCormick pulls out a win on the basis of mail-in ballots—even when, again, this is a primary of Republican voters. […]
His Fox News crew is setting the stage for fighting the results already. “I think under every scenario I have factored out, extrapolated out, Oz will be the winner in this race, but God only knows when we’re going to get that final call,” Sean Hannity said on his radio show Wednesday. “And to be perfectly honest, I don’t trust people. And I’m not talking about Republican candidates. I’m talking about the people that have the ballots.”
It’s a repeat of the 2020 strategy—hell, even the 2016 strategy: Lay the groundwork for a potential loss by declaring the entire thing rigged. It does not bode well for 2024, not unless Democrats can somehow pull out a Manchin- and Sinema-proof Senate in November, end the filibuster, and pass legislation to shore up security for and trust in elections.
It was only a matter of time. A candidate for Governor in Colorado has a proposal: create an in-state electoral college that will systematically over-weight rural votes and thus make it almost impossible for a Republican not to win the governorship as well as other statewide offices. Basically, counties take the place of states and Colorado has a ton of rural counties where very few people live. […] he won the top spot on the primary ballot at the state convention. So he’s not some random gadfly either. In any case, Gov. Jared Polis is popular and seems like a shoe-in for reelection. But this seems like the leading edge of the broader trend.
We’re no longer seeing conservatives make traditionalist arguments for anti-majoritarian aspect of the US political system like the electoral college. (It’s always been this way. Why change it?) They’re making affirmative arguments for reforms that accomplish the same things. Greg Lopez, the candidate with the proposal, is pretty transparent about the goal of the reform: Republicans can’t win otherwise. In one example of the math, about 2,000 voters in one set of three counties would have twice the number of electoral votes as a quarter of a million voters in another. The national electoral college is bad but it’s not *remotely* that bad.
[…] it seems highly likely that plans along these lines are coming down the pike. Anything like this has been prevented for decades by the “one man, one vote” Supreme Court decisions of more than half a century ago. But why should we believe those cases are likely to be affirmed by the current Court?
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Russian soldier in war crimes trial asks widow for forgiveness
A 21-year-old Russian soldier asked a Ukrainian widow to forgive him for the murder of her husband, as a court in Kyiv met today for a second hearing in the first war crimes trial arising from Russia’s 24 February invasion.
Vadim Shishimarin, a tank commander, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to killing an unarmed 62-year-old civilian in the north-east Ukrainian village of Chupakhivka on 28 February.
“I acknowledge my blame … I ask you to forgive me,” he told the widow, Kateryna Shalipova, Reuters reports.
The widow told the court she had heard distant shots fired from their yard and that she had called out to her husband the day he was killed.
“I ran over to my husband, he was already dead. Shot in the head. I screamed, I screamed so much,” she said.
Shalipova told the court she would not object if Shishimarin was released to Russia as part of a prisoner swap to get “our boys” out of the port city of Mariupol, a reference to hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers who have given themselves up to Russia….
We urgently need to diversify global food production, both geographically and in terms of crops and farming techniques. We need to break the grip of massive corporations and financial speculators. We need to create backup systems, producing food by entirely different means. We need to introduce spare capacity into a system threatened by its own efficiencies.
If so many can go hungry at a time of unprecedented bounty, the consequences of the major crop failure that environmental breakdown could cause defy imagination. The system has to change.
On Jan. 6, 2020, far-right nationalists staged a violent insurrection specifically intended to block Congress’ ability to count electoral votes resulting from the November presidential elections. […]
All those who were there that day had come explicitly for a “march” intended to alter the results of our democratic election. All those who walked through torn-down security lines after their peers violently attacked officers were co-conspirators who advanced so as to themselves help foil law enforcement efforts to stop the violence in front of them. All those who entered the building did so with the explicit purpose of halting the counting of electoral votes in a presidential election.
It was an act of pre-planned sedition […] Those who organized the “march” had planned it specifically to interfere with the ability of Congress to function. […] The organizers included Republican lawmakers inside the Capitol, Trump administration officials, Trump himself, Republican strategists, Republican lawyers, and violent militia groups acting in a coordinated fashion with the others.
[…] To get a feel for what is most likely to happen next, two stories from the rapidly failing state of Idaho give an unpleasantly detailed look at just how vigorous the American fascist movement has become. The New York Times focuses on the entirely deserved travails of the Idaho Republican Party, which has embraced fascist extremism wholeheartedly only to find that their less extremist officials have little hope of holding out against the venomous terrorist-adjacent batshit extremist white nationalist pro-fascist scum that the party embraced […]
The party is now a den of militia-premised violent extremism. it has been taken over by white nationalists who identify not just with the state’s growing fascist militia groups but with the tattered remnants of the John Birch Society—a segregationist, misogynistic conspiracy group that was once akin to the current “QAnon” movement, but one that flourished back in the times when unhinged conspiracy rants had to be mailed out from one person to the next behind actual postage stamps. The poster child for this new pro-fascism Republicanism is the state’s own Lt. Governor Janice McGeachin, now infamous for staging her own petty coups every time the state’s hard-right sitting governor so much as goes out for a cup of coffee.
The story of the Idaho Republican Party is quite simple. The party continues to embrace the state’s most dangerous proto-terrorist networks, white supremacist cults that have moved to the state and set up shop there with the specific intent of toppling the American government and founding a white nationalist ethnostate premised on shooting anyone who objects. […]
So you’ve got Republican candidates for office showing up at events in which other speakers are leading prayers asking for God’s support for their attempts to secede from America to form their own nationalist murderstate, and anyone left in Republican circles who thinks that might be grotesque behavior now labels themselves a “traditional” Republican and struggles to explain to voters that despite their own party’s willing embrace of this batshit nuttery, embracing terrorism-premised ethnostate rebellions is Bad […]
The second look into Idaho’s collapse into what seems likely to become a failed state is a much longer and more comprehensive writeup from Huffpost’s Christopher Mathias, one that examines what the guts of Idaho’s rapidly surging extremism actually looks like on the ground.
The most important takeaway is that the extremists make no effort to hide their eagerness to embrace terrorism—not just to achieve their desired white nationalist utopia, but against any public official, private citizen, or stray school-aged children who offer up objections. […]
So, as one example, a racial justice protest by a group of local high schoolers suddenly finds themselves opposed by “40 men in camo gear carrying AR-15s” telling them they “deserved to be raped” for staging their rally. The militia […] backed by a Republican county commissioner, who had requested a public counter to the high schoolers […]
This is what the new anti-democratic, pro-fascist, pro-violence bent of Republicanism looks like. […] To be a non-radical government official in Idaho means facing violent threats over anything from textbooks to mask guidance to vaccines to local ordinances—threats which will be either ignored or endorsed by Republican candidates looking to consolidate power.
Both of these Idaho reports focus, perhaps as necessity, on individual officials who are either promoting the radicalization or attempting to oppose it. Much of the radicalization can be traced to profoundly mean two-bit local Republican powerbrokers like Brent Regan, a valuable ally to anti-semites, white supremacists, and assorted other terrorism-adjacent extremists. Less examined is the plain truth that none of these white nationalist thugs and other human poisons would be getting anywhere if a very broad chunk of the state’s Republican voters didn’t back those things. They do. McGeachin hangs out with the would-be architects of a terrorism-premised white nationalist state and pays no price because the Republican church-goers of her state want someone at least as extremist is she is to be in a top government position.
For all the talk about fascist outsiders traipsing into Idaho to transform it into White Nationalist Disneyland, you don’t hear many accounts of them facing widespread public opposition from the good Christian salt-of-the-earth locals who don’t want white nationalist terrorism, just the white nationalism part. Those are the people who may or may not have power to stop domestic terrorism cells from flourishing in their own towns, but they absolutely have the power to prevent such cells from gaining Republican Party-backed representation in their local and state governments.
And yet:
The state of Idaho provides us with what may be a very accurate picture of what the rest of Republicanism will soon look like, as the party refuses to back down from its own attempted coup, as it continues to work feverishly to sabotage investigations into the violence it caused, as it brazenly passes law after law putting new asterisks on presumed civil rights, and smugly brags as a judiciary stacked with movement ideologues nods and claims none of those things are rights to begin with. There’s no effort inside Fox News to stop hosts from broadcasting false claims used to justify new terrorist movements. The Republican officials who have encouraged militia thugs to turn out to oppose protesting schoolchildren have not been wringing their hands at how far downhill things have gone since then.
[…] The militia groups threatening schoolchildren in Idaho will hardly be quaking in terror if a few of their members are slapped with middling sentences for doing what their entire militias are premised on doing.
And the Republican Party officials who continue to back the notion of erasing elections when the votes coming in from non-Republican American cities go to candidates who are not their own have no reason whatsoever to balk now. There is no national shunning. Chuck Todd and Meet the Press will banter with the advocates for sedition on what new tax policies might look like. Local far-right gadflies who have screamed for scrubbing out votes are elected to new positions; those unwilling to back such crimes continue to be tossed out.
The press has acted with cowardice from beginning to end, treating democracy and overthrow as competing theories of government that must each be balanced against the other.
The Republican Party has acted as fervent backer of fascist insurrection, and continues to, and pays no price.
[…] We are told that the Department of Justice, the independent portion of government tasked with responding to criminal acts by American citizens against each other, is on the case. And the clock ticks on toward a November election that may render their careful deliberations moot as pro-insurrection candidates vow to immunize the top criminals from whatever charges prosecutors might yet announce.
There is literally no reason for the Idaho Republican Party to disengage from the state’s pro-sedition, pro-terrorism wing—at least until acts of terrorism start popping up in the state with enough regularity or impact to cause the federal government to step in and erase whichever militias crossed those lines. Republican lawmakers will continue to carry guns to protect themselves from their own far-right. School board members will continue to face personal threats of violence after Republican-backed smear campaigns, and local officials will continue to face Republican-backed opponents who appear at white nationalist conventions and bow their heads with everyone else as the crowd prays for the violent erasure of all those who oppose them […]
The real question is not how this ends, because it will absolutely end with violence. The Republican Party in Idaho is absolutely assuring that. The only question is how the violence will unfold, how many victims there will be, how many of the victims will be Republicans that the party pretends to give a damn about versus other Idaho residents that they don’t, and which of the names currently appearing in these two news stories will end up dead at the end of it, elevated to martyr status by Tucker Carlson and/or whatever collection of dimwitted fascists remain.
This will end with the feds having to take action, because the Idaho Republican Party is rapidly becoming a front for the state’s far-right militia groups and the whole premise of those militia groups is to push against the boundaries of what’s considered terrorism and what’s not until there’s no choice left but to get into a shooting war. Even the state’s Republicans can see things bending that way, but so long as it provides a momentary election advantage, they’re still content to ride that extremist wave.
Sigmund Freud was unavailable for comment, but George W Bush saying Iraq instead of Ukraine when condemning “a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion” certainly suggests he still has a lot on his unconscious mind.
…
Bush was making a distinction between a democratically elected Volodymyr Zelenskiy, “the Churchill of the 21st century”, and the rigged elections and despotism of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, where the absence of checks and balances led to “the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq – I mean Ukraine”.
The audience laughed along [!], but the mistake was a reminder that the world is still living with the consequences of that invasion. It broke Iraq and set off a sectarian civil war in which hundreds of thousands of people died.
Nearly two decades on, it continues to weaken the US on the world stage, and is undoubtedly a factor in the ambivalence of countries in Africa and the Middle East over joining a decisive global response to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Putin has cynically copied from the Iraq playbook the Bush administration left behind, with spurious claims of Ukrainian WMD. The US failure to prosecute war crimes by US troops and contractors, its use of torture in the “global war on terror” and Bush’s campaign to undermine the international criminal court, all contributed to a more permissive environment for the many crimes against humanity that have followed Iraq, from Syria to Ukraine and well beyond.
Wednesday’s Bushism was a reminder that for all the former president’s aw shucks self-deprecatory jokes about Iraq, it was never really funny.
Today’s House hearing on abortion rights was bound to have its share of ignorant and offensive questions, not to mention disinformation, from a certain cohort of white male Republicans. But at times the questions asked of the witnesses—particularly Dr. Yashica Robinson, an OB-GYN and abortion provider in Alabama—were just too absurd, if not simply hateful.
Dripping condescension, but seemingly unaware of what an abortion is, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) repeatedly asked Robinson if she would support the abortion of a child who was “halfway out of the birth canal.”
“I can’t even fathom that,” she replied, “just like you probably can’t imagine what you would do if your daughter was raped. If it hasn’t happened, it may be difficult for you to—.” Johnson cut her off before she could continue. [video at the link]
The immense disrespect that these men exhibited toward a testifying doctor, a Black woman, was palpable. “Ms. Robinson, I want to ask you a question,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said.
“Yes, my name is Dr. Robinson,” she responded, “and I provide abortion care in Alabama.”
Roy proceeded to ask Robinson how she disposed of “baby parts” removed during dilation and extraction, a procedure used for the very slim percentage of abortions that take place during the second trimester.
Robinson refused to engage with Roy’s inflammatory rhetoric. “I am a physician and a proud abortion provider,” she said. “There is nothing that you can say that makes it difficult for me to talk about the care that I provide.”
It got more preposterous from there. “The answer to the question is fairly obvious, that there are baby parts, and you don’t want to talk about how they’re being stored,” Roy said. “You don’t want to talk about putting them in freezers, you don’t want to talk about putting them in Pyrex dishes…”
And so Robinson was put in the unenviable position of having to dignify Roy with a response. “All of those things that you just mentioned, I have never seen that in a health care setting, ever,” Robinson said. “We don’t put baby parts in freezers or Pyrex dishes.” [video at the link]
Meanwhile, Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) tried to pull the same big gotcha question that Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) posed to Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson during her confirmation hearing: What is a woman?
“The reason that I use she and her pronouns is because I understand that there are people who become pregnant who may not identify that way, and I think it is discriminatory to speak to people or to call them in such a way as they desire not to be called,” Robinson responded. Seems reasonable enough. But did the men who are so intent on denying abortion care to those who need it really care about the answer in the first place? [video at the link]
To be clear, not all members of Congress were so bogus today. Here’s Rep. Lucy McBath (D-Ga.) bravely sharing the story of her miscarriages: “The same medicine used to treat my failed pregnancies is the same medicine states like Texas would make illegal,” she said. “If Alabama makes abortion murder, does it make miscarriage manslaughter?” [video at the link]
Wednesday wasn’t the first time this country’s (mostly white, mostly male) Republican representatives have talked over and down to women, and particularly women of color. With the Supreme Court seemingly poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, it looks like women can’t expect certain men to start treating them as humans anytime soon.
How Hungary turned replacement theory into state ideology.
On May 16, just days after the deadly mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, motivated by conspiratorial fears of white Westerners’ “Great Replacement” by minorities, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán endorsed the shooter’s ideology in a nationally televised speech.
“Part of the picture of the decade of war facing us will be recurring waves of suicidal policy in the Western world. One such suicide attempt that I see is the great European population replacement program, which seeks to replace the missing European Christian children with migrants, with adults arriving from other civilizations,” Orbán said. [Yes, that’s what he said. He meant it. Racist and stupid at the same time.]
Orbán is a close observer of American politics; the speech literally contains an exhortation to “make Hungary great again.” […]
“I think there are many people who would like to see the end of Christian Europe,” he said in a representative 2018 radio interview. […]
In contemporary Hungary, we see a country where “Great Replacement” theory dominates not just official rhetoric but also policy. Migrants are treated cruelly at the border, while the government casts LGBTQ minorities as a threat to Hungarian birthrates and pushes a message to convince women to take up “traditional” roles as homemakers and mothers. Advocates for immigration and immigrant rights, like the Hungarian American Jewish philanthropist George Soros, are described as enemies of the state and attacked accordingly.
Meanwhile, Republicans are increasingly seeing Orbánism as a model. Currently, the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) is holding a major conference in Budapest. Orbán gave a speech Thursday morning; both Tucker Carlson and Trump’s former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows will be giving addresses by videoconference. The event serves as ratification of a trend I’ve been writing about for years: the GOP’s evolution into an illiberal faction that closely resembles Orbán’s Fidesz party.
[…] In the United States, replacement theory has been popular with the racist fringe — people like the Buffalo shooter and Charlottesville, Virginia, marchers — for decades. Only recently has it made its way into the GOP mainstream, due in no small part to the influence of Tucker Carlson’s Fox show.
In Europe, the idea is widespread among both neo-Nazis and the continent’s far-right political parties, like the Netherlands’ Freedom Party and Germany’s AfD. […]
But nowhere has the idea been more influential than Hungary, where Orbán and his increasingly far-right Fidesz party has engineered the political system to give itself a virtual hammerlock on power without parallel in the European Union. The Hungarian prime minister has elevated fear of demographic replacement into a central governing ideology, serving as justification for a policy agenda that demonizes minorities and helps cement his hold on power.
[…] Today, the biggest threat to this nation’s continuation is low birthrates: “Hungarians are an endangered species,” as he once put it.
[…]. Because Orbán sees “Hungarianness” as defined in ethnonational terms, there is no sense that the children of migrants could ever become Hungarian. By bringing in their own cultures and language, they pose an existential threat to the Hungarian nation’s future.
[…] Only about 2.1 percent of the Hungarian population is foreign-born, according to 2020 data (though that’s up from 1.6 percent in 2018). Most hail from nearby European states, like Ukraine and Romania; 97 percent of the country’s population is currently made up of ethnic Hungarians. Yet Orbán still describes migration as a deliberate plot against Hungary — an intentional great replacement orchestrated by bureaucrats in Brussels and George Soros.
[…] The upshot of this conspiracy theory is that Orbán and his allies in Fidesz are justified in doing nearly anything — however cruel and authoritarian — in service of preventing migration. They have built a fence on the border with Serbia to block migrants from entering; when I visited there in 2018, I saw a detention center, with some migrants stuck in a miserable processing system while others slept in squalid tents on the Hungarian side.
That year, the government passed something called the “Stop Soros” law: a bill punishing the Hungarians for “promoting and supporting illegal migration,” with provisions so broadly worded that, in theory, the government could arrest someone who provides food to an undocumented migrant on the street or attends a political rally in favor of their rights.
Replacement theory’s influence extends beyond immigration policy. Orbán’s anti-LGBTQ rhetoric centers on the idea that “gender ideology” poses a threat to Hungarian continuity by allegedly weakening the heterosexual family (and thus discouraging reproduction). This view is so central to Fidesz’s thinking that, in 2021, it codified it as a constitutional amendment.
“Hungary shall protect the institution of marriage as the union of one man and one woman established by voluntary decision, and the family as the basis of the survival of the nation,” the amendment reads. “Family ties shall be based on marriage or the relationship between parents and children. The mother shall be a woman, the father shall be a man.”
Some of Hungary’s birthrate-related policies are less alarming: Subsidies for families with children, in particular, are entirely defensible social policy. However, they take place in a broader context of government rhetoric and policymaking that sees women as obligated to serve the nation by becoming mothers and homemakers.
[…] Orbán is now very committed to the politics of replacement and has invested in exporting it — attempting to build an alliance of far-right Western politicians, bringing prominent right-wing intellectuals to meet with him in Budapest, and even funding institutes and journals that spread the tenets of Orbán thought in English.
He seems to have found his greatest success in the United States, where the leading figures in the Republican Party are seeing him as a model.
In January, Donald Trump endorsed Orbán in the latter’s reeelection bid, calling him a “strong leader” who “truly loves his country and wants safety for his people.” Later that month, the party’s leading media ally Tucker Carlson released a special titled Hungary vs. Soros that attempted to disseminate Orbán’s “Great Replacement” mythology to an American audience.
[…] Carlson is the leading mainstream exponent of the idea that a similar process is underway in America: arguing that Democrats are using immigration policy to conduct “the replacement of legacy Americans with more obedient people from faraway countries.”
[…] Which brings us back to CPAC in Budapest. The group has held international events before in attempts to build cross-national conservative linkages, but this is the first conference in Europe. […] the significance for the direction of the conservative movement is lost on no one.
The transatlantic mainstreaming of “Great Replacement” rhetoric is especially troubling, given that it has inspired white supremacist attacks on mosques in New Zealand, Latinos in El Paso, and, most recently, Black shoppers at a Buffalo supermarket. […] It posits that the very existence of nonwhite people in a country is a threat to the body politic.
[…] During Orbán’s address at CPAC Budapest, he outlined a 12-point “recipe” for political success that the American right could borrow. The very first point, he said, “is that we must play by our own rules” — that conservatives “must not be discouraged by being shouted at, by being labeled unfit, or by being treated as troublemakers.”
In context of recent developments, this advice sounds less likely friendly pointers and more like the words of an enabler. And it’s clear the Republican Party is taking the idea to heart.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 255
This will end with the feds having to take action…
Wonkette: “Egad, A Dinesh D’Souza Movie LIED? Fetch Forth My Smelling Salts!”
Poor Dinesh D’Souza can’t seem to get a break, apart from his pardon from Donald Trump, his constant appearances in rightwing media, and all the money he gets from adoring low-information fans. His latest documentary-shaped object, 2000 Mules, alleges there’s evidence off rampant voting fraud in the 2020 election. But it’s being ignored by Tucker Carlson and even Newsmax, and there’s practically nothing too stupid or crazy for Newsmax.
But as NPR explains, hahaha LOL LMAO True the Vote didn’t solve [anything]. (Slight paraphrase of NPR.) Also, have we mentioned D’Souza was himself convicted of election fraud? But he was pardoned, so now he’s blameless.
The claim was so impressive that Donald Trump spokesperson Liz Harrington gushed that True the Vote
“solved a murder of a young little girl in Atlanta. I mean, they are heroes.” Fans of the film have echoed that message on social media.
Unfortunately, that’s a load of codswallop:
Authorities in Georgia arrested and secured indictments against two suspects in the murder of Secoriea Turner in August 2021.
In response to NPR’s inquiries, True The Vote acknowledged it had contacted law enforcement more than two months later, meaning it played no role in those arrests or indictments.
That’s not just NPR proving the claim is false; that’s True the Vote admitting it didn’t solve [anything]
The movie purports that True The Vote proved a massive vote fraud effort by analyzing a shitload of phone geolocation data purchased from companies [that] track location information from phones and other mobile devices. Supposedly, the data identifies around 2,000 people who made at least 10 visits each to absentee ballot drop boxes, many of them located in different parts of cities, as well as to a number of nonprofit groups. They’re the “mules” of the title, because mail-in voting is just like drug dealing! (Yes, the movie refers to “ballot trafficking” and calls the nonprofits “stash houses,” because of course it does. These may be terms Dinesh learned in prison.)
The phone data supposedly “proves” the nonprofit groups were paying people to pick up ballots and to stuff the drop boxes! But as fact checks by the AP, and by Politifact, and by the Washington Post have all pointed out, the tracking data can only indicate a general location. It isn’t anywhere near granular enough to prove even that someone was standing next to a drop box, much less that they put ballots (legally or illegally) inside. And since elections authorities put drop boxes in places people are likely to find convenient, there are plenty of reasons one person might have been near those locations at various different times without going up to a ballot drop box. (In Atlanta, for instance, 28 of Fulton County’s 36 drop boxes were at public libraries.)
Now, back to the murder claim. In the movie, True the Vote’s executive director Catherine Engelbrecht and board member Gregg Phillips (who also have executive producer credits on the film) claim their analysis was so good it helped solved not one but two murders, both of which were “ebbing on cold case status.” But they only talk about one, the killing of eight-year-old Secoriea Turner in Atlanta on July 4, 2020.
Phillips says he and his team obtained device data from the area of the shooting, which showed “only a handful of unique devices that could have pulled the trigger…each of these devices has a unique device ID, and we turned the bulk of this information over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
“Now, I read they’ve arrested two suspects,” D’Souza responds to Phillips.
“They have,” Phillips says.
Also too, on a podcast flogging the film, D’Souza made an even more specific claim, that True The Vote gave its data to the FBI, and that the feds passed on the data to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
“Shortly after that,” D’Souza said, “boom” – there were two arrests and indictments.
NPR contacted the GBI to fact-check this claim.
“The GBI did not receive information from True the Vote that connected to the Secoriea Turner investigation,” said Nelly Miles, the GBI’s Director of the Office of Public and Governmental Affairs.
Aha. Neither Engelbrecht nor Phillips would give NPR an interview, but Engelbrecht did send an email saying that she
“called a contact at the FBI” and Phillips gave him the information about the Turner case “on or about October 25, 2021.”
That would have been about two months after both suspects had already been indicted, on August 13. And contrary to Engelbrecht’s assertion that the case was nearly “cold,” police had arrested one of the two suspects within two weeks of the murder. Indeed, he turned himself in. The second suspect was arrested in early August. As WaPo’s Philip Bump points out, “There is no indication that geolocation data played a role in either arrest, much less data provided by Phillips’s team.”
So nope, True the Vote didn’t solve [anything]. Like, maybe its data did include the two suspects’ phones? But by the time that analysis was done, the alleged killers’ names were already in the news for a couple months. […]
NPR points out other problems with the movie’s assertions, debunking a claim D’Souza made in an interview that the phone data also matched up with another organization’s data, to prove that some of the “mules” had also been Antifa rioters!!!!!
“There is an international organization called ACLED [Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project] that monitors the cell phones of all violent rioters around the world,” D’Souza said on the Dan Bongino Show. “What True The Vote did was they took the cell phone data on the mules and matched it against the ACLED data on the rioters. And guess what? There’s a pretty big overlap.”
In the film, Phillips also cites ACLED, which is a nonprofit research organization.
“There’s an organization that tracks the device IDs across all violent protests around the world. We took a look at our 242 mules in Atlanta and, sure enough, dozens and dozens and dozens of our mules show up on the ACLED databases,” Phillips says in the film. “This is not grandma out walking her dog, these are, you know, violent criminals sometimes.”
First of all, that Dinesh D’Souza quote right there — “There is an international organization called ACLED [Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project] that monitors the cell phones of all violent rioters around the world” — can only be spoken by someone utterly confident that their target audience is absolutely fucking clueless about how everything in the entire works.
Even so, Sam Jones, a spox for ACLED, said both claims were “categorically false,” and that it’s “highly unlikely that these conclusions have any basis in fact.” ACLED’s director of research and innovation, Roudabeh Kishi, noted that the company “does not track device ID” at all.
And while ACLED does track riots and other violent incidents, plus peaceful protests,
Their data do not include specific locations inside a city – such as neighborhoods or city blocks – where protests took place. ACLED does not track the time of day of those incidents or generally note individual participants, except for high-profile leaders.
Kishi said nobody from the film had contacted the company at all.
[…] Now, we should at least note that D’Souza, grumpified by an earlier article Philip Bump wrote about the problems with trying to use phone data to prove “ballot trafficking,” did sit down for an interview with Bump to explain why, logically, the movie’s conclusions are 100 percent true. As Bump puts it, the takeaway is that the hourlong interview “can be summarized fairly succinctly: D’Souza admits his movie does not show evidence to prove his claims about ballots being collected and submitted.”
D’Souza can’t even prove that the “whistleblower” the movie claims blew the lid off the fraud scheme even exists. He never met the guy, who wanted to remain anonymous.
But he frequently tells Bump it’s really unfair and illogical to demand he provide evidence that any of the “mules” the movie talks about submitted even a single illegal ballot, so that’s amusing. He also accuses Bump of “armchair theorizing” about his great big MAGA fanfiction of a movie.[…]
Rep. Jim Jordan appeared on Fox News this week and declared Donald Trump’s endorsement to be the most powerful in the history of the United States. […] it was just a few months ago when Trump said his endorsement “is considered by the real pollsters to be the strongest endorsement in U.S. political history.” He added that his record is “almost unblemished.”
The word “almost” was doing a lot of work in that sentence.
Throughout his presidency, the Republican’s endorsement proved meaningless in all kinds of contests — primaries and general elections, state and federal elections, in blue and red states — and so far in 2022, some high-profile Trump-backed candidates have also fallen short.
In Nebraska, the former president went all out to help Charles Herbster win a GOP gubernatorial primary, which he lost by three points. Also, in Nebraska’s 2nd congressional district, the former president didn’t literally endorse Steve Kuehl’s primary challenge against Rep. Don Bacon, but Trump denounced the Republican incumbent, declaring at his rally, in reference to Bacon, “I hope you vote like hell against that guy.” Bacon defeated Kuehl by 44 points.
In Idaho, Trump backed Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin’s primary challenge to Republican Gov. Brad Little, and the incumbent ended up winning by 30 points. [LOL]
In North Carolina, the former president urged voters in the 11th congressional district to look past Rep. Madison Cawthorn’s “foolish mistakes,” and give the bizarre congressman “a second chance.” The incumbent lost his primary anyway.
The list will soon grow. Not only is the outcome of Pennsylvania’s Republican U.S. Senate primary uncertain — Mehmet Oz may yet fall short — but there are other key contests on deck where Trump-backed candidates appear to be struggling badly. Take Georgia’s GOP gubernatorial primary, for example.
What’s more, this doesn’t include other messy developments from recent months, including the former president endorsing Sean Parnell in Pennsylvania before the Republican was forced to quit, and Trump’s decision to un-endorse Rep. Mo Brooks’ candidacy in Alabama.
[…] At this point, the former president’s supporters will be quick to argue that his successful endorsements easily outnumber his misses, and that’s certainly true. In fact, he’s issued a flurry of endorsements in recent months, and with dozens of Trump-backed candidates prevailing in primaries, the overall win-loss record looks quite impressive, the occasional failures notwithstanding.
All of this comes, however, with an enormous asterisk: [Trump] has issued dozens of endorsements to allies whose primary victories were never in doubt. The overall tally, in other words, is padded with sure-things.
As for why it matters, let’s not lose sight of the larger context. […] for Trump, the power of his endorsement is supposed to be — indeed, it must be — the stuff of legend. Last summer, he commented on the Republicans who beg for in-person meetings, where they plead for his electoral support, marveling at his self-professed power.
“We have had so many, and so many are coming in,” Trump said. “It’s been pretty amazing. You see the numbers. They need the endorsement. I don’t say this in a braggadocious way, but if they don’t get the endorsement, they don’t win.”
Except, as we were reminded again this week, that’s not true — which should send a message to Republicans everywhere about the need, or lack thereof, to kiss the former president’s ring.
Some more campaign news, as summarized by Steve Benen:
* Kansas’ Republican-led legislature created a gerrymandered map designed to defeat the state’s only Democratic member of Congress: Rep. Sharice Davids. Yesterday, the Kansas Supreme Court upheld the partisan map, delivering the outcome the GOP was counting on.
* Last month, an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found Republicans with three-point advantage over Democrats in the generic congressional ballot. This morning, however, the same poll found a rebound for the incumbent majority: Democrats now lead Republicans, 47 percent to 42 percent.
* In Pennsylvania’s Republican U.S. Senate primary, two of the top three contenders — including Mehmet Oz, who’s currently ahead — pointed to Fox News’ Sean Hannity as a key figure who helped shape the race. [JFC]
* On a related note, no one can say for sure who’ll finish on top in the GOP race in the Keystone State, but Republican insiders were reportedly “breathing a sigh of relief“ after seeing right-wing commentator Kathy Barnette finish a distant third.
* With less than a week remaining in Georgia’s Republican gubernatorial primary, the race appears to be on track to be a blowout: The latest Fox News poll found Gov. Brian Kemp leading former Sen. David Perdue, 60 percent to 28 percent. Two months ago, the incumbent governor led by a far more modest 11 points. [And Trump endorsed Perdue.]
[…]
The Senate voted 86 to 11 Thursday to approve a $40 billion Ukraine aid package that would replenish U.S. stockpiles of weapons transferred to Ukraine and provide billions of dollars to help the Ukrainian government continue operating and for humanitarian assistance.
President Biden is expected to sign the legislation, which exceeds his $33 billion request to Congress, immediately. The House passed the legislation overwhelmingly earlier this month by a vote of 368 to 57.
Biden on Thursday applauded Congress “for sending a clear bipartisan message to the world that the people of the United States stand together with the brave people of Ukraine.”
“The resources that I requested will allow is to send even more weapons and ammunition to Ukraine, replenish our own stockpile, and support U.S. troops stationed on NATO territory,” he said in a statement.
Biden announced that he would immediately provide another security package of artillery, radars and other equipment.
Democratic and Republican leaders hailed the vote as a crucial step to halting Russian aggression and firmly within U.S. national security interests.
“This is a large package, and it will meet the large needs of the Ukrainian people as they fight for their survival. As President Zelensky has said, the Ukrainians are caught up in a fight for democracy, the very democracy we love itself,” Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the Senate floor before the vote, referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“It’s a fight we should not and cannot turn away from,” he warned.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) also hailed the vote and pushed back on fellow Republicans, such as former President Trump, who have complained about the cost of the package.
“The future of America’s security and core strategic interests will be shaped by the outcome of this fight. Anyone concerned about the cost of supporting a Ukrainian victory should consider the much larger cost should Ukraine lose,” he said. […]
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is asking Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) to voluntarily appear before its investigators, arguing he may have knowledge about reconnaissance tours through the building the day before the deadly riot.
“Based on our review of evidence in the Select Committee’s possession, we believe you have information regarding a tour you led through parts of the Capitol complex on January 5, 2021,” the panel wrote in the letter to Loudermilk.
“Public reporting and witness accounts indicate some individuals and groups engaged in efforts to gather information about the layout of the U.S. Capitol, as well as the House and Senate office buildings, in advance of January 6, 2021.”
The letter does not spell out why Loudermilk is of interest, but it does note his involvement in an effort from the House Committee on Administration, which urged release of Capitol Police footage of the Capitol’s tunnels and entrances and exits on Jan. 5. [WTF!]
The letter to the Capitol Police Board — first obtained by The Hill in February — claimed that the video showed “no tours, no large groups, no one with MAGA hats on.”
“The Select Committee’s review of evidence directly contradicts that denial,” the committee writes to Loudermilk.
Immediately after being released from prison, the former pharmaceutical C.E.O. Martin Shkreli got an unpleasant surprise when an Uber driver charged him three hundred times the normal rate.
The driver said that he jacked up the price of Shkreli’s ride once he recognized the notorious “pharma bro,” sending the cost of the twelve-dollar fare rocketing to thirty-six hundred dollars.
Refusing to pay, Shkreli demanded to get out of the car, after which he walked to the side of the road and began hitchhiking.
As of press time, Shkreli had yet to get a ride, as drivers recognizing the convicted felon sped past him.
The Uber driver said that Shkreli had been “really pissed” about the sudden increase in price, but added, “I explained to him, this is how capitalism works.”
Rainforest trees in the Aussie tropics dying are at double the rate they used to. Living half as long. There was a story on this on ..radio or TV today somewhere too and I’ve been noticing our local trees are looking stressed and some have died including some beautiful massive old ones like the one in front of the Blackwood library. This is Global Overheating, this is disturbing and has serious implications. This shouldn’t just be ignored or go under the metaphorical radar :
I’ve written before about the danger of basing any interpretation of what’s happening on the ground on the data from NASA’s FIRMS instruments. A collection of orbiting spectrographs and infrared sensors are not a substitute of any sort for reports on the ground. They can’t distinguish artillery from a forest fire, can’t tell what the source of any fire might be, and absolutely can’t fit all those little colored squares into any kind of narrative. Using FIRMS data requires interpretation, and interpretation risks being absolutely, 100% wrong.
With that warning in place … here I go again, because Ukraine’s rapid gains north of Kharkiv may be the most interesting sequence of events in the whole of the invasion, and what’s now going on east of Staryi Saltiv may be the most interesting part of that whole Ukrainian counteroffensive. But through the whole operation, not just whatever may be going on east of the river, Ukraine has played activity in this area very close to the vest. Actions like the recapture of Staryi Saltiv, or the fast march to Ternova, weren’t reported from any official source until days after they had taken place and sizable areas around the towns in question were under Ukrainian control.
To be absolutely clear, Ukraine owes us, the highly interested war-watching public, absolutely nothing. They owe the guys actually on the ground, doing the fighting, everything. There are very clear tactical and strategic reasons why Ukraine sometimes pulls out the Fog of War machine and layers their actions in secrecy, just as there are also clear reasons why they sometimes decide to blow away that fog long enough to report a triumph that thrills the armchair generals and, more importantly, keeps the folks on the ground properly chuffed.
Right now, the fog has rolled in. So let’s once again pull out the satellite pics and do a little time-lapse of the entire Staryi Saltiv area. In the process, we’ll tell a story, but please understand that story may be no more accurate than those which begin “Once upon a time …” [Map of Ukraine positions around the Staryi Saltiv Bridge is available at the link]
Just a day after initial reports that Ukrainian forces had recaptured Staryi Saltiv, after moving quickly over a dozen kilometers and bypassing other areas of Russian control, FIRMS started reporting some hot spots in a strange area. It appeared that Ukraine was shelling locations on the east side of the river, directly around the other end of the Staryi Saltiv bridge. This was especially strange, because it was known that this bridge had been purposely damaged by Russian forces and was impassable.
The best assumption at the time was that Ukraine was clearing out possible Russian artillery on the east bank, but there doesn’t seem to be any return fire from the Russian side. [map at the link]
A day later, and the shelling around the east end of the bridge has stopped. Instead, the only action is one kilometer to the north. A detailed look suggests this fire was right on top of a hotel whose name translates roughly into “Silver Pine Lodge.” It seems like a nice place: 240 rooms, rec center, built-in movie theater. But “seemed” is probably the right word. In the spirit of speculation, did Ukraine get word this hotel, and the Sosnovy Bor rec center under that northernmost yellow block, were being used by Russian forces? Sure. Why not?
What happens next is … nothing. Just under a solid week of nothing. That doesn’t mean that nothing was happening. Actions involved might not have included heavy use of artillery. FIRMS is also not perfect, and at least two of the days involved included heavy rain and overcast skies. It’s not until May 13 (a relatively clear day) that FIRMS lights up again, and when it does, the location is really puzzling. [map at the link]
On this day, all the fire is directed east of Rubizhne, but not really across the river. Instead, this is all in the series of small islands and marshes located west of the main river channel. Previously, I speculated that might be Russian artillery firing into the location where Ukraine was trying to construct some kind of bridge. However, it could also be Ukraine firing into an area where Russian forces had retreated. In any case, all of this fire is happening in an area half a kilometer south of the normal bridge at Rubizhne, a bridge known to be demolished by Russian forces. Honestly, if I could get one person from the Ukrainian team in the area and ask them what was going on, it would be, “What the heck were you shooting at around Rubizhne?” Just wait a second. This question will come up again.
May 14 and 15 are absolutely quiet, so far as FIRMS is concerned. This doesn’t mean that Ukraine and Russia were not going at it with everything from kitchen spoons to heavy machine guns. It’s just that nothing in the area tweaked the hot spot sensors on FIRMS. Those spots are back again on May 16. [map at the link]
Now the fire is coming down in three areas. On the east side, there are scattered strikes in Zarichne and east of Metalivka. On the west side, there are a cluster of hot spots actually south of Rubizhne, in an area that had reportedly been under Ukrainian control for some days. This is the day that social media chatter—including reports on Telegram from Russian sources—indicated that Ukraine had crossed the river in force. It’s certainly easy to interpret the pattern of impacts on the east side as coming from artillery that had been moved across the bridge at Staryi Saltiv and directed north.
What’s going on south of Rubizhne? I. Do. Not. Know. Not only is this supposedly an area under Ukrainian control at this point, but the area where these hot spots are located is pretty much empty. Like … empty. There are relatively dense levels of buildings to the north and south; there are open fields on the west, marshes on the right, and partially nothing but the highway worth targeting. Russian forces attempting to halt the flow of Ukrainian troops up the highway? Possible. Again, this is a puzzler. [map at the link]
A day later and the fire around Zarichne is gone while that east of Metalivka has increased. There’s still some of that heat on the west side near Rubizhne, but it’s considerably reduced from the previous day. It’s very tempting to read this day as Ukrainian forces moving north from the Staryi Saltiv bridge to recapture Zarichne and continue their path toward Vovchansk. Supporting this were several unofficial reports that Ukrainian forces had occupied Zarichne. Maybe the reduced fire on the west bank is happening because Russian artillery is getting driven back or destroyed on the right bank, but again, that’s something I’m pulling from my … hat. Let’s say hat.
[…] other than some apparently panicked announcements from Russians convinced that Ukraine was just about to capture Vovchansk, there doesn’t seem to be any sign of fighting in Verkhnya Pysarivka or other villages to the north.
Then May 18 comes and there is … nothing. Not one hot spot in the whole area. In fact, it’s so quiet that some of the same sources that first reported Ukraine crossing the river begin to backtrack and make claims that maybe it was just a few special forces types crossing in boats to cause havoc. Maybe there’s no real bridgehead at all.
And then … [map at the link]
Kaboom. Those two areas in the image are red rather than yellow because they were all detected between six and 12 hours ago. There’s no more fire east of Metalivka. Instead, everything has moved above the town of Buhakiva on the east. There’s also fire again on the west side, but now that fire is west of Rubizhne.
Again, the hot spots on the east make it appear that Ukraine is proceeding to the north. Not only are there now some very unofficial reports that Ukraine has taken Metalivka and Buhaivka, one of the Russian Telegram sources reports that Ukraine took Buhaivka from the north. […] However they got there, if Ukrainian troops really are in Buhaivka, that puts them just 16 km (10 miles) down a wide road that runs straight to Vovchansk. Russian panickers, start your engines.
[…] One of these days—a day within the next two weeks, almost certainly—these mysteries will become clear. Until then, I think my hat is empty. And analysts who said this on Tuesday evening:
#Ukraine has launched an offensive with powerful weapons in the #Kharkhov area. Perhaps it is new western artillery, perhaps it is launching missiles such as Tochka U as well. The thermal footprints are intense.
Nearly 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers evacuated from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol now face an uncertain fate in Russian hands amid conflicting reports about the agreement negotiated by Ukraine, Russia, and international agencies.
Russia’s defense ministry says that the Azovstal defenders surrendered, and several Russian officials have called for putting some of the prisoners on trial for war crimes. The Ukrainian side considers the evacuation to be an operation to save the lives of the Mariupol garrison who have completed their heroic mission, and they are expecting an exchange of prisoners. [video at the link]
Azovstal was the last stronghold of Ukrainian resistance in the southern port city that has been besieged since March 1, the site of the war’s bloodiest and most extended battle. […]
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that “tens of thousands” have died in Mariupol, while local officials last month said those killed numbered as many as 22,000, according to CNN. Mariupol’s mayor has estimated that 90% of the city’s infrastructure has been damaged, 40% of it beyond repair.
Russia has been accused of widespread war crimes with thousands of bodies dumped into mass graves. On March 16, Russian forces bombed the drama theater sheltering hundreds of women and children. An Associated Press investigation has found evidence that close to 600 people were killed in the attack.
On Wednesday, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said 959 Ukrainian soldiers have been “captured” since Monday, according to the official RIA Novosti news agency. Fifty-one severely wounded soldiers were taken to a hospital in Novoazovsk, 28 miles east of Mariupol, which is held by Russian-backed separatists in Donetsk province.
More ominously, Konashenkov told reporters that all the prisoners were members of the Azov Regiment. Russia has branded the Azov Regiment as a neo-Nazi formation. The Azovstal garrison also included Ukrainian Marines, border guards, and police officers.
The Ukrainian side has confirmed that on the first day of the evacuation, 264 Ukrainian soldiers were evacuated, including slightly over 50 severely wounded soldiers who were taken by bus and ambulance to Novoazovsk. Ukrainian authorities have not released any further information on the departure of the Mariupol defenders, so as not to cause them harm, Ukrainskaya Pravda reported.
Ukrainian and Russian officials said most of the soldiers evacuated from Azovstal have been taken to a former penal colony converted into a prison camp in Olenivka, another town in Donetsk province held by Russian-backed separatists.
But the Ukrainian soldiers in Russian hands face an uncertain future. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not say whether the Ukrainian troops would be treated as prisoners of war or war criminals. Peskov only said that Vladimir Putin had guaranteed that Ukrainian fighters who surrendered at Azovstal would be treated “in accordance with international standards,” Reuters reported.
But in a Telegram post Tuesday, the Investigation Committee of the Russian Federation, the Kremlin’s version of the FBI, announced plans to interrogate the Ukrainian prisoners:
As part of an investigation into crimes committed by the Ukrainian regime against the civilian population of Donbas, investigators from the Investigation Committee of Russia will interrogate the fighters who had been hiding at the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol and surrendered.
The Investigation Committee said that the investigators would establish the identities of the “nationalists” and check whether they had been involved in crimes against civilians, and the information obtained during the interrogations would be compared against other data in Russian criminal case files.
The office of Russia’s prosecutor general has asked the Supreme Court to recognize Ukraine’s Azov Regiment as a “terrorist organisation,” the state-run Interfax news agency reported on Tuesday, citing the Ministry of Justice website. Russia’s Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the case on May 26.
Most of the fighters in the Azovstal plant belonged to the Azov Regiment, which was formed in 2014 as an extreme right-wing volunteer militia to fight Russian-backed separatists who had taken control of parts of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine after Russia annexed Crimea.
The Azov Regiment recaptured Mariupol in 2014 and set up their headquarters in the city, repelling repeated attacks by the separatists during the eight-year war in Donbas preceding the Feb. 24 Russian invasion.
Critics say Azov initially championed white nationalist, anti-immigrant, and other extreme-right ideas, but Ukrainian officials say Azov was later folded into Ukraine’s National Guard, that it has abandoned its ultra-nationalist origins, and that it has nothing to do with politics.
Azov denies allegations of fascism, neo-Nazism, and racism and says that Ukrainians from various backgrounds including Greeks, Jews, Crimean Tatars, and ethnic Russians serve in Azov. […] But Azov was turned into the boogeyman by Russian propagandists who use its past to justify claims that Ukraine needed to be “de-Nazified” and demilitarized.
Analyzing Russian news media reports, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) indicated that there is much uncertainty about what Russia might do next:
The Kremlin might have agreed to the conditional surrender of the Azovstal defenders to accelerate Russia’s ability to declare Mariupol fully under its control. The Ukrainian Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported that the Russian Defense Ministry’s Department of Information and Mass Communications is hastily preparing a press tour of foreign journalists through occupied territories of Ukraine between May 18 and May 21. The Kremlin also could have agreed to such a deal to secure a victory in order to deflect criticism on social media of the failed Russian Siverskyi Donets River crossings and the overall slow pace of the invasion. [Sounds likely.]
The Kremlin might refuse to exchange the Mariupol defenders. Some Russian State Duma members are petitioning to pass laws that would prohibit prisoner exchanges for individuals accused of “Nazism.” Russian State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin claimed that the Mariupol defenders must be charged with war crimes and cannot be exchanged for Russian prisoners of war. The Kremlin may ignore the Russian State Duma’s concerns or use them to sabotage negotiations with Ukraine.
The surrender agreement generated some outrage and confusion on pro-Russian social media, rather than the celebration of the full capitulation of Mariupol that the Kremlin likely expected—possibly undermining Russian information operations. Some Russian Telegram channels ridiculed the Russian Defense Ministry for negotiating with Ukrainian “terrorists” and “Nazis.” Some bloggers criticized the Donetsk People’s Republic for organizing the evacuation proceedings and blamed negotiating authorities for creating conditions for Ukrainian martyrdom. Several Russian bloggers also called for the imprisonment or murder of surrendered Ukrainian servicemen. Russian audiences are likely dissatisfied with the surrender agreement because they expected Russian forces to destroy Ukrainian defenders at Azovstal. […]
The Russian parliament had been scheduled to consider a resolution on Wednesday banning the exchange of any Azov soldiers, but didn’t take up the issue, according to the Associated Press.
On Wednesday’s national newscast, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar told viewers they should perceive Russian statements about Azovstal defenders as propaganda political statements. She said the negotiations are “very sensitive” and warned that excessive publicity could damage the exchange process.
Russia has its own political processes, has its own political groups … Thus, during this rescue operation (for the defenders of Mariupol) and during the negotiations, we have been hearing really different statements from different people representing different forces.
Therefore, we must perceive them as political statements made for their propaganda effect and to achieve the propaganda goal for domestic Russian consumption …
I understand that everyone wants to know at least some information, but the rescue operation is still underway. That’s first and foremost. Secondly, negotiations are underway, because the rescue operation itself has several difficult stages.
[…] In his Tuesday night video address, Zelenskyy said that “the most influential international mediators are involved” in getting the remaining Ukrainian troops safely out of the Azovstal steel plant.
It’s not clear what assurances, if any, Russia gave the International Committee of the Red Cross or the United Nations, which were involved in arranging the evacuation of the Azovstal plant.
Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia Denis Krivosheev demanded that Russia not abuse the captured Ukrainian soldiers.
Ukraine’s soldiers deployed in Mariupol area have been dehumanized by Russian media and portrayed in Putin’s propaganda as “neo-Nazis” throughout Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. This characterization raises serious concerns over their fate as prisoners of war.
Amnesty International has documented summary killings of captives by Russia-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, as well as the extrajudicial executions of Ukrainian civilians by Russian forces in recent weeks. The soldiers who surrendered today must not meet the same fate.
Prisoners of war must not be subjected to any form of torture or ill-treatment, and should be given immediate access to the International Committee of the Red Cross. The relevant authorities must fully respect the rights of prisoners of war in accordance with the Geneva conventions.
[…] it remains unclear how many Ukrainian fighters remain within the sprawling Azovstal complex or what they might do given the Russian threats against their comrades who left the complex. Earlier this month, civilians sheltering in Azovstal were evacuated. Civilians and fighters alike suffered through horrendous conditions due to the lack of food, water, medicine, and other essentials.
Denis Pushilin, the separatist leader in Donetsk province, said Wednesday that no high-ranking commanders among the Azovstal defenders had “surrendered” so far, according to Ukrainskaya Pravda, citing a report by the separatists’ DAN news agency.
Pushilin also announced plans to demolish what’s left of the Azovstal plant and replace it with a technology park, or just a park area on the site. He expressed the bizarre notion that Mariupol “will be rebuilt with an emphasis on the resort business.” [Sounds like his is hallucinating.]
But the Mariupol City Council, which has relocated outside the city, said the real aim was to destroy an industrial complex that is vital to the Ukrainian economy. Azovstal, which was built in the 1930s when Joseph Stalin was the Soviet leader, was one of the largest steel mills in Europe. Ukraine’s richest oligarch, Rinat Akhmetov, whose company owned Azovstal, has declared that he is ready to help invest in rebuilding the steel and iron works once Mariupol is liberated and the war ends.
Tonight is the night before our Australian election. My thoughts and how I’m voting and why here :
.***
I so badly wish this election was over already. It is stressing me out so much and I’m so exceedingly worried by it. I wish it didn’t matter but it does and we really need the right result for the sake of all our collective futures – nationally and even globally. It’s not just the next three years but much further than that given the implications of Global Overheating – which should be the most defining issue of the campaign and affects everything, every area of our society, politics and world.
I can go through every area, every aspect of life and explain how much worse human caused Global Overheating is making life, how much harder and grimmer and more difficult and dangerous and tougher. I can up back every bit of this up with facts and logic and most of all evidence. But how long have we got? Not very long at all now really. The increased number and severity of Bushfires, heatwaves. droughts, storms, floods isn’t just physical disaster. There are survivors who lost their homes in the unprecedented bushfires still waiting for the aid they were promised by the thug who forced handshakes onunwilling people. There’s damage from flooding in Lismore and elsewhere still lingering. The pain of it won’t go away and it isn’t just phyiscal or even emotional but also financial pain, economic damage and the insidious, rotting of our political standards and conventions and whole system. There won’t be a return to normal because normal wasn’t sustainable and isn’t coming back.
The corruption is beyond merely monetary in terms of cold, hard cash or intangible dubuious electronic currency rorted, ripped off and hidden away. Its ethical corruption in the wilful ignorance and looking away from the abuse and bullying of others. In refugees indefinitely imprisoned for no fault or crime of their own. From fleeing wars that we waged and occupations that broke their nations, from Civil Wars sparked by climate change – a strong case that thats’ behind the Syrian civil war and almost forgotten Arab Spring. Flee for your lives and get jailed for the rest of them just because of your means of transport by the people who you hoped and thought would help you. How bad is that, Australia?
How bad does a Minister have to be to get sacked from the Scummo cabinet even if it turns out he’s revealed to be a rapist and gets a secret blind trust that would see any previous MP resign or be sacked instantly as one back in the 1980’s resigned just for accepting a single bottle of wine. How far have our standards fallen, our expectations dropped under this miserable, gaslighting, outright lying nightmare of a govt of the very worst. Especially when we recall that there are stories we barely get hints of coming from sleazy sex scandals in the Parliamentary prayer room and hidden deals to settle “alledged” (do I really need to use that word?) assault cases by very high placed ministers of the LNP govt exploiting their staffers. All whilst hypocritically, these same sleazebags encourage narrow-minded bigots to deny other people their right to merely exist as themselves and be treated as individuals and have their own private sex lives and identities which are consensual and harmless.
There’s so very much. Its overwhelming, its a sheer ugly weight like being drowned in a septic tank with more sewage flooding in every day, practically every hour, from the LNP’s arrogant, obscenely dishonest and corrupt mob of crooks and liars – and that’s only the bits that we know about already with who knows what and how much more we don’t.
I am so over this Murdoch IPA LNP regime disgracing our nation. So over this. They absolutely need to go and then face justice. We need an ICAC. We need arrests. We need consequences.
We need a better vision for our nation that is bolder, braver, kinder, fairer and more hoenst and more diverse and more welcoming and open to improving further.
But most of all we need them gone.
This election is our one last – yes, very likely last real chance.
We have to take it.
I’m not going to tell other people how to vote but this is how I’m voting and why.
I’m voting Greens and Climate Independents first to pressure small target ALP to move left and act better and improve. For genuine, priority 1, major immediate dramatic action on Global Overheating, on for compassion to refugees and ending the Offshore non-processing torture and torment of innocent people just like us but for luck of birth and circumstances. For restored political norms, conventions made laws and an end to the kakistocratic Murdochcracy we’ve slid into and its stinking corruption.
Then I’m voting ALP because they aren’t the same as the LNP by a very long way (even if not as long a way as I’d like) – their positions on ICAC, the ABC, the enable religiously-excused bullying law that Scotty from Hellsong demands a parlt pass if he’s re-eelected. I’m putting the LNP last because, well, re-read all the above paragraphs really.
I’m going to ask and plead with all my fb friends, everyone that reads this who can to consider at least doing likewise and for the reasons given here. Because this matters. This decides all our futures and not just for the next three years but for far, far longer than that. I wish this didn’t matter and I didn’;t have to do this but it does and here we are. Please.
Please.
Think and vote kind. Choose wisely and kindly. If you never do anything else for me and for yourselves, just do this. Please.
StevoR.
PS. As always a huge thankyou to all those who created and shared memes here. I hope others enjoy them and are made to think by them as I am. Thankyou to all for reading and thinking about this, please feel free to share.
CPAC leader Matt Schlapp isn’t pushing back against white nationalists’ conspiracy theory that immigrants are replacing white Americans. In fact, Schlapp has an idea to allay their fears.
During the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday, which was being held Hungary (aka the epicenter of backsliding democracy), Schlapp told reporters that the solution lies in Supreme Court’s expected overturning of Roe v Wade.
“For people that believe that we somehow need to replace populations or bring in new workers, I think it is an appropriate first step to give the … enshrinement in law the right to life for our own unborn children,” Schlapp said, per Vice.
The conservative leader’s argument directly aligns with white supremacists’ reason for joining the anti-abortion cause: To make white women produce white babies to offset the growing immigrant population.
WOW! It’s almost as if there was some sort of link between white supremacy and fetus fetishism. What’s it called again? I think it’s come kind of religion…Cross… Cris… Oh CHRISTIANITY!
Hey, look at that, the Pentagon finally admits that a Russian BTG is not really a BTG.
[Jack Detsch] NEW: Russia did push some units into the Donbas fight that weren’t at 100 percent after taking losses in the failed assault on Kyiv: senior U.S. defense official
“Some BTGs were so depleted that they simply disbanded them and combined them into others,” the official said.
Pentagon keeps saying stuff like “Russia has 106 BTGs in Ukraine,” but that’s literally gibberish. On paper, a Russian BTG should have 600-800 soldiers, 10 tanks, and 40 infantry fighting vehicles (along with assorted artillery, air defense, and logistics/support vehicles). In reality, deployed BTGs rarely, if ever, arrived at full strength, in large part because of grift, but also because conscripts assigned to those units weren’t legally allowed to deploy outside of Russia (though it happened sometimes, it wasn’t widespread). At this point, Russian BTGs are mostly shattered remnants. To prove that point, let me tell you the story of Dovhenke, just 26 kilometers (~16 miles) southeast of the Izyum salient. [map at the link]
Russians know the town as Dolgen’koye, and it’s currently blocking Russia’s southern advance. Just a few kilometers south of the town, a rail line still feeds supplies to Sloviansk (and Kramatorsk). Its value is obvious. More ambitiously, any attempt to encircle those Ukrainian strongholds at Slovyansk and Kramatorsk run through Dovhenke. The town had a pre-war population of 850, so we’re talking a few farmhouses and sheds. This is not an urban stronghold.
Meanwhile, estimates put Russia’s presence in the Izyum front at 22 BTGs, Russia’s largest concentration of firepower in the entire country. [map at the link]
Remember, 22 BTGs technically should mean 220 tanks, 880 infantry fighting vehicles, a buttload of artillery, and close to 18,000 soldiers. Dovhenke is just down the road from Izyum. Should be an easy pickings, right? Russia took Izyum on April 1, there’s been plenty of time for progress!
Dmitri on Twitter has been dutifully translating Russian-language accounts of the war, and he stumbled onto a real treasure, the diary of a Russian contract volunteer. Part I talks about how Viktor ended up in Ukraine in the first place. It’s interesting, for sure, particularly in his discussion on how little training and preparation volunteers received. But Part II is something else. You see, Viktor spent a month with units fighting the battle of Dovhenke.
On 10 April, myself and 4 more people ended up in the first company of the 752th regiment located on the defence in shrubbery at altitude 200 to the south of Kamenka village. Commanding the company was Sr. Lieutenant Guzaev. A real officer and a very good person… Kind and humane… In the company (if it can be called a company) there were 8 people together with company’s starshina who never went into assaults. After we joined, the company consisted of 13 people.
A company is four platoons, each of which should have 30-40 infantrymen. Each platoon normally has four sections, so around 7-10 soldiers each. So, what should’ve been a company with 120-160 soldiers, in fact had 13. That’s, at best, just 10% of full strength. It was section pretending to be a company.
Anyway, Viktor set out for an attack on Dovhenke, but they got lost or something. Maybe it was intentional sabotage by the “company” commander. They lost a guy because he was so out of shape that he started to have “heart aching.” That proved fortuitous for Viktor, because he was ordered to stay back with the “injured,” despite not having been hit by anything other than indirect mortar fire. The next morning…
Many company commanders in the two battalions of the 752th regiment told their fighters that we are being sent to a sure death, since the Ukrainians are well prepared. So they said – decide for yourself if you want to go or not. Four fifths of us (if not more) refused to go. So did I.
They’re already what, 90% understrength, and then another 80% decide not to proceed. This was the closest to combat Viktor got. The rest of this info he got second-hand from other fighters.
Also, who says “sign me up!” with that pitch?
They left at 10AM and only by 4PM managed to reach 600 meters from the village. They were exhausted. All this time they marched under heavy mortar and artillery shelling. Dead and wounded started appearing. When we reported to our battalion commander Major Vasyura about dead and wounded, he cussed: ‘leave them and keep advancing!!!’.
Remember, Russia supposedly has 22 BTGs in the area—220 tanks and close to 1,000 infantry fighting vehicles. Lots of trucks too. What are they doing rucking six hours merely to get to the outskirts of town, without any armor support, and no vehicles to transport them? So of course, as predicted by those commanders, they got smashed, suffered heavy casualties, and had to retreat.
So they retreated. Everyone was exhausted. It was very difficult carrying the wounded. We came back at 11PM. One of the volunteers, Andrey from Kursk who came together with me said that many simply ran off while retreating. He yelled at them to help pull out the wounded, but they didn’t help. He said he wanted to grab an assault rifle and start shooting in their backs… Thus, the grenade launcher platoon commander, Captain Nikolaev who was dragged for 4 hours, died from blood loss… I didn’t know him personally, but everyone said he was a very good person… So that was an attack on Dolgen’koye on 20 April…
Seriously, not a single infantry fighting vehicle or truck to help carry the wounded back? You’re going to tell me they have all that supposed combat power, and they made these guys march 4-6 hours each way, with no vehicle support? Or maybe Ukraine has done such a good job interdicting fuel supplies, that Russia literally can’t move its vehicles.
Looking ahead, I’ll say that based on the fact that different units tried to take Dolgen’koye, I think that our command simply had the task of taking Dolgen’koye and simply sent in everyone they could. It got to a point where in early May they started sending only 7 people to attack!!
WUT
New volunteers were immediately thrown onto Dolgen’koye upon arrival to Ukraine. There were no more officers so they were picking the most hardened ones among the volunteers (ones who fought in Chechnya and Syria), appointed them as seniors, gave them radios and sent them to assault… At the end of April they brought to us around 18 people who advanced as a large group of 120. They said that apart from them some other unit attacked Dolgen’koye from another direction. Perhaps that is why they reached Dolgen’koye without any mortar shelling. They had 300-400 meters to go when they came under crossfire from two machine guns… Even closer to them were positions of Ukrainian assault riflemen. They started combat. Our guys also had machine guns and RPGs. As I understood they killed at least 6 assault riflemen but had to retreat due to Ukrainian machine guns which they couldn’t suppress. Most likely the machine guns were located in well-fortified positions. The guys said that if they had a little help, if the machine guns were suppressed with helicopters or tanks, then they would have entered Dolgen’koye…
If Russia had 22 functioning BTGs in the Izyum salient, they wouldn’t be throwing the freshest meat into that grinder. Their own officers say “it’s a suicide mission,” and yet they keep executing the order from who-knows-what-general who got his rank by being so stupid, he would never pose a threat to Putin’s regime. “We got 120? Throw them in! Frontal attack. Oh, only 18 returned? Smush them with those other survivors, and let’s do it again!”
Note that Russia lost over 100 men in this attack … because of two machine guns. Two. A tank would take out those prepared machine gun nests. But again, Russia couldn’t spare a single one. (And to be fair, if they had, it likely would’ve been taken out by an NLAW or Javelin. But at least Russia would give those poor souls a fighting chance.)
At the very least, you’d think Russia would do them the courtesy of a ride to their death, instead of letting them arrive to the front line wiped after a 4-6 hour march, lugging all their weapons and ammunition with them.
In May they brought the remnants of ‘Bars’ (trained reservists from all of Russia) – 14 people. They assaulted Dolgen’koye for a month and remained in the area. As I understand it, they were attached to the leadership of our wicked division. In total, 340 of them arrived to Ukraine. After a month of shelling only 57 remained. Moreover, half of the survivors were at the headquarters. Most of them were wounded. They never had a single firefight, all the losses came from Ukrainian artillery fire…
This is what happens when you don’t protect your flanks, and it’s the reason I always said the Izyum salient would fall. Remember this image from back in April? [map at the link]
I wrote at the time how Ukrainian artillery could set up shop to the west and whittle away Russian forces. Viktor confirms that’s exactly what’s happening.
Now the Pentagon say Russia has “switched to smaller units,” which is hilariously understated. This is after spending the last two months predicting a big Russian combined-arms massed offensive in the Donbas that was just around the corner. It was clear from the start that this this was never going to happen. Russia’s only play, from the very start of the war, has been drip-drip-drip attacks, never able to open any spigot. Can you imagine those Ukrainian defenders at Dovhenke watching another wave of untrained, under-equipped, infantry stumble in, half dead from their brutal march, with zero armor or air support? It’s a turkey shoot.
And then people wonder 1) why Russia never advanced from their initial Izyum positions, despite all that supposed massed firepower, and 2) why Mark and I aren’t panicking about the Popasna salient.
I really wish we had a better way to gauge Russia’s combat forces aside from “x number of BTGs.” When Russian companies sit at 13 untrained volunteers, 90% understrength, it’s clear the term “BTG” has zero meaning.
As for today’s progress, the bigger story continues to be the Popasna salient. [tweet and map at the link]
However, this corner of Ukraine has something we haven’t seen anywhere else this war—hills. For an army that has struggled to advance on flat terrain, this will present a whole new challenge.
We’ll take a look at the area’s geography in a future update.
My choice for today’s / this weeks (critically) Endangered Species of the Day / Week. We need to save this species.. and so very many more.
StevoRsays
Huh. Dunno what happened there. My apologies for the double post above.
Oh & on one of the largest of all bumblebees which has been described in very mammalian~ish terms as a “flying mouse” and “a monstrous fluffy ginger beast” by British ecologist David Goulson (its wikipage) there’s this just under 5 min long Bombus dahlbomii clip here with some gorgeous footage & good info.
In Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate race, Republican Mehmet Oz has faced residency questions in his newly adopted home state, and it now appears that the celebrity doctor is still registered to vote in New Jersey, where he voted a year and a half ago.
As we survey the field of Republican candidates across the state, we are struggling to identify those who are not an active threat to American democracy or the institutions of government that have sustained our republic for 250 years.
It wasn’t just Donald Trump’s lawyers and operatives who tried to overturn his 2020 defeat. The former president himself was directly involved, too.
When Donald Trump’s team and allies scrambled in the wake of his defeat to overturn the 2020 results, it was not a freelance affair. Much of the then-president’s operation — including his White House and campaign teams — was directly involved in various aspects of the anti-election gambit.
And so was Trump himself. Politico reported this morning:
John Eastman, the attorney who architected Donald Trump’s last-ditch legal strategy to overturn the 2020 election, revealed Friday that he routinely communicated with Trump either directly or via “six conduits” during the chaotic weeks that preceded the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
At issue is a court filing from late last night in which the controversial Republican lawyer described Trump’s direct role in the broader legal scheme, including “two hand-written notes from former President Trump about information that he thought might be useful for the anticipated litigation.”
Politico’s report noted that Eastman said he would also speak directly with the then-president by telephone throughout his legal challenges to the election.
[From earlier coverage, this is background info]:
[…] It was in the summer of 2020 when Eastman published a bizarre piece that argued that Vice President Kamala Harris was ineligible for national office because her parents immigrated to the United States.
He then began working with Trump — the then-president saw him on Fox News and was impressed — and as part of that employment, Eastman filed a brief in December 2020 on Trump’s behalf that asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the 2020 presidential election. (It was filled with factual errors — including an obvious one literally on the first page.)
Soon after, he authored what’s become known as the Eastman Memo, which effectively outlined how Republicans could execute something resembling a post-election coup.
This, naturally, made him a witness of great interest to the committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, but when Eastman sat down with congressional investigators, the Republican lawyer reportedly pleaded the Fifth — by some accounts, nearly 150 times.
The panel proceeded to subpoena Eastman’s records, most notably the emails from his time working with Trump to overturn the election. The Republican lawyer tried to block that effort, claiming the materials were protected by attorney-client privilege.
It led the Jan. 6 committee to argue that communications between attorneys and clients are not protected if they’re discussing committing crimes. In late March, a federal judge agreed, concluding, “Based on the evidence, the Court finds it more likely than not that President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021.”
This was a breakthrough moment. Indeed, there’s no modern precedent for a sitting federal court to conclude that a former American president probably committed a felony. This led to some important disclosures, including materials that showed Eastman inventing ridiculous rationales and telling GOP state legislators they had the authority to ignore election results and approve slates of fake electors.
That said, the court ruling applied to a set of communications from a specific time period, and the larger legal fight over other Eastman emails is ongoing.
It’s against this backdrop that the lawyer is still trying to shield all kinds of materials via attorney-client privilege — including the strategy notes he received from Trump.
Congress did something unusual this week: It held its first public UFO hearing in more than 50 years. In fact, a House Intelligence Committee panel heard directly from Scott Bray, the deputy director of naval intelligence, and Ronald Moultrie, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security.
As Dana Milbank noted soon after in a column, the subcommittee and its witnesses “did their best to keep things rational.” There were references to unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), for example, instead of unidentified flying objects.
Milbank added that the panel “emphasized that such things are real, if not exactly evidence of space invaders,” and stressed “that they have nothing ‘that would suggest it’s anything non-terrestrial in origin,’ and they cautioned against conspiracy theories.”
The line of questioning from one subcommittee member, however, stood out as especially notable. Politico took note of the inquiries of Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin.
One of the most eye-popping moments during a House Intelligence Committee hearing on UFOs on Tuesday was when the Wisconsin Republican pressed Pentagon officials on claims that a “glowing red orb” once shut down nuclear weapons in Montana and that a recently leaked document revealed that other-worldly vehicles — and possibly even extraterrestrial bodies — are being kept from government leaders and the public.
In case this isn’t obvious, it’s important to emphasize that these questions and answers were taken quite seriously during the hearing. Gallagher seemed entirely sincere, for example, about the Pentagon examining a 1967 “incident” that “allegedly occurred at Malmstrom Air Force Base, in which 10 of our nuclear ICBMs were rendered inoperable. At the same time, a glowing red orb was observed overhead.”
Politico’s report noted that government documents “made public in the ensuing years also suggest that a technical malfunction, however rare, could have been responsible.”
Nevertheless, the GOP congressman told the witnesses, “I would like you to look into it.” They said they would.
Gallagher also inquired about an unverified 2002 document known as the “Wilson-Davis memo.” As Milbank’s column described it is “a document of dubious provenance that purports to reveal information about government UFO programs.”
Bray and Moultrie said they were unaware of the memo, so the Wisconsin Republican entered it into the official record. Milbank added, “As a result, the hearing record now includes mentions of: an alien ‘cabal,’ ‘crashed UFOs/alien bodies,’ autopsies of alien bodies in Roswell, N.M., alien-derived technologies and, yes, alien abductions.” Politico also noted:
The document, which emerged publicly in 2019, purports to reveal a secret meeting with the then-director of the Defense Intelligence Agency outlining a labyrinth of secret government programs hidden from top officials and congressional oversight committees about crashed UFO materials and efforts to reengineer the technology. The claims have been hotly debated among ufologists but never corroborated. The DIA director at the time, Vice Adm. Thomas Wilson, has reportedly denied it all. Numerous national security experts and researchers have also dismissed it as a hoax.
Whether it’ll be another five decades before Congress holds another such hearing remains to be seen.
The racist mass shooting in Buffalo seems to have brought us to something of a turning point in the American right’s embrace of “Great Replacement” theory as an operating framework of politics. Rather than running away from Great Replacement thinking, they’ve essentially said, “But it’s true. We can’t help that this one guy took things too far.”
[…] Matt Schlapp of CPAC is now suggesting ways to limit political violence within the framework of Great Replacement politics. If you’re worried about immigrants “replacing us” the best strategy is to make more of “us,” by which he means ban abortion and thus increase the birth rate of “us.” Sort of a kinder gentler Great Replacement theory, though possibly not that kind or gentle if you have an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy.
Schlapp didn’t explicitly refer to white babies and brown babies. But I’m not sure he really had to.
We can now see that Trump provided a bridge of sorts for Republicans to become an overtly white nationalist, revanchist party. All of this stuff was present before Trump. Indeed, it was the driving force in GOP politics before Trump. […] Trump’s political insight was that you toss the nominal leadership and openly run the party from the far right. […] Trump’s own rhetoric and ideas weren’t as formalized or coherent. But they were playing from the same music.
Last weekend House Minority Whip Elise Stefanik, who until a few years ago was a quintessential GOP “moderate,” went full QAnon on Twitter. In a tweet blaming Democrats for the national baby formula shortage, Stefanik lambasted Democrats as “the White House, House Dems, & usual pedo grifters.” Identifying all Democrats as pedophiles is the hot molten core of the QAnon eliminationist worldview. And there it is, at this point almost a casual aside. She later claimed lamely that by “pedo” she just meant “children.” [Well that’s an exceptionally weak excuse, even for an extremist Republican.]
Parties tend to get more radicalized out of power than in it. So this isn’t new. But in each of these developments we can see that Trump’s departure from the White House did not just fail to “break the fever,” if anyone thought that was going to happen. The radicalization has actually intensified. It actually seems qualitatively different, as though the radicalization couldn’t fully take hold until Trump, who provided the bridge, had walked off the political stage. Or at least left elected office.
Lynna @ # 273 quoting “Dmitri” quoting “Viktor”: So they said – decide for yourself if you want to go or not.
Numerous reports have had similar language of troops “refusing” or “rejecting” combat orders, occasionally with partial explanations of the rights of conscripts in the Russian army to do that. Which confuses me no end – when and where else do grunts get that sort of option? That wouldn’t get far even in the Vermont National Guard, and seems totally out of character for Putin’s Russia (though it does explain a lot of the failures in this “Special Military Operation”).
The U.S. Senate overcame the traditional week-long hissy fit by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) to round out its week of work by passing the $40 billion Ukraine aid package requested by President Joe Biden. The House had its own obstructionist Republicans to overcome, but finished out the week passing legislation to deal with energy company price gouging and trying to ease the baby formula shortage.
According to MSN, Paul—in defiance of his senior senator, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell—had held up the package for a week, demanding that the bill include the appointment of an inspector general to oversee the spending. Last Thursday, Paul refused to agree to an amendment vote on his proposal, stopping the chamber from moving forward. […]
“They’re only asking for the resources they need to defend themselves against this deranged invasion,” McConnell said of the Ukrainians on the floor last week. “And they need this help right now.” Eventually Paul relented. He got no changes made to the bill the House had already overwhelmingly passed earlier this month, and the bill passed the Senate 86-11.
Ten other Republicans joined with Paul to vote against it: Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, John Boozman of Arkansas, Mike Braun of Indiana, Mike Crapo of Idaho, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Mike Lee of Utah, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama.
“It appears more and more MAGA Republicans are using the same soft-on-Putin playbook used by former President Trump,” Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said of those 11 according to Capitol Hill correspondent Jamie Dupree. It’s hard to argue otherwise.
None of those MAGA senators, however, were willing to stop the Senate from passing the House infant formula bill by unanimous consent, meaning no roll call vote was forced. That bill authorizes the Department of Agriculture to waive some of the restrictions in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) to ensure needy families have access to formula. It would allow WIC participants to purchase whatever brand of formula is available. Usually the vouchers provided through WIC only allow a single brand.
“The Senate has just passed legislation to help ease the terrible nightmare parents are facing trying to find baby formula for their kids,” Schumer said after the bill passed according to CNN. “It’s rare that we have unanimity in the Senate on important measures, and I wish we had more. But this is one of these important issues and I’m glad we’re acting with one voice.”
That bill has passed in the House with nine Republicans voting against it—the usual MAGA caucus suspects. Before that vote, though, 192 Republicans told American babies to starve, refusing to pass a relative paltry $28 million in emergency funding for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The bill would give the FDA extra funding to “prevent fraudulent products from being placed on shelves and to help acquire better data on the infant formula marketplace,” and to “strengthen the workforce focused on formula issues, and increases FDA inspection staff.” That bill did pass in the House 231-192, but prospects for it in the Senate are murky.
The Senate is also likely to bring a grinding halt to other House achievements for the week. On Wednesday, it passed legislation in response to the Buffalo white supremacist massacre. It would create domestic terrorism offices in three federal agencies. Just one Republican, Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, voted with Democrats on this one. A similar bill was passed back in September 2020 with a unanimous voice vote in the House. Republicans blocked it in the Senate in 2020 and will almost certainly do so again.
They’ll do the same with the oil company price-gouging bill the House passed Thursday. It would give the Federal Trade Commission authority to investigate price-gouging on the part of energy companies, a deterrence mechanism to try to prevent the oil companies from exploiting crises like global pandemics and wars. Every Republican voted against that, along with four “moderate” Democrats: Reps. Kathleen Rice of New York, Stephanie Murphy of Florida, Jared Golden of Maine, and Lizzie Fletcher of Texas.
All this happened in a week in which our old favorite band of nihilists in the House Freedom Caucus pissed off just about everybody. (Rand Paul can do it single-handedly in the Senate—it takes a caucus in the House.) The maniacs have been refusing to allow the uncontroversial stuff in the House from being passed under suspension of the rules and have been forcing dozens of roll call votes.
That eats up a lot of time. It also has messed up travel schedules and—this is what really chaps the asses of fellow Republicans—interfered with scheduled fundraisers. […]
“They’re like second graders, throwing tantrums every day,” said Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the chairman of the House Rules Committee, told CNN. “It’s clear (House Minority Leader) Kevin McCarthy has no control over his members. I get more complaints from Republicans about these votes than I do from Democrats.”
He doesn’t have a lot of sympathy for his Republican colleagues who are saying it takes way too long to have the votes on the roll call votes they are forcing. “Tough shit,” McGovern said. “They look like a bunch of clowns.”
They get a break, having no more floor votes scheduled until after the Memorial Day recess, coming back on June 7. The Senate will be back in next Tuesday, when perhaps they’ll be trying to figure out how to pass increasingly critical COVID-19 funding.
Ginni Thomas, […] wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, cannot stop being in the news for her work in trying to overthrow our government. The fact that the Jan. 6 select committee isn’t having a five-week chat with Ginni Thomas is arguably the only shocking news about her coming out these days.
[…] The Washington Post reported that they had obtained and reviewed a series of emails from Ginni Thomas to Arizona lawmakers asking that the Grand Canyon State to put a hold on confirming President Joe Biden’s victory. Thomas asked the GOP officials she had on speed dial to choose “a clean slate of Electors” in order to … overturn the election results. To be clear, the catastrophic, GOP-led “full forensic audit” clown show that finished up in September 2021 and found zero election fraud took place.
But the wife of a sitting Supreme Court justice, a man who might be tasked with writing the opinion on whether or not Donald Trump and his minority-rule would seize control of our country, was telling Arizona lawmakers that they “alone” had the “power to fight back against fraud.”
[…] According to the Post, the emails from Ginni Thomas were sent to Speaker of the Arizona House Russell Bowers and state Rep. Shawnna Bolick, who served on the House elections committee during the 2020 session. The emails were sent right up until the middle of December when the Arizona House chose democracy over tyranny, not heeding the calls in Ginni Thomas’ emails to “consider what will happen to the nation we all love if you don’t stand up and lead.”
The important point here is that like other Big Lie proponents, Thomas’ misrepresentation of what lawmakers’ “Constitutional duty” is regarding choosing state electors is where the coup d’etat lives. Arizona voters chose their electors, and Ginni Thomas and friends wanted Arizona (and Michigan, and Georgia, etc.) to forgo the democratic will of the people in order to put a corrupt billionaire [?] windbag who wanted to be king back into power.
While Bowers does not seem to have replied to Ginni Thomas’ emails, he did receive all kinds of blowback from the MAGA right for certifying the election results, saying that “even if” evidence of fraud “existed” (which it didn’t), it was against the law and the state’s constitution for “the Legislature to reverse the results of an election.”
As a conservative Republican, I don’t like the results of the presidential election. I voted for President Trump and worked hard to reelect him. But I cannot and will not entertain a suggestion that we violate current law to change the outcome of a certified election.
I and my fellow legislators swore an oath to support the U.S. Constitution and the constitution and laws of the state of Arizona. It would violate that oath, the basic principles of republican government, and the rule of law if we attempted to nullify the people’s vote based on unsupported theories of fraud. Under the laws that we wrote and voted upon, Arizona voters choose who wins, and our system requires that their choice be respected.
Bowers has continued to stand firm even though after MAGA heads got their ridiculous audit and found nothing, they still just want to do away the popular vote in their state. Last month more than a dozen Arizona lawmakers tried to push through a bill that would give the “Republican-controlled Legislature the power to unilaterally reject the results of an election and force a new one.” Bowers made sure to have it very publicly scuttled, sending it to “not one but 12 committees, effectively dooming it.”
There seem to be fewer and fewer GOP officials with the gumption of Bowers these days, in part because they’ve allowed the poisonous weeds of bigotry and fear to grow up so high around them that their party has begun to sprout bargain basement fascists. Ginni Thomas is one such bargain basement fascist. But unlike many others, she has a fancy house and fancy cars and fancy clothes, and the ear of a judge who has the power to help destroy our democracy.
The most concerning aspect of this monkeypox outbreak is how different it is from previous monkeypox outbreaks (which were very rare, mostly limited to African rainforest regions, and mostly traceable to specific clusters originating in human contact with wild animals, with human-to-human transmission much more slow, rare, and limited than it is in the current outbreak).
In contrast, Since May 7, 2022, 88 confirmed cases, 1 probable case, and 56 suspected cases have been detected in 12 non-African countries. Most of these cases have been found among people who had not recently traveled to other countries with monkeypox outbreaks, in clusters of people who have not interacted with people in other known clusters, suggesting that the reported cases are just the tip of an iceberg of much larger numbers of cases of human-to-human transmission that is spreading rapidly across many countries worldwide.
Monkeypox is a nasty disease related to smallpox:
It takes one to three weeks following exposure for symptoms to begin, and people are usually sick for about two weeks. As many as 10% of victims can die from it, though the cases documented in the UK appear to be caused by a lineage of the virus known to be less virulent, with a fatality rate closer to 1%.
People vaccinated against smallpox have some immunity to monkeypox, but most people born in the 1970s and later have not had smallpox vaccines or previous smallpox infection, so most people are very vulnerable to this outbreak.
Right now the monkeypox outbreak still seems too small to worry about, but I am getting a sense of Deja Vu reading about the spread of monkeypox, as it sounds a lot like what happened when COVID-19 first started. […]
[…] Kandiss Taylor is the “Jesus Guns Babies” lady hoping to be the next governor of Georgia […]
During a recent campaign stop, Taylor shared some of her thoughts on American history, the Constitution and the founding of our nation that were somehow entirely serious and earnest. [video at the link]
“The First Amendment right, which is our right to worship Jesus freely, that’s how we have a country,” Taylor explained. “That’s how we have Georgia. That’s how we have – our founding fathers came over here and destroyed American Indians’ homes and their land. They took it. Look at what they went through, the Native Americans, for sacrifice. For us to have the freedom we have today.”
Oh Kandiss, where do we even begin? How do we begin? With the general inaccuracy of it all or with the very idea of presenting the slaughter and genocide of indigenous people and their homes as a beautiful sacrifice they made so that Kandiss Taylor could “worship Jesus freely,” a thing one can also do in England, by the way. How does anyone even come up with that? […]
It’s just the most incredible display of pure narcissism — for someone to not only view the genocide of indigenous people as a positive righteous thing, but to see their deaths as them sacrificing their lives so that they could have the freedom to “worship Jesus.” That’s brutal. And it’s not even entirely clear that it’s their sacrifice she was speaking of. She could also have been suggesting that the Founding Fathers were the ones who had to sacrifice, by murdering over nine and a half million people, which is an equally horrific take.
Thus, it’s not surprising that Kandiss has some very strong opinions on what should be taught in schools — where she can safely assume that children are not in fact learning that the genocide of millions of indigenous people was a beautiful sacrifice so that they could all worship Jesus. [More video available at the link]
“Communism, perversion, and oppression is being taught to our children. It’s unethical. And it needs to be handled in the code of ethics for teachers and their certificates.” she said, adding, “I promise you, no make how woke they are, they’ll shut up. They have mortgages and car payments. We don’t have to fix it with legislation. I love you, we’re gonna vote May 24th, we’re going to win.”
Now, she’s probably not going to win, at least not this particular race where Governor Brian Kemp has a substantial lead over challenger David Perdue […] but given the way things have been going with the GOP lately, it would not be surprising for her to win a seat in the House or some other office in the near future.
Wonkette: “MO Supreme Court Won’t Let St. Louis Gunhumpers Do Community Service On James O’Keefe’s Dildo Boat”
Here is a very sad story about Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the loser gun nut MAGA lawyer idiots from the Central West End neighborhood in St. Louis who became famous when they saw more than one Black person walking down their street during the same hour and proceeded to fucking shit their pants for the next one million years. […]
[…] Why, they are like the brave Ukrainians of Mariupol, except for how nothing happened to them and nobody was threatening them in the first place and they have just been full of shit this whole time.
And of course, because these people are the way they are, Mark McCloskey is parlaying his personal pantshitting tragedy into a grifting Senate run.
As a reward for the couple’s sad little stunt, they got their law licenses suspended, but the Missouri Supreme Court stayed its ruling, put them on probation for a year, and ordered them to donate 100 hours of legal services, pro bono. Because based on everything we know about them, don’t you wish they were your lawyers?
Now the news is that the Missouri Supreme Court has had to tell the McCloskeys to fuck off, after they asked if they could do their 100 hours of picking up pro bono legal trash on the side of the highway for James O’Keefe and his Project Veritas. Yes, that James O’Keefe. Dildo Lube Boat James O’Keefe. The same James O’Keefe who did … whatever this is.
So, you know, if you were being exceptionally gracious, holding out hope that maybe these McCloskey fools didn’t ever really intend for things to spiral out of control the way they did, we repeat that the Missouri Supreme Court very nicely stayed its suspension of their law licenses after they lost their minds waving guns at Black people walking by their house, and said they had to give 100 hours of pro bono legal work.
And they asked if they could give it to James O’Keefe.
Was there some confusion? Did they think this was an appropriate request?
As a condition of their probation, they are required to provide 100 hours of pro bono legal services to organizations that provide free legal services for poor or indigent Missouri residents.
Oh. Has James O’Keefe recently re-incorporated as a poor or indigent Missouri resident?
They reportedly asked this back in March, to Missouri’s Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel. Could they do 100 hours of pro bono work for known legal aid organization Project Veritas? And that office was just fucking rude.
The office said that Project Veritas “does not provide legal services without charge to or on behalf of poor or indigent Missouri residents.”
So they asked the Missouri Supreme Court: Can we please do 100 hours of pro bonos on this delightful young man James’s Dildo Lube Boat?
Because they didn’t want to help the poor, you see:
The McCloskeys then sought approval from the Missouri Supreme Court, arguing that the conduct for which they were punished, namely waving guns at peaceful protesters, “did not relate to conduct that targeted or caused particular harm to poor or indigent persons.”
Right. Again, if you were being exceptionally gracious toward these people, thinking sweet and forgiving thoughts like “Remember that Jesus loves the McCloskeys too,” you are free to stop that.
So the Missouri Supreme Court has just had to explain to the McCloskeys, again, that Project Veritas is not an “approved legal assistance organization” in Missouri.
And oh boy Mark McCloskey knows what this is, and it is a conspiracy, and he is whiiiiining his professional aggrieved white victim mouth off about it:
Reached at his St. Louis law office, Mark McCloskey said that the Supreme Court wouldn’t allow him to work for Project Veritas “because, guess what, it’s a right-wing organization they would say, but all it does is it finds out and publishes the truth on organizations that are sacrosanct to the left — for example, Planned Parenthood.”
OK, sport, but we’re pretty sure you’ve been told twice that you’re supposed to be helping the poor.
McCloskey said he would look for other Missouri “family values organizations” that he could volunteer for.
Still not the assignment, Cap’n.
“I’m sure there are entities opposing critical race theory — I’ll see if I can work for one of those organizations. I’m sure the Supremes won’t like that either,” he said. “And we’ll see how many conservative, constitutional organizations I can volunteer for and be denied the right to by the Supreme Court and the bar association.”
How many “conservative, constitutional organizations” are doing anything to help “the least of these,” as Jesus called them? Haha, we are full of funny questions.
Here’s another:
At what point does this amount to a violation of slugger’s probation?
We are just asking.
rorschachsays
Tomorrow, federal election in Australia. If non-conservative parties lose, the country is going to be fucked for a long time. If you are Twitter-inclined, follow the action on #binnight and #ausvotes. Crunch time. I will be following in Germany from 10 am(6pm in Oz), this is important, think Trump vs Biden. The Australian ABC channel has a online viewing option on their Iview channels, and they have an iconic election analyst called Antony Green, who is like Freddy Mercury for elections, known to call election results when they become clear. So, yes it’s a party tomorrow, drinks will be had, but in a somewhat tense atmosphere, where loss is not an option if the country wants to progress. We had this situation in 2019 and the Sith just scraped through, and looted the country for the last 3 years. It must not happen again.
KGsays
Pierce R. Butler@214, Lynna, OM@217,
I understand it’s because Putin refuses to call his war a war that there are legal ways for Russian troops to refuse to fight in it. Presumably he didn’t have the law changed in advance because (a) he didn’t expect serious resistance and (b) that would have been akin to broadcasting “I’m going to invade Ukraine – better get ready!”.
KGsays
Sorry: @284 & @287
Pierce R. Butlersays
KG @ # 292: … because Putin refuses to call his war a war … there are legal ways for Russian troops to refuse to fight in it.
Still a very unusual regulation for any nation’s military. Something left over from a Yeltsin Happy Hour?
Pierce @294 and KG @292, yes that’s all technically true. However, we also have evidence of conscripts being more or less forced to sign military contracts — that would remove conscripts from the conscript category. And we have evidence of conscripts being so poor and ill-informed that they may have been sort of duped into joining the Russian military. We have tales of more experienced Chechen fighters hanging back a bit while they send conscripts to the front, with the implication that the Chechen’s will shoot the conscripts if they retreat or refuse to fight.
If those stories are true, you would think that Russia’s military leaders would also find other ways to coerce conscripts into fighting. Maybe the tale of one military leader giving conscripts the option to NOT fight is unusual?
Maybe some of the leaders themselves have given up on Putin’s failed war?
Another weapon high on Ukraine’s shopping list are Multiple Rocket Launch Systems (MLRS) such as the M270 made by Lockheed Martin which can strike a target 70 or more kilometers away, a three-fold increase over many of their current howitzer rounds […]
The two U.S. officials said the M270 or similar system like the M142 HIMARS would be considered for shipment to Ukraine once Congress passed a $40 billion supplemental funding bill that would authorize an additional $11 billion worth of Presidential Drawdown Authority.
I have no first-hand experience with the relatively new HIMARS, but the M270 MLRS? I spent three years doing fire direction for an M270 MLRS battery, and I can’t imagine a worst idea than sending them those pieces of junk.
To be clear, militarily, M270s are deadly systems, able to obliterate a football-field-sized grid of land with a single volley of its 12 missiles. It was nicknamed the “Grid Square Removal System.” A battery of these, on paper, would seriously make Russian lives difficult. The firing range is between 32 and 70 kilometers depending on the munition, with the shorter-range stuff being cheaper and more plentiful (like with howitzer shells).
These aren’t like cruise missiles. Rather, they are canisters containing 644 grenades each. Thus, 12 rockets times 644 grenades equals 7,728 munitions air-scattered on that football field plot of land. When you see stuff about Russia using “banned cluster munitions,” this is exactly the same thing. (The United States was due to get rid of those munitions by 2019, but the Trump administration rolled that back, of course.)
Aside from the morality of cluster munitions, which Russia has rendered moot, the M270s were a maintenance nightmare.
I joined my MLRS unit, A/76 Field Artillery, 3rd Infantry Division, in 1989. This was just six years after the M270 first entered service in 1983. And even then, all of them relatively new, keeping our battery’s nine M270s all up and running at the same time was impossible. They were perpetually broken down—both the drivetrain and the mechanism which swivels the launcher around. I can’t speak to the exact problems with the machinery, but as fire direction, it was my job to send mechanics to a launcher every time it broke down, and I’m not kidding when I say that, out of nine launchers in the battery, two of them were typically out of commission at any given time.
MLRS first saw action during Desert Storm. I remember seeing pictures of them in action: bunched up and firing from the safe rear position, no fear of Iraqi Army counter artillery fire or ground-attack aircraft. Saddam Hussein lacked such capabilities. And it was clear the Army wasn’t about to use the MLRS as intended—as shoot-and-scoot platforms, always in motion, hiding from enemy countermeasures (the way Ukraine certainly would need to in this war). It was clear to me why: You couldn’t trust those M270s to move and not break.
[…] I googled, and yes, I remembered correctly, but turns out it was even worse than I ever imagined and extended far beyond the M270 mechanics:
Just two years after the war’s end, the Government Accountability Office reported that M.L.R.S. rockets failed at far higher rates in combat than the Army had advertised, and that dud grenades left over from rocket attacks had killed and wounded at least 16 American troops. An Army report in the early 2000s noted that even though the M.L.R.S. was deployed in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s, “not one rocket was fired because of the lack of precision and potential for collateral damage as well as the high submunition dud rate.”
Time is not kind to anything, including military equipment. If we were having so many problems with our M270s in 1989, just six years from deployment, I can’t imagine the shape those vehicles are in today, 40 years from manufacture. We had an entire platoon of experienced mechanics dedicated to keeping these launchers up—during peacetime, without logistical challenges, and with endless supply of parts—and even then we could barely keep them running. Ukraine wouldn’t have any of those advantages.
The original M270 is still around, and is even being upgraded with new systems. Meanwhile, the M142 HIMARS entered service in the 2000s, dramatically lighter and easily transportable.
The wheeled truck chassis is undoubtedly simpler to maintain than the M270’s tracks. But the swivel launcher is the same, except that instead of using two six-missile pods, HIMARS uses just one. Hopefully, manufacturer Lockheed-Martin has improved the reliability and serviceability of their systems since my time.
If that’s the case, then for sure, send HIMARS to Ukraine. We don’t have that many; only 414 have been built. But sending a few dozen could make a world of difference. Logistical issues (like the size of the rockets, each weighing 675 lbs and 13 feet long) are less of an issue now that we’ve shipped hundreds of thousands of 155mm shells. Clearly, Ukraine and NATO have cracked the logistics code. We would need to send trucks capable of transporting the missile pods. We have over 13,000 HEMTTs trucks being phased out that could help with that and other supply matters. [photo at the link]
Heavy trucks are not as sexy as weapons systems, but send those suckers over to Ukraine, please. Logistics are just as important.
Ukraine’s last two big wish-list items are aircraft and MLRS. For the love of God, please don’t send them M270s junk. HIMARS are the likely better option.
Good news: a trucker convoy seems to have “fizzled out.”
You may have heard that the D.C. truckers convoy, having made it all the way out to the Pacific Northwest only to turn around and head back East, made it back to Washington this week. But if you live in the D.C. area, you’d be excused if this was news to you, since the whole operation seems to have just fizzled out.
The truckers were planning to sneak into downtown Washington the evening of the 19th, […] but apparently couldn’t get their act together. Instead, they wound up simply brawling with each other around their campsites at the raceway in Hagerstown, Maryland, which has served as their base of operations.
The instructions for the planned invasion of D.C. came from David Riddell, aka “Santa,” the Ohio trucker who has fashioned himself into the de facto leader of the People’s Convoy […] It started with a heads-up on Wednesday evening: “Get ready to move in about 15-20 minutes when I tell you to,” Riddell told the convoy participants at the Hagerstown encampment, where they returned earlier this week. “Be back here at four o’clock in the afternoon [on Thursday] and be ready to roll at a moment’s notice.”
He added: “You guys are the new minutemen. When we roll out of here at night, [there] will be complete and total radio silence. There will be five people that know what we’re doing and know the route we are taking.”
On Thursday, however, nothing happened—probably because their plan had been publicized. Most of the convoy’s livestreamers spent the day Thursday complaining that the convoy’s operations shouldn’t be so transparent that they could be so easily exposed. Then, as everyone remained in their campsites that evening, quarrels began breaking out […]
Back in Hagerstown, a fight among convoy members has broken out, with one woman claiming a man punched her husband in the face. “Get the fuck out of our campsite,” the woman further yelled.
Some of the fighting made it onto a livestream.
[Tweets at the link, along with one video]
Residents of the D.C. area breathed a sigh of relief when the convoy—which attempted to create problems for Beltway traffic, and did, but their efforts were difficult to distinguish from the city’s everyday congested roadways—trundled back to California, where it originated, in late March after fruitlessly circling the city and managing at best a few photo ops with Ted Cruz. They filed a lawsuit against the city claiming their First Amendment rights were trampled by transportation officials who blocked off their access to downtown exits.
Then, after being pelted with eggs while trying to intimidate legislators in California, they continued on up to the Northwest, where they greeted protesters by firing off rounds at freeway overpasses. Once in Olympia, “Santa” declared that they would be returning to D.C., and this time they were pissed off. [video at the link]
You made fun of us, you placated us with cute little words, and you came out and had your little photo op meetings with us, that’s going to happen no more.
When we go back to D.C., we are not the same convoy that went there the first time. We are not the same convoy that left there. We are coming back with teeth and a backbone! That’s all there is to it! We are going there and we will be heard!
I don’t think they understand the sincerity and the hearts of American Patriots today! We are totally fed up with tyranny!
It’s never been clear exactly what their demands are or what they are protesting, particularly since the original cause of the Canadian truck convoy that the “People’s Convoy” set out to imitate—to protest COVID-19-related health mandates—has largely been ameliorated.
What’s been clear all along, in fact, is that all of these convoys really are old-fashioned far-right agitprop intended to give the True Believers a cause to rally around while peddling their conspiracist propaganda.
“Santa” also indicated, in his speech to the convoy on Wednesday, that they have a plan to occupy D.C. inside the city limits and not to come out at all—one that could still be operable. He claimed he had performed “covert” reconnaissance ahead of the operation: “This is the day we waited for,” he added.
Asked by one supporter on Wednesday evening whether the convoy has an exit plan out of D.C. proper, Riddell said he has no desire to leave the area once the trucker crew is inside city limits.
“We are going to stay,” he confidently replied. “We don’t have no exit plan.”
However, as the Washington Post reported this week, the money to finance all this protesting may be about to run out. The right-wing operation funding the convoy, the American Foundation for Civil Liberties and Freedom (AFCLF)—an operation overseen by a man who pleaded guilty to fraud—says it collected $1.89 million for the protests, with small donors providing most of the donations, though not necessarily most of the money. But that money is about to run out.
The AFCLF’s president told the Post that the foundation had stepped away from assisting the convoy with advocacy about a month ago and will be ceasing its financial work with the group sometime this week. He added that “not much funding remains from what was raised.”
State Rep. Daire Rendon of Michigan’s 103rd District has been your run-of-the-mill ultra-right-wing MAGA Republican since entering office in 2017. She has worked on supporting bills that would gut teachers’ pensions under the guise of who the hell knows. In recent months she has been seen sporting a “Q” pin on her lapel at pro-Trump rallies as well as in the state legislature. The “Q” is for QAnon, the wide-ranging, goal posts forever shifting, catch-all New World Order conspiracy theory that MAGA types pretend excuses their bigotries and bad decision-making.
The Detroit News is now reporting that Rendon is being brought up as part of an investigation into an illegal security breach of Michigan voting equipment. This adds to the growing number of Republican officials involved in actual voter and elections fraud as opposed to the fact-free claims made by the GOP over the last many years, months, and weeks. According to the Detroit News, a longtime clerk at Denton Township says that in the weeks after the November 2020 election, Rendon was trying “to get access to our tabulator, and I said no.”
Rendon contacted the clerk, Carol Asher, by phone. Asher believes Rendon was contacting other elections officials as well. Asher also told the News that she has been contacted by the Michigan Attorney General’s Office and has told her story to them as well. And just in case you think this is a she said/she said situation:
A second elections official, Missaukee County Clerk Jessica Nielsen, said she had also been contacted by Rendon after the November 2020 election “with an inquiry about voting equipment.”
That’s called corroboration of a story, or double attestation of a fact. Nielsen also declined the chance to break the law and all election security protocols […] Michigan’s Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, the Attorney General’s Office, and the Michigan State Police have been investigating “multiple credible allegations of instances in which an unauthorized third party has been granted access to vote tabulation machines in violation of Michigan law.”
The extent of the investigation is not yet known, and Rendon has plead ignorance: “I’m aware that something’s going on, but I don’t know what it is.” Are you sure you don’t know? […] A reminder: In June 2021, Rendon released a public statement saying that while the Michigan Senate Oversight Committee found no evidence of massive election fraud, Rendon was “in receipt of evidence reflecting systematic election fraud in Michigan that occurred in the November 2020 election.”
Not surprising to anyone with half a brain cell functioning is that Rendon has yet to reveal this “evidence” of “systematic election fraud.” […]
New York Times: “Witness testimony and videos obtained by The New York Times show how Russian paratroopers executed at least eight Ukrainian men in a Kyiv suburb on March 4, a potential war crime.”
It is the last time the men would be seen alive: In two videos, Russian paratroopers march them at gunpoint along a street in Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv. Some of the Ukrainian captives are hunched over, holding the belts of those in front of them. Others have their hands over their heads. “Walk to the right, [B-word],” one of the soldiers orders them.
The videos, filmed on March 4 by a security camera and a witness in a nearby house and obtained by The New York Times, are the clearest evidence yet that the men were in the custody of Russian troops minutes before being executed.
“Hostages are lying there, against the fence,” the person filming one of the videos says. He counts: “One, two, three, for sure, four, five, six …” In total, nine people are being held.
The men are forced to the ground, including one wearing a distinctive bright blue hooded sweatshirt.
The video ends. But eight witnesses recounted to The Times what happened next. Soldiers took the men behind a nearby office building that the Russians had taken over and turned into a makeshift base. There were gunshots. The captives didn’t return.
A drone video filmed a day later on March 5, also obtained by The Times, is the first visual evidence that confirms the eyewitness accounts. It showed the dead bodies lying on the ground by the side of the office building at 144 Yablunska Street as two Russian soldiers stood guard beside them. Among the bodies, a flash of bright blue was visible — the captive in the blue sweatshirt.
A photograph of the executed men’s bodies lying in a courtyard, some with their hands bound, was among a range of images that received global attention in early April after Russian forces withdrew from Bucha. Russian leaders at the highest levels have repeatedly denied wrongdoing in Bucha and described the images as a “provocation and fake.”
But a weekslong investigation by The Times provides new evidence — including the three videos — that Russian paratroopers rounded up and intentionally executed the men photographed in the courtyard, directly implicating these forces in a likely war crime. […]
To uncover what happened to these men, The Times spent weeks in Bucha interviewing a survivor, witnesses, coroners, and police and military officials. Reporters collected previously unpublished videos from the day of the execution — some of the only evidence thus far to trace the victims’ final movements. The Times scoured social media for missing persons reports, spoke to the victims’ family members and, for the first time, identified all of the executed men and why most of them were targeted.
They were husbands and fathers, grocery store and factory workers who lived ordinary civilian lives before the war. But with restrictions on men leaving the country, coupled with a resolve to protect their communities, most of the men joined various defense forces in the days before they were killed. Nearly all of them lived within walking distance of the courtyard in which their bodies would later lie.
[…] The [Russian] paratroopers patrolled the area, conducting house-to-house searches and operating in and out of 144 Yablunska Street, a four-story office building that the Russians turned into a base and field hospital.
About 300 yards from that base, at 31 Yablunska Street, Ivan Skyba, a 43-year-old builder, and five other fighters had been manning a makeshift checkpoint when the Russians returned. They had a grenade, bulletproof vests and a rifle between them, Mr. Skyba told The Times. [They had so little!]
Warned via radio that Russians were back in Bucha and moving in their direction, they hid in the house beside the checkpoint, along with the homeowner, Valera Kotenko, 53, who had been bringing the fighters tea and coffee, Mr. Skyba said.
They were joined later by two more fighters, Andriy Dvornikov and Denys Rudenko, the man wearing the blue sweatshirt in the video. As the nine men hid, they texted and called loved ones. Mr. Rudenko messaged his best friend saying they were trapped. “Don’t call. I will dial later,” he wrote.
The men sheltered there overnight. By the morning of March 4, they realized that an escape was impossible. “We are surrounded,” Mr. Rudenko wrote to his friend. “For now we are hiding. They are shooting from armored vehicles and heavy caliber.”
Mr. Dvornikov, a delivery driver, called his wife, Yulia Truba, at 10:20 a.m., she told The Times. “We can’t get out. I will call when I call,” he said, before telling her to delete all of their messages and to prepare to evacuate. “I love you,” he said.
Around an hour later, Russian soldiers conducting searches found the men and forced all nine of them, including the homeowner, out of the house at gunpoint, Mr. Skyba said. The soldiers searched the men for tattoos that could indicate military affiliation and made some of them remove their winter jackets and shoes. Then they walked them to the Russian base at 144 Yablunska Street.
[…] “I was shot and I fell down. The bullet went into my side,” Mr. Skyba said. Photos he shared of his injuries show an entry and exit wound in the left side of his abdomen. A doctor in Bucha who treated his injury and a medical report reviewed by The Times confirmed the injury.
“I fell down and I pretended to be dead,” he said. “I didn’t move and didn’t breathe. It was cold outside and you could see people’s breath.”
Mr. Skyba lay there as the soldiers fired another volley at injured men who were still moving. He waited for about 15 minutes until he could no longer hear the soldiers’ voices. Then he ran.
[…] evidence left behind by the Russians points to two specific paratrooper units that may have occupied the building. Packing slips for crates of weapons and ammunition listed Units 32515 and 74268, corresponding respectively to the 104th and 234th Airborne Assault Regiments. Both units suffered heavy losses during the first Russian attempt to enter Bucha in February.
Investigators with the Security Service of Ukraine, or S.B.U., also provided The Times with an image of a patch recovered from inside the building bearing the emblem of the 104th Regiment and a roster of Russian soldiers recovered from the building. By searching Russian social media websites and other databases for each soldier’s name, The Times found that at least five of the named soldiers had apparent links to the 104th Regiment. Others posted images of themselves holding paratrooper flags or wearing paratrooper uniforms. Some listed their location as Pskov, the city that is the headquarters for both the 104th and 234th regiments.
The execution of the captured fighters and the homeowner in Bucha “is the kind of incident that could become a strong case for war crimes prosecution,” said Stephen Rapp, former United States ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues. The captives, having been disarmed and taken into custody by the Russians, were “outside of combat,” under the laws of war, Mr. Rapp said. According to the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross, such laws mean that prisoners must be treated humanely and protected from mistreatment in all circumstances. […]
Associated Press: “Captive medic’s bodycam shows firsthand horror of Mariupol”
A celebrated Ukrainian medic recorded her time in Mariupol on a data card no bigger than a thumbnail, smuggled out to the world in a tampon. Now she is in Russian hands, at a time when Mariupol itself is on the verge of falling.
Yuliia Paievska is known in Ukraine as Taira, a moniker from the nickname she chose in the World of Warcraft video game. Using a body camera, she recorded 256 gigabytes of her team’s frantic efforts over two weeks to bring people back from the brink of death. She got the harrowing clips to an Associated Press team, the last international journalists in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, one of whom fled with it in a tampon.
Russian soldiers captured Taira and her driver the next day, March 16, one of many forced disappearances in areas of Ukraine now held by Russia. Russia has portrayed Taira as working for the nationalist Azov Battalion, in line with Moscow’s narrative that it is attempting to “denazify” Ukraine. But the AP found no such evidence, and friends and colleagues said she had no links to Azov.
The military hospital where she led evacuations of the wounded is not affiliated with the battalion, whose members have spent weeks defending a sprawling steel plant in Mariupol. The footage Taira recorded itself testifies to the fact that she tried to save wounded Russian soldiers as well as Ukrainian civilians.
A clip recorded on March 10 shows two Russian soldiers taken roughly out of an ambulance by a Ukrainian soldier. One is in a wheelchair. The other is on his knees, hands bound behind his back, with an obvious leg injury. Their eyes are covered by winter hats, and they wear white armbands.
A Ukrainian soldier curses at one of them. “Calm down, calm down,” Taira tells him.
A woman asks her, “Are you going to treat the Russians?”
“They will not be as kind to us,” she replies. “But I couldn’t do otherwise. They are prisoners of war.”
Taira is now a prisoner of the Russians, one of hundreds of prominent Ukrainians who have been kidnapped or captured, including local officials, journalists, activists and human rights defenders.
The U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has recorded 204 cases of enforced disappearances. It said some victims may have been tortured, and five were later found dead. The office of Ukraine’s ombudswoman said it had received reports of thousands of missing people by late April, 528 of whom had probably been captured.
The Russians also are targeting medics and hospitals even though the Geneva Conventions single out both military and civilian medics for protection “in all circumstance.” The World Health Organization has verified more than 100 attacks on health care since the war began, a number likely to rise.
More recently, Russian soldiers pulled a woman off a convoy from Mariupol on May 8, accused her of being a military medic and forced her to choose between letting her 4-year-old daughter accompany her to an unknown fate or continuing on to Ukrainian-controlled territory. The mother and child ended up separated, and the little girl made it to the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, U.N. officials said.
[…] Taira’s situation takes on a new significance as the last defenders in Mariupol are evacuated into Russian territories, in what Russia calls a mass surrender and Ukraine calls a mission accomplished. Russia says more than 1,700 Ukrainian fighters have surrendered this week in Mariupol, bringing new attention to the treatment of prisoners. Ukraine has expressed hope that the fighters can be exchanged for Russian prisoners of war, but a Russian official has said without evidence that they should be not exchanged but put on trial.
Ukraine’s government has said it tried to add Taira’s name to a prisoner exchange weeks ago. However, Russia denies holding her, despite her appearance on television networks in the separatist Donetsk region of Ukraine and on the Russian NTV network, handcuffed and with her face bruised. […]
Taira, 53, is known in Ukraine as a star athlete and the person who trained the country’s volunteer medic force. What comes across in her video and in descriptions from her friends is a big, exuberant personality with a telegenic presence […]
[…] she ordered colleagues to wrap an injured Russian soldier in a blanket. “Cover him because he is shaking,” she says in the video. She calls the young man “Sunshine” — a favorite nickname for the many soldiers who passed through her hands — and asks why he came to Ukraine.
“You’re taking care of me,” he tells her, almost in wonder. Her response: “We treat everyone equally.”
[…] On March 15, a police officer handed over the small data card to a team of Associated Press journalists who had been documenting atrocities in Mariupol, including a Russian airstrike on a maternity hospital. The officer contacted Taira on a walkie-talkie, and she asked the journalists to take the card safely out of the city. The card was hidden inside a tampon, and the team passed through 15 Russian checkpoints before reaching Ukrainian-controlled territory.
[…] A video aired during a March 21 Russian news broadcast announced her capture, accusing her of trying to flee the city in disguise. Taira looks groggy and haggard as she reads a statement positioned below the camera, calling for an end to the fighting. As she talks, a voiceover derides her colleagues as Nazis, using language echoed this week by Russia as it described the fighters from Mariupol.
The broadcast was the last time she was seen.
[…] Raed Saleh, the head of Syria’s White Helmets, compared Taira’s situation to what volunteers with his group faced and continue to face in Syria. He said his group also has been accused of organ trafficking and dealing with terrorist groups. [Taira was also accused by the Russians of organ trafficking.]
[…] She received the body camera in 2021 to film for a Netflix documentary series on inspirational figures being produced by Britain’s Prince Harry, who founded the Invictus Games. But when Russian forces invaded, she used it to shoot scenes of injured civilians and soldiers instead.
[…] In one of the last videos Taira shot, she is seated next to the driver who would disappear with her. It is March 9.
“Two weeks of war. Besieged Mariupol,” she says quietly. Then she curses at no one in particular, and the screen goes dark.
The New York Times vaporizes its credibility. (Fuck the New York Times.)
Opinion | The War in Ukraine Is Getting Complicated, and America Isn’t Ready May 19, 2022 (edited for length)
The editorial board is a group of Opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.
The Senate passed a $40 billion emergency aid package for Ukraine on Thursday, but with a small group of isolationist Republicans loudly criticizing the spending and the war entering a new and complicated phase, continued bipartisan support is not guaranteed.
Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, warned the Senate Armed Services Committee recently that the next few months may be volatile. The conflict between Ukraine and Russia could take “a more unpredictable and potentially escalatory trajectory,” she said, with the increased likelihood that Russia could threaten to use nuclear weapons.
These are extraordinary costs and serious dangers, and yet there are many questions that President Biden has yet to answer for the American public with regard to the continued involvement of the United States in this conflict.
In March, this board argued that the message from the United States and its allies to Ukrainians and Russians alike must be: No matter how long it takes, Ukraine will be free. Ukraine deserves support against Russia’s unprovoked aggression, and the United States must lead its NATO allies in demonstrating to Vladimir Putin that the Atlantic alliance is willing and able to resist his revanchist ambitions.
Americans have been galvanized by Ukraine’s suffering, but popular support for a war far from U.S. shores will not continue indefinitely. Inflation is a much bigger issue for American voters than Ukraine, and the disruptions to global food and energy markets are likely to intensify.
But as the war continues, Mr. Biden should also make clear to President Volodymyr Zelensky and his people that there is a limit to how far the United States and NATO will go to confront Russia, and limits to the arms, money and political support they can muster. It is imperative that the Ukrainian government’s decisions be based on a realistic assessment of its means and how much more destruction Ukraine can sustain.
Confronting this reality may be painful, but it is not appeasement. This is what governments are duty bound to do, not chase after an illusory “win.” Russia will be feeling the pain of isolation and debilitating economic sanctions for years to come, and Mr. Putin will go down in history as a butcher. The challenge now is to shake off the euphoria, stop the taunting and focus on defining and completing the mission. America’s support for Ukraine is a test of its place in the world in the 21st century, and Mr. Biden has an opportunity and an obligation to help define what that will be.
The NYTimes is already saying we need to think about how much aid for how long we send to Ukraine.
.1. The war has just started. We have no idea how long it will last.
It isn’t up to us to put a time limit on it. The Russians don’t listen to us. The Ukrainians fight Russian genocide because they have no where else to go.
.2. NYTimes “Americans have been galvanized by Ukraine’s suffering, but popular support for a war far from U.S. shores will not continue indefinitely.” Oh really?
Our war in Afghanistan lasted 20 years, cost trillions of dollars, and accomplished nothing. Same with Iraq II.
What the American people want doesn’t have much to do with our wars.
And, we have no idea how long the American public will support Ukraine.
Because we haven’t had a war with a worthwhile objective since World War II and Korea. We aren’t bombing Third World brown people to oblivion here. In fact, all we are doing is supplying money, arms, and political support. The Ukrainians are taking heavy losses in lives here.
ravensays
I would cancel my New York Times subscription but I’ve never had one.
As time goes on, I spend less and less time paying attention to it.
That editorial wasn’t written by one of their right wingnut hacks, but by their entire editorial board.
I shortened it a lot because it was repetitious, rambling, and didn’t really say much.
We in the USA, NATO, EU, and most of the rest of world really aren’t that involved in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We send the Ukrainians money, weapons, and supplies, all of which we have huge amounts of that we don’t really need.
The Ukrainians are the one paying the big price.
It is the Ukrainians that are fighting , dying, and being maimed for life every day.
The numbers aren’t too certain but they have lost thousands of soldiers, tens of thousand have been wounded, and tens of thousands of civilians have been killed or wounded. Whole cities and villages have been flattened like Grozny, Chechnya or most places in Syria.
Thanks StevoR@305. ABC are much more definite about a Labor win than The Guardian. Can you explain why some Coalition results are reported as “Liberal”, some as “National”, and some as “LNR”?
StevoRsays
YYYYEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSS!!!!! :-D
Boothby called fro the ALP.
For the first time in my lifetime Boothby is going have a MP who might actually represent me and who I didn’t put last or second last on my ballot paper. So happy about that. 😃
State and Federal former Lib safe seats Waite & Boothby now both ALP.. Wow. Phew. Wonderful! 😃
Even better the result looks like its either going to be a hung palrt with Greens balance of power or an ALP majority. Scummo is finished. Phew! 😃
StevoRsays
LNR = LNP maybe? Liberal National parties form a governing Coalition of separate but united parties.. which also Ithink merged in Qld as the LNP there? Its complicated. There’s a weird blend there. But basically Liberal or National are part of the – I can now to my boundless relief and joy say – formerly governing coalition of regressive “conservative” parties.
Unless LNR is really LN R not P in which case ..dunno.. ?
KGsays
StevoR@308
Sorry, yes, LNP!
KGsays
…And congratulations on Australia’s escape from “Aussie Trump”!
StevoRsays
L / NP = Liberal / National party(s)
That it? ALP 71 seats & LNP 49, 10 Independent /Other & 21 in doubt as of now..
StevoRsays
Phew. So stressed about this. So happy about this.. So relieved about this. Wow. Phew. YEEES!!!
blfsays
Pierce R Butler@284, et al., I think — this is all my own speculation — two somewhat different things are being conflated here, hence the confusion.
(1) Apparently, as mentioned in @284, Russian military conscripts cannot be ordered to actions outside Russia without a declaration of war. The key word there is “consript”. The Russian military also has contract soldiers (what others, such as Nato, would call “professional”), and those can be so-ordered into action. (There are also mercenaries, etc.)
I therefore speculate the (unverified) quoted “decide for yourself if you want to go or not” was a commander speaking to his (remaining) contract soldiers, and that that commander was human.
That is, (2) The commander know it was essentially a stupid suicidal mission, and had no desire to send his few remaining forces, probably thinking “Who the feck is going to know? Anyone who might talk will very probably also have to explain why they didn’t go.” (There are variations on this, e.g., the commander sensed a possible mutiny, etc.) Like others, I doubt Russian military “allows” such actions, but the commander and his remaining forces presumably realise — and can quite colourfully describe — that same military(‘s officers) are incompetent fools, easily fooled, or if necessary, bribed.
There seems to me to be a conflation on the Russian law about conscripts with the actions the professionals (contracts) will take in a desperate situation, rules be damned.
Pierce R. Butlersays
blf @ # 313 – Thanks for that, but if true, it still leaves some questions open.
Mostly, for me, concerning the thinking of Putin’s officers. Doesn’t any field commander who allows such an option leave him(-her-?)self open to permanent assignment cleaning latrines with their personal toothbrush for the rest of their career? How many “human” commanders will remain after a wave of such decisions?
Or, has Big Vlad lost control of his officers corps?
Also from blf’s # 313: The commander …, probably thinking “Who the feck is going to know? …”
How does any reporter in western media claim to have found out what went on between Russian officers & troops? Do all these reports of “troops said, ‘nuh-uh!'” come from Ukrainian intel/propaganda?
Pierce @316, see references to Russian telegram in comment 87; in blf’s comment 110; in comment 121 (good source); in SC’s comment 139; in comment 157, etc. Some Russians even use Twitter. And, no, I don’t think Big Vlad has ever had the control of his officer corps that he thought he had.
As usual, War Mapper has the best visualizations of daily battlefield changes: [map at the link]
Popasna is on high ground, giving Russia a good viewed of that highway running southwest of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk. Soon, that highway is very likely to be cut. Pro-Russia twitter is overjoyed, while many pro-Ukraine people are despondent.
Everyone needs to chill.
First, why does anyone assumes Russia has the ability to close that circle, all 30 miles of it? Russian is fated the same problems it has suffered everywhere else—logistical difficulties compounded by flanks exposed to Ukrainian ambushes and artillery. If Mariupol could survive nearly three months of siege, Severodonetsk and Lysychansk can certainly survive for an extended amount of time with Ukrainian forces just on the other side of a shaky Russian salient.
That’s all assuming Ukraine decides to hold those two towns, and in particular, Severodonetsk, on the wrong (Russian-facing) side of the Donets. As of now, it seem clear Ukraine is happy to let its defenders continue bleeding Russia dry while its reserves get trained and equipped out west.
But say the worst case happens, and those two towns fall … so what? Tactically, hurray for Russia. They accomplished something. But strategically? There’s over 5,000 square miles of Ukrainian-held territory in the Donbas region. Capturing 300-500 square miles of that barely moves the needle, holding the rubble of two towns that Ukraine doesn’t need. Meanwhile, Slovyansk and Kramatorsk present imposing roadblocks to any further Russian advances, neither on the far end of an exposed salient like Severodonetsk.
At best, Russia will grab a tiny slice of the Donbas region it so desperately wants. [Map at the link]
Henry Schlottman is an Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) savant, meticulously tracking Russian units across the map. He’s got a good read on the current situation in the Popasna salient:
[…] As a measure of how weak some of these BTGs may be, a reliable source informed me a regiment was still being ordered to form a BTG with less than 100 unwounded men available. I don’t think that’s true across the board however.
We discussed yesterday why the BTG was a useless designation, with one Russian’s account claiming his “infantry company” was 13 soldiers … instead of the 120-160 soldiers it should actually have. So yes, attempting to pass off 100 unwounded men as a “BTG” seems par for the course. That said, there is real combat strength arriving to this front. [Tweet at the link]
[…] So Russia is certainly trying to exploit the breach. Their problem, aside from their typical logistical challenges, is their continued inability to truly mass forces.
Overall, across the front, I think Ukraine and Russia are near parity in terms of equipment and manpower, except in artillery, which Russia maintains superiority, which highlights the need for the west to continue supplying artillery systems to Ukraine.
Typical formulas for attacker-to-defender ratios is 3-1 to 5-1. Parity won’t do it, not with new artillery rushing into the area. The more artillery floods in, the more videos we’ll get like this, of a smashed Russian convoy supporting the Russian push geolocated 4 kilometers directly north of Popasna. No Russian is safe in this salient [Video at the link]
Rather than panic over Russian gains in this area, just assume Severodonetsk and Lysychansk fall. Consider them gone, off the board. Then ask yourself, what did that get Russia? The answer is truly not much. And hey, there’s a really good chance Russia never gets them anyway! We’ve seen them screw up too many times to assume that they’re finally getting their shit together.
Meanwhile, this paragraph in the May 19 Washington Post has spawned a great deal of speculation.
The bill, passed on an 86-to-11 vote Thursday, provides a combined $20 billion in military aid that is expected to finance the transfer of advanced weapons systems, such as Patriot antiaircraft missiles and long-range artillery.
here has been no credible source saying Ukraine is getting Patriot missiles, nor long-range artillery (read: MLRS). In Pentagon briefings, the answers are always along the lines of “we’re constantly reassessing Ukraine’s needs…” As always, never forget the logistics. People keep saying stuff like “Ukraine can learn to fire it quickly!” and that’s true. The initial training to shoot a Patriot is 13 weeks, but that’s just the start. Soldiers then head to their unit where they’re trained by NCOs with years of experience. None of that exists in Ukraine. Even worse, remember that training to maintain the Patriot air defense system is 53 weeks. That’s just the basic maintenance training. Again, soldiers learn more at their units working with experienced NCOs.
There is a solution—use military contractors to perform maintenance. Retired soldiers from nations who have operated that system could head to Ukraine to perform all needed maintenance (assuming all the obvious risks of operating in a combat zone), and act as NCOs to Ukrainians learning the craft. Patriot air defenses would be a definite upgrade to Ukraine’s defenses if those maintenance issues can be managed.
Anti-ship missiles are also rumored to be on the way, theoretically to break the Russian blockade. However, Russian submarines would pose a threat, as would mines and aircraft. “Breaking the blockade” could simply be a public pretense for what the United States would really get—the destruction of a significant part of Russia’s naval power. That would be well worth the investment. And anything that raises Russia’s cost of war gets us closer to the day they sue for peace.
As for aircraft, talk has died down recently. But given Russia’s difficulties fielding a functional air force, and Ukraine’s growing use of its own (lots of videos this last week), it really is time to reconsider sending F-16s and A-10s to Ukraine. Again, maintenance would have to be provided by contractors, but it’s definitely theoretically possible.
To close the loop, note that we can have this discussion of advanced weapons systems, specifically because Ukraine has defended so well in Severodonetsk and Mariupol and all along this front. Russia creeps along, gaining mere single-digit kilometers per day, all the while an entire new army is being trained and equipped out west.
It’s pretty clear that Michigan neo-Nazi Justen Watkins was not too concerned about being arrested in December 2019 for harassing a family at their home. As soon as he was out on bond, he not only continued participating in message boards for the fascist organization The Base and blogging about them, he also went right back to organizing a training camp for his terrorist cell—and broke into a vacant Department of Corrections facility to scope it out as a possible paramilitary training site.
So this week, Watkins, 25, of Bad Axe, and his two cohorts in the break-in—Thomas Denton, 32, and Tristan Webb, 19, both of Huron County—were convicted of multiple felony counts related to the plot to build a “hate camp” that would train neo-Nazi warriors for a coming race war. Watkins, the group’s self-declared leader, awaits sentencing, but could face up to 20 years in prison.
Watkins and his cohort in the 2019 case, 35-year-old Alfred Gorman of Taylor, were arrested in October 2020 and charged with harassment and gang membership. But when Watkins was released on bond, he promptly began working to build his Base-affiliated terrorist cell.
He moved to the northern end of the Michigan “Thumb” area on Lake Huron and moved in with a 19-year-old neo-Nazi named Tristan Webb, who was occupying a rural farmhouse owned by his father. After Watkins moved in, along with Denton, Webb’s mother moved out, leaving the place to the young men. Webb later told the Huron Daily Tribune that he and Watkins were trying to build “a community” at the house. Prosecutors say they were engaging in paramilitary training at the house.
They also engaged in harassing liberal protesters. When local Black Lives Matter organizers assembled a peaceful protest, inspired by the murder of George Floyd, against police brutality in Bad Axe on June 5, 2020, the trio turned out in the town’s downtown area armed with semiautomatics, wearing body armor, and their faces covered with neo-Nazi skull masks.
As part of their plans to create a proper training center, the three men also scoped out possible facilities—including two vacant Michigan Department of Corrections properties in Caro. […] They also stole state-issued clothing from one of the jails. They were caught and charged with larceny in a building, gang membership, felony possession of a firearm, and conspiracy to train with firearms for a civil war.
Watkins pleaded guilty to gang membership in Washtenaw County related to intimidating the Dexter family, and pleaded guilty in Tuscola County to conspiracy to train with firearms for a civil disorder and felony firearms. He awaits sentencing in both counties.
Webb pleaded no contest in Tuscola County to gang membership, conspiracy to train with firearms for a civil disorder, and felony firearms possession. He is awaiting sentencing in Tuscola County Circuit Court.
Denton pleaded no contest in Tuscola County to felony firearms and conspiracy to train with firearms for a civil disorder. He was sentenced to spend nine months to four years in prison.
Attorney General Dana Nessel noted that the men’s convictions set an important legal precedent—which is significant for Michigan law-enforcement officials still reeling from the April acquittals of four militiamen who plotted to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
“Securing these convictions on the conspiracy to train for civil disorder holds significance for many reasons,” Nessel said in a statement. “They reiterate this office’s commitment to protecting Michigan residents, they create a historic precedent in our state’s court system, and they convey the real danger domestic terrorism poses here and around the country. […] in Michigan, we will not hesitate to prosecute those who commit crimes in the name of overthrowing our government or perpetuating racist ideologies.”
The December 2019 incident, as The Informant’s Nick Martin reported at the time, was chilling in its implications: The two men showed up late at night to the Dexter home of a family with a newborn infant. The men were dressed in black, with one wearing a skull mask. They took photos and video of the family’s home from the porch and yard, intent on making the family aware of their presence. They then posted some of the photos on Telegram with the message: “The Base sends greetings to Daniel Harper of the Antifa podcast ‘I Don’t Speak German.’”
In fact, the home had recently been sold to the family by a man named Daniel Harper, but he was not the person the fascist terrorists were seeking. That Daniel Harper, who lives in Michigan but not anywhere near Dexter, had been alerting law enforcement for months that a group of online neo-Nazis were wrongly targeting the house, believing it belonged to him. After the December incident, state and federal investigators became involved.
Watkins had previously proclaimed himself the leader of The Base after the online-organized accelerationist terror group’s founder and nominal leader, Rinaldo Nazzarro, aka “Norman Spear,” had been exposed as an operative associated with Russian intelligence living in Russia. Gorman was arrested in his hometown of Taylor.
[…] Since its origins in the world of online white nationalist organizing in 2018, The Base has been openly committed to acts of terrorist violence for the purpose of accelerating the collapse of modern society, which they believe needs to be displaced by global white supremacist rule. And indeed, […]
Unlike such white nationalist groups as Patriot Front or Identity Evropa, the group’s focus is not on promulgating propaganda. Rather, its stated purpose is to bring together highly skilled operatives under the umbrella of their white supremacist ideology and train them for acts of violence.
[…] In January, three members of The Base were arrested as they were planning to engage in lethal violence at anti-gun control protests in Virginia, including a Canadian reservist who had been a fugitive in the U.S. Less than two weeks later, three members of The Base were arrested in Georgia for conspiring to kill members of an antifascist group.
The livestreams of the people’s truckers convoy is insane. Leaders have run off in a luxury RV with the money, the food, and at least some of the TENTS. The convoy is calling for BLOOD. #PeoplesConvoy
Huge crocodile tears are being shed as the great prophecy goes unfulfilled.
The live streams from the People’s Convoy tonight was GREAT! MD Troopers were called out to a lot where convoy leadership was parked and convoy members were attempting to storm their trailer screaming for their money back.
Gotta say that the end of the people’s convoy is a trainwreck 🤣🤣
Live stream is still up and worth it.
People’s Convoy Too Busy Punching Each Other to Sneak Back Into Washington, D.C.
Almost the end, (some truckers are still driving around Hagerstown and they are pissed off):
“As of 2:30pm EST today May 20, 2022, The People’s Convoy declares victory and announces its conclusion of the national convoy portion of this great movement. Any convoy and protest activity from this time forward is done on an individual basis”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA #convoywatch
This isn’t the first time that The People’s Convoy has failed in the Washington D.C. area. Instead, it’s the second time they have failed, yet this time there are countless allegations of misused funds.
A Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals panel handed down a ruling this week that would significantly change how the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) prosecutes cases.
It would force the agency to litigate certain cases in federal courts rather than through its internal adjudication process. That could slow down the trial process, would involve a jury with significantly less expertise in this area of law and raises the possibility that cases will draw conservative, anti-regulation judges hostile to the SEC.
But more important than the court’s move to curtail this aspect of SEC power — which has incurred some good-faith arguments against it — is one of the ways in which the panel did it. The Fifth Circuit took the opportunity to fire a shot across the bow of the administrative state with an argument experts widely agree is dubious at best.
It came in the form of an invocation of “nondelegation,” a theory that has largely lain dormant since the 1930s, when it was deployed against FDR’s New Deal. It holds that Congress cannot outsource its legislative power to other entities, and is an idea that has been resurrected by the anti-agency, anti-regulation movement on the right.
If that part of the decision stands and is disseminated through other court rulings, it would throw a major aspect of how federal agencies enforce regulations into doubt, and could completely overwhelm the federal judiciary with cases formerly left to the agencies to adjudicate themselves.
“It’s clickbait,” Jed Shugerman, a professor at Fordham University’s School of Law, told TPM. “They added on that second part about nondelegation to get more attention from libertarians and Federalist Society conservatives. It’s a bit of a hobby horse for Gorsuch, so maybe they were even trying to get the attention of the Supreme Court.”
The central question in the case, Jarkesy v. SEC, is whether the hedge fund manager involved is entitled to a trial by jury.
The SEC brought an administrative action against George Jarkesy, accusing him of fraud. The SEC official, called an “administrative law judge” (ALJ), found against him, fining him a combined roughly $1 million and banning him from ever participating in the industry again. Jarkesy appealed to the SEC commissioners, who upheld the ALJ’s finding. Then he appealed to the Fifth Circuit, saying that the agency’s whole method of adjudication is unconstitutional. This case has been ongoing for nearly 10 years.
The Fifth Circuit agreed with Jarkesy, and found that the 7th Amendment entitles him to a jury trial.
[…] Opponents of the administrative state and its regulatory power often lodge constitutional challenges against agency procedures, as a right-wing legal group has in a similar lawsuit against the SEC that the Supreme Court decided to take up this week. The organization’s tagline? “Protecting Americans From the Administrative State.”
Importantly, a large swath of the federal administration operates in a similar manner to the SEC, magnifying a significant but perhaps not apocalyptic curtailing of one agency’s power to a potential threat across the board.
The Fifth Circuit takes no pains to limit its decision to cases like Jarkesy’s. Instead, it slaps on a nondelegation argument that, at best, can be read as a call for open season on federal agencies. At worst, it’s a ruling that would throw much of the administrative state’s enforcement mechanics into complete disarray and flood the federal judiciary with extremely technical cases.
[…] Our legal infrastructure is simply not set up for the federal judiciary to suddenly take on agencies’ caseloads.
This case does not start off as a black-and-white example of the right-wing judiciary’s baseless hostility towards the administrative state. But the Fifth Circuit loses any benefit of the doubt with an extremely flimsy nondelegation argument that, logistically, would defang agency enforcement with a federal judiciary disabled by the influx of complicated cases.
And amid an environment where anti-administrative state actors are practically salivating at the amenability of the ultra-conservative Supreme Court, it’s a hint at where things are going, a rallying cry to others in the right-wing legal world that now is the time to throw nondelegation arguments at the wall and see what sticks. […]
In July of 2021, rock ‘n’ roll legend Eric Clapton told the world he wouldn’t perform his brand of blues guitar in venues that required proof of vaccination against COVID-19. He followed that up by funding an anti-vaxxer musicians group in the United Kingdom. Clapton did this all after believing that the vaccination had led to what he wrote were a “disastrous” set of side effects that made the 77-year-old musician fear he “would never play again.” Clapton blamed an exacerbation of his existing condition of peripheral neuropathy on the vaccine.
On Monday, it was announced that Eric Clapton will not be playing any venues in the near future as he has tested positive for COVID-19. For now, Clapton has canceled at least two upcoming European gigs. Clapton tested positive for the virus shortly after performing at London’s Royal Albert Hall on May 8, according to NPR. The good news for Clapton is that while he has encouraged other people to not get vaccinated, he himself—for all of his misguided blame—was vaccinated with both shots of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
In a statement, Clapton’s PR team wrote: “It is very frustrating that having avoided COVID throughout lockdown and throughout the period when travel restrictions have been in place Eric should have succumbed to COVID at this point in time.” This is a strange phraseology when you think about it. During lockdowns, Clapton wasn’t out and about mixing it up with a general maskless population. Playing lots of shows, traveling about, and being someone with a history of not taking personal responsibility for being shitty to people in his life is a real recipe for catching things like COVID-19.
To be clear, you can try to take all of the precautions possible, then still run into a person like Clapton and end up ill. […]
blfsays
In @244, I observed I wasn’t aware of The Great French Mustard Shortage — well, now I am. Visiting a local shop for more mundane necessaries, I checked out the (prepared) mustards: The entire selection consisted of two bottles (not two brands, two bottles), in what (judging by the shelf labels) was supposed to have about eight brands. The two bottles were different brands, and as it so happened, one of them is what I probably would have gotten anyways, so I snaffled it. The slightly odd thing was there wasn’t any sign explaining (or apologising for) the shortage.
I’ve carefully hidden the rare bottle, so that you-know-who might not find it. I still have no idea what the mildly deranged penguin is doing…
“Voting is surging in Georgia despite controversial new election law.” Washington Post link
When the Spalding County Board of Elections eliminated early voting on Sundays, Democrats blamed a new state law and accused the Republican-controlled board of intentionally thwarting “Souls to the Polls,” a get-out-the-vote program among Black churches to urge their congregations to cast ballots after religious services.
But after three weeks of early voting ahead of Tuesday’s primary, record-breaking turnout is undercutting predictions that the Georgia Election Integrity Act of 2021 would lead to a falloff in voting. By the end of Friday, the final day of early in-person voting, nearly 800,000 Georgians had cast ballots — more than three times the number in 2018, and higher even than in 2020, a presidential year
Voting-rights groups and Democrats say they have changed their strategies to mobilize voters under the new rules. In Spalding County, for instance, local activists moved Souls to the Polls to a Saturday, and they defiantly promised that they would work twice as hard if that was what it took to protect voter access.
“It was a direct way to send a message to the Black community that they’re in charge now,” said Elbert Solomon, vice chairman of the county Democratic committee. “But every day we get people walking through the door, White and Black. A lot of people are concerned about their democracy.”
[…] “Abrams and President Biden lied to the people of Georgia and the country for political gain,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) said. “From day one, I said that Georgia’s election law balanced security and access, and the facts have proved me right.”
No, Brad Raffensperger, you are wrong. You and other Republican’s tried to suppress the vote, but voters and voting-rights groups worked extra hard to overcome the new hurdles you put in place.
The state’s GOP-controlled legislature became one of the first of dozens across the nation last year to approve restrictions on how ballots are cast and counted following the 2020 presidential election, when then-President Donald Trump attacked, without evidence, the validity of results in six states he lost, including Georgia.
The Election Integrity Act, also known as Senate Bill 202, unleashed a furious backlash when it passed. Biden called it “Jim Crow 2.0.” Abrams accused its authors of “reviving Georgia’s dark past of racist voting laws.” The clothing retailer Patagonia condemned the bill, and Major League Baseball moved its All-Star Game out of Atlanta.
The law imposes new identification requirements for those casting ballots by mail, curtails the use of drop boxes for absentee ballots, makes it a crime for third-party groups to hand out food and water to voters standing in line, blocks the use of mobile voting vans — as Fulton County did in 2020 after purchasing two vehicles at a cost of more than $700,000 — and prevents local governments from directly accepting grants from the private sector for election administration.
[…] Local and national organizations, including the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines, had put enormous pressure on state Republicans to strip out some of the more contentious provisions. Republicans agreed to drop, for instance, language barring most Georgians from voting by mail and curtailing early voting on weekends. They even expanded early-voting hours in the final bill.
Again, all the work done to ameliorate the voter-suppression efforts of Republican legislators does create some good outcomes.
[…] Some voters interviewed at polling locations said they were unwilling to take any chances with the new ID requirement. They opted to vote in person this year because they were afraid their ballot might be rejected under the new ID requirements. With drop boxes now required to be inside of polling locations rather than curbside, and accessible only during voting hours, it’s just as easy to vote in person, they said.
“They made it hard,” said Preston Wallace, a retiree from Chamblee who voted by mail in 2020 but chose to do so in person this year. “I’m not certain about the drop-offs, or if the mail is going to get picked up on time. I just don’t trust it. I didn’t want to take any chances.”
[…] Voting rights groups said they have stepped up their voter registration and education efforts to ensure that Georgians know how to vote under the new rules and are not afraid to do so. With 95 percent of eligible voters actually registered, Georgia currently boasts the highest registration rate in the nation, and voting groups take some of the credit for that. [Kudos to Stacey Abrams and others!]
The requirement that prohibits third-party groups from distributing food or water to voters waiting in line drew sharp criticism last year. Activists are gearing up to work around that rule by setting up tables away from long lines and encouraging voters to step off the line — and for their neighbors to hold their places — if they are hungry or thirsty or weary of standing.
Cliff Albright of Black Voters Matter, a Georgia-based voting rights group, said that issue will probably be more pronounced in November, when turnout will be higher than on Tuesday. But the group is using Tuesday as a dry run, and is sending out text messages and radio ads urging voters to bring their own water, chairs and phone chargers.
“It’s just going to be letting them know that because of this voter suppression law, they need to be more mindful about being prepared for long lines,” Albright said.
[…] The county’s elections board removed only a handful of the registrations after New Georgia Project sent a letter warning of the legal consequences of removing voters from the rolls without sufficient evidence. [Yay! Good move by the New Georgia Project!]
In Griffin, Republicans gained a majority on the Spalding County Board of Elections last year and decided this spring to eliminate Sunday voting, as allowed under the new state law. Since then, local Democrats have mobilized around the issue of voting rights, holding registration drives and expanding their membership.
The party teamed up with Black Voters Matter this month to host a Mother’s Day-themed voter registration festival at a Griffin laundromat. With the business’s recently unveiled mural of the late congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis as a backdrop, the group hoped the event would help energize the surrounding community, which is predominantly Black. […]
An avalanche of lawsuits fueled by roofing scams has plunged Florida into a property insurance crisis that has forced dozens of companies to shut their doors, drop customers, raise rates or flee the state. It’s a slow-motion collapse that lawmakers have known about for years but have failed to fix. [Remember, Florida is “governed” by Republicans who can’t seem to actually govern.]
The mess has made it harder for people to protect their homes in a state that is frequently battered by high winds, hard rains and hail—and is increasingly vulnerable to climate change. Things could get worse if the state is hit by a major hurricane […]
“Florida is the most volatile property insurance market in the country and it is on the verge of collapse,” said Mark Friedlander, spokesman for the Insurance Information Institute, an industry association.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, acknowledged the emergency last month, when he ordered the state Legislature to come up with a solution before the June 1 start of hurricane season. Lawmakers will begin their special session on Monday.
The crisis is largely the result of a plague of roofing scams, fed by loopholes in state law and a string of court decisions that allowed them to proliferate, insurers and government officials say.
The scam works like this: Contractors knock on doors offering to inspect homeowners’ roofs for storm damage. They say they can help get a roof replacement covered by insurance, and they persuade the homeowners to sign away their rights to file the claims themselves. The contractors then file fraudulent damage claims, and when the insurance companies balk, the contractors sue. The insurance companies usually settle the disputed claims for many times more than the original claim. Most of that money goes to the contractors’ lawyers in the form of a “contingency fee multiplier.” Some lawyers file hundreds of such lawsuits a year.
The homeowner may get a free roof, but everyone pays for it through increased rates.
[…] In the state Legislature, attempts to reform litigation practices pit the insurance industry against trial lawyers, another politically powerful group. The Florida Justice Association, which represents trial lawyers, says the insurance companies’ claims about fraud and frivolous lawsuits are overblown, and that the companies are to blame for poor financial management. The group accuses the companies of using the issue to erode consumers’ rights to pursue legitimate claims, and regulators of poor oversight of insurers.
[…] Eight insurance companies operating in Florida have gone out of business since 2021, including three in the past three months. Those that remain have sought rate increases ranging from 15 percent to 96 percent and have become more selective about who they will cover; some are asking homeowners to replace their roof in order to get a new policy. Others are dropping customers; one company recently announced that it was canceling 56,000 policies.
You’ll be heartened to learn that we’ve got a great country if you don’t count the plight of oppressed people or the negligence, viciousness, ignorance, and greed of the people in power. Other than that, we’re just like Denmark, only with lots more Old Country Buffets!
That’s not to say the U.S. isn’t a great country. It is. We just lose our way sometimes […]
In a recent interview with Politico, Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy attempted to deflect attention from his state’s abysmal infant mortality rate by blaming Black people for the barriers and systemic issues that have led to, well, high mortality rates among Black infants.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said Louisiana’s maternal mortality rate — one of the worst in the nation — does not tell the whole story of maternal health in the state because of its large Black population and the uncommonly broad definition Louisiana uses.
“About a third of our population is African American; African Americans have a higher incidence of maternal mortality. So, if you correct our population for race, we’re not as much of an outlier as it’d otherwise appear,” Sen. Bill Cassidy said in an interview […] “Now, I say that not to minimize the issue but to focus the issue as to where it would be. For whatever reason, people of color have a higher incidence of maternal mortality.”
For whatever reason? Hmm, what might those reasons be? Because Sen. Cassidy appears to believe it’s a big fucking mystery.
Well, for one thing, there are the socioeconomic disparities that greatly affect access to prenatal health care and health care in general, especially in this country. These disparities contribute immensely to worse outcomes. And the key driver of these disparities is—you guessed it—Republican politicians like Bill Cassidy.
Michelle Williams, the dean of Harvard’s School of Public Health, laid out numerous reasons for these terrible outcomes in response to Cassidy’s deliberately obtuse jibber-jabber. And those causes go well beyond a simple lack of access to proper care:
Another well-documented driver of disparities: During childbirth and recovery, as in other aspects of medical care, Black women have far too often been dismissed as complainers when they seek help for symptoms that can presage serious complications, such as shortness of breath or swelling legs. It happened even to Serena Williams.
Researchers have also begun to document the pernicious “weathering” effects of chronic stress among people of color. This stress, often stemming from both structural racism and individual acts of discrimination, has a corrosive effect on health over time and can affect multiple body systems, even in relatively young and otherwise healthy women. Pregnancy can magnify the impacts of weathering and lead to serious complications.
One eye-opening study even concluded that the mortality rate for Black babies was cut in half when they were cared for by Black doctors.
Of course, Cassidy’s “reasoning” is pretty noxious if you stop to think about what he’s saying—to white people, that is: “Hey, don’t worry about it. You’re doing just fine.”
Williams again:
We have a crisis in maternal mortality in this country, and it’s a crisis of terrifying proportions for women of color. This is not a moment to quibble about how states are ranked. It’s not a moment to correct for race. It’s a moment to step up and declare that our rate of maternal mortality in the United States is shameful and unacceptable. It’s a moment to assert that Louisiana—precisely because it has such a large population of Black women—must seize a leadership role in making pregnancy and childbirth safer for all.
Of course, delving into the real reasons for these widely divergent outcomes is hard—which is why Cassidy seems content to simply throw up his hands and say “whatevs.” But while these problems may seem intractable, that perception only exists because we’ve spent so many years shrugging our shoulders and ignoring our history. So let’s ignore it even harder, shall we?
Fortunately, not everyone in Louisiana is as benighted as Cassidy.
Veronica Gillispie-Bell, the medical director of Louisiana’s Perinatal Quality Collaborative and Pregnancy Associated Mortality Review, noted that “race is a social construct, it is not a biological condition,” and poorer outcomes are always going to come down to racism whether we want to admit it or not.
“There’s two things that are always going to drive the disparities. It’s going to be systemic racism — the historical processes and policies that have been put in place that disenfranchise Black and brown people — and then the other part of that is going to be implicit bias,” said Gillispie-Bell. “Black and brown individuals don’t always get the same quality of health care in the health care system as their white counterparts.”
Wonkette: “MI State Rep Candidate Has Great Plan To Ruin Sex For Everybody”
Jacky Eubanks is a Trump-endorsed candidate running for a state representative seat in Michigan’s 63rd House District and boy is she ever a piece of work.
Recently, Eubanks sat down with Michael Voris of the far right Catholic website Church Militant and held an incredibly disturbing conversation about birth control, sex and who should be allowed to have it.
The relevant clip is in this tweet […] Voris starts out by talking about how the Left has become “completely uncorked” about Roe, because we’re saying “They’re coming after your gay marriage next, they’re coming after your birth control and everything else after that!”
To which he says “You know what? Yeah!” — which somewhat diminishes the extent to which one would be considered “uncorked” for suggesting that this is what they want to do. [video at the link]
“We need to make a plain statement of fact, which is the reason why the West is great is because Western civilization’s underpinning is Christianity” Eubanks said. “You cannot have a successful society outside of the Christian moral order. And things like abortion and things like gay marriage are outside of the Christian moral order and they lead to chaos and destruction and a culture of death, which is why we’re seeing that today. We have abandoned the Christian moral order as a nation and we are reaping that destruction.”
So basically what she’s saying here is that largely white countries […] are good because everyone is Christian, and the only way to have a successful nation is to force everyone to be Christian, force them to give birth against their will and marry people they do not love. And if we don’t do that, the whole country is just going to implode.
But can it get worse? You bet it can! Voris asked her “How do you answer the local press person, who might be your age and just sees you as some loony who wants to take away your birth control?”
“I guess we have to ask ourselves, would that ever come to a vote in the Michigan state legislature? And if it should, I would have to side with it should not be legal,” she said, because she is in fact some loony who wants to take away your birth control. “I think that people believe that birth control—it’s better, like you said, oh, because then you won’t get pregnant and you won’t need to have an abortion,” she said. “But I think it gives people the false sense of security that they can have consequence-free sex, and that’s not true and that’s not correct. Sex ought to be between one man and one woman in the confines of marriage.”
“And open to life,” Voris added, to which she agreed “And open to life, absolutely.”
So as far as Eubanks is concerned, the only sex anyone should be allowed to have, legally, is heterosexual married sex for procreative purposes. Well doesn’t that sound like a lot of fun!
Funny that the kind of people who agree with her on that and her desire to impose the Christian moral order on the entire nation are also the same people who will call the left “authoritarian” for telling them that they are jerks if they insult or discriminate against people.
And speaking of not knowing what words mean, check out this passage from Eubanks’ campaign page:
As a graduate of Hillsdale College, I recognize the supreme blessing it was to receive a classical liberal arts education based on the seminole works of Western Civilization. I also recognize the damage done to young Americans indoctrinated by falsified Leftist “history” like the 1619 Project. I will write legislation implementing the 1776 Curriculum into Michigan’s K-12 public schools. I will also write legislation banning Critical Race Theory, as well as pen a version of Florida’s “Parental Rights in Education” bill which would prevent teachers from discussing radical sex & gender theory with students. I will also pen legislation mandating students in K-12 public schools use the bathroom & locker room of their biological sex and prohibit them from playing on sports teams of the opposite sex based on “gender identification”.
I generally do not make fun of people’s spelling or grammatical errors, on account of how I am not an insecure jackass (and because I make them myself sometimes), but if someone is going to brag about their fabulous and extremely racist-sounding education, and then talk about what kids should be learning in school … maybe they should learn the difference between “seminal,” a term meaning either “strongly influencing later developments” or “relating to or denoting semen,” and “Seminole,” a tribe of indigenous people in Florida.
One thing that seems especially pertinent here, though, is a post on her Telegram page about how people on the Left are incurably bad because we don’t want earth to be a hellhole:
I remember listening to the Peterson–Žižek debate in the summer of 2019 and honestly believing maybe you could convince people on the Left through a good faith discussion.
I’m here today to say I no longer think that’s possible. These people don’t use reason to come to their conclusions. They are driven by a religious fervor to create Heaven on Earth sans God. They would die for their faith in the same way that I would die for mine. That is where we’re at as a country.
Is she … mad that we want people to have nice lives? That we want to take care of the planet? What is the bad thing here?
I mean, she’s 25 years old and has clearly lived a very sheltered life. It is entirely possible that she is unaware that it is entirely legal to not be a Christian, and that it is in fact our First Amendment right to not have a religion forced upon us by the state. If she wants to practice Catholicism, that is fine for her! She should go and be well and live her live however she wants to. It is entirely possible for her to practice her religion without requiring everyone else to go along with her as well. No one is saying that she needs to go on birth control or have an abortion or marry a woman or enjoy sex or practice a religion she doesn’t believe in (well, except for the fundamentalist Protestants who don’t think Catholics are any better than my heathen ass).
All anyone is asking of her and anyone else, is for them to allow others to do what they want to do as well. Apparently that is too much for them.
Wonkette:”Why The Right Is Obsessed With Nonexistent Mid-Labor Abortions”
This week has been a lot, particularly in terms of people saying unbelievably ignorant things.
Perhaps there is something in the air that just made Jordan Peterson feel like he needed to share that the woman on the cover of Sports Illustrated failed to give him a boner and that this is an matter of “authoritarian tolerance” — ie: the guy who suggested that monogamy be “enforced” so that women are forced to pair up with incels who would otherwise go on shooting sprees felt that Sports Illustrated was trying to force him to be attracted to the extremely stunning Yumi Nu, for reasons.
Perhaps that same something was what made historically illiterate Georgia gubernatorial candidate Kandiss Taylor start going on about how the lives of indigenous people were sacrificed so that she could love Jesus as much as she does.
Or that made several men start blathering on about mid-labor abortions, demanding to know if those who support the right to abortion were in favor of stabbing babies in the head as they come out of the birth canal. During a congressional hearing on abortion access, Rep. Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, asked “How about if a child is halfway out of the birth canal? Is an abortion permissible then?” [video at the link]
The ever-ridiculous Tim Pool posed a similar question to Twitter, asking “What happens if a woman is on the way to get an abortion at 8 months but goes into labor in the lobby of the abortion clinic and accidentally delivers the baby before it could be terminated? […]
Quite a conundrum indeed!
This has been a thing ever since Donald Trump got confused about what a dilation and extraction abortion (aka a “partial-birth abortion”) was during a debate with Hillary Clinton in 2016.
He explained that he supported a federal ban on the procedure because “in the ninth month you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother,” claiming that this can happen “as late as one or two or three or four days prior to birth.” This is of course ridiculous, but he just kind of heard the very stupid term “partial-birth abortion” and just assumed that’s what it entailed.
And his supporters went along with him.
Why? Because Trump cannot be wrong, and when he is factually incorrect, it’s the facts that must change, not him. He creates a new reality for people every time he opens his mouth.
But there is a more insidious reason they are doubling down on this talking point. They want to perpetuate the idea that the reason people get abortions, perform abortions or support abortion rights is because they are cruel and just want to murder some babies. The point of abortion isn’t simply that we should have the right to control our bodies and our reproductive futures, but that we are homicidal maniacs. Which makes it easier to make Trump seem right (to them) about another thing — the time he said he would support throwing people in prison for having abortions.
By ignoring all of the very reasonable and sympathetic and understandable reasons people have abortions and focusing on imaginary scenarios in which people just really want to stab a baby in the head as it’s coming out of the birth canal. That someone would literally be pregnant for 8 or 9 months and then just decide, you know “off with its head!,” probably followed up by “Just kill it so I can get to the orgy, wherein I will have tons of sex so that I can get pregnant and have yet another abortion! Because of how I hate babies, am very evil, and also love paying lots of money for surgical procedures.
[…] The purpose of this rhetoric is not to have a better understanding of what abortion is, but to make the abortion-haver so incredibly unsympathetic that no one actually cares what happens to them.
It’s how we do a lot of things here, it’s why our criminal justice system is so grotesque […] People are poor because they were bad and made bad decisions, people have student debt because they’re bad and they majored in a thing I don’t like — the way things are is basically good and if it doesn’t work for you, it’s because you are morally deficient. Unless you are a rich person, in which case your problem is everyone else being so spoiled and thinking they are entitled to your money, just because they work for you.
[…] Now, personally I would question the wisdom of wanting what one considers to be a homicidal maniac to have many children (for abuse reasons, not The Bad Seed reasons) […]
It’s only gonna get worse and more ridiculous and “post-birth abortion-y” from here on out.
blfsays
Some snippets from the Meduza live blog (in reverse chronological order (i.e., most recent first)):
👨🎤Still breakin’ the law
Police in Ufa charged Yuri Shevchuk, the leader of the rock band DDT, with the misdemeanor offense of discrediting the Russian military for telling a crowd during a concert on May 18, “Friends, the homeland isn’t the president’s ass that you have to slobber over and kiss all the time. The homeland is the old lady begging at the train station and selling potatoes. That’s what the homeland is.”
🍿Russia’s Silver Screen
Struggling under the weight of Western sanctions, many Moscow movie theaters located inside shopping malls are now closing down, reports the newspaper Izvestia. The shutdowns could constitute lease violations and trigger litigation, but a more immediate concern is that the loss of cinemas could reduce consumer traffic to the shopping centers that host them, causing cascading economic damage.
☢️An arrest at Chernobyl
The Ukrainian authorities have arrested the deputy director of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on suspicion of deserting his post and collaborating with Russian invaders to facilitate their (temporary) capture of the plant in late February.
👮WikiCensorship
Russia’s federal censor has reportedly ordered Wikipedia’s English-language edition to revise or remove two articles (“2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine” and “Rashism”), arguing that they contain []false information about Russian military losses in the conflict and Russian attacks against civilian targets.[]
I’m guessing where the missing opening quotemark goes.
🗳️One big family
During a visit to occupied Kherson, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin said the region has great prospects and will take its rightful place in the Russian family. (On March 16, Vladimir Putin assured the world that Russia had no intention of occupying Ukraine.)
🍿Russia’s Silver Screen
A movie theater in Vladivostok is demonstrating the virtues of Russia’s new approach to copyright law. The cinema obtained copies of “The Batman,” “Sonic 2,” and “Turning Red” but sold tickets to “The Bat,” “Blue Hedgehog 2,” and “Red Panda.” Distribution rights for these films were not sold to movie theaters in Russia due to studios’ boycott of Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russia’s cinema industry got some rough news from the Finance Ministry on Monday: the government wants additional justifications for granting movie theaters a requested 6.5 billion rubles ($100.6 million) in federal bailouts. The ministry also rejected the idea of major tax breaks.
⚖️Damn the ECHR
Russian lawmakers have submitted legislation that would void the government’s obligations to execute rulings issued by the European Court of Human Rights after March 16, 2022, when the Council of Europe expelled Russia. The bill’s explanatory note states that the Russian Attorney General’s Office could still pay monetary compensation through to January 1, 2023, that was awarded by the ECHR before March 16. The draft law would also remove language from existing statutes that recognizes ECHR rulings as a “basis” for reviewing court orders.
StevoRsays
On the Aussie election here’s the summarised winners and losers :
snarkrates@333, 2/3 or 3/5 ?
3/5’s is what is still in the States constitution (never formally repealed), albeit section 2 of the 14th amendment renders it moot.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 830
Back when I was young, stupid, Catholic, and conservative, I heard fetus-fetishists often claim that feminist women have abortions just to flaunt Gawd and “The Family.” (i.e. White, cis-het, monogamous, Christian, patriarchy.) I recall Rush Limbaugh often pontificate from his “golden EIB microphone” that “Feninism is a religion and abortion is its sacrament.”
Then there was Par Robertson’s infamous quote:
“The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”
Legal-abortion-as-Infantcide is just another manifestation of the fear-mongering that gave us the Blood Libel, Q Anon, and Alex Jones.
Akira @336, that quote from Pat Robertson is laugh-out-loud ridiculous. I can’t believe he threw “witchcraft” and “destroy capitalism” into the mix. Ha! It’s perfect in a way.
Doug Mastriano, the Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial nominee, did not need Donald Trump to turn him into a paranoid conspiracy theorist. He was there decades ago, a Washington Post report on Mastriano’s 2001 master’s thesis shows.
Mastriano’s thesis, written in 2001 while he was a major at the Air Force’s Air Command and Staff College, warns that recommendations to “depoliticize” the military could lead to the utter collapse of the military and a “civilian putsch” or, taking it up a notch, a “Hitlerian putsch.”
To illustrate this danger, Mastriano’s thesis takes the form of an extended flight of fancy using the fictional voice of a colonel living in the then-future year 2018, hiding out in an “isolated cavern” due to the ascension of a dictator, who, backed by the United Nations and the European Union, ”abolished the Constitution, dismissed Congress and compelled the president to resign. While consolidating power, dictator Aurelius declared martial law and conducted a massive purge. The purge went deep and impacted nearly every family in the nation with millions perishing. Dictator Aurelius‘ form of political correctness was then imposed upon the populace with scores being sent to reeducation camps to adapt their views to his.”
From the fictional vantage point of post-putsch 2018, Mastriano warns that the dissolution of the United States as we know it came after military service members were banned from voting after the 2000 elections (this did not happen, of course) and a broader “assault on the military‘s culture,” including “social experimentation and the imposition of strict policies protecting aberrant sexual behavior in the ranks.”
Mastriano doesn’t dance around his meaning there: “The assault started with the insertion of homosexuality into the military.” But while he claims the undermining of the military happened slowly somehow between his writing in 2001 and his imagined 2018, “The moral underpinnings of the US military were replaced by a neo-pagan worldview, transforming it into a docile social service institution unable to pose any of the imagined threats to the republic.”
A neo-pagan worldview leading to a Hitlerian putsch. [LOL]
Fast forward 21 years later and the man who wrote this is the Republican gubernatorial nominee for a large state, and he’s basing his candidacy in large part on claims that the last presidential election was stolen by Democrats, after he was on the scene of an insurrection attempting to block the certification of that election. He celebrated his primary win with one of the architects of the coup attempt, who hinted at future plans to undermine Pennsylvania elections.
It all fits, but what’s striking is that far from being turned to conspiracy theories by Trump, Mastriano was right there in 2001, creating them. Trump and QAnon just gave him a new set of false claims to work with—and helped elevate him to prominence in the Republican Party.
Yesterday, we discussed the hyperventilation over Russia’s Popasna advance, the one place on the entire Texas-sized country of Ukraine in which they’ve had some recent success. Today? “There have been no notable changes to control since the last update.” I expected that advance to stall, but already?
This account tracks pro-Russian telegram accounts: [tweet and map at the link]
Here’s the Institute for the Study of War:
We still not have observed open-source evidence for the Russian breakouts around Popasna that pro-Russian telegrams claimed on May 20. NASA FIRMS data from the past 24 hours does not observe heat anomalies that would track with heavy fighting in breakouts near Popasa. [map at the link]
One relatively quiet day doesn’t mean the front is stalled like in the Izyum salient, where early Russian gains petered out at around 25 miles from town. But I will keep saying it until Russia proves everyone otherwise—that’s about the distance limit of Russia’s rickety supply system to support any offensive actions. So no, I don’t expect Russia to complete the encirclement unless they can make something happen crossing the Donets near Severodonetsk, which would be the northern end of this pincer movement. [map at the link]
I highlighted the Donets River with a dark red dotted line, which Russia has struggled to cross under intense Ukrainian artillery and ground resistance. In fact, there were reports today of a fourth failed crossing. Looking forward to drone footage confirmation in the coming days.
Remember, Russia’s clear goals after taking Izyum on April 1 was a sweeping pincer maneuverer to capture the entire Donbas region (comprised of Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts). That was hilariously impossible, and their ambitions have gradually scaled down over the last seven weeks. Today, they’re trying to surround one tiny corner of it, the city of Severodonetsk, way out on an exposed Ukrainian salient. If successful, Russia would take just 5-10% of the Donbas territory still in Ukrainian hands […]
It’s a wonder Severodonetsk has survived this long in Ukrainian hands, adjacent to pre-war Russian-held territory, surrounded on three sides by hostile forces, and under relentless bombardment for months. A competent army would’ve taken it long ago. Now, it’s become Ground Zero for the war not because of any particular strategic value, but because Russia desperately needs the propaganda victory.
Still, I’ll never understand Russian strategy.
Bridge connecting Severodonetsk and Lysychansk. russian agents first blasted it in 2014. 🇺🇦rebulit it in two years. Today, russia destroyed it again. We are a persistent nation. We will rebuild the bridge after victory. To achieve it -#ArmUkraineNow [photo at the link]
Russia needs those bridges to cross the Donets and attack Lysychansk. It also needs to capture Severodonetsk. […]
Ukraine’s problem isn’t recruiting soldiers. It’s equipping them. And whatever is left in Severodonetsk ain’t likely much. But every day those defenders hold out—a timeline Russia just extended by cutting off retreat routes—is a day when all that foreign military aid gets put into service. Like this:
We have the UAF 5th Tank Brigade down in the south. They recently received 100 of the polish tanks. [photos at the link]
Ukraine received about 240 tanks from Poland. Ukrainians are now trained to operate those tanks. Ukraine also received Dutch armored personnel carriers.
Recent pictures have shown those Polish tanks with updated armor and optics. The YPR-765 is a modified M-113 armored personnel carrier. The Dutch never announced how many they were sending to Ukraine, but they had 500 decommissioned in deep storage since 2012. Hopefully they sent them all. When the United States announced it was sending M113s to Ukraine, I noted they would be perfect for a southern advance on Kherson—the open fields make unprotected infantry approaches vulnerable to artillery fire, and a stalemate has ensued in the region, with neither side able to hold territory under enemy artillery barrage. M113s, and its Dutch variant, won’t protect against direct tank or heavy cannon fire, but it’ll do nicely against artillery shrapnel.
100 tanks and 400-500 YPR-765s would be the equivalent of around 10 Russian full-strength battalion tactical groups, and maybe 20 actual real-life chronically under-strength BTGs. Russia has around three BTGs camped south of Kryvyi Rih in a stupid under-resourced attempt to push north out of Kherson, and another six or so in Kherson and its immediate surroundings. […] It’ll be interesting to see if Ukraine deploys this new tank brigade south in a serious bid to liberate Kherson, or if they’ll send it east to the Donbas to try and deliver a mortal blow to Russian forces massed around Izyum.
Finally, remember a few days ago Russia claimed it had retaken territory on its border north of Kharkiv, in Ternova and Kharkiv Oblast’s Rubizne?
We have not observed robust open-source evidence to confirm reports that Russian forces captured Ternova and Rubizhne in Kharkiv Oblast on May 20. Pro-Russian Telegram channels claimed that Russian forces attacked Tsyrkuny and Zolochiv and launched a counteroffensive in Ternova on May 20. Official Ukrainian government sources stated on May 20 that fighting continued in the area of Ternova and Vesele and that Russian forces shelled Rus’ki Tyshky, and attempted to regain lost territory in Kharkiv Oblast but did not specify any territorial control changes.
Reports that a Russian counter-offensive had rolled back Ukrainian gains in the region were never proven. Pro-Russian sources have a bad habit of declaring towns defeated when they reach the outskirts. Meanwhile, Ukraine claimed the liberation of another small settlement north of Kharkiv. Seems like the good guys are still slowly clawing back Russian territory in the area, even as Russia intensifies its activities in response.
Alexey Vlasenko in comments corrects my Ukrainian brigade math:
If it’s a tank brigade, then the armored fighting vehicles would comprise about 100 tanks in three tank battalions, and 50 APCs in the mechanized battalion (plus a handful more APCs with the brigade headquarters, the recon company, the air defense battery, etc., so maybe 70 APCs total). Under most conditions, a tank brigade fights with three reinforced tank battalions, each with three tank companies and one reinforcing mechanized company taken from the mechanized battalion.
A political earthquake has happened here in Australia, like nothing we have seen every before. […]
Just to fill you in: in our HoR, we have 151 seats from local electorates. It takes 76 to have a majority, however you can govern with say 74.
The Liberal/National coalition (Trump/extreme right wing/Pentacostal) was on 75, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) on 69 and a few independents. [I like the description of the Liberal/National wing.]
Well, due to the utter inhumanity of Scott Morrison, the LNP leader on so many fronts (a guy with no soul), Australians got sick of him and booted his government out. They are getting a shellacking of huge proportions and are on track to have the worst result since 1943. That’s how bad they got it.
And not just from the ALP. The Greens are on track for getting 3 or 4 extra seats in the HoR, and a Senator in each state (I think). No third party has had the ability to leapfrog the two main parties and capture lower house seats. But they did. Took them 20 years, but they can build on this.
[…] Teals (blue + green; blue = conservative). Not all are ex-Liberals. They went for the L/NP in loads of their safest seats, and won 6. I helped out in one (my local), and there was a 14% swing to her from the LNP. She looks like she will win it. It was Australia’s first instance of tactical voting.
We have a preference system of voting. You put 1 in say Greens, and 2 ALP. So if the Greens don’t get enough votes and are knocked out, your vote transfers to the ALP. I forgot the name for this system, but that’s how we do it. So this time, we voted 1 Teal 2 ALP. It was to knock out the LNP. So the L/NP lost out on all their ‘blue ribbon’ seats bar a few, and the previous winner in a blue ribbon seat (Zali Stegalli) got reelected.
And now, they have hardly any talent, and the leftovers are rapid RWers and Aussies are not into extremes (other than the nutcases). So this could be the LAST time the L/NP are in government. I hope so. […]
Everyone was over Morrison’s photo ops and what did it for him I think in the end was tackling (like rugby) a kid playing soccer and having this stupid fake look on his face, like a smirk but worst. That pretty much sealed the deal.
[…] In 3 years time, the Teals will strengthen their hold, the ALP under Albanese […] will govern with them and the Greens in mind, and the L/NP will not win. At least, that is how it looks if everyone is smart in the next 3 years.
And news you guys will like, the media acted like Hungarian state media, under the control of Murdoch, a L/NP ex treasurer and another media mogul. The media were insane in their smashing of the ALP. Meanwhile, an ex ALP PM put up a petition for a Royal Commission (yes, royal…) (similar to Congressional Hearings, I think), into the Media. MURDOCH FAILED to get the L/NP reelected yesterday. They are losing influence, not just federally but state too. Murdoch with their front pages just insane, fail to knock out ALP state governments.
Also, a mining oligarch set up a fake party and spent $100m on ads all over the country. Did squat all, the L/NP still got their worst result ever. Now Albanese (‘Albo’) can get on with building up a 21st century economy. Finally.
So the L/NP and the media were pushed out of the way, because no matter how much they made Morrison to be our saviour, no one bought it. [Yay!]
I hope it’s a good omen for you guys. Keep the faith and keep strong. The reactionaries will fk up somewhere along the line like they did here, and 80 years of L/NP look like they’re coming to an end […]
Voters just kicked out the conservative government and climate action is back.
It was a koala massacre. Two years ago, Australia’s worst wildfire crisis left an unprecedented number of the country’s cherished wildlife charred or dead, among them tens of thousands of koalas. Photos of our iconic marsupial with barbecued paws shocked the world. In large parts of Eastern Australia, koalas are now endangered.
On Saturday, as the country went to the ballot box for a national election, I couldn’t shake those images of destruction and what they foretold for a country increasingly swept by extreme climate disasters. I wasn’t alone.
Australia resoundingly turfed out its conservative government on Saturday after the ruling coalition led by Scott Morrison sustained brutal losses across a wide swathe of districts. While votes were still being counted into the early hours of Sunday morning in Australia, it became clear that “ScoMo,” as he’s known, simply didn’t have the numbers to form a government, even in a minority. That honor will go to the center-left Labor party and its leader, Anthony Albanese, who will become the country’s 31st prime minister. The election ends nine years of conservative governments that have low-balled climate commitments and underplayed the urgency facing a continent uniquely vulnerable to global warming. […]
Wonkette: “Virginia County Considers Making Schools Celebrate Slavery, Confederate Generals Again”
Two years ago, in response to the murder of George Floyd, the Shenandoah County School Board in Virginia voted to change the name of two schools named to honor Confederate generals. You know, because they realized that perhaps celebrating people who fought to keep Black people enslaved perhaps sent the wrong message. Stonewall Jackson High School was changed to Mountain View High School, while Ashby-Lee Elementary School to Honey Run Elementary School.
This was the right move, but it upset a lot of very racist people who now want the names changed back to honor the losers of the Civil War, and the new Vice Chair of the board agrees with them. Because apparently it is very “elitist” to believe that it is bad to honor people who fought to own Black people by naming schools after them. .
Via NBC:
More than 4,000 people have signed a petition to change the names back, Vice Chair Dennis Barlow said at a board meeting, where the issue was discussed at length last week.
Some new board members say they feel the decision to change the names was rushed and that it did not consider the opinion of the community.
Barlow — who characterized those who were in favor of changing the names as outsiders who are “creepy,” “elitist” and from “the dark side” — said the school board’s decision was “undemocratic and unfair.”
He added that he regards Jackson as a “gallant commander.”
He was also a traitor who killed people defending the “right” of some other people to own people. I don’t know what to call that but it does seem like the kind of thing that would get you sent to prison these days, rather than having a school named after you.
During the board meeting, community members got three minutes each to say why they supported or opposed bringing the names back. S. John Massoud, a member of the Town Council of Strasburg and Chairman of the 6th Congressional District Republican Party of Virginia got up in front of the board and talked about how his great-grand-daddy was a union soldier killed by Stonewall Jackson but he supported reverting back to the name because you can’t talk about his great-grand-daddy and people like him without talking about Stonewall Jackson. Because the only way to do that is to name a school after him.
Massoud was followed by several women and a young man from the high school — all of whom supported the change. And then those people were followed by two older white guys, one talking about how men from Shenandoah County were with Stonewall Jackson when he got his nickname “Stonewall” and another with whining about how changing the name in the first place was a “dirty underhanded trick.”
Then, a female minister talked about tolerance, a lady with Can I Speak To Your Manager hair talked about how she went to Stonewall Jackson high and had a good time there and if you change the name her memories will be murdered, followed by another grey-haired white dude who opposed the name change and wanted everyone to vote on it. And the next old guy talked about how his family served in “The War of Northern Aggression” and you can imagine how that went.
It continued for over an hour.
Unsurprisingly, Marjorie Taylor Greene was very excited about the idea of changing the name back. She tweeted the Daily Mail’s story on the issue with “Wonderful news. We should always preserve our history,” because of how she loves history, so long as it is never discussed more deeply than “Hey, look at that statue of a guy/school named after a guy who fought to own slaves! Wasn’t he great?” [Tweet from MTG is available at the link]
Given the arguments we’ve been having over education lately, none of this is particularly shocking. This isn’t about actually caring about children, it’s not about school names, it’s about these people “wanting their country back.” Trump failed to give it back to them, seeing as how the rest of us all still exist, so now they’re going after the kids. To do that, they need to be sure that kids are being raised the same way they were — scared of LGBTQ folks and very sure that the “War of Northern Aggression” was about “states rights” and had nothing to do with slavery.
“The war must end with the complete restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,” said Ukraine’s presidential chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, in a Twitter post.
The Polish president, Andrzej Duda, offered Warsaw’s backing, telling politicians in Kyiv that the international community had to demand Russia’s complete withdrawal and that sacrificing any of Ukraine’s territory would be a “huge blow” to the west.
“Worrying voices have appeared, saying that Ukraine should give in to Putin’s demands,” Duda said, in the first in-person address to the Ukrainian parliament by a foreign leader since Russia’s invasion on 24 February. “Only Ukraine has the right to decide about its future,” he said.
On Saturday, Ukraine’s lead negotiator in the stalled peace talks, Mykhailo Podolyak, said: “Any concession to Russia is not a path to peace, but a war postponed for several years. Ukraine trades neither its sovereignty, nor territories and Ukrainians living on them.”
Brad Moline, a fourth-generation Iowa turkey farmer, saw this happen before. In 2015, a virulent avian flu outbreak nearly wiped out his flock.
[…]
His business recovered, but now the virus is back, again imperiling the nation’s poultry farms. And this time, there’s another pernicious force at work: a potent wave of misinformation that claims the bird flu isn’t real.
“You just want to beat your head against the wall,” Moline said of the Facebook groups in which people insist the flu is fake or, maybe, a bioweapon. “I understand the frustration with how COVID was handled. I understand the lack of trust in the media today. I get it. But this is real.”
While it poses little risk to humans, the global outbreak has led farmers to cull millions of birds and threatens to add to already rising food prices.
It’s also spawning fantastical claims similar to the ones that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic […] Some versions claim the flu is fake, a hoax being used to justify reducing the supply of birds in an effort to drive up food prices, either to wreck the global economy or force people into vegetarianism.
Other posters insist the flu is real, but that it was genetically engineered as a weapon, possibly intended to touch off a new round of COVID-style lockdowns. A version of the story popular in India posits that 5G cell towers are somehow to blame for the virus.
As evidence, many of those claiming that the flu is fake note that animal health authorities monitoring the outbreak are using some of the same technology used to test for COVID-19.
They’re testing the animals for bird flu with PCR tests. That should give you a clue as to what’s going on, wrote one Twitter user, in a post that’s been liked and retweeted thousands of times.
The only clew I get is you have absolutely no idea what PCR is, at any level other than being an imaginary bogeyfiend.
In truth, PCR tests have been used routinely in medicine, biology and even law enforcement for decades; their creator won a Nobel Prize in 1993.
[…]
Americans clearly understand that the federal government and major media have lied to them repeatedly, and are completely corrupted by the pharmaceutical companies, said Dr[quack] Joseph Mercola, an osteopath[grifter] whose discredited claims about vaccines, masks and the coronavirus made him a prominent source of COVID-19 misinformation.
Mercola’s interest in the bird flu dates back years[.] A 2006 book for sale on his website, which Mercola uses to sell unproven natural health remedies, is titled The Great Bird Flu Hoax.
[…]
As a dinosaur, the mildly deranged penguin is rather concerned about avian flu. However, she correctly — or at least more plausibly — blames the virus on peas, horses, and the Martians retaliating after their failed invasion.
[Teh eejit] has promoted a conspiracy theory that claims billionaire Bill Gates is hoping to make a lot of money from an outbreak of monkeypox.
During the Thursday night edition of her Facebook Live[factsborked lies] show MTG:Live, Greene baselessly connected the current monkeypox outbreak — which has consisted of fewer than 100 cases globally […] — and Gates […].
To support the connection, the congresswoman shared a video clip from a November 2021 Gates interview with Jeremy Hunt, chair of the UK’s Health and Social Care Committee. Gates did not mention monkeypox in the interview but warned that governments should prepare for future pandemics and urged the World Health Organization (WHO) to invest $1 billion per year to form a related task force.
[… teh eejit blathers…]
Greene went on to note that the US government recently purchased supplies of a smallpox vaccine that can be used to prevent both smallpox and monkeypox, which are related viruses. The government did exercise an option on an existing contract this week to purchase $11 million worth of vaccine.
No no no, emergency preparedness! Waste of money that could be better used to fund Russia and my other friends! — teh eejit & others.
However, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) told Axios on Friday that the purchase was “unrelated to specific events” and instead “part of a standard and ongoing preparedness” effort to respond to a “potential smallpox emergency.”
Greene insisted that Gates wants you all to be injected with the new vaccine because COVID-19 has gotten old and the public is done with the vaccine game amid the current pandemic. She warned that the media and an undefined they would attempt to terrify the public with images of children with this all {monkeypox} over their faces.
As a reminder, this is not the Onion.
And then they’re going to tell you, you have to wear a mask because if you get close to anybody’s face and they spit on you you’re going to contract this horrible, terrifying disease, monkeypox, Greene said. But don’t worry… I know you have a Dr Fauci pillow that you sleep with every night.
We need to order your Bill Gates pillow, she continued. You should have a body pillow of Bill Gates and you can cuddle with it every night, she added. [… and so on…]
blf @348, so much addled-brain bullshit in just one human brain? Very disturbing.
Marjorie Taylor Greene is not alone:
There have been powerful indicators of the full-bore radicalization of the Republican Party in the past year: the 100-plus extremist candidates it fielded this year, the apparent takeover of the party apparatus in Oregon, the appearance of Republican officials at white nationalist gatherings. All of those are mostly rough gauges or anecdotal evidence, however; it’s been difficult to get a clear picture of just how deeply the extremism has penetrated the party.
Using social media as a kind of proxy for their real-world outreach—a reasonable approach, since there are few politicians now who don’t use social media—the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights decided to get a clearer picture of the reach of extremist influences in official halls of power by examining how many elected officials participate in extremist Facebook groups. What it found was deeply troubling: 875 legislators in all 50 states, constituting nearly 22% of all elected GOP lawmakers, identified as participating members of extremist Facebook groups.
“The ideas of the far right have moved pretty substantially into the mainstream,” Devin Burghart, IREHR’s executive director, told Dana Milbank of The Washington Post, “not only as the basis for acts of violence but as the basis for public policy.”
This is pointedly true when it comes to “replacement theory,” the white-nationalist conspiracist narrative claiming that a nefarious cabal of globalist elites is deliberately manipulating immigration to replace white people in Western society with nonwhites—a set of beliefs that fueled Saturday’s domestic-terrorist attack on the Black community in Buffalo.
“Replacement theory” proponents, Burghart said, come from a broad bandwidth of far-right movements, and have been spread widely over the past year since Fox News’ Tucker Carlson began championing the claims. It’s also been ardently promoted by mainstream Republicans, particularly members of Congress:
– Elise Stefanik of New York, the No. 3 House Republican: She’s running ads accusing Democrats of “a permanent election insurrection” in the form of an immigration amnesty plan that would “overthrow our current electorate.”
– Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, chairman of the House Freedom Caucus: He has claimed “we’re replacing … native-born Americans to permanently transform the political landscape.”
– Matt Gaetz of Florida, a notorious Trumpist congressman: tweeted that Carlson “is CORRECT about Replacement Theory.”
– J.D. Vance, who won the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate in Ohio: He claims that “Biden’s open border is killing Ohioans, with … more Democrat voters pouring into this country.”
– Ron Johnson, the GOP senator from Wisconsin: He claims that Democrats “want to remake the demographics of America to ensure … that they stay in power forever.”
IREHR researchers defined “far-right” groups as those advocating for changes that would significantly undermine political, social, and/or economic equality along class, racial, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, immigration status, or religious lines. Groups fighting government mask and vaccination rules and other public health efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus were also included, as were 23 anti-abortion groups. It identified 789 of them. [Using those parameters, I think the study probably undercounted extremist Republicans.]
The study identified 875 state legislators serving in the 2021-2022 legislative period who had joined these extremist Facebook books, only three of whom were Democrats. The remaining Republicans who had joined these groups constituted 21.74% of all Republican lawmakers in the country, and 11.85% of all legislators.
The states with the highest percentage of extremist legislators were Alaska (35%), Arkansas (25.19%), Idaho (22.86%), Montana (22.67%), Washington (20.41%), Minnesota (19.4%), Maine (18.28%), and Missouri (18.27%). […]
As the report explores in detail—particularly in its profiles of individual extremist legislators, such as Washington state’s Jim Walsh and New Hampshire’s Susan DeLemus—these lawmakers’ far-right politics naturally translate into extremist legislation. The report connects them with a surge in legislation seeking to limit access to the ballot, restrict the rights of LGBTQ people, to limit “critical race theory” and otherwise control what public school children can learn about America’s legacy of racism, as well as to severely restrict abortion rights in their states.
“All of that stuff has been incubated in these networks,’’ Burghart said. “That rhetoric in this context becomes public policy quite quickly and those ideas not only move from the margins to the mainstream but now they’ve been codified into law in some places.”
In all, the report identifies some 963 anti-human-rights bills introduced in legislative bodies by these lawmakers.
As Charlie Pierce observes at Esquire:
The point is that there is an internal coherence to all the rightist causes, as well as enthusiasm that hasn’t been there in previous incarnations. And, because of this coherence, there is a more solid political bloc that can influence the “establishment” Republicans, or intimidate them. But, in any case, it is a bloc that cannot be ignored.
Nor are the report’s authors optimistic, considering that even this clearer view of the penetration of extremism within the ranks of elected officials is still very rough and likely misses a great deal of this kind of activity: “IREHR researchers,” it notes, “believe the findings almost certainly understate the breadth of the problem.”
I left Wisconsin for the West Coast seven years ago, and neither I nor my cannabis-besotted brain have looked back since. I sure do miss Madison—one of the best cities in the country, in my admittedly biased opinion—but between the winters flash-freezing my dinglies like Han Solo in carbonite and Scott Walker purple-nurpling my callow nips like a Door County saltwater taffy machine, I could brook my life as a Badger no longer.
But part of my heart has stayed in my home state. […]
WDJT-TV, Milwaukee:
The Republican leader of the state Assembly was booed by some convention-goers after telling the crowd there’s no pathway to decertifying the 2020 presidential election.
“We have no ability to decertify the election and go back,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said at the Republican state convention in Middleton during a legislative leader panel. “We need to focus on moving forward.”
Loud boos filled the convention hall after Vos’ comment, which prompted state party chairman Paul Farrow to tell delegates to “let him talk” and “be respectful.”
Booing consensus reality and common sense. What has my home state become? Racist? Yeah, I picked up on that sometime in the ‘70s—but there’s something about huge crowds of white people heckling on behalf of a treasonous, white supremacist deludenoid that really brings it home.
For his part, Robin Vos—who is beyond awful, by the way—struggled to put the moment into perspective.
“At the end of the day we are all Republicans, and people are super passionate,” he said. “They want change in Madison and they are desperate for a change in Washington. … Sometimes they are frustrated because Democrats won’t listen and take it out on Republicans. It’s okay.”
That’s a really nice way of saying the sore-loser seditionists who comprise an unnervingly large portion of the electorate are really fine folks, but simply misunderstood.
Republicans have long since lost control of their racist Frankenstein. The only question is when the rampage will stop—in 2022 or sometime after Republicans have turned our country into a Putin-style Soviet republic?
I’m still hopeful—after all, there are signs that some of the shine has come off Donald Trump’s Big Lie—but we’re still in an extremely precarious spot vis-à-vis the future of American democracy.
Now is no time to be demoralized, cynical, or complacent. […] support Democrats in any way we can.
<rant> I don’t know what the feck it is, but for the past hour or so (starting at c.06h30 local time) some fsmdamnthing has been making a very annoying noise, somewhere in the village. The orientation of the lair makes it slightly difficult to pinpoint the direction, but it sounds like it’s coming from the (old?) harbour area. It’s vaguely similar to a yacht airhorn, but not as LOUD or shrill. I did a quickie measurement using the audio spectrum app on my phone, and it has two equal peaks, one at 100hz and the other at 562hz, both 70dB, essentially continuous. I assume it’s louder outside (I was trying to stay inside the pillow fort and haven’t ventured out yet).
If it’s an airhorn, the yacht or whatever is sick. If it’s an alarm, it’s not working, nothing seems to be happening. If it’s a terrorist attack (e.g., a French rap band), I’m tempted to unleash both the mildly deranged penguin and several kraken (not that you can safely keep either “on a leash”!).
I rather hope whatever fecking yacht it is (if that is what it is) is permanently banned from the village, along with the obviously incompetent captain. If it’s something else, fine the owner into oblivion. </rant>
Relics of the failed siege of the Ukrainian capital ‘show what happens when lessons of history are not learned’
A young woman takes a selfie in front of the burned-out carcass of a Russian armoured personnel carrier. A child eating an ice cream peers at the remains of a tank turret. A curious pensioner photographs the label on some mangled plane fuselage, which explains it belonged to a Russian Su-25, shot down by the Ukrainian military on 2 March.
Vladimir Putin doubtless envisioned a scenario in which Russian military hardware would stand on Kyiv’s central streets this spring, but he probably did not imagine it would look like this.
Here on Kriposnyi Lane, just a few minutes’ walk from the compound where Volodymyr Zelenskiy has spent the last three months evading reported Russian plans to kill him, Ukraine’s military history museum has opened a street exhibition of captured Russian hardware.
[…]
Across Kyiv, at the museum of the second world war, an even larger exhibition has opened, which is named Crucified Ukraine, and also features both captured hardware outside and a vast array of items chronicling the Russian occupation around Kyiv.
[…]
“Three days after the liberation, the museum staff set off on missions to collect artefacts, accompanied by the Ukrainian military,” said Dmytro Hainetdinov, head of the museum’s education department. [it’s unclear which museum Mr Hainetdinov works for –blf]
[…]
In the basement, the staff have recreated a shelter used by residents of the town of Hostomel, who spent more than a month below ground during the occupation. All the contents are original, from the blankets, teabags, salami and makeshift memorial plaque for a woman who died during the occupation.
The museum believes the artefacts are important to preserve for posterity, but also wants those Ukrainians who did not experience occupation to be able to see the horror for themselves. “Many people left for safer places, and are now returning, and happily, they did not have to experience these things first hand,” said Hainetdinov.
Upstairs, a television screen shows footage of Russian politicians, television hosts and ordinary citizens making derogatory statements about Ukrainians, in an attempt to show how such rhetoric can lay the groundwork for what has happened in recent months.
[…]
There are multiple images at the link.
blfsays
Re my rant at @350, It’s now c.08h30, and sometime in the last half-hour or so, that horrible racket has finally ended. Dunno exactly when as I’d managed to block the sick airhorn (thanks Horslips!). No idea (yet, anyway) on just what it was or why it kept going for something over 90mins, or who the feck will (hopefully) be severely fined, etc.
KGsays
blf@347,
But how can “bird flu” be real when birds aren’t real???
blfsays
KG@353, It’s the batteries either exploding or corroding.
Well, it was only a matter of time before someone started blaming the Covid-19 vaccines for the current ongoing monkeypox outbreak. After all, since early 2021, seemingly every time a new health problem has reached the news, some politicians, TV personalities, and anonymous social media accounts have tried to link the new problem back to the Covid-19 vaccines. For example, on May 1, I [Bruce Y Lee] covered for Forbes [Do Two ‘Studies’ Suggest Hepatitis Linked To Covid-19 Vaccines? Here’s What They Really Say] how some folks were trying to connect the hepatitis outbreak among children to Covid-19 vaccination. They were doing this despite the minor detail that many of these children didn’t even receive Covid-19 vaccines.
[… Alex] Jones, who by the way is not medical doctor or other type of scientist yet has peddled supplements and other health products, tried to somehow connect the monkeypox outbreak with Astra-Zeneca and Johnson & Johnson (J&J) Covid-19 vaccines. […] Jones’s primary argument was that the monkeypox outbreak has been affecting the same countries where people have been receiving the Astra-Zeneca and Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccines. Of course, that ain’t too compelling an argument. A lot has been going on in the 12 countries that have had monkeypox cases so far, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). For example, Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, UK, and the US all have places that serve hot dogs as well. Yet, frankly, you don’t seem to hear anyone wondering whether hot dogs may be the source of the monkeypox outbreak.
Jones went on to claim that these two Covid-19 vaccines are virus vectors that inject the genome of a chimpanzee in to your cells and then orders your cells to replicate under those orders. Umm, that would be correct except for the fact that it is completely wrong. [… T]he J&J vaccine doesn’t even use a chimpanzee adenovirus as Jones claimed and instead uses a human adenovirus. Both vaccines use non-replicating adenoviruses, meaning viruses that are not able to reproduce. Oh, and they don’t inject the genome of a chimpanzee in to your cells, as Jones claimed.
[… more babbling with snarky takedowns…]
blfsays
Follow-up to @345, which was dated before Ozland’s election: First Dog on the Moon (who is Olandish) in the Grauniad, Is it really true? Surely there is a false dawn! Are they really gone? Prime minister Albo! (cartoon). From the first panel (my transcription), “The huge cavern door rattles open and the voters of Australia emerge blinking into the sunlight — we have been too long in the rancid darkness. Enraged screeching echoes in the distance — the leathery wings of the vanquished flapping hysterically as they flee sun’s rays… it is done”.
Three months since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, one of the biggest surprises has been the inability of the Russian military to achieve some of its basic goals. One clear example: A failed attempt to cross the Donets river in eastern Ukraine earlier this month left hundreds of Russian soldiers dead. Its aftermath is raising doubts in Russia, even among the military’s most ardent supporters.
Guest: Anton Troianovski, the Moscow bureau chief for The New York Times.
2020 voter fraud conspiracy theories rebooted and remixed by Dinesh D’Souza. 2000 Mules is a “documentary” that garnered Dinesh praise from Donald Trump and caused a fight with Tucker Carlson’s production team. We explore the extremely shoddy claims made in the movie.
This week, Grace talks to Kojo Koram, lecturer in law at Birkbeck and author of several books, including The War on Drugs and the Global Colour Line. We discuss Mayor of London Sadiq Khan’s plan to conduct a review on the legalisation of cannabis, the roots of drugs criminalisation, the neoliberal roots of the war on drugs, and why decriminalisation will save lives.
In Episode 124 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues his deconstruction of the increasingly sinister, fascist-abetting politics of Noam Chomsky. In the latest in the endless litany of sycophantic interviews with Chomsky, this time from an outfit called EduKitchen, this supposed icon of the left actually praises Donald Trump for advocating appeasement of Putin in Ukraine—for which he was favorably tweeted by the inevitable Glenn Greenwald. Most perversely, the interview is entitled “Noam Chomsky on the Russia-Ukraine war, The Media, Propaganda, Orwell, Newspeak and Language.” Yet Chomsky is advocating positions that are utterly inimical to everything Orwell ever stood for. This constitutes an Orwellian exploitation of Orwell, mirroring Putin’s fascist pseudo-anti-fascism, and the pseudo-pacifist war propaganda of his Western enablers.
The Benin Bronzes are among the British Museum’s most prized possessions. Celebrated for their great beauty, they embody the history, myth and artistry of the ancient Kingdom of Benin, once West Africa’s most powerful, and today part of Nigeria. But despite the Bronzes’ renown, little has been written about the brutal imperial violence with which they were plundered. Paddy Docherty’s searing new history tells that story: the 1897 British invasion of Benin.
Armed with shocking details discovered in the archives, Paddy Docherty in his latest book Blood and Bronze: The British Empire and the Sack of Benin (Hurst, 2022) sets this assault in its late Victorian context. As British power faced new commercial and strategic pressures elsewhere, it ruthlessly expanded in West Africa. Revealing both the extent of African resistance and previously concealed British outrages, this is a definitive account of the destruction of Benin. Laying bare the Empire’s true motives and violent means, including the official coverup of grotesque sexual crimes, Docherty demolishes any moral argument for Britain retaining the Bronzes, making a passionate case for their immediate repatriation to Nigeria.
Teal Swan’s suicide-teasing trauma pseudo-therapy has cast a spell over millions. Kaia Ra is an up-and-coming contender, selling divine jewelry and a channeled text about how to transcend QAnon-type nightmares. Both claim to be survivors of long-term Satanic Ritual Abuse and alien ambassadors. Both have capitalized on the chaos of 2020.
We discuss the trend of trauma exploitation, Satanic Panics throughout the decades, and social media entertainment finding cover through the pretense of therapy….
#UKRAINE: Soldiers fighting on behalf of the entire world for #freedom perform the infamous #Bayraktar song.
Video at the link, sound and production quality is excellent.
In the comments there is a link to another performance of the song, also with excellent sound and production quality (albeit not as well staged), however, in that version, one short clip clearly shows a Russian desperately trying to exit their tank(?) as it is destroyed.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From there:
A court in Kyiv has sentenced a Russian soldier to life in prison for the killing of a Ukrainian civilian, in the first verdict in a trial related to war crimes carried out by the Russian army during its invasion of Ukraine.
Vadim Shishimarin, a 21-year-old sergeant, was found guilty of killing 62-year-old Oleksandr Shelipov in Sumy region during the first days of the invasion.
The verdict was delivered on Monday by the judge, Serhii Ahafonov, at a packed courtroom, with dozens of Ukrainian and foreign television cameras crammed into the small room.
The judge said although Shishimarin cooperated with the investigation and expressed remorse, the court could not accept his claim he had not meant to kill Shelipov when he fired at him.
Shishimarin, wearing a grey-and-blue hoodie, listened with his head bowed to the judge deliver his long verdict from inside the glass box for defendants. He was given a translation of the judge’s words from Ukrainian to Russian by a court-appointed translator.
It is the first in a number of war crimes cases that Ukraine prosecutors want to try as quickly as possible. Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, has said she is preparing more than 40 cases related to war crimes that could come to trial soon, and Ukrainian authorities say they have registered more than 10,000 war crimes across the country.
Trying cases so quickly, while the conflict is still ongoing, is extremely unusual and may violate elements of the Geneva conventions, legal experts say. However, Ukraine has made swift justice a priority, partly as a warning to Russian troops still occupying parts of the country that they may face justice for any crimes they commit.
Prosecutors said Shishimarin was in a car with other Russian soldiers, one of whom ordered him to shoot Shelipov, as he had been a witness to them shooting at a car and then stealing it.
US president Joe Biden said Russia must “pay a long-term price” for its “barbarism” in Ukraine in terms of sanctions imposed by the US and its allies….
I wish I could install something on the devices of every politician, journalist, and speechwriter that would automatically zap any references to “barbarism” or “savagery” or animal-based insults. Really, this has to stop.
Senior Russian diplomat at UN defects over war in Ukraine – reports
A Russian diplomat has resigned from his position in the United Nations, saying he has “never been so ashamed” of his country and condemning Vladimir Putin for his “aggressive war” against Ukraine, according to reports.
Boris Bondarev, a counsellor of the Russian mission to the UN office in Geneva, criticised the Russian foreign ministry – where he has worked for 20 years – for its increasing “level of lies and unprofessionalism”, the rights watchdog UN Watch reports.
In a statement shared by the organisation’s director, Hillel Neuer, Bondarev said:
For twenty years of my diplomatic career I have seen different turns of our foreign policy, but never have I been so ashamed of my country as on February 24 of this year. The affressive war unleashed by Putin against Ukraine, and in fact against the entire Western world, is not only a crime against the Ukrainian people, but also, perhaps, the most serious crime against the people of Russia, with a bold letter Z crossing our all hopes and prospects for a prosperous free society in our country.
Those who conceived this war want only one thing – to remain in power forever, live in pompous tasteless palaces, sail on yachts comparable in tonnage and cost to the entire Russian Navy, enjoying unlimited power and complete impunity. To achieve that they are willing to sacrifice as many lives as it takes. Thousands of Russians and Ukrainians have already died just for this.
He said the work of the foreign ministry had become “simply catastrophic” in recent years, adding:
Instead of unbiased information, impartial analysis and sober forecasting, there are propaganda cliches in the spirit of Soviet newspapers of the 1930s. A system has been built that deceives itself.
He was particularly critical of the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, who he said had gone from a “professional and educated intellectual” to becoming “a person who constantly broadcasts conflicting statements and threatens the world… with nuclear weapons”.
Bondarev added:
Today, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is not about diplomacy. It is all about warmongering, lies and hatred. It serves interests of few, the very few people thus contributing to further isolation and degradation of my country. Russia no longer has allies, and there is no one to blame but its reckless and ill-conceived policy.
He concluded by saying that he could no longer continue working for the foreign ministry and “shared in this bloody, witness and absolutely needless ignominy”.
Neuer said Bondarev was a “hero”, adding:
We are now calling on all other Russian diplomats at the United Nations—and worldwide—to follow his moral example and resign.
In a series of posts shared to social media platform Truth Social, Donald Trump reportedly urged Dr Mehmet Oz this week to declare victory against Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. “Dr Oz, you must not let the election officials steal the presidency from you,” said Trump, who called upon the Republican Senate primary candidate to “go to the Supreme Court” if officials tried to call the race in Biden’s favor. “This is the moment where you can really show your strength. Don’t let them cheat you out of this — you must do whatever it takes, President Oz, to hold on to this victory. The White House is yours.” […]
Lithuania has called for a naval coalition “of the willing” to lift the Russian Black Sea blockade on Ukrainian grain exports.
The Lithuanian foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, proposed the plan during talks with the UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, on Monday in London.
“Time is very very short. We are closing in on a new harvest and there is no other practical way of exporting the grain except through the Black Sea port of Odesa,” he told the Guardian.
There is no way of storing this grain and no other adequate alternative route. It is imperative that we show vulnerable countries we are prepared to take the steps that are needed to feed the world.
Landsbergis proposed that a naval escort operation – not run by Nato – could protect the grain ships as they headed through the Black Sea and past Russian warships. He suggested that, apart from Britain, countries that were affected by the potential loss of grain such as Egypt could provide the necessary protection.
What we have seen now is just the beginning. The worst is yet to come in the next five to seven weeks when the first harvest arrives and there is no place to put it, so that means people in northern Africa, the Middle East and south-east Asia will be paying exorbitant prices for wheat, corn and the other commodities they need to put food on their table.
…
Belarus’s army has begun checking its weaponry and logistics equipment to make sure they are combat-ready, the ministry of defence said, Reuters reports….
LOL.
Boris Bondarev, a counsellor of the Russian mission to the UN office in Geneva, has confirmed to Reuters that he has left his post on account of the war on Ukraine.
He has told the news agency:
I went to the mission like any other Monday morning and I forwarded my resignation letter and I walked out. I started to imagine this a few years ago but the scale of this disaster drove me to do it.
He told Reuters that he had raised his concerns about the invasion of Ukraine with senior embassy staff several times. “I was told to keep my mouth shut in order to avoid ramifications,” he said.
There has been no official comment yet from Russia on Bondarev’s departure.
(3) “After serving as France’s ambassador to the United Kingdom since 2019, Catherine Colonna has been named foreign minister. Only the second woman to hold the key post […]”.
(6) “Historian and expert on US minority rights Pap Ndiaye was named France’s new education minister, taking over from conservative Jean-Michel Blanquer. Ndiaye first gained national prominence with his 2008 work, ‘The Black Condition, an essay on a French minority’ and is an outspoken critic of systemic racism and discrimination.” Blanquer was a disaster (see various previous comments in this series of poppyhead threads), and education was one of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s main issues (rightly so).
(8) “Newly appointed Health Minister Brigitte Bourguignon replaces Olivier Véran, who helped guide France through the Covid-19 crisis and will now serve as minister for relations with parliament. Bourguignon previously served as deputy mayor of the town of Boulogne-sur-Mer where she was in charge of battling against the exclusion of handicapped people and infants (2001–2012).” Boulogne-sur-Mer is in the extreme NE of France, seemingly about as far away from the mildly deranged penguin as it is possible to get without leaving mainland France.
(10) “France’s new minister of social services, the elderly and the disabled, Damien Abad, was the head of the conservative Les Républicains party’s parliamentary group at the lower house National Assembly before joining Macron’s camp. Diagnosed with arthrogryposis, a rare condition that affects the joints, Abad became the first handicapped MP in 2012.” However, Newly appointed French minister Damien Abad denies rape accusations.
(11) “Sylvie Retailleau, who has a PhD in physics and is a former president of Paris-Sud University, has been nominated minister of higher education and research (replacing Frédérique Vidal). Her nomination has been hailed as a sign that Macron wants to get serious about revamping the research capacities of French universities.”
(14) “Yaël Braun-Pivet, the new minister for overseas territories, was first elected MP in 2017 shortly after Macron’s election. A former criminal lawyer, she served as head of the National Assembly’s prestigious Laws Commission. She has long been an advocate for prison reform and organised several penitentiary visits for her parliamentary colleagues. She even spent a night at the Bois d’Arcy prison in 2019 to ‘better understand’ what living and working there was like.” The French prison system is notoriously awful (albeit, I presume, better than (many?) States (or “U”K?) prisons)).
(15) “Newly appointed French Culture Minister Rima Abdul-Malak has long been a communications and cultural adviser to Macron but this is her first official government role (replacing Roselyne Bachelot). Born in Lebanon, Abdul-Malak arrived in France at the age of 10 and grew up in Lyon. After graduating from Sciences Po university she became involved with Clown sans frontières, a humanitarian-cultural organisation that aids victims of war and natural disasters, from 2001 to 2006. […]” According to French Ye Pffft! of All Knowledge (« Ye Pffft! de Toutes les Connaissances »(?)), she was also a Cultural Attaché at the French Embassy in Washington DC. (She apparently isn’t from the Muslim tradition, which would have been perhaps ideal — lots of lovely exploding-with-spittle-and-rage nutcases.)
blfsays
SC@362 snarks,”[W]hat are the odds of Florida getting hit by a major hurricane?”
According to hair furor, very unlikely: Hurricanes are shot from a big cannon in China, which borders the Pacific Ocean. To hit Florida, the hurricane would have to be in the Atlantic Ocean. The only way to get from the Pacific to the Atlantic is via the Panama Canal, which Carter sold off closing it to American shipping, so the hurricane would have to divert to the Suez Canal, which is blocked by a big sunken Chinese ship, meaning it’s trapped in the ice-filled Arctic Ocean. Unfortunately, the uppity people’s commune in S.Africa isn’t keeping the straight closed, so the hurricane might be able to sneak it via Obama’s secret moonbase on Mars. Hence the Space Force!
(I apologise for the above actually being coherent — hair furoriodisms of more than a syllieble are rather hard to do.)
blfsays
Snippets from the Meduza live blog (Meduza’s edits in {curly braces}):
A brave 11th grader in Dagestan
A high-schooler in Dagestan shouted an anti-war message at her school’s traditional end-of-year ceremony. A video that circulated on Russian social media shows the girl saying, “No to war! Freedom to Ukraine! Putin is a devil!” The school filed offense reports against the girl’s mother for failing to fulfill her parental duties while raising a minor and against the student herself for discrediting the Russian army. A video showing the girl and her mother apologizing for the incident later appeared on Telegram.
Another day, another rattling saber
Russia will put around 50 new Sarmat ballistic missiles on alert, according to Dmitry Rogozin, head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos. A video posted on Rogozin’s Telegram showed him walking around in a crater left behind by one of the missiles at a training site. With a nuclear charge, a crater like this on enemy ground will be, well, very large, very deep, and radioactive. All we can advise is for our aggressors to talk to Russia a bit more politely, said Rogozin.
Russia’s endgame
Prominent Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov shared a message on Telegram that explicitly describes the goal of Russia’s invasion as the removal of Ukrainian statehood. It’s not Ukraine we’re fighting against. Because Ukraine is a Nazi growth fostered by Polish, German, and American imperialists. This growth, like a brain tumor, eats away at people’s ability to remember and to think. {…} Today, we’re restoring a historic justice; we’re liberating part of Russia, Kyivan Rus, from the German, Anglo-Saxon, and European colonizers who captured it and whose arms are elbow-deep in the blood of the various peoples whom they don’t consider human.
A prominent philanthropist and seven other human rights activists have been found guilty in a Turkish court of charges related to the Gezi Park protests in 2013 and the failed coup attempt in 2016.
Sami Kent tells Michael Safi that laws intended to prosecute people charged with violently overthrowing the Turkish state have been used to criminalise non-violent protesters who opposed the government.
Among the eight defendants in court last month was the veteran architect and activist Mücella Yapıcı. We hear from her daughter Cansu Yapıcı about the conditions her mother faces in prison for her 18-year sentence. And from Hande Altinay, whose husband Hakan was also jailed for 18 years for his part in the protests.
The European court of human rights has said there was insufficient evidence he committed an offence, and that his arrest was an attempt to “silence him and dissuade other human rights defenders”.
The sentencing marks the Turkish authorities’ deepest and most public crackdown on dissent and freedom of assembly in the past decade and threatens to damage Turkish relations with Europe after heavy criticism of the marathon trial.
Amnesty International called the decision “a travesty of justice”, and said the trial was “a politically motivated charade”.
Newly appointed French Culture Minister Rima Abdul-Malak …became involved with Clown[s] sans frontières…
I don’t think I’d previously heard of this organization, “dont la mission est d’apporter à travers le rire et le spectacle, un soutien psychosocial aux enfants et aux populations victimes de crises humanitaires ou en situation de grande précarité.” I hope it’s humor and entertainment more broadly and not, like, actual clowns; kind of afraid to investigate…
A notorious Hungarian racist who has called Jews “stinking excrement”, referred to Roma as “animals” [gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah] and used racial epithets to describe Black people, was a featured speaker at a major gathering of US Republicans in Budapest.
Zsolt Bayer took the stage at the second day of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Hungary, a convention that also featured speeches from Donald Trump, Fox News host Tucker Carlson, and Trump’s former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows.
The last featured speaker of the conference was Jack Posobiec, a far-right US blogger who has used antisemitic symbols and promoted the fabricated “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory smearing prominent Democrats as pedophiles.
Bayer, a television talkshow host in Hungary, has been widely denounced for his racism. During the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, he wrote on his blog: “Is this the future? Kissing the dirty boots of fucking [racist epithet] and smiling at them? Being happy about this? Because otherwise they’ll kill you or beat you up?”
In 2011, he used the phrase “stinking excrement” to refer generically to Jews in England, and in 2013 wrote: “a significant part of the Roma are unfit for coexistence. They are not fit to live among people. These Roma are animals and they behave like animals.” [grr]
When he was awarded the Hungarian order of merit in 2016 by the country’s nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orbán, the star speaker on the first day of CPAC Hungary on Thursday, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum protested, saying it “reflects the longstanding refusal of the leadership of Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party to distance itself from Bayer, in spite of Bayer’s repeated pattern of racist, xenophobic, antisemitic, and anti-Roma incitement”.
At the CPAC event on Friday, he appeared on stage with a prominent rightwing Hungarian screenwriter talking about gender issues. Bayer focused on deriding Calvin Klein for political correctness, comparing a 2009 ad featuring a white supermodel, whom Bayer called “a very hot woman”, with a 2019 ad featuring the Black rapper Chika who he described as “not so hot”, adding: “it’s clear that this ad was born under the aegis of Black Lives Matter”.
Addressing the conference by video shortly before Bayer’s appearance, Trump poured compliments on Orbán, who was recently elected for a fourth term as prime minister.
“He is a great leader, a great gentleman, and he just had a very big election result. I was very honored to endorse him,” Trump said.
The US thinktank Freedom House has downgraded its assessment of Hungary to being a “partly free” society under Orbán and the Fidesz party, noting “constitutional and legal changes that have allowed it to consolidate control over the country’s independent institutions, including the judiciary”.
It also criticised the government for anti-immigrant, anti-LGBT+ policies and curbs on the independent media universities and NGOs.
Orbán, like many American Republicans, has embraced the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, which involves promoting the belief that the white population is being deliberately reduced by leftist policies and diluted by immigration….
“Meanwhile on Russian state TV: head of RT Margarita Simonyan predicts that either Russia will win against Ukraine, or ‘things will end badly for all of humanity’. Simonyan, who studied in the US, tells Russians they should be rejoicing their children will never study in the West….”
Video with subtitles at the (Twitter) link.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 369
To paraphrase Douglas Adams: Charming fellow. I was I had a child so I can forbid them to marry him.
The Tankies [“Tankies” believe that all the world’s evils are the product of imperialism and the only country capable of imperialism is the United States] have long demanded Ukraine give Russia some of its territory for “peace,” really concerned for Vladimir Putin’s ability to “save face.” Apparently, it’s very important for bullies to get what they want. […] The New York Times editorial board claimed that a “decisive military victory for Ukraine over Russia, in which Ukraine regains all the territory Russia has seized since 2014, is not a realistic goal.” Of course, it is absolutely a realistic goal, yet they proclaimed that “If the conflict does lead to real negotiations, it will be Ukrainian leaders who will have to make the painful territorial decisions that any compromise will demand.” Why should they? Why not offer up Alaska to Russia to salve their wounded pride?
[…] what they’re really saying, as the NY Times did, is that allies “should also make clear to President Volodymyr Zelensky and his people that there is a limit to how far the United States and NATO will go to confront Russia, and limits to the arms, money and political support they can muster. It is imperative that the Ukrainian government’s decisions be based on a realistic assessment of its means and how much more destruction Ukraine can sustain.”
How magnanimous of the NY Times editorial board to decide for President Joe Biden and Congress what kind of aid to send, and how much of its own destruction Ukraine should be able to tolerate. Did I say “magnanimous”? I meant arrogant.
The proper response to that pile of bullshit was “fuck you,” but Ukraine was far more diplomatic:
Today, any concession to Russia is not a path to peace, but a war postponed for several years. Ukraine trades neither its sovereignty, nor territories and Ukrainians living on them. It’s a pity that we have to explain such simple things to such reputable media as @nytimes
The myth of Russia’s military supremacy lives, and too many people refuse to acknowledge what we’ve seen on the battlefield for nearly three months—an inept, crumbling, ineffective army that can’t manage more than a few kilometers of gains here and there. Indeed, for the second straight day, despite Russia’s breakthrough at Popasna last week, this was the daily battlefield report: [map at the link, shows “no notable changes to control since the last update”]
Ukraine’s General Staff acknowledged the stalemate by claiming that Russia was “creating conditions” for resuming their offensive. In other words, consolidating forces, resupplying those troops, developing new defensive entrenchments to defend those gains, and fortifying supply lines. That’s also what Ukraine said about Russian forces stuck outside of Kyiv, Russian forces stuck in the Izyum salient, Russian forces down in Kherson, etc. Russia is always resupplying and preparing for new offensives, yet it seldom manages to execute on them.
Is past Russian ineptness proof of future Russian ineffectiveness? Of course not. That entire Donbas line is under intense artillery pressure alongside endless (and suicidal) charges. The sheer weight of that artillery tonnage is likely to lead to additional tactical breakthroughs here and there. But every day Russia fails to advance, losing forces to Ukraine’s defenders, is one day closer to Russia’s culmination—the inflection point in which Russia’s army will no longer be able to wage offensive operations.
We see that already in the south, where Russia has spent more energy and time digging new defensive emplacements than in trying to push into new Ukrainian-held territory. We’re seeing it north of Kharkiv, where Russia seems focused on establishing a buffer zone at its border, keeping Ukrainian artillery out of range of Belgerod, Russia, and the logistical hub at Vovchansk, than in recapturing territory it lost in recent weeks close to Kharkiv. We’re seeing it around Izyum, where Russia is fiercely resisting a low-key Ukrainian counter-offensive to the salient’s west, with few efforts to push out of its existing positions.
And it might not be long before we see it on the main Donbas front, particularly if the offensives against Severodonetsk and Lysychansk lose steam. Or maybe even of they capture them. There’s no way Russian forces have the juice to challenge the bigger and better-defended strongholds at Slovyansk and Kramatorsk. [map at the link]
Within the next 4-6 weeks, if not sooner, I fully expect Russia’s offensive operations to fizzle, and for a transition to a full defensive posture. Putin will declare victory, claiming all he ever really wanted was a land bridge to Crimea. And then he’ll demand negotiations to cement that new status quo, much like 2014 cemented Crimea and the separatist Donbas regions as Russian territory.
But why would Ukraine do that, as new armored brigades come online, and the overall size of its armed forces swells from 700,000 today, to over 1 million in a couple of months? What makes the NY Times think that recapturing Russian-held territory is so unrealistic, when Ukraine has already pushed Russia out from over half of the territory it captured at the start of the war, prior to receiving critical offensive weapons from the West?
Ultimately, Ukraine will decide if and when to head back to the negotiating table. But given the atrocities Russia has committed, compounded by its eliminationist genocidal talk, Ukraine is more than willing to suffer horrendous casualties (50-100 dead Ukrainian servicemembers per day on the Donbas front, according the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy) in order to defend its freedom. For Ukraine, the war is existential, and freezing the conflict in place will only guarantee it will need to be rekindled again in the future. There is no scenario in which Russia willingly surrenders Kherson, Crimea, Mariupol, or the pieces of the Donbas it still holds. Why let Russia rebuild its army and fix its operational defects? Why scare off potential foreign investment out of fear of continued war? Ukraine really has no choice. Now is the time to press its advantage.
If the West wants the war the end faster, there’s one way to accomplish that: speed up deliveries of the heavy weaponry Ukraine needs to liberate its territory. The sooner Ukraine can stand up new offensive units, the sooner we can get to the part everyone is desperately waiting for: peace, reconstruction, and the return of normalcy for the Ukrainian people.
As of today we are totally independent from Russian gas, oil and electricity. It is a mission possible✌️
rorschachsays
blf @356,
note his last sentence: “Good riddance you jabbering ghouls”.
Progressive Australia’s sentiment exactly.
It is the equivalent of McConnell, Paul, MTG, LB, and another 15 GQP ghouls being voted out. And replaced by 15/17 progressive women. I don’t even live there anymore, but I cried all Saturday night., Because it is true, if the theocratic kleptocrats had been returned to office, Oz would have been irredeemably fucked. The conservatives’ answer so far seems to be to elect the chief ghoul their new leader, and lurch even further to the right, because the problem was that they were not fascist enough to begin with. Good luck with that.
Republicans want us to believe there’s an “open borders” policy. They also keep talking about drugs seized at the border. Both points can’t be true.
It was last fall when Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee, published an odd tweet complaining about U.S. officials seizing illegal drugs trying to enter the country. She wrote, “899 lbs of fentanyl and 15,631 lbs of methamphetamine were seized at the southern border in October [2021] alone.” McDaniel added, “We need border security!”
There was, however, an obvious disconnect between the former point and the latter: If U.S. official at the U.S./Mexico border seized these drugs, it means we already have a fair amount of border security.
Nevertheless, as we’ve discussed, the contradiction didn’t get in the way of the party’s messaging. In February, McDaniel’s RNC pushed the same line: “Illicit drugs are flowing into the country at an alarming rate because of Biden’s open border. 839 pounds of deadly fentanyl was seized at the southern border in January alone.”
Again, the cognitive dissonance went ignored. If there’s an open border, how were the drugs seized?
Last night, the RNC pushed the message once more.
11,007 pounds of methamphetamine was seized at the southern border in April alone!
It came on the heels of Republican Rep. Pat Fallon of Texas publishing a tweet late last week that read, “Last month saw OVER 50,000lbs of illegal drugs seized at our southern border. But don’t worry, the border is being ‘effectively managed.’”
Is it possible we’re overdue for a conversation about what Republicans think “seized“ means?
[…] It was last summer when Republican Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona complained via Twitter, “Under Joe Biden, enough fentanyl to kill 238 million Americans was seized at the southern border last month. Where’s the outrage in the media?”
It was hard not to wonder whether the congressman — up until recently, the chair of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus — had thought this through. Why would anyone in the United States, other than drug dealers, complain about officials seizing fentanyl at the border? Biggs asked about the missing outrage, leading to the obvious question as to why anyone would be outraged that U.S. officials had successfully done their jobs.
[…] Around the same time, a variety of other GOP lawmakers — South Carolina’s Ralph Norman, Texas’ Brian Babin, Texas’ Beth Van Duyne, Texas’ August Pfluger — all criticized the Biden administration over fentanyl shipments seized at the border.
Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa also highlighted fentanyl shipments that have been seized by Customs and Border Patrol, adding, “Welcome to President Biden’s America.”
In President Biden’s America, officials seizing illicit drug shipments before they reach the United States? That’s a bad thing?
As we’ve discussed, criminals have tried to smuggle illegal drugs into the country for many years. It’s happened during Republican administrations; it’s happened during Democratic administrations. Criminals have focused their efforts on the southern border, the northern border, ports, and even airports. The United States’ system of defense is far from perfect, but a dedicated group of professionals do their best to stop the shipments before they reach American streets.
That is, of course, what most Americans — again, excluding drug dealers — want them to do.
For Republicans to routinely criticize the seizures is quite weird. In fact, common sense suggests GOP officials should focus attention elsewhere, since the seizures disprove one of the party’s favorite talking points: If the president had implemented an “open border” policy, as the RNC keeps claiming, then the Biden administration wouldn’t have stopped these shipments before they entered the country.
[…] Last fall, White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates asked via Twitter, “Wait, Republicans are now attacking us for stopping fentanyl trafficking?” Months later, it remains a good question.
In the final months of the Trump administration, then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner spent quite a bit of time in the Middle East, ostensibly in support of a program called the Abraham Fund, which would finance projects in the region. On the surface, this wouldn’t seem especially notable.
But just below the surface, there’s a lot more to this.
As The New York Times reported in a detailed new piece, the Abraham Fund proved to be little more than a mirage: After Donald Trump left the White House, the fund ceased to be. But wouldn’t you know it, after the Abraham Fund evaporated, Mnuchin and Kushner also launched private funds that sought to raise money from many of the same folks — most notably in Saudi Arabia.
In fact, the duo didn’t just seek the money, they received it: Soon after leaving office, Mnuchin’s private venture received a $1 billion commitment from the main Saudi sovereign wealth fund, on top of other investments from other Middle Eastern countries. Kushner secured a $2 billion investment with the Saudis — even after those responsible for helping oversee the Saudi sovereign wealth fund concluded that such a commitment was a very bad idea.
[…] There’s ample reason to be concerned about services rendered and the degree to which Mnuchin and Kushner abused their official positions.
On the former, let’s not forget just how eager Team Trump was to cozy up to Riyadh. […] Trump’s first foreign trip while in office was to Saudi Arabia. When Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman imprisoned other members of the royal family, Trump announced his support for the move. When the Saudis imposed a blockade on U.S. allies in Qatar, Trump endorsed this, too. When the U.S. had evidence of bin Salman approving the operation that killed Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Trump boasted that he came to the crown prince’s rescue and shielded him from consequences.
Kushner was responsible, at least in part, for helping shape the administration’s policy, making at least three trips to Saudi Arabia during his father-in-law’s first year in the White House. (Oddly enough, the actual total might be more: One of Kushner’s trips was kept private and only came to public attention after his return.)
Then, as his father-in-law’s term wound down, Kushner […] made a series of additional trips to the Middle East, meeting with representatives of countries his newly formed private equity firm would soon approach for substantial financial investments.
[…] Kushner even hired many of the same officials who worked on the U.S.-backed Abraham Fund to join his private-sector Affinity Partners firm.
[…] The timeline is also of interest: By January 2021, Kushner and Mnuchin knew their time in office was nearly over. But as some of their colleagues plotted to overturn the results of the 2020 election, these two apparently had no qualms about engaging in official foreign travel to countries they would soon hit up for cash.
Complicating matters, of course, is the fact that Trump may yet try to reacquire power, adding an additional corrupt dimension to this. When the Saudis wrote sizable checks to Kushner and Mnuchin, they not only might have been rewarding the Americans for their pro-Saudi work, they might also have been thinking ahead about possible opportunities to come in the event of a second Trump term.
[…] nearly half of the Republican legislators in closely contested battleground states have used the power of their office to discredit or try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Right. That’s really bad. What do they intend to do with the 2024 presidential race?
In other political news, Pennsylvania, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman was released from the hospital. He was treated for a stroke. “I am feeling great, but per my doctor’s orders, and Gisele’s orders, I am going to continue to rest and recover,” he said. Gisele is his wife. Five days ago, Fetterman won the Democratic U.S. Senate primary in Pennsylvania.
The usual Trump nastiness, as summarized by Steve Benen:
With Mike Pence campaigning in Georgia today in support of incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp, Donald Trump’s team took an unusually pointed shot at the former vice president. “Mike Pence was set to lose a governor’s race in 2016 before he was plucked up and his political career was salvaged,” Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich told The New York Times. “Now, desperate to chase his lost relevance, Pence is parachuting into races, hoping someone is paying attention.”
[…] Tesla’s run up in value has been heavily driven by individual investors. And beyond that it’s been driven by a whole ecosystem of derivatives and financial instruments based on Tesla’s stock. This is sometimes called the “Tesla Financial Complex” or the “Tesla derivatives ecosystem.” I’m not even going to try to explain precisely how that works. […]
Another factor is Musk’s own social media presence and the Musk cult which is wildly powerful on various social media platforms but especially on Twitter. And then there’s bots. There is a small cottage industry of researchers who have demonstrated that an army of bot accounts on Twitter have played a pivotal role in building up the cult of Tesla and the cult of Musk, and thus playing a key role in driving up the company’s stock price. That in turn has provided a lot of the fuel driving the popularity of Tesla and Musk among individual investors.
Who’s running these bots? Who knows.
Here is where I should draw back and tell you what I hope is obvious: nothing I’m saying here is remotely new or anything I’ve discovered. I’m just dipping into conversations that have been going on for years in the tech, automative and financial industry press. Many of you are probably totally familiar with what I’ve described above. It’s just that I wasn’t aware of it. Or I wasn’t aware of the sheer scale and speed of the run up that isn’t really explained by the performance or even potential of the company or what seems like a bubble creating apparatus which has been built up around it. [chart available at the link]
That all seems more interesting and relevant because as the richest man in the world he appears increasingly focused on leveraging his wealth into political and informational power. Just this last weekend he flew to Brazil to meet with the country’s floundering, fascist-curious President, Jair Bolsonaro. [aiyiyiiyiyiyi]
When Musk announced his plans to purchase Twitter and leaned into his current romance with the far right I was continually struck by a simple irony: unlike so many other ‘fake it till you make it’ tech stars whose companies are driven by network effects razzmatazz and hype, Musk’s companies make real things that people use. The cars run and people seem to like them. The rockets take off and actually land. For all the viral videos you see about Tesla cars catching fire, these points are clearly true. But the more I learned about Tesla and thus Musk’s fortune and current globe-bestriding power, Tesla started to seem less like an auto manufacturer and more like a particularly high-flying meme-stock.
So many of the details here are beyond my knowledge or expertise that I’ve intentionally kept much of this general. How much of the run up of Tesla’s stock was bubble and how much was real? The stock price has fallen almost 40% since late March? Is it now down to a reasonable price? No idea on any of these fronts. But given the vast power and wealth Musk wields, I wanted you to have some general awareness of the basis of Musk’s wealth and the questions about it.
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), vice chair of the Jan. 6 Select Committee, condemned former President Trump’s election steal scheme that led to the deadly Capitol insurrection as she accepted the John F. Kennedy Profile In Courage Award on Sunday night.
In her speech, Cheney noted that every former president “except one” honored the “sacred obligation to defend the peaceful transfer of power.”
Cheney then issued a dire warning about an unprecedented “threat” the former president still poses in his efforts to delegitimize the democratic process with his election fraud falsehoods.
“As we face a threat we have never faced before — a former president attempting to unravel our constitutional republic — at this moment we must all summon the courage to stand against that,” Cheney said.
Cheney also urged against allowing “partisan politics” to stand in the way of democracy.
“The question for every one of us is in this time of testing, will we do our duty, will we defend our Constitution, will we stand for truth, will we put duty to our oath above partisan politics?” Cheney said.
“Or will we look away from danger, ignore the threat, embrace the lies and enable the liar?” Cheney continued.
Cheney’s remarks come weeks before the committee investigating the events surrounding Jan. 6 is scheduled to hold several public hearings in June, according to reports.
Committee members have told reporters they aim to outline the narrative of the Capitol insurrection as Trump and his allies unlawfully attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
The first hearing will reportedly function as a birds-eye view summary of the committee’s investigative work over the course of the last 10 months, focusing on key findings the panel plans to dig into in further detail at later hearing dates, all reportedly set to take place during primetime hours.
“We looked at, essentially, the comprehensive story that we have to tell, and we divided it up into chapters that will allow for the unfolding of the narrative, and we hope that it will make sense to people,” another committee member, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), told CBS News last month.
SC @371, that sound like, “Let Russia win in Ukraine or Russia will blow up the entire planet.” I am really tired of the bullying threats coming out of Russia.
blf @356, that was great cartoon! “Schadenfreude beyond our wildest dreams.”
Fourteen Texas Republican lawmakers are already planning their next move against abortion access in a post-Roe United States. They’re going to introduce bills going after corporations that pay for abortion in states where it is legal, barring companies from offering health insurance that covers abortion, and even potentially involving criminal charges against executives […]
Responding to an announcement by Lyft CEO Logan Green that the company will cover costs for some of its employees forced to travel more than 100 miles for abortion care as well as covering legal fees for drivers sued under abortion vigilante laws, the Texas Republicans wrote, “The state of Texas will take swift and decisive action if you do not immediately rescind your recently announced policy to pay for the travel expenses of women who abort their unborn children.”
[…] If Texas Republicans pass this law, they’re going to be attacking many of the same companies they’ve bragged about drawing to their state. When Tesla announced it would move its headquarters to Austin, Gov. Gregg Abbott attributed the move to CEO Elon Musk seeing the state as a place for innovation and transformation. “He knows he has a better ability to do that in Texas with the freedoms that we offer him, with the low costs that we offer him, than he does in other places, like California,” Abbott said.
[…] The backdrop of all of this, though, is the determination of Republican lawmakers in Texas and other states to make pregnant people suffer, placing the state’s control of pregnant bodies above every other priority. It’s already working. It’s not enough for them.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 373
“Tankies” believe that all the world’s evils are the product of imperialism and the only country capable of imperialism is the United States..
I always thought “Tankie” referred to authoritarian socialists who praised the old Soviet Union and the PRC. Granted, I suppose there is probably a lot of overlap with that group and the ones those who constantly blame “U.S. Imperialism” for all the world’s problems.
Pictures released showing PM drinking at No 10 leaving do during lockdown in November 2020
ITV News’ Paul Brand has obtained photographs of Boris Johnson drinking at a Downing Street event that looks very much like a party.
The pictures were taken at a leaving do for Lee Cain, the PM’s director of communications, on 13 November 2020.
The images will fuel claims that Johnson was lying when he told MPs more than a year later that all the Covid guidance was followed in Downing Street and that people abided by the rules.
Photos at the link. They’re trying to deny it was a party, but it was quite plainly a party.
Maria Zakharova says idea book is about totalitarianism is one of the biggest global fakes, in claim disputed by Russian translator
[…]
For many years we believed that Orwell described the horrors of totalitarianism. This is one of the biggest global fakes … Orwell wrote about the end of liberalism. He depicted how liberalism would lead humanity to a dead end, Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson for Russia’s foreign ministry, said during a public talk in Ekaterinburg on Saturday.
Published in 1949, the book is seen as a cautionary tale warning of the consequences of totalitarianism and mass surveillance. Orwell is believed to have modelled the totalitarian government depicted in the novel on Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia.
Zakharova had been asked by a member of the public how to respond to friends and relatives abroad when they suggested that Russia was living in a modern-day replay of Orwell’s novel.
Orwell did not write about the USSR, it wasn’t about us, she said. He wrote about the society in which he lived, about the collapse of the ideas of liberalism. And you were made to believe that Orwell wrote it about you. Zakharova suggested the audience member tell her relatives abroad: It’s you in the west who live in a fantasy world where a person can be cancelled.
Russia’s aggressive state media campaign to justify its invasion of Ukraine has drawn comparisons to Nineteen Eighty-Four and its most celebrated line: “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”
[…]
Despite, or perhaps because of, Moscow’s efforts, sales of Nineteen Eighty-Four have risen sharply in Russia recently, with one marketplace saying they had witnessed a 75% increase.
There has also been anecdotal evidence that Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine have turned to Nineteen Eighty-Four. […]
Viktor Golyshev, a prominent linguist who translated the novel into Russian, disputed Zakharova’s assertions and said the novel was “not at all” about the decline of liberalism.
“I think it is a novel about a totalitarian state. When he wrote it, totalitarian states were already in decline, but between the first and second world wars, half of Europe had totalitarian governments. At the time there was no decline of liberalism, not at all,” the translator said.
[…]
Across the border in Belarus, itself subjected to a crackdown on civil society and freedom of speech, authorities last week banned Nineteen Eighty-Four and local publishers were instructed to withdraw it from their shelves.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has been urged to investigate why Boris Johnson was not fined for the event at which he was pictured apparently raising a toast and drinking sparkling wine.
The Lib Dem deputy leader, Daisy Cooper, has written to IOPC director general Michael Lockwood about the issue after photographs obtained by ITV News were published.
The prime minister received a fixed-penalty notice (FPN) over a birthday party in the Cabinet Room in June 2020 but was told he would face no further action over other gatherings covered by the Metropolitan police’s Operation Hillman inquiry….
The Arizona primaries are August 2, and it’s gonna be a long hot summer of crazy for the GOP candidates. FiveThirtyEight rates this year’s election for governor as a toss-up. Perhaps that’s because the potential nominee is MAGA kook and Big Lie promoter Kari Lake, who doesn’t shy away from publicly revealing how terrible she is.
Lake was incensed that Sports Illustrated put a model on its cover who is larger than a size zero. She ranted, “To try to act like that’s the epitome of health is just crazy. To tell our boys in school that they can be girls and vice versa … ”
So, last week, Yumi Nu was revealed as a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover model. Nu is Asian American and curvy. This apparently drove some fools crazy, specifically Jordan Peterson, who tweeted, “Sorry. Not beautiful. And no amount of authoritarian tolerance is going to change that.” He’d responded to a photo of Nu looking beautiful, which visibly undercut his point. However, no one’s forcing Peterson to find Nu attractive. All so-called “authoritarian tolerance” demands is that people like Peterson recognize that they aren’t the sole arbiters of taste.
It’s not clear why Lake combined her fatphobia with transphobia in some twisted Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of bigotry. However, she’s not about to sit back and let curvy women exist in peace.
LAKE: It’s insane and we’re not going to play into it anymore. We’re not going to sit idly by and be quiet, and put our hands on our lap, and follow Miss Manners rules anymore. We’re gonna get out there and do some guerrilla warfare.
This is what Lake seems to think we must stand up against. [Photo at the link]
The MAGA life is so empty that even this inoffensive cover fuels their grievance fires. Miss Manners hasn’t really commented on swimsuit magazine etiquette, but even if she did, Lake won’t listen. She’s going full-out guerrilla warfare against human decency and basic respect for others.
LAKE: We’re gonna come out and vote. We’re coming out swinging. And we’re gonna save this country. We’re starting here in Arizona because Joe Biden is a nightmare. I’m glad to hear that Elon [Musk]’s not voting for him.
President Joe Biden has nothing to do with Sports Illustrated swimsuit covers. That’s not within his scope of work. Elon Musk is MAGA’s new “it” boy, but his mother, Maye, is actually one of the four cover models. (The others are Kim Kardashian and Ciara.)
We get it, though: A curvy woman of color doesn’t meet the fascist aesthetic. True art bears the graven image of the mad MAGA king, Donald Trump. Lake announced this weekend on social media that “when” she wins the governor’s race, she’ll hang this ugly-ass portrait of Trump in the executive’s office. […] pathetic. [tweet and image at the link]
Lake is still the frontrunner for the GOP nomination because the party is a fascist dumpster fire. She has vowed to ban critical race theory and the teaching of sex education before fifth grade. If elected governor, she wouldn’t have much sway over who Sports Illustrated puts on its swimsuit covers, but she would take charge of the state’s elections. She might declare Trump the winner of Arizona’s electoral votes in 2024 before the polls even close.
Her campaign is an existential threat to democracy. We miss when we could just dunk on her for being an asshole.
KGsays
Why not offer up Alaska to Russia to salve their wounded pride? – Lynna, OM, quoting Daily Kos@373
Well, wouldn’t that have some advantages? :-p
blfsays
@373 &@383, On “tankie”, I myself thought it was a relatively recent invention but have never been too sure whom it refers to, other then it being some sort of an insult, mostly(?) applied to pro-Putin people. Whilst it is such an insult, it’s also a rather old term, Ye Pfffft! of Knowledge says:
Tankie is a pejorative label for communists, particularly Stalinists, who support the authoritarian tendencies of Marxism–Leninism. The term was originally used by dissident Marxist–Leninists to describe members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who followed the party line of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Specifically it was used to distinguish party members who spoke out defending Soviet use of tanks to crush the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and later the 1968 Prague Spring uprising, or more broadly, those who adhered to pro-Soviet positions in general.
The term is also used to describe people who endorse, defend, or deny mistakes and crimes committed by authoritarian left-wing leaders (e.g. Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong and Kim il-Sung). Members of the anti-Stalinist left utilize the word to describe those who are perceived to be biased in favour of authoritarian states (e.g. the People’s Republic of China and Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) that are currently ruled by nominally communist parties.
However, that entry does not seem to mention Putin’s war in Ukraine and the recent usage, so there may be additional nuances in the current situation. Even so, “endorse, defend, or deny mistakes and crimes committed by authoritarian[s]” does appear to be very close to the current usage.
For the last several months, homophobic and transphobic jackasses have just been screaming their heads off about how they believe teachers are teaching kids about the existence of LGBTQ people as a ruse to molest them. Not only do they have no proof of this, but they have yet to even find one example of this happening. Clearly they just can’t fathom a situation in which anyone would suggest that all people are worthy of respect and kindness without it being a nefarious plot of some kind.
But as usual, the “groomers” — and literal sexual abusers — were calling from inside the house. Or in this case, the churches. Following a damning investigation of sexual abuse claims within the church by the Houston Chronicle and pressure from sexual abuse survivors and their supporters, the deeply conservative Southern Baptist Convention voted last year to allow an independent investigation into the the abuse going on in the church and the way reports of the abuse have been mishandled by church leaders and the SBC’s Executive Committee (EC). This is hardly surprising given that one of those being accused of sexual abuse is former SBC President Johnny Hunt.
Now, that report has been published by Guidepost Solutions, and it details a harrowing 20 years of survivors being ignored and intimidated by senior EC leaders, and being told the SBC couldn’t do anything because their churches are autonomous. Abusers — including convicted child molesters — were able to continue in ministry and go from church to church without anyone being made aware of their history, all to prevent the SBC from liability and bad press.
In one internal email from Executive Committee member August Boto, survivors and their advocates were described as being part of Satan’s evil scheme to keep them from doing evangelism.
“This whole thing should be seen for what it is. It is a satanic scheme to completely distract us from evangelism,” he wrote. “It is not the gospel. It is not even a part of the gospel. It is a misdirection play. Yes, Christa Brown [a survivor] and Rachael Denhollander [a survivor advocate] have succumbed to an availability heuristic because of their victimizations. They have gone to the SBC looking for sexual abuse, and of course, they found it. Their outcries have certainly caused an availability cascade (just like Lois Gibbs did in the Love Canal example). But they are not to blame. This is the devil being temporarily successful.”
Ah yes, Satan. Always trying to out sex predators and stop people from getting sick from toxic waste.
Complainants were also told the SBC couldn’t possibly maintain a list of all of the people who had been reported to them as abusers, because it wasn’t their job to control who churches hire as ministers, because each SBC church is independent and autonomous. However, they seem to have had no problem cracking down whenever a church ordained a female minister or “endorsed homosexuality.”
They also had no problem actually maintaining such a list. A staffer working for Mr. Boto maintained a detailed list of hundreds of accusations, “including the minister’s name, year reported, relevant news articles, state, and denomination.” The most recent list included “703 abusers, with 409 believed to be SBC-affiliated at some point in time.” They just did not share that information with churches who might hire said ministers.
They might have, if they had taken sexual abuse and child molestation half as seriously as they pretend to take it when using it as a cudgel to attack LGBTQ people. And they might have prevented some people from being abused in the process. That sure would have been nice.
Hopefully, for the sake of those within the church, this will lead to significant changes with regard to the way sexual assault allegations are handled within churches in the Southern Baptist Convention.
The fact that anyone is unhoused in the United States is a structural failing and should bring elected officials on all sides of the political aisle a good deal of shame. People living in unsafe conditions anywhere in one of the wealthiest countries in the world is uniquely unacceptable, and yet as I type this, we all know there are tons of unhoused people, including veterans, disabled people, children, pregnant people, and folks living with chronic mental and physical health conditions, among others.
And yet Republicans can’t help but handle the problem by trying to punish and criminalize the experience of being homeless. One example comes to us from Tennessee, which is set to become the first state in the nation to make it a felony to camp in parks and other public property spaces, as reported by the Associated Press. The law, which goes into effect on July 1, 2022, will serve one purpose: It will make unhoused folks felons. It will do no good.
How will the law work in practice? It’s important to keep in mind that it’s already a felony to camp on most state-owned property in Tennessee, as of legislation that went into effect back in 2020, so this is essentially an expansion of the existing law. In this case, unhoused folks must be notified at least 24 hours before being arrested. Because it’s a felony charge, the long-term ramifications are incredibly steep: up to six years in prison and the loss of the right to vote. The law also makes it a misdemeanor for someone to solicit or camp along highways in the state.
[…] even if the law is rarely enforced, it could easily still be harmful to people who are already most vulnerable when it comes to law enforcement and the court system, like Black unhoused folks and sex workers, for example.
Bobby Watts, who serves as the CEO of the National Healthcare for the Homeless Council, told the Associated Press in an interview that this law will do “nothing” to solve the homeless crisis, and in fact, will only make it worse.
“Having a felony on your record makes it hard to qualify for some types of housing,” Watts explained. “Harder to get a job, harder to qualify for benefits.”
He went on to add that housing subsidies and social services aimed at unhoused veterans have helped reduce the number of homeless vets in the last decade, saying it’s “not magic” that helping people access safe, stable, and secure housing will help keep people off the streets. […]
Again: This approach working makes perfect sense. Many shelters have had to limit capacity because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which hasn’t helped matters, but it’s also true that some unhoused folks don’t want to be in a shelter. This can be because of criminal records, immigration concerns, substance use, paranoia or distrust linked to mental health issues, shelters not allowing pets, and other concerns.
Unhoused folks are as diverse and varied as everyone else, and do not lose the right to their preferences and priorities just because they are unhoused. Obviously, the solution is not to simply shrug and say, “Well, if you don’t like the shelter, we give up on you,” which is essentially what these felony threats serve to do.
[…] research has shown that more than half of the sheltered unhoused adult population of working age (under 65 but over 18) worked at some point in the year of data collection (2010), and about 40% of unsheltered unhoused people worked as well. Another way of contextualizing this data: The people you see sleeping in their cars, on benches, or asking for money at the traffic light? You might also see them working or in the classroom. The idea that homeless people are homeless because they are “lazy” or “irredeemable” is simply classist and hateful.
It sounds to me like Tennessee is just trying to push the unhoused people into neighboring states.
KGsays
As blf@389 says, “Tankie” was originally aimed at western Communist Party members who supported the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. It became a more general term for those who slavishly followed the Moscow line during Soviet times. But a surprising number of Tankies and fellow-travellers have maintained the Moscow allegiance despite the disintegration of the USSR (usually combined with a fondness for the Chinese regime which is at least still run by a nominally Communist party); and justify the Putin-worship, if at all, with the line that American imperialism is just so much more powerful and evil than anything else in the world that anyone or anything that opposes it must be supported. And since those people, if not explicitly supporting Putin’s invasion, are desperate to excuse it, and to refocus attention on the evils of NATO and of supplying arms to Ukraine to fight Russian tanks, the name has gained new relevance.
he Sixth Amendment to the Constitution is the latest casualty of a rogue U.S. Supreme Court, with the radical extremists deciding that no, not everyone really is entitled to competent legal defense and once again overturning Supreme Court precedent to do it. The court, 6-3, ruled that federal judges cannot hear new evidence from death row inmates arguing that their state-appointed lawyers did not provide constitutionally adequate defense.
[Leah Litman] UGH UGH UGH. The upshot of this decision: If the state appoints you a lawyer who is constitutionally ineffective at your trial; and then appoints you ANOTHER lawyer who is constitutionally ineffective to argue your trial lawyer was ineffective … you’re screwed.
This, as University of Texas law professor Lee Kovarsky argues […] will particularly hurt indigent defendants—those who have to rely on public defenders and state-appointed lawyers in appeal. It also reverses precedent from just a decade ago from the Supreme Court in Martinez v. Ryan and Trevino v. Thaler, decisions that gave defendants the right to appeal to a federal judge if state-appointed defense and post-conviction lawyers failed to provide a competent defense.
This means that innocent people are going to be put to death. One of them is likely to be Barry Jones, one of the petitioners in this case whose conviction came after shoddy police work and inadequate defense. David Ramirez, the second petitioner, is severely mentally disabled. That fact was never raised by his defense attorney, even though federal law would exempt Ramirez from the death penalty.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the dissent. “The Sixth Amendment guarantees criminal defendants
the right to the effective assistance of counsel at trial. This Court [in Martinez] has recognized that right as ‘a bedrock principle’ that constitutes the very ‘foundation for our adversary system’ of criminal justice,” she wrote. “Today, however, the Court hamstrings the federal courts’ authority to safeguard that right. The Court’s decision will leave many people who were convicted in violation of the Sixth Amendment to face incarceration or even execution without any meaningful chance to vindicate their right to counsel.”
“In reaching its decision, the Court all but overrules two recent precedents that recognized a critical exception to the general rule that federal courts may not consider claims on habeas review that were not raised in state court,” she continued.
This decision is perverse. It is illogical: It makes no sense to excuse a habeas petitioner’s counsel’s failure to raise a claim altogether because of ineffective assistance in postconviction proceedings, as Martinez and Trevino did, but to fault the same petitioner for that postconviction counsel’s failure to develop evidence in support of the trial-ineffectiveness claim. In so doing, the Court guts Martinez’s and Trevino’s core reasoning. The Court also arrogates power from Congress: The Court’s analysis improperly reconfigures the balance Congress struck in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) between state interests and individual constitutional rights.
By the Court’s telling, its holding (however implausible) is compelled by statute. Make no mistake. Neither AEDPA nor this Court’s precedents require this result. I respectfully dissent.
The same Supreme Court extremists who are poised to toss federal abortion rights presumably in respect to the sanctity of life have just ensured that more people—some of whom are innocent—will be put to death by the state. It’s enough make you think what’s going on here among the conservatives really haas nothing to do with the preservation of life at all.
Perverse. Illogical. Dangerous. This is a bunch of extremists hell-bent on remaking American society under their Christian white supremacist vision, and they’ve got the power to do it. Only Congress can do something about it, by expanding the court. That solution is looking less and less radical by the day.
blf @ #385, so Chomsky is now singing from the same hymnal as Zakharova. Orwellian exploitation of Orwell, indeed.
The CounterVortex podcast discusses this shameful misrepresentation in some depth, and also links to Orwell’s proposed preface to Animal Farm to which Chomsky refers, “The Freedom of the Press,” written in 1943 but not published until 1972. It is directed at British liberals, but not as an attack on liberalism or to suggest any tyrannical impulse inherent in liberalism, but to point to a turning away from liberal values, specifically in their rejection of critical writing about…Soviet Russia!
It is important to realise that the current Russomania is only a symptom of the general weakening of the western liberal tradition.
From the piece:
This book was first thought of, so far as the central idea goes, in 1937, but was not written down until about the end of 1943. By the time when it came to be written it was obvious that there would be great difficulty in getting it published (in spite of the present book shortage which ensures that anything describable as a book will ‘sell’), and in the event it was refused by four publishers….
…
This kind of thing is not a good symptom. Obviously it is not desirable that a government department should have any power of censorship (except security censorship, which no one objects to in war time) over books which are not officially sponsored. But the chief danger to freedom of thought and speech at this moment is not the direct interference of the MOI or any official body. If publishers and editors exert themselves to keep certain topics out of print, it is not because they are frightened of prosecution but because they are frightened of public opinion. In this country intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face, and that fact does not seem to me to have had the discussion it deserves.
…The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary.
Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban. … At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is ‘not done’ to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was ‘not done’ to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals.
At this moment what is demanded by the prevailing orthodoxy is an uncritical admiration of Soviet Russia. Everyone knows this, nearly everyone acts on it. Any serious criticism of the Soviet régime, any disclosure of facts which the Soviet government would prefer to keep hidden, is next door to unprintable. And this nation-wide conspiracy to flatter our ally takes place, curiously enough, against a background of genuine intellectual tolerance. …. So long as the prestige of the USSR is not involved, the principle of free speech has been reasonably well upheld. There are other forbidden topics…, but the prevailing attitude towards the USSR is much the most serious symptom. It is, as it were, spontaneous, and is not due to the action of any pressure group.
The servility with which the greater part of the English intelligentsia have swallowed and repeated Russian propaganda from 1941 onwards would be quite astounding if it were not that they have behaved similarly on several earlier occasions. On one controversial issue after another the Russian viewpoint has been accepted without examination and then publicised with complete disregard to historical truth or intellectual decency.… In the internal struggles in the various occupied countries, the British press has in almost all cases sided with the faction favoured by the Russians and libelled the opposing faction, sometimes suppressing material evidence in order to do so. … Very similar things happened during the Spanish civil war. Then, too, the factions on the Republican side which the Russians were determined to crush were recklessly libelled in the English leftwing press, and any statement in their defence even in letter form, was refused publication….
…What is disquieting is that where the USSR and its policies are concerned one cannot expect intelligent criticism or even, in many cases, plain honesty from Liberal writers and journalists who are under no direct pressure to falsify their opinions. Stalin is sacrosanct and certain aspects of his policy must not be seriously discussed. … Events in Russia and events elsewhere were to be judged by different standards. The endless executions in the purges of 1936-8 were applauded by life-long opponents of capital punishment, and it was considered equally proper to publicise famines when they happened in India and to conceal them when they happened in the Ukraine. And if this was true before the war, the intellectual atmosphere is certainly no better now.
…
These people don’t see that if you encourage totalitarian methods, the time may come when they will be used against you instead of for you…. Soon after the suppressed Daily Worker had been reinstated, I was lecturing to a workingmen’s college in South London. The audience were working-class and lower-middle class intellectuals — the same sort of audience that one used to meet at Left Book Club branches. The lecture had touched on the freedom of the press, and at the end, to my astonishment, several questioners stood up and asked me: Did I not think that the lifting of the ban on the Daily Worker was a great mistake? When asked why, they said that it was a paper of doubtful loyalty and ought not to be tolerated in war time. I found myself defending the Daily Worker, which has gone out of its way to libel me more than once. But where had these people learned this essentially totalitarian outlook? Pretty certainly they had learned it from the Communists themselves! Tolerance and decency are deeply rooted in England, but they are not indestructible, and they have to be kept alive partly by conscious effort. The result of preaching totalitarian doctrines is to weaken the instinct by means of which free peoples know what is or is not dangerous….
…
…For quite a decade past I have believed that the existing Russian régime is a mainly evil thing, and I claim the right to say so, in spite of the fact that we are allies with the USSR in a war which I want to see won. If I had to choose a text to justify myself, I should choose the line from Milton:
By the known rules of ancient liberty.
The word ancient emphasises the fact that intellectual freedom is a deep-rooted tradition without which our characteristic western culture could only doubtfully exist. From that tradition many of our intellectuals are visibly turning away. They have accepted the principle that a book should be published or suppressed, praised or damned, not on its merits but according to political expediency. And others who do not actually hold this view assent to it from sheer cowardice. An example of this is the failure of the numerous and vocal English pacifists to raise their voices against the prevalent worship of Russian militarism. According to those pacifists, all violence is evil, and they have urged us at every stage of the war to give in or at least to make a compromise peace. But how many of them have ever suggested that war is also evil when it is waged by the Red Army? Apparently the Russians have a right to defend themselves, whereas for us to do [so] is a deadly sin.…
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 387
<
blockquote>It’s not clear why Lake combined her fatphobia with transphobia in some twisted Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of bigotry.
It’s meant to disgust right-wingers. Look at what the insidious is trying to make us accept! Over-weight women and deranged perverts who think they’re the opposite gender!!! We know there are only two genders! We know that fat people are ugly, lazy, and unhealthy, but left is trying to say black is white and have us approve all manner of degeneracy!
Over the almost six months of Partygate, the same narrative has played out repeatedly: just as Boris Johnson seems to have put the saga behind him, new images emerge to refocus everyone’s minds, with a corrosive effect on the prime minister’s image and ratings.
Last Thursday when the Metropolitan police inquiry formally closed with just one fine for Johnson, Conservative MPs were exchanging admiring – or in some cases exasperated – messages about how the “greased piglet” had slipped free yet again.
There was still the full report to come from the senior civil servant Sue Gray. But supporters of the prime minister were clear – a single fine for a brief appearance at an impromptu birthday celebration did not merit a leadership challenge. Time to move on.
The Daily Mail headline on Friday shouted: “What a farcical waste of time and £460,000.”
Just three days on, photos showing Johnson in a packed room raising his glass and making a speech during the leaving drinks of the former communications chief Lee Cain on 13 November 2020 make the prime minister’s life difficult again in several interconnected ways.
Even after Gray submits her report, Johnson faces an inquiry by a committee of MPs into whether he misled the Commons when he said he knew nothing about social gatherings – an offence which, if demonstrated, would normally lead to resignation.
The photos notably weaken Johnson’s defence, not least given a parliamentary exchange from last December in which the prime minister, when asked by the Labour MP Catherine West about events on the date in question, insisted “the rules were followed at all times”.
More widely, photos and other images seem to resonate with voters in a way that even repeated descriptions of suitcases of alcohol being wheeled into No 10, and Wilfred Johnson’s swing broken by drunken revellers, do not.
They link to a tweet with one of the photos of Johnson at the party which reads:
This is appalling. This is the night my mum died suddenly. I couldn’t visit my shocked and grieving dad that night/weekend because the rules prohibited it. I couldn’t go back to his house after her funeral. Angry doesn’t even begin to explain how I feel.
Jordan Peterson, who tweeted, “Sorry. Not beautiful. And no amount of authoritarian tolerance is going to change that.”
LAKE: It’s insane and we’re not going to play into it anymore. We’re not going to sit idly by and be quiet, and put our hands on our lap, and follow Miss Manners rules anymore. We’re gonna get out there and do some guerrilla warfare.
I still find it shocking that a substantial portion of one of the two major political parties in the US has decided that the most basic expectations of decent behavior – and not even of active kindness, just not to be gratuitously cruel! – are tyrannical. They’ve chosen as their leader a vicious man who revels in attacking and humiliating people, and they cheer most enthusiastically for his slanderous lies and bullying. They’re so determined to be mean that they’ve actually made it part of their political platform and given it an ideological veneer.
Boris Johnson ‘pressurised Sue Gray to drop’ her report into partygate, The Times is reporting.
A source told the paper that the prime minister asked if there was “much point” of publishing the report given so much is out there.
On Monday Downing Street was forced to confirm that the meeting between Johnson and Gray, the civil servant leading an inquiry into Partygate, was instigated by No 10 and not Gray, contradicting the account of a senior minister.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 397
It’s not shocking at all. Kindness, compassion, empathy; to the right these are for the weaklings and those who try to excuse “depravity: and “cowardice.” No, to be a REAL American you need to be tough, stoic, and immune to the complaints of the “crybaby” liberals, “mooching” minorities, the LGBTQ “freaks.” To them, “cruelty” is sign of strength.
In his address, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the following weeks will be difficult as fighting in the Donbas is intensifying and Russia is attempting to hold on to the occupied areas.
Russia’s Navy continues to shit on the parents of the sailors killed when the Moskva warship sank last month following an “accident.” Now they’re dangling KIA benefits in exchange for parents’ signatures on statements endorsing the official narrative….
An openly gay Florida high schooler who is among those suing over the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law used his graduation speech to speak about his experience — while using a winking code to avoid referring to his orientation directly.
“I must discuss a very public part of my identity. This characteristic has probably become the first thing you think of when you think of me as a human being,” Zander Moricz said Sunday. “As you know, I have curly hair.”
Moricz, the senior class president at Pine View School in Sarasota County, repeatedly referred to his distinctive locks after earlier saying he’d been told his speech would be censored if he spoke openly about the Parental Rights [all rightwing “rights” are “rights” over others or “rights” to harm others] in Education law.
“A few days ago, my principal called me into his office and informed me that if my graduation speech referenced my activism or role as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, school administration had a signal to cut off my microphone, end my speech, and halt the ceremony,” Moricz previously wrote on Twitter. “I am the first openly-gay Class President in my school’s history — this censorship seems to show that they want me to be the last.”
During Pine View’s graduation ceremony, Moricz shared how the law could impact “kids with curly hair.”
“There are going to be so many kids with curly hair who need a community like Pine View, and they won’t have one,” Moricz said in his speech. “Instead, they’ll try to fix themselves so that they can exist in Florida’s humid climate.” [LOLOLOL]
Moricz said he’s been planning his graduation speech since his first year of high school but didn’t anticipate having to address his activism during it.
“Do you think that I wanted it to be about this?” he asked the audience. “It needs to be about this for the thousands of curly haired kids who are going to be forced to speak like this for their entire lives as students.”
Moricz urged his fellow classmates to “claim their power” and “give it to those who protect us.”
“Those who we give our power to are the reason I have to stand here and talk about my hair during my graduation speech,” he added in a dig at Florida lawmakers.
…
“I used to hate my curls,” Moricz said in his speech. “I spent mornings and nights embarrassed of them, trying desperately to straighten this part of who I am [LOL…but also there’s a real history of this], but the daily damage of trying to fix myself became too much to endure.”
Pierce R. Butlersays
StevoR @ # 332: … Albo will be Australia’s first PM with a non-Anglocent[r]ic name.
Pls double-check that: sounds like he traces some roots back to … Albion!
📺Too hot for TV
A representative of Russia’s Attorney General explained the agency’s decision to block independent television channel Dozhd (TV Rain), saying its work presented a threat to the stability of the constitutional structure and Russia’s security. The statement, according to RIA Novosti, was made during a review of Dozhd’s appeal to challenge the blockage in Moscow’s Tverskoy District Court.
💰A new line-item for Russia’s capital
The Moscow Mayor’s Office has reportedly been tasked with overseeing the reconstruction of the local infrastructure in occupied Donetsk and Luhansk, a source close to the city’s authorities told the news outlet RBC. The capital is apparently expected to fund this work itself, though the amount of money needed is still unknown
[…]
According to Proekt, the average officer commanding one of Russia’s infantry units in Ukraine earned roughly 270,000 rubles ($4,600) per month in 2019 (for comparison, deputy defense ministers earned an average monthly salary of about 1.2 million rubles, or $20,485). Division and brigade commanders, on the other hand, were paid roughly 160,000 rubles ($2,730) per month. Meanwhile, property declarations indicate that army and division commanders typically own “one or two small apartments.”
[…] Thirty-four of the military personnel on the list had traffic tickets, and some have lost their driver’s licenses for driving under the influence of alcohol or causing road collisions. Some of the officers have even been added to “stoplists” and “blacklists” at Russian banks due to financial problems.
[…]
At least 20 of the officers on Proekt’s list are “tied to Ukraine, one way or another.” In other words, they were born in Ukraine or grew up there. Major General Oleg Makovetsky, the commander of Russia’s 6th Air Force Army, is a native of the Kharkiv region. Ukrainian prosecutors say it was Makovetsky who ordered the bombing of residential areas in and around Kharkiv. […]
Of the 166 people on Proekt’s list, at least 20 have been killed during the war in Ukraine, where at least four of these soldiers were born and raised.
Even members of his own party can’t decide on the best way to pronounce his last name — which is why the PM says it’s easier to call him Albo
[… Albo says:] “Correctly in Italian … it’s Al-ba-nay-zee, but I’m not precious about it, Al-ba-neez is the real anglicisation of it but al-buh-nee-zee is pretty close.”
Why the confusion?
It’s been hypothesised the prime minister may feel a sense of conflict about fully embracing his Italian surname as he was brought up by his mother and only met his Italian father, Carlo, after his mother’s death in 2002.
But Italian isn’t an inflexible language and has various regional differences and dialects.
According to ancestry.com, the title Albanese hails from southern Italy and is an ethnic name for “an Albanian”, describing someone from Albania or one of the Albanian settlements in Italy.
So it seems Albo’s surname is Italian and suggests a (distant?) Albanian connection.
Posts on social media claim that Russian forces captured a US admiral, Eric T Olson, at the Azovstal steel plant in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol. The US Department of Defense confirmed to The FRANCE 24 Observers that Eric T Olson retired in 2011 as an admiral for the US armed forces. But the claims that he was captured in Mariupol are false. We tell you more in this edition of Truth or Fake.
Pierce R. Butlersays
blf @ # 407: … I cannot tell if you are joking or not…
Not quite sure myself, but I do find it a hard question to take seriously.
… an ethnic name for “an Albanian”…
Which brings us to: did Albanians settle in Albion and give it their name, as later the Britons and Angles did – or vice-versa? ;-)
Weight loss is as simple as “calories in, calories out,” right? Or — gasp — could the reply guys be wrong!? This week, we dig in on the surprisingly complex science behind a seemingly simple calculation.
There are reports on Tuesday that Russian forces have occupied the town of Lyman after an extended period of heavy combat that saw the town attacked from three sides. Those on-the-ground reports appear to be confirmed by high-resolution satellite imagery and by the NASA FIRMS data which, after several days of rain in the area, cleared up over the last few days to show a pattern that seemed familiar from some other sites that have fallen. [photos and maps at the link]
At first, Russian forces shelled many areas of Lyman (the yellow blocks in the image). High-resolution satellite imagery from Monday showed fires all across the town. Then over the last day, targeting was more specific with a few clusters in the north and a particular focus on the city’s eastern tip. Finally, within the last 12 hours, the only area that has seen activity is down there with that partially hidden red block at the southeastern edge. Ground reports have Russian infantry now patrolling the city’s streets, and it seems likely that remaining Ukrainian forces have withdrawn across a bridge to the south.
In a larger context, Lyman is along the Siverskyi Donets River, one of a line of towns and cities east of Izyum and west of the holdout city of Severodonetsk. Like Popasna, which Russia finally took two weeks ago after over 60 days of constant assault, Lyman was long near the front lines with Russian-held territory, and the town was protected by an extensive network of trenches and earthworks.
Its capture by Russia becomes part of a pattern of Ukrainian forces moving west and south to retreat behind the natural barrier of the river.
The loss of the town is not a huge blow to Ukraine. Locations like Lyman on the “Russian side” of the Donets have been among the most difficult to supply and maintain. Only a few such locations remain, chief among them the city of Severodonetsk. The pressure on these locations has been extreme, and Ukraine has shown a willingness to surrender locations like Lyman—after inflicting stiff losses on Russian forces—and withdraw to more easily defended locations on the other side of the river.
Considering the three-peat disaster that was Russia’s attempt to cross the river near Bilohorivka, forcing Russia to attempt more such crossings seems like a good strategy. South of the river, the biggest Ukrainian strongholds in the area at Slovyansk, Kramatorsk, and Lysychansk are currently unthreatened. Attempts to extend Russian control north from Popasna or south from Izyum have been slow, with the number of failed Russian advances having easily reached double digits.
So the loss of Lyman isn’t a signal of impending doom, or a sign that Ukraine is about to lose the whole eastern region. No matter how many pro-Russian social media accounts shout that this is a huge victory (and they are shouting), withdrawing from Lyman rather than risking a large loss of Ukrainian forces there makes sense. It was probably always part of Ukraine’s contingency plans.
Still … it is worrisome. It’s worrisome in part because at Lyman Russian forces seemed to coordinate assaults by multiple battalion tactical groups (BTGs) and take a relatively large town (pre-war population 20,000) in a matter of a few days rather than grinding through its streets in one failed assault after another as happened in locations like Popasna.
The reason that happened is almost certainly because Ukrainian troops withdrew rather than forcing Russia to disassemble Lyman brick by brick. Leaving behind Lyman was a strategic decision. But over the last two weeks, Russia has occupied nearly two dozen towns and villages located in or around that fold in the Siverskyi Donets River. Every day seems to bring a list of “Russia has occupied …” with no matching list of areas recaptured by Ukraine.
Every indication is that Russia is suffering severe losses in making these advances. Russia has been conducting a campaign that involves heavy use of artillery and an inch-by-inch advance across the rubble. Ukraine has been making sure that every inch is paid for in blood.
There are limits to both strategies. Russia is already advancing while deploying a level of forces much less than necessary to capture locations without taking a level of loss that seriously degrades their force. Ukraine can continue to give up territory, but not indefinitely. There are locations where surrender may threaten their ability to maintain the army in the field. For example, a significant advance out of Izyum to the south, or out of Popasna to the north or west, could cut through lines that both allow Ukraine to move forces around and to supply front-line positions.
Every one of the towns and villages that Russia has captured in eastern Ukraine has come at a cost. Only Ukraine knows if that cost has been high enough. Because they need to not only halt the advance of the Russian tide; when that army breaks, they need to be prepared to push it back.
#Ukraine: Ukrainian SSO (SOF) published rare footage of a kamikaze drone in action, which we identied as a US-supplied Switchblade 300 – hitting a Russian T-72B3 tank with its crew on top.
The tank is unlikely to receive any serious damage, which cannot be said about the crew.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. Their most recent summary:
The governor of Luhansk has delivered a grim warning that it is too late for thousands of civilians to be evacuated from the besieged city of Sievierodonetsk. Surrounded on three sides by Russian forces who have been attempting to complete their encirclement of the pocket around the city, Sievierodonetsk and the towns and villages to its west have been under intense bombardment in recent days. Fifteen thousand residents were still believed to be in the city hiding in shelters.
The bodies of more than 200 people have been discovered in the rubble of a high-rise apartment building in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, according to a Ukrainian official. Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to Mariupol’s mayor Vadym Boychenko, said workers found the bodies while digging through a basement underneath the collapsed building.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said the Russian offensive in the Donbas is “the largest one on European soil since WWII”. He urged allies to “speed up deliveries of weapons and ammunition”. The UK’s ministry of defence said Russia has increased the intensity of its operations in the Donbas as it seeks to encircle Severodonetsk, Lyschansk, and Rubizhne in order to place the whole of Luhansk oblast under Russian occupation.
A new survey has found that 82% of Ukrainians believe that their country should not sign away any of its territories as part of a peace deal with Russia under any circumstances. Researchers at the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found that only 10% of respondents found it acceptable for Ukraine to concede territory to achieve peace.
Turkish officials will meet with Swedish and Finnish delegations in Ankara on Wednesday to discuss the Nato bids by the two Nordic countries. Finland’s foreign minister, Pekka Haavisto, said his country and Sweden would send delegations to the Turkish capital to try to resolve its opposition to their applications for membership in the military alliance. Turkey’s foreign ministry confirmed the meeting.
Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, said Budapest was not in a position to agree to the EU’s proposed new sanctions, including an oil embargo on Russia. In a letter to the European Council’s president, Charles Michel, Orbán said it was “unlikely” a solution could be found by next week’s summit of EU leaders and that leaders should not discuss the issue at the meeting.
A Russian court has rejected an appeal from opposition leader Alexei Navalny against a nine-year prison sentence he is serving for large-scale fraud and contempt of court, charges which he denies. Navalny lambasted President Vladimir Putin during court hearing, casting him as a madman who had started a “stupid war” in Ukraine based on lies.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Partygate/UK-politics liveblog. From there:
No 10 insiders reveal new details of partying and extensive drinking in Downing Street during lockdown
Downing Street insiders have described chaotic mid-lockdown parties in No 10 they felt were condoned by Boris Johnson as he “was grabbing a glass for himself”, PA Media reports. PA says:
Three anonymous individuals have told BBC Panorama in detail what they witnessed at regular rule-breaking events during coronavirus restrictions.
Their evidence will heap further pressure on the prime minister ahead of the publication of the Sue Gray inquiry into “partygate”, which No 10 expects on Wednesday.
Party debris was left overnight for people arriving at work the next day to discover after staff crowded together and sat on each other’s laps at parties, according to the attendees.
One said they felt they had the permission of the prime minister as he was not telling them to break up the scenes when returning to his flat.
“No, he wasn’t telling anybody that. He was grabbing a glass for himself,” they said.
Days after ordering England’s second national lockdown, the pictures obtained by ITV News yesterday showed the PM giving a toast for departing communications chief Lee Cain on November 13 2020.
One witness described the party that night: “There were about 30 people, if not more, in a room. Everyone was stood shoulder to shoulder, some people on each other’s laps … one or two people.”
“Unforgivable” scenes were described at the party on 16 April last year, which was the eve of the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral.
They described a “lively event… a general party with people dancing around” that became so loud that security guards told them to go into the No 10 grounds.
Laura Kuenssberg, who made the programme for Panorama, has a much longer and more detailed account of the revelations on the BBC website here. It includes this account of how No 10 staffers reacted when Johnson told MPs that the rules had been followed at all times. Kuenssberg writes:
One staffer describes what happened when they watched the prime minister denying, in the House of Commons, that anything had gone wrong.
“We were watching it all live and we just sort of looked at each other in disbelief like – why?” they say.
“Why is he denying this when we’ve been with him this entire time, we knew that the rules had been broken, we knew these parties happened?”
Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, has written to the Metropolitan police asking for an explanation for its decision not to fine Boris Johnson for attending the Lee Cain leaving drinks at No 10 on 13 November 2020, the Telegraph’s Martin Evans reports. Others who attended were fined.
Earlier Khan said he thought the police should explain why they took that decision for the sake of “trust and confidence” in the force. (See 9.39am.)
As mayor of London, Khan is the police and crime commissioner for the capital. Ultimately, if he is not happy with the way the Met is operating, he can force the commissioner to quit. But the Met does not have a full-time commissioner at the moment, because Khan got rid of the last one (Cressida Dick), and so currently he has less leverage over the force than usual.
I don’t know if there’s a journalism award for liveblogging, but if there is the Guardian deserves it.
Canada has purchased 20,000 artillery rounds of Nato standard ammunition for Ukraine to support it in its defence against Russia’s invasion, defence minister, Anita Anand, said.
The ammunition was purchased from the US for about C$98m (£61m) and would soon be delivered to Ukraine as a donation.
They can be fired from artillery cannons, including the M777 Howitzers that Canada has already sent.
Anand said the shipment of military aid will be “critical in Ukraine’s current struggle to defend its eastern territory,” and that “work is already underway to deliver this aid to Ukraine as soon as possible”.
Trailing badly in polls in the Georgia Republican gubernatorial primary, David Perdue apparently decided that the way to own his status as Donald Trump’s chosen candidate was racism directed at the Democratic candidate he’s unlikely to have a chance to run against. In just a few short sentences, Perdue told on himself again and again: Dude is extremely racist.
“Did you all see what Stacey said this weekend? She said that Georgia is the worst place in the country to live. Hey, she ain’t from here. Let her go back where she came from,” Perdue said at a Monday campaign event. Note first the calculated disrespect of calling Stacey Abrams by her first name. Then, “She ain’t from here. Let her go back where she came from.”
Abrams was born in Wisconsin, spent her childhood in Mississippi, and went to high school in Georgia—it’s not like she arrived in the state a year before she started running for office—but of course that’s not how “Let her go back where she came from” lands as part of an attack on a candidate of color. There are two contexts for that language, one being the implication that only white people are really American, an attack more commonly directed at people from groups that have immigrated in recent decades, telling them to “go back” to countries their parents or grandparents came from. Of course we know how and why the ancestors of most Black Americans got to this country, and the history of slavery emphasizes how deeply offensive Perdue’s comment is. But his comment had another context: The history of white southerners claiming that civil rights activists were outsiders stirring up trouble among supposedly contented Black southerners. That was always a false narrative, as the rich history of civil rights leaders and rank-and-file movement participants from the South shows, and it was used as an excuse for further violence and oppression.
But Perdue wasn’t done.
“The only thing she wants is to be president of the United States; she doesn’t care about the people of Georgia. That’s clear,” Perdue said, going with a classic insinuation that Abrams is too ambitious, maybe … you know … uppity. “You know, when we saw in ‘18 what she did and what she said, that we’re going to have a blue wave and we’re going to do it with documented and undocumented workers. You know, I don’t think a lot of people in Georgia understood that when she told Black farmers, ‘You don’t need to be on the farm,’ and she told Black workers in hospitality and all this, ‘You don’t need to be,’ she is demeaning her own race when it comes to that.”
The New York Times linked this to a 2018 statement by Abrams that said, “People shouldn’t have to go into agriculture or hospitality to make a living in Georgia. Why not create renewable energy jobs?” What she didn’t say there: Black people. Just people. If that’s the quote he’s thinking of, Perdue was jumping from “people in agriculture or hospitality” to “Black people.” Again, telling on himself.
But whatever she said, Perdue’s claim that Abrams is “demeaning her own race” to suggest that Black people should not be restricted to jobs that have historically had low wages and poor working conditions is also extremely special. Hey Black people, stick to the jobs white people have kept you in for the purposes of exploitation for generations. Wanting more is demeaning your race.
Did Perdue make the calculated decision that a racist attack on Abrams was his best chance for a come-from-behind victory in his primary? Did he want to signal to Georgia Republicans that he was one of them in his thinking about Abrams, or show them that he, not Kemp, was best suited to take her on? Or is he just a loser flailing as he loses who accidentally showed the world the smug, contemptuous, dismissive way he thinks about even the most impressive and formidable Black woman he’s likely to encounter, along with several ways racism is deeply embedded in his understanding of who belongs in Georgia and what jobs Black people can appropriately have? Calculated appeal to Republican primary voters or desperate loser letting slip what he really thinks, it was gross either way.
Good morning and welcome to Tuesday’s US politics blog. It’s primary day in Georgia and a handful of other states, so buckle in: it’s going to be an absorbing day.
It’s a day of reckoning, kind of, for Donald Trump, when his big lie-supporting endorsee David Perdue takes on incumbent Brian Kemp in the long-awaited Republican primary for governor of Georgia.
Kemp became a target of the former president by refusing to block Joe Biden’s victory in the state, but leads the former Georgia senator Perdue by a handy margin in many polls. And last night Mike Pence, Trump’s former vice-president, showed up to rally for Kemp in another rebuke for his old boss.
Defeat for Perdue would severely dent Trump’s carefully-crafted reputation as Republican kingmaker.
Other intriguing races are taking place in Texas, where the incumbent Democratic congressman Henry Cuellar faces a stiff challenge from progressive Jessica Cisneros, and in Alabama, where Republican congressman and Trump loyalist Mo Brooks is seeking the party’s Senate nomination having lost Trump’s endorsement.
We’ll look at some of the key races throughout the day, and have all the developments in our “after-hours” blog later today hosted by my colleague Joan E Greve….
Donald Trump’s attempt to co-opt election offices in states he narrowly lost in 2020 will see one of its biggest tests on May 24, when candidates he has endorsed for major statewide offices in Georgia face off against Republican incumbents. But voters will also decide dozens of other primaries and elections across Alabama, Arkansas, and Texas. Three state supreme court seats are on the line on Tuesday, as well as heated battles for prosecutor, secretary of state, Congress, and much more….
Male TV presenters in Afghanistan are wearing face masks on screen to show solidarity after the Taliban issued an order that all women on news channels must cover their faces.
In a protest dubbed #FreeHerFace on social media, men on Tolo News wore masks to mimic the effect of the face veil their female colleagues have been forced to wear after a Taliban crackdown.
The Taliban’s Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice ordered all Afghan media outlets to use masks for female presenters. The decision was final and there was no room for debate, it said.
Sebghat Sepehr presented the news wearing a mask shortly after the order was made public.
It follows a decree issued in early May that all women must cover their faces in public and male relatives face fines or jail if they do not adhere. Many women in cities such as Kabul, including TV presenters, defied the order….
Naturally, you’ll adore the pictures of Boris Johnson raising a glass at a Downing Street party during lockdown. It’s like a Holbein or something, depicting a corpulent man surrounded by all the esoteric accoutrements of state power: the red box, the Barefoot pinot grigio. The Sourz Apple. Just out of shot? Either an astrolabe, or the booze suitcase.
Furthermore, you have to respect how the Metropolitan police get to the bottom of nothing except the barrel. It’s truly inspirational to think their £460,000 “Partygate” performance piece has not yet reached its final form. That will come as early as today, when a number of the officers tasked with not spotting Boris Johnson in a series of piss-up photos get signed off with stress. Only when they’ve been on the sick for two years, then retired with a full pension but also returned to a high-paying station desk job, will Partygate have attained the British establishment gold standard.
Last night, I saw a Tory MP demand to know: “Was the Met weak, gullible, incompetent or stupid?” Sir, I simply CANNOT play favourites with those words. Just tick all of them, and wonder how we ever imagined it would be anything different. When you think of the people who’ve died in police custody with no officer seeing anything, it suddenly seems blindingly obvious that the cops would fail to discern the prime minister in a picture of a party that they have already ruled criminal, and have consequently issued other fines for. Johnson could have been kicking himself to death while holding aloft a glass of lady petrol, and any number of specialist officers would have found a way of not noticing it. It’s usually something to do with the sightlines, I believe.
Anyway: the leaked set of photos. Or rather: the first leaked set of photos. It’s possible they prove that most ancient of political adages: it’s not the crime, it’s the vanity photographer you hired to take photos of the crime….
Wonkette: “David Perdue Says EV Truck Plant Jobs Too Woke, Georgians Can Drive Culture War To Work Instead”
Polls in Georgia are open today for the state’s primary election, and David Perdue, the former senator who’s challenging incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp in the Republican primary, has mostly been campaigning on Donald Trump’s Big Lie, suggesting Kemp helped evil Democrats steal the 2020 election. Polling suggests that’s not going so great, even though Donald Trump endorsed Perdue. Also he’s closing his campaign out by being an out-and-out racist to Stacey Abrams. [see comment 417]
But as NBC News reports, Perdue is padding his rightwing crazy cred with some extra culture war bullshit, fighting against construction of a huge electric vehicle factory slated to be built on farmland in Morgan and Walton Counties about an hour’s drive from Atlanta (a round trip is well within the Rivian R1T pickup’s 314 mile range). Yep, the site is so big it’s in two counties.
The factory is expected to create about 7,500 full-time jobs, plus jobs in construction and support, but Perdue claims the Rivian truck plant might also fill Georgia with scary woke cooties, because Rivian is based in California, which is where Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff are from! Even worse, to attract the $5 billion plant, being touted as the biggest industrial project in Georgia history, Kemp and the state lege offered $1.5 billion in tax incentives.
Predictably, Perdue couldn’t be satisfied with asking whether that’s a good use of state money. You see, wingnut boogeyman George Soros owns a small share in Rivian, so Perdue has been insisting Kemp handed your taxpayer money personally to Soros, “minority shareholder” be damned. And everyone in the Republican base knows what that means. (Jews. It means “Jewish Puppetmaster” to their target audience.)
See how scary these puppetmaster pickups are? [Tweet and photo at the link]
So you see, kids, these Rivian pickups and SUVs are truly the $80,000 light trucks of the woke socialist radical Great Replacement apocalypse. And it’s true, there really is a plan to replace your internal combustion cars and trucks with clean vehicles with terrific torque and lower maintenance costs. Oh, the horror!
Perdue complains that going ahead with the Rivian factory will bring Globalist Taint to Georgia, because OMG California and EVs!
“It’s a woke California company whose mission is to turn the world green,” Perdue said this month while stumping with local activists trying to stop the plant. “They aren’t interested in this part of the country. They just want to make money off of us.”
(Just an aside here, but Wonkette’s Evan who is editing this and who lives in Memphis notes that they are building that multi-billion dollar megasite an hour east of Memphis where Ford will make its woke electric F150s, and you know what Republican electeds here are doing? Tripping over their dicks to take credit or at least make sure you know they are part of it. All of this is to say sheesh, David Perdue is an idiot.)
Another Trump-endorsed Georgia candidate, Vernon Jones, who’s already tried to benefit from Trump-style racism and immigration panic in his campaign for Congress, went even further in his attack on Rivian. In a Facebook post back in December, when the deal was announced, Jones accused Kemp of selling out Georgia voters and trying to turn the state into a woke hellhole!
Governor Brian Kemp’s campaign’s email claims that he wants to stop “Hollywood, liberal billionaires & “woke mob” from turning Georgia into the next California or New York. Today, he welcomes a company whose corporate attitude is seemingly inconsistent with Georgia values. I’m asking Brian Kemp to release the details of the incentive package & how much tax payer money was used to bring Rivian to Georgia. This company is Woke. Their vaccine mandate limits the jobs Georgians can’t get, since many Georgians are not vaccinated. Not to mention they have a large focus on diversity & inclusion; including transgender benefits. Again, Kemp’s campaign promises don’t match his actions. Are you part of the Woke Mob or stopping the Woke Mob?
Oh no! vaccines! Diversity and inclusion! How horrifying! Maybe the “T” in the Rivian R1T stands for transgender, you ever think of that?
NBC News says the Rivian foofaraw represents a “a growing rift inside the GOP between its traditional pro-business wing, embodied by Kemp, and an ascendent populist wing, embodied by Perdue,” and also predicts — accurately, we’re afraid — that it “underscores the challenge the entire country will face in transitioning to a greener economy.”
In fact, the local opposition to the plant has pretty much nothing to to do with culture war stuff. With the precise planning for the facility still only in the early phases, there are a lot of local concerns about how a giant industrial development will impact the area, what with increased traffic, light pollution (the area is home to a Georgia State observatory), and potential environmental effects. […] this is Georgia, where environmentalism is a dirty word. But even if the production process can be kept clean, a great big factory on former farmland could affect wildlife and local quality of life. […]
the whole stupid “green is woke and bad” thing feeds off the same buttheaded resentment that has fueled dumb reactionary crap like diesel truck owners “rolling coal” (spewing thick smoke) on bicyclists and Prius drivers. So we can look forward to more of the same, no doubt upgraded to accusations that EVs promote the Gay Agenda and cause kids to read banned books. We can probably expect vandalism of solar panels, keying the paintjobs of EVs, and the occasional torching of any Teslas that haven’t caught fire on their own.
If you’re screaming to disenfranchise your own voters, you’re probably losing. And yet that is the position the Pennsylvania GOP and the RNC find themselves in after Donald Trump’s endorsement failed to push Mehmet Oz over the finish line in last Tuesday’s Senate primary. So they find themselves intervening in a lawsuit to get Republican ballots tossed out […] LOL […]
As of this writing, Oz’s lead over his closest rival, replacement-level white finance dude David McCormick, has shrunk to 977 votes, or less than 0.1 percent. That’s well within the 0.5 percent margin for a mandatory recount, and there are still upwards of 5,000 votes untallied. Oz took Trump’s advice to shout “I WIN, STOP THE COUNT!” but that didn’t work, so now he and the GOP are flipping shit about McCormick trying to steal the game in overtime.
[…] RNC Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel [talked] to Fox’s Martha MacCallum on Sunday, adding later that “We certainly do not think that ballots without dates should be counted, because how do you know when they came in?”
Which is bullshit, because you could sign and date your absentee ballot for Christmas and still have it be kosher. The only thing that counts is whether […] it’s received in time, a fact that is recorded by the county clerk, as McDaniel knows perfectly well. None of the Gippers could crack 31 percent, and that’s got nothing to do with an “influx of mail-in voting.”
Meanwhile, McCormick filed suit in Pennsylvania state court demanding election officials count ballots that were timely received but for which the voter failed to date the outside envelope consistent with Pennsylvania law. To be clear, there is no indication whatsoever that these votes are fraudulent. But Pennsylvania Republicans passed a law to protect the “integrity” of the ballot by ordering them to be rejected, working on the assumption that absentee ballots were more likely to be Democratic, so rejecting as many of them as possible would be a statistical win for the GOP.
The problem is that now they’re using this weapon on their own voters, trying to knock out as many of the uncounted ballots as possible to avoid McCormick eating any further into Oz’s wafer thin lead. Also the problem is that the Third Circuit just ruled that rejecting votes because the envelope is undated violates the Civil Rights Act, and thus the law cannot be enforced, as McCormick points out in his suit demanding county officials count those ballots. But the case will definitely be appealed to the Supreme Court, which is not exactly dominated by proponents of civil rights these days, so who the hell knows what’s about to happen?
What are the odds that Justice Thomas recuses, since his wife Ginni is advancing election fraud conspiracies six ways from Sunday? Haha, we are silly today!
“The RNC stays neutral for a reason,” McDaniel told MacCallum on Sunday. “We legally have to stay neutral, but it is helpful because we didn’t put our thumb on the scale and we get to bring everybody together after the fact and have a kumbaya moment.”
Less than 36 hours later, the RNC is parking its whole ass on the scale to make sure Oz squeaks out a victory, joining him in opposing McCormick’s efforts to get those votes counted. […]
“While the Republican Party of Pennsylvania looks forward to supporting the Pennsylvania Republican U.S. Senate nominee, whoever it may be, we absolutely object to the counting of undated mail-in ballots,” the state party added, without saying why exactly they’re so invested in not counting ballots from their own voters.
[…] if these assholes want to spend the next month kicking the shit out of each other while John Fetterman recuperates, we’re not mad about it. Get well, big guy! And of course, let them fight.
Leaving drinks attended by PM so cramped people sat on other’s laps and bins overflowed with bottles, No 10 staff say
The latest reports about parties in Downing Street include that attendees ended up sat on each other’s laps because of how cramped it was inside the gatherings.
Officials who spoke to BBC’s Panorama programme, due to air at 7pm on BBC Two, said that they would sometimes arrive at work to find bins overflowing with empty bottles. A security guard who tried to stop one party taking place was laughed at.
Insiders inside Whitehall have said that there is an “awful atmosphere” in No10 and upset after junior officials were fined for events that others, including Boris Johnson, avoided being penalised for….
A blue-ribbon Army commission has recommended new names for nine Army bases named after Confederate leaders, including Fort Bragg, which will be recommended to be renamed Fort Liberty, according to a U.S. official, ABC News learned exclusively Tuesday.
Later Tuesday, the Army Naming Commission is expected to formally disclose its recommended names for the bases named after Confederate generals.
Last year, Congress passed legislation that required the renaming of U.S. military installations named after Confederate leaders by 2023.
Congress and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin must approve the nine naming recommendations.
Fort Bragg in North Carolina is currently named after Gen. Braxton Bragg, a senior Confederate Army general. It would be renamed as Fort Liberty, the only one of the bases named after a concept, with eight others being renamed mostly after individuals with ties to Army history.
The other bases to be renamed are Fort Hood in Texas, Fort Rucker in Alabama, Fort Polk in Louisiana, Fort Benning and Fort Gordon in Georgia and Fort A.P. Hill, Fort Lee and Fort Pickett in Virginia.
The panel has recommended that Fort Hood, Texas, be renamed after Richard E. Cavazos, the first Latino to reach the rank of a four-star general in the Army.
Fort Gordon, Georgia, will be renamed after Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Army general who led all allied forces in Europe during World War II and later became president.
Fort Lee, Virginia, will be named after two individuals: Arthur Gregg, a former three-star general involved in logistics — the only living individual for whom a base will be named — and Charity Adams, the first African-American woman to be an officer in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps.
Fort Pickett, Virginia, will be named after Van Barfoot, who received the Medal of Honor for his heroism during World War II and is of Native American descent.
Fort A.P. Hill, Virginia, will be renamed after Dr. Mary Walker, a physician and women’s rights activist who received the Medal of Honor for her service during the Civil War.
Fort Benning, Georgia, will be renamed after Lt. Gen. Hal Moore, a pioneer in the Air Cavalry whose Vietnam-era story was memorialized in the book and movie, “We Were Soldiers.”
Fort Rucker, Alabama, will be named after Michael Novosel, a Medal of Honor recipient who flew combat aircraft in World War II and the wars in Korea and Vietnam.
Fort Polk, Louisiana, will be renamed after William Henry Johnson, a soldier whose heroism in World War Two was not honored with the Medal of Honor until 2015.
For Affordable Care Act proponents, the past several months have been a time to celebrate. As regular readers know, the ACA is working; it’s popular; it’s affordable; it’s withstood far too many legal challenges; and even many Republicans are walking away from their repeal-and-replace shtick.
But amidst the good news for those who want to see “Obamacare” succeed, there’s been a foreboding cloud on the horizon. As we’ve discussed, the ACA-related benefits included in the American Rescue Plan — the ones that have made the system significantly more affordable for consumers — were designed to be temporary.
The White House and Democratic leaders want to make the current benefits permanent, and it was a central pillar of the Build Back Better package, but conservative Democratic senators have already derailed the BBB effort, and it’s an open question whether a small alternative will take shape — and whether a revised version might include continued subsidies for health coverage.
As Politico reported, the uncertainty is making some already nervous Democrats ring the alarm.
A group of more than two dozen vulnerable Democrats from swing districts is sounding the alarm about a major Obamacare shortfall set to kick in right as voters head to the polls this fall — a sleeper issue for the party that comes atop soaring inflation, supply-chain problems, worries about infant baby formula and spiking crime.
Yikes!
Democratic Rep. Lauren Underwood of Illinois has helped take the lead on this, writing to her party’s congressional leaders and urging them to use the reconciliation process to keep the status quo in place and prevent premium spikes for 13 million lower-income Americans.
[…] the higher prices wouldn’t kick in until the new year, but consumers would be alerted to the higher prices in the fall — right around the time of the midterm elections.
[…] Frederick Isasi, executive director of Families USA, a health care advocacy group, recently told HuffPost, “Families will start to receive notices about skyrocketing premiums just weeks before the midterm elections. Some of the most closely watched states ― for example in Florida, North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona ― will experience some of the largest increases.”
The good news is, Democrats have the time and wherewithal to prevent this from happening. What’s more, as conservative as Sen. Joe Manchin is on a variety of issues, the West Virginian has long been an ACA proponent, thanks in part to the successes the law has had in his home state.
[…] It might be tempting to look at the calendar and think the governing majority has plenty of time. That’s wrong. Congress’ summer break is coming up, and historically, very little important work gets done in the runup to midterm elections.
In other words, Democrats have a few weeks, not a few months, to deliver.
In Connecticut, Republican gubernatorial hopeful Bob Stefanowski attended an anti-mask group’s “Freedom Family Cookout” on Sunday. A day later, the GOP candidate, who is vaccinated and boosted, tested positive for Covid.
The good news:
[…] the latest statewide poll in Connecticut found that Stefanowski is trailing incumbent Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont in this year’s gubernatorial race by 13 points.
The Georgia Republican’s personal background suddenly looks worse following revelations about a veterans’ program called Patriot Support.
Herschel Walker’s background has received a fair amount of scrutiny in recent months, and for good reason. The Georgia Republican is running for the U.S. Senate despite having no meaningful background in government or public service, which makes scrutinizing his record all the more important.
The problem for Walker, however, is that the closer one looks at his personal and professional experiences, the less credible his first-time candidacy appears. The Associated Press reported over the weekend, for example, on the latest in a series of trouble areas: Walker has taken credit for creating a program called Patriot Support that provided support to veterans struggling with mental health.
[…] a celebrity spokesman [Walker] overstated his role in a for-profit program that is alleged to have preyed upon veterans and service members while defrauding the government. [Layers of lies and grifting!]
[…] In reality, Walker didn’t help create it — he was a paid celebrity spokesperson — and it was not (and is not) a charity. It was a program created years earlier by Universal Health Services, which paid the former football player a salary of $331,000 last year.
Complicating matters are the allegations raised against the program. From the AP’s report:
A sprawling civil case brought against Universal Health Services by the the Department of Justice and nearly two dozen states alleges that Patriot Support was part of a broader effort by the company to defraud the government. Prosecutors allege Universal Health Services and its affiliates aggressively pushed those with government-sponsored insurance into inpatient mental health care to drive revenue…. To achieve this end, the company pushed staff at its mental health facilities to misdiagnose patients and falsify documents in order to hospitalize those who did not require it, according to court records. In other cases, they failed to discharge those who no longer needed hospitalization, according to the DOJ.
[Horrifying.]
Two years ago, Universal Health Services denied the allegations, but reached a $122 million settlement with federal prosecutors and a coalition of states.
Remember, Walker bragged that he “started” this program, which wasn’t true, and which doesn’t appear worthy of boasts anyway. The Republican later conceded he didn’t actually create the program, despite his earlier claims to contrary, but he told reporters that he did start Ascend Health’s Freedom Care program in 2007.
That also wasn’t true.
The combination of false claims and controversial practices is an obvious problem for the Senate hopeful, compounded by the fact that there are so many similar stories in Walker’s background.
[…] Walker’s record includes “exaggerated claims of financial success” and a history of alarming business associates with his “unpredictable behavior.” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published a related report in March, highlighting the false claims, lawsuits, and unpaid loans as part of Walker’s private-sector background. [video at the link]
[…] the Georgia Republican “has established a parallel record of demonstrably false claims, many of which appear to bear no resemblance to reality whatsoever.” [in other words, a perfect Trump candidate]
Making matters slightly worse is the fact that Walker has very little to fall back on. He’s already made clear, for example, that he knows effectively nothing about public affairs. Voters have also learned about allegations of domestic violence and other dangerous personal behavior. He hasn’t even told the truth about his educational background.
As for Walker’s recent political rhetoric, he’s tried to argue that the late-Rep. John Lewis was a senator who’d oppose the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. We learned soon after that Walker had falsely claimed the FDA had approved an unproven “dry mist” mystery treatment for Covid-19. The Republican then said it was “totally unfair“ to ask for his opinion about the bipartisan infrastructure law because he knew so little about it.
In March, Walker suggested the existence of apes calls evolutionary biology into question and seemed to argue that in-vitro fertilization doesn’t work “because there has to be a God.” He tried to talk about energy policy a month later and offered little more than a garbled word salad.
Georgia’s Senate primary is today. Walker is expected to win easily.
Cheney gave a rousing and truthful speech. The video is about 11 minutes long.
The video, and a transcript, are also available here: <a href=https://cheney.house.gov/2022/05/23/cheney-in-profile-in-courage-speech-every-one-has-a-duty-to-set-aside-partisan-battles-and-stand-together-to-preserve-our-great-republic/”>Link.
Excerpt:
[…] “I have found myself, especially since January 6th thinking often of my great great grandfather and of the Union he fought to defend. And this was never more true than on the night of January 6 itself.
“That night the House returned to the chamber around 9 o’clock. Furniture that had been used as a barricade was still stacked against the walls. The glass in the chamber doors was shattered. Containers that had held gas masks were strewn around. A short time before Congress went back into session, I left the House floor that night and I walked to Statuary Hall. Statuary Hall, as you know, is where the House of Representatives met from 1807 to 1857. In that historic space, there are brass markers on the floor that mark where the desk of Abraham Lincoln sat and where the desk of John Quincy Adams sat. And there are statues of great Americans that line the walls. That night, law enforcement officers in black tactical gear were sitting on the floor, leaning up against the statues, exhausted from the brutal hand-to-hand combat in which they had been engaged for hours. Water bottles – with water they had been drinking and using to wash away the chemical spray deployed by the rioters – littered the floor. These men and women had spent hours battling a violent mob, a mob of our fellow countrymen, attempting to stop the transition of presidential power. For profiles in courage, we need look no farther than those men and women. It is no exaggeration to say that their courage likely saved our lives and our democracy. I tried to thank them, but my words that night seemed inadequate.
“As I walked out of statuary hall, I looked above the door. Standing above the door above Statuary Hall is the oldest statue in our Capitol. It is a statue of Clio, the muse of history. Clio rides in the chariot of time and she has a book in her hand in which she takes notes – reminding all of us that our deeds are inscribed in the pages of history.
“I walked from Statuary Hall into the Capitol rotunda, the most sacred space in our republic. This is the space where presidents, including President Lincoln and President Kennedy, have lain in state. This is the space watched over by statues of Washington and Jefferson, and Lincoln and Grant, and Eisenhower, and Ford and Reagan. That night, against almost every wall encircling the room were SWAT teams – more men and women in riot gear, helmets, carrying long arms – some resting from battle, others standing watch – ATF, FBI, federal agents – deployed inside the United States Capitol building.
“There, in the rotunda, these brave men and women were resting beneath eight paintings that depicit the earliest scenes of our Republic. These include four by George Trumball – scenes from the American Revolution. One of these was painted in 1824 and it depicts George Washington resigning his commission. At this moment in 1793 depicted in the painting, Washington voluntarily relinquished power. He handed control of the Continental Army back to Congress. George Trumball, the painter, called this ‘one of the highest moral lessons ever given to the world.’ With this noble act, George Washington set the indispensable example of the peaceful transfer of power in our country. This is what President Reagan called, ‘nothing short of a miracle.’ This is what President Kennedy called, in his inaugural address, ‘a celebration of freedom.’ And this sacred obligation to defend the peaceful transfer of power has been honored by every American president . . . except one. […]
Three Floridians were charged Tuesday in relation to an alleged 2020 scheme to run sham candidates in local elections, part of a convoluted plot with murky links to Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL).
State prosecutors said in a press release that they charged political consultants Eric Foglesong and Benjamin Paris in relation to the scheme, as well as alleged sham candidate Jestine Iannotti, one of a series of no-namers to run in multiple state elections in Florida in 2020.
Gaetz has not been charged or formally accused of any wrongdoing in the case. [Wish he had been charged.]
“In 2020, Rep. Matt Gaetz was traveling the country to re-elect President Trump and secure America First allies in Congress,” a Gaetz spokesperson told TPM in a statement. “He had nothing to do with recruiting a third-party candidate in a central Florida state senate race.”
The locale where the scheme allegedly took place could lend the charges national significance.
It’s Seminole County, the suburban Orlando area where Gaetz associate Joel Greenberg rampaged as tax collector, trying to turn the office into an outpost of cryptocurrency while allegedly participating in sex trafficking.
Iannotti ran for state Senate in Seminole County as an unaffiliated candidate. She faced two opponents: Patricia Sigman, a Democratic labor attorney, and current State Sen. Jason Brodeur (R), a Gaetz associate.
Iannotti ran without any real campaign. The limited promotional materials that were released show a beaming African American woman. Iannotti is white.
At the time of the election, Iannotti was not seen in public. It later emerged that she had reportedly applied for a Swedish residency permit before the 2020 election, and later moved to Stockholm.
Her absence – and questions about fundraising for her race – stoked speculation that she was a so-called “ghost candidate,” candidates who lack party affiliation and exist to channel off votes from other contenders.
That suspicion was only intensified by an April 2021 New York Times report which stated that Gaetz had discussed the Brodeur-Iannotti race with a Florida political consultant. The newspaper reported that Gaetz had discussed running a third-party candidate to help Brodeur secure victory.
[…] That report came amid a deluge of bad news for Gaetz, with reports that federal prosecutors were examining his possible involvement sex trafficking an underage girl. Gaetz has emphatically denied the allegations.
[…] Benjamin Paris, one of the three charged on Tuesday, works for Brodeur, also in Seminole County. Per the press release, he is charged with one count of making a political contribution in the name of another.
Foglesong had a long career as a Florida political consultant, before facing charges in April 2019 for allegedly stealing $20,000 from the political action committee supporting a local sheriff’s race. Foglesong pleaded no contest in 2020. […]
Foglesong faces five counts, the press release said. They are one count of making political contributions in the name of another, one count of commission of fraud, one count of unlawful use of a two-way communications device, one count of excess political contributions, and one count of false reporting.
Prosecutors provided text messages between Foglesong and Iannotti. In one instance, he told her that “we can take cash up to $100 per person.” The state individual contribution limit is $50.
Iannotti, the release said, faces six counts, including commission of fraud, accepting excess political contributions, two counts of perjury, one count of false reporting, and one count of accepting a political contribution in the name of another.
Florida saw potentially two other instances of ghost candidates in 2020. Prosecutors said last year that in one race, where the Democratic candidate lost by 32 votes, a Republican consultant paid $40,000 for a mechanic with the same last name as the Democrat to run. Both the sham candidate and the real Democrat had the last name Rodriguez. [Sheesh! Shenanigans!]
In texts released by prosecutors, Foglesong appears to say that he was involved in the Rodriguez race as well.
“I want more npa folks on the ballot,” he wrote, referring to unaffiliated, third-party contenders.
In another 2020 race in Seminole County, this time against Greenberg himself, another alleged sham candidate with a similar name to the Democratic contender appeared. In that example, a man named Dani Mora Day ran against Lynn Moira Dictor, the Democrat. [More Republican shenanigans!]
After a federal indictment was filed against Greenberg in June 2020, the alleged sham candidate dropped out.
“NEW: Alabama robocall backs Mo Brooks as a ‘Dixie fighter’ who’ll filibuster efforts to rename bases honoring Confederate officers. The Brooks campaign said it agrees with the message.”
Estonia’s donated 1/3 of its defense budget to Ukraine. Yesterday thousands of Estonian choir singers (incl previous president @KerstiKaljulaid) met at the song festival grounds to sing “Oi u luzi chervona kalyna” [YT link], a short [thread] of history and context
1. i’m not crying, you’re crying! ok, no, I am crying. The song festivals are SACRED to [Estonia]. One of the largest choral events in the world (first in 1869) they bring together about 30000 singers & about 100000 audience, who all sing, in unison, mostly about freedom and oppression
already in the 19th century ([Estonia] was a province of the Russian Empire) the song festival became a manifestation of a national, emancipatory awakening. This peaked with the Singing Revolution in 1987-90 where “night song festivals” were organized as anti Soviet Union activism.
in other words, the Estonian narrative of long fought for freedom always carries an element of choir singing. The narrative of having “sang ourselves free” is predominant, most school kids are enrolled in choir by default. Even the tragically tone deaf ones like me
the fact that the united choirs gather at the actual Song Festival Grounds (where I used to work) to sing this song for Ukraine is a HUGE deal. In line with this huge deal, Estonia has also, according to the Kiel Institute, donated more to Ukraine per GDP than ANY OTHER NATION.
so … just … keep donating, keep pressuring your politicians, and please, for the love of Ancient Oak Trees, stop with the bizarre pseudo communist nostalgia and soviet apologezia. Russia has always been an imperialist, colonizing, occupying, murderous, rapey force.
Meduza – “‘Almost nobody is happy with Putin’”: “Meduza’s sources say a new wave of pessimism in the Kremlin has Russia’s hawks demanding more brutality in Ukraine while others scout for presidential successors…”
In the battle for control of the Democratic party, progressives are increasingly confident they are winning. That’s how they explain the record sums of Super Pac money targeting their candidates in nominating contests for safely Democratic seats.
“There’s a set of people who are uncomfortable with a new brand of politics,” said Maurice Mitchell, national director of the progressive Working Families party. “They’re trying to set the clock back. But the genie’s outta the bottle.”
So far this election cycle, progressives have a mixed record. But a stronger-than-expected showing in last week’s primaries has energized the movement and set the stage, they hope, for even more success this summer.
In Pennsylvania, state representative Summer Lee overcame a deluge of outside spending to win her congressional primary. Lee was declared the winner after three days of counting. She tweeted: “$4.5 mill” with a fire and trash can emoji.
Oregon progressives cheered the victory of Andrea Salinas, who also went up against a crush of big money in one of the most expensive House Democratic primaries in the country. Meanwhile, the seven-term Oregon congressman Kurt Schrader, whose conservative politics drew the left’s ire, appears to be on the verge of losing his seat to progressive challenger Jamie McLeod-Skinner, though results have been delayed by a ballot-printing problem.
And in what will be one of the cycle’s most competitive Senate races, John Fetterman, Pennsylvania’s iconoclastic, liberal lieutenant governor, beat Congressman Conor Lamb, a rising star of the center-left.
The next test of progressive political power comes today, in a Texas runoff election between Congressman Henry Cueller, a conservative Democrat backed by party leadership, and Jessica Cisneros, a progressive immigration lawyer endorsed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders.
And after that, there are competitive intra-party primaries in Illinois, New York and Michigan.
“We’re not doing any victory laps,” Mitchell said. “If anything, those losses and the wins have redoubled our commitment and focus.”
Fourteen students and one teacher were killed in a shooting Tuesday morning at a Texas elementary school, Gov. Greg Abbott said.
The suspected shooter, who might have had a handgun and rifle, was fatally wounded in the law enforcement response to the attack at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, about 83 miles west of San Antonio, he said.
“It is believed that he abandoned his vehicle then entered into the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde with a handgun and he may have also had a rifle,” Abbott said in a news briefing.
“He shot and killed, horrifically and incomprehensibly, 14 students and killed a teacher,” the governor said.
The incident was no longer active Tuesday afternoon. The suspected shooter was 18, authorities said.
Initial accounts indicated 13 children were taken to the emergency room at Uvalde Memorial Hospital after the shooting at Robb Elementary, according to a Facebook statement and hospital CEO Tom Nordwick. Two were transferred and one is pending a transfer, the CEO said in a phone call.
In addition, two people were pronounced dead prior to arriving at the hospital, Nordwick said. Their names and ages were not released.
University Health said in a tweet that it was treating a child and a 66-year-old woman who is listed in critical condition. The condition of the child is not yet known.
A University Health spokesperson said she could not confirm if the patients are shooting victims, but added their injuries are related to the shooting at the school.
The suspected shooter was taken into custody just after 1 p.m. local time, the Uvalde Police Department announced on Facebook. The school serves second through fourth grades in a city that’s nearly half non-English speaking, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
News of the suspect’s capture came less than an hour after the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District announced on Twitter that there was “an active shooter” at the elementary school.
“Law enforcement is on site. Your cooperation is needed at this time by not visiting the campus. As soon as more information is gathered it will be shared,” the tweet said.
[…] Students were being taken to Uvalde High School for reunification with parents, police and the school district said. But the district asked parents not to pick up their children. “You will be notified to pick up students once all are accounted for,” an update from the district said.
The district’s last day of school is Thursday.
The shooting occurred after new FBI statistics released Monday showed active shooter incidents in 2021 surged by more than 50 percent from 2020 and nearly 97 percent from 2017.
Uvalde is more than 83 miles west of San Antonio.
blfsays
Lynna@422 observes, “Mehmet Oz is desperate, Trump is desperate, RNC Chair ronna Romney McDaniel is desperate … and they’re all acting like fools.”
So what is it they act like when they’re not desperate?
A gunman walked into an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas on Tuesday afternoon and killed 14 children and a teacher, Gov. Greg Abbott said at a news conference on Tuesday. Police are believed to have killed the gunman.
The assailant was an 18-year-old man, who abandoned his vehicle and entered the school with a handgun and possibly a rifle, Mr. Abbott said.
[…] The massacre in May in which 14 children and a teacher were killed at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, was the deadliest mass shooting in the United States so far this year. It happened just 10 days after 10 people were shot and killed in a supermarket in Buffalo.
The Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit organization, counted at least 215 such shootings, defined as one in which four or more people were killed or injured, through mid-May. Of those shootings, nine involved four or more fatalities.
I saw the news about the shooting in Texas earlier, but the first reports gave the impression that two people had been killed and that it was near rather than at the school. I worked out, and when I just finished and turned on the news they’re saying 14 kids and one teacher have been killed. I’m speechless.
Georgia Republicans are today going to pick Herschel Walker, a complete fucking idiot with a swarm of scandalous ethical questions around him, to be their Senate nominee. Hopefully that will be the last thing he wins, like ever.
But if somehow things don’t go his way tonight, we guess we won’t have to worry about him having a conniption and saying the election was stolen, because he apparently doesn’t think the guy who drafted him into running has ever said his own election was stolen, so why would Herschel Walker think such a thing?
[…] Walker was asked if he believes the election was stolen from Donald Trump. Walker replied, “I think reporters say that, I don’t know whether President Trump has said it, but he never said that to me, I’m not arguing with you …”
The interviewer was like “He says it over and over. Please.”
But let the record show that Walker claims to believe that reporters say the election was stolen from Donald Trump, but that Trump himself does not say it. To clarify: no real reporter living or dead has ever said the election was stolen from Donald Trump. Note we said real reporter.
“No no no no, he has never, I’ve never heard President Trump say that,” said Herschel Walker, because Herschel Walker has never heard him say that.
Golly, is he lying or stupid or bugfuck or what? And do you care which it is, really?
Because Wonkette is not afraid to be service-y and haphazardly glance at the internet in order to help clear up whatever confusions Herschel Walker may be having today, here is [checks notes] Donald Trump being interviewed this very week by Fox Business celebrity host Stuart Varney, who was BEGGING, FUCKING, BEGGING Trump to stop saying the election was stolen. [video at the link]
In response to Varney’s BEGGING, FUCKING, BEGGING, Trump said, “All you have to do is see 2,000 Mules or go on Truth. Take a look at Truth. You should someday talk about Truth as a business thing. It’s hot as a pistol, Truth Social.”
Take a look at Truth, Stuart, take a look at Truth! It’s hot as a pistol, the Truth Social! It’s hot as 2,000 Mules, the Truth Social! It’s like 2,000 Mules with pistols!
Varney was like no stop please.
So Trump said, “If you don’t look at history, you’re going to be lost. It’s going to happen again. You can’t let it happen again. You have to study.”
And Varney was like no stop please.
So Trump said, “So, somebody robs the jewelry store of all the jewelry, you should just let them be alone, right? Just say, OK, he got away with it. You know, I just — I disagree with that. And a lot of people in the party disagree with that, Stuart.”
The governor of Ukraine’s eastern Lugansk region said the situation there “is only getting worse” as Russian troops advance.
“The situation is very difficult and unfortunately it is only getting worse. It is getting worse with every day and even with every hour,” said governor Sergiy Gaidai. “Shelling is increasing more and more.” He added that the Russians are focused on the key city of Severodonetsk.”
“The city is being bombed by aviation, shelled by multiple launch rocket systems, artillery, mortars, tanks,” he said. “They are simply eliminating Severodonetsk from the earth.”
Zelenskiy calls for heavy weapons aid in nightly address
Three months into the Russian invasion, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that the country has survived “thanks to the tens of thousands of feats of all those who defend the state. And at the cost of tens of thousands of lives of Ukrainian men and women killed by the occupiers.”
In his daily address, he said that the situation in Donbas remained dire. “The situation in Donbas is extremely difficult,” he said. “In fact, all the strength the Russian army still has was thrown there to attack. Lyman, Popasna, Severodonetsk, Slovyansk – the occupiers want to destroy everything there.”
He then reiterated a need for heavy weapons:
Therefore, the supply of heavy weapons to Ukraine – MLRS, tanks, anti-ship and other weapons – is the best investment in maintaining stability in the world and preventing many severe crises that Russia is still planning or has already provoked….
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 421
They just want to make money off of us.
Uhhhhh… Isn’t that the point of ANY capitalist enterprise?
…The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on May 19 that it had not yet decided whether to pursue a criminal investigation into Abu Akleh’s death. On Monday, the Israeli military’s top lawyer, Major General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, said in a speech that under the military’s policy, a criminal investigation is not automatically launched if a person is killed in the “midst of an active combat zone,” unless there is credible and immediate suspicion of a criminal offense. United States lawmakers, the United Nations and the international community have all called for an independent probe.
But an investigation by CNN offers new evidence — including two videos of the scene of the shooting — that there was no active combat, nor any Palestinian militants, near Abu Akleh in the moments leading up to her death. Videos obtained by CNN, corroborated by testimony from eight eyewitnesses, an audio forensic analyst and an explosive weapons expert, suggest that Abu Akleh was shot dead in a targeted attack by Israeli forces.…
Someone retweeted Gov. Abbott’s tweet about how he was mourning and grieving after the massacre, noting: “This man is scheduled to speak at the NRA convention in Houston this Friday.”
With a slumping birth rate, a death rate on the rise and immigration slowly falling, Russia is experiencing population decline. Despite having launched some of the most encouraging childbirth policies, Putin is now facing a “major problem for someone who believes population is synonymous with power”, says French demographer Laurent Chalard.
Russia’s population has been declining at a dizzying rate for the past 30 years. The demographic trend has been steadfast since 1991, when the Soviet Union fell and Russia counted 148.2 million inhabitants within its far-reaching borders. By 2021, that number had fallen to 146.1 million, according to Russian statistics agency Rosstat. What’s even more striking is that, according to demographic projections, the country’s population will continue to fall and reach between 130 and 140 million inhabitants by 2050.
[…]
“Putin is obsessed with this demographic issue,” says Chalard. “In his mind, the power of a country is linked to the size of its population. The larger the population, the more powerful the state.”
Following this mindset, Putin presented the demographic crisis as a historic challenge in January 2020, and assured his country that Russia’s destiny and its historic prospects depend on how numerous we will be.
In the face of this, population decline is clearly a key motivator for Russia in its war against Ukraine, Chalard and [a demographer at the National Institute for Demographic Studies (INED) in France, Alan] Blum agree. Ukraine has a population of 44 million people who are mostly of Slavic descent from the former Soviet bloc. For Putin, the invasion is not only about capturing territory he believes belongs to Russia, but about gaining control over a population he wants to ‘integrate’ into the country.
In its latest population census, Moscow has included the 2.4 million inhabitants of the Donbas, parts of which were administered by pro-Russia separatists before the current invasion. […]
[…]
Alexey Raksha, a Russian demographer living in Moscow, is already predicting a sharp drop in childbirth over the coming months as a reaction to the war in Ukraine, but above all to the economic crisis linked to the sanctions. “During economic crises, people are less inclined to have children, which is logical,” he explains. “Trust in the future plays a key role in a country’s birth rate.”
“The war will affect births from December,” Raksha predicts. “We’ll see the effects as early as 2023. It’s going to be a bad year for childbirth in Russia. And the following year won’t be much better,” he concludes. His predictions are supported by the latest statistics from Rosstat, which reported a 5 percent drop in births in the first quarter of 2022 compared to last year.
“I think that everything will depend on who wins the war,” adds Chalard. “If Russia wins, the resulting joy could lead to a boom in births. But losing and getting bogged down in an economic crisis will have the opposide effect,” he says. “What is certain is that Putin has his back against the wall. From a [Putin’s] demographic point of view, he has no other choice but to win.”
The ruling, and another crucial court decision this week, will force the company to face charges it lied about global heating
The Massachusetts high court on Tuesday ruled that the US’s largest oil company, ExxonMobil, must face a trial over accusations that it lied about the climate crisis and covered up the fossil fuel industry’s role in worsening environmental devastation.
Exxon claimed the case brought by the Massachusetts attorney general, Maura Healey, was politically motived and amounted to an attempt to prevent the company from exercising its free speech rights. But the state’s supreme judicial court unanimously dismissed the claim […]
Healey’s lawsuit accuses Exxon of breaking the state’s consumer protection laws with a decades-long cover-up of what it knew about the impact on the climate of burning fossil fuels. The state also says the company deceived investors about the risks to its business posed by global heating.
Exxon claimed the lawsuit was in breach of legislation against what are known as strategic lawsuits against public participation, or Slapps, used by wealthy individuals and corporations to silence critics. The Massachusetts court ruled that anti-Slapp laws do not apply to government cases.
[…]
In March, a federal court also refused to put a block on the state’s legal action and ruled that Exxon was obliged to turn over documents to investigators.
The oil industry suffered another defeat on Monday when a federal appeals court ruled that a lawsuit by Rhode Island against 21 fossil fuel companies, including Exxon, BP and Shell, can go ahead in state court. Fossil fuel companies are attempting to move cases into what they regard as the more friendly forum of federal courts.
Among other things, state systems often permit a much broader discovery process, which could force Exxon and other companies to hand over highly embarrassing documents revealing what they knew about the climate crisis and when, and how they responded.
At least 10 other federal courts across the country have rejected the industry’s attempts to get similar cases out of the state systems.
[…]
So far this year, federal appeals courts made similar rulings in Colorado, Maryland and California.
In March, a Hawaii state court gave the go-ahead for a case to remain within its jurisdiction. Honolulu’s lawsuit alleges that the oil giants “engaged in a coordinated, multi-front effort” to deny the threat posed by global heating, to discredit the science of climate change, and to deceive the public “about the reality and consequences of the impacts of their fossil fuel pollution”.
[…]
The head of Moldova’s pro-Russian opposition party, former president Igor Dodon, has reportedly been detained on corruption charges, in a move likely to anger the Kremlin.
[… Senior anti-corruption prosecutor Elena] Cazacov did not identify the detainee but said the investigation focused on suspected acts of “illicit enrichment, passive corruption, illegal party financing and (treason), which have taken place since 2014.”
The Kremlin earlier on Tuesday said it was concerned at media reports that Dodon had been detained, with spokesperson Dmitry Peskov calling on the Moldovan authorities to respect his rights.
“Being a political buzz-kill” is the best description of a lot of my political behavior. I usually target the US political right/conservatives/Rs, but the behavior in question is very often a broader problem, hence “buzz-kill”. Like the places the language about feeling and emotion isn’t consistent with how brains and minds seem to work, including hate. Or highlighting sexual harassment as a place where Biden is “the serial sexual harasser” and Trump is “the boundary breaking abomination”.
And a preference for interacting with and often judging the effectiveness of political insults. Disarming them through explaining them.
As PZ posted, the Attorney General of Texas,l Ken Paxton, has responded to the shooting of elementary school children in Uvalde by calling for arming more teachers. Yeah, that’s it, more guns is surely the answer. Sickness.
Greg Abbott:
I’m EMBARRASSED: Texas #2 in nation for new gun purchases, behind CALIFORNIA. Let’s pick up the pace Texans. @NRA
That’s what the governor of Texas tweeted in October 2015.
Those elected politicians are making the problem worse!
As a monkey and a representative of the Global Foundation for Monkey Brand Management, I hereby request you immediately stop referring to the orthopoxvirus that has begun spreading around the world as “monkeypox.”
Your scientists gave it that name in 1958 when a pox-like disease broke out among monkeys at a research facility in Copenhagen. But we in the broader monkey community were never consulted, and now that this particular viral zoonosis is dominating headlines both domestically and abroad, we feel the monkeypox label is doing irreparable harm to our brand, which is, generally, “cute little fellas up in the trees, eating bananas and whatnot.”
We are cute. We do love both bananas and trees. And we are definitely not the face of some dreadful pox.
So kindly knock it off.
We of course understand your concerns about the virus. A Massachusetts human tested positive for it last Wenesday after a trip to Canada, and cases have recently been showing up in Europe and other parts of North America.
[…]
But we monkeys aren’t to blame for this. Plenty of other mammals carry the virus. Back in 2003, according to your Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 70 people in the Midwest were infected with the so-called monkeypox virus. And do you know what animals they got it from? PRAIRIE DOGS!! And those prairie dogs got it from Gambian giant rats.
But do you hear people talking about an outbreak of prairiedogpox or Gambiangiantratpox? No. It all falls on us monkeys.
[…]
How would you like to have your name show up in the same headline as conspiracy theorist Alex Jones? [see @355] That’s like being associated with two different diseases! [rofl!]
This unfair labeling must stop now before our image goes from Curious George to Typhoid Mary.
Look, we’re all primates here. I think we can come to an understanding without having to get any of our macaque attorneys involved. (They love flinging their own lawsuits at humans.)
[…]
This [is] like one of us catching a flu that a human named Steve also happened to have and then howling our heads off about an outbreak of “Steve flu” in the monkey community. Steve would not be pleased.
And neither are we.
[…]
We appreciate your attention to this matter and wish you all the best in eradicating this latest pox on your people.
Sincerely,
– Bongo, senior spokesmonkey for the Global Foundation for Monkey Brand Management
“14 kids dead in an elementary school in Texas right now. What are we doing? What are we doing? … We have another Sandy Hook on our hands. What are we doing? … What are we doing? … What are we doing?”
— Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) after the Robb Elementary School shooting
[…] “I’m here on this floor to beg, to literally get down on my hands and knees and beg my colleagues. Find a path forward here. Work with us to find a way to pass laws that make this less likely,” Murphy said.
Murphy also implored Republican senators to “spare me the bullshit of mental illness” in response to gun violence.
“You cannot explain this through a prism of mental illness because we’re not an outlier on mental illness — we’re an outlier when it comes to access to firearms,” Murphy said. […]
blfsays
Typical British headline, focuses entirely on teh “U”K angle, ignoring the five other countries surveyed (the famous “One Briton killed in earthquake” school of headline-writing), Six in 10 people in UK believe government ‘ignores rules’:
People in the UK and Poland rated their governments worst on matters of trust and legitimacy in an EU-funded study
[…]
The EU-funded study found that 62% of people in the UK think their government ignores rules and procedures, compared with an average of 44% and well above the next highest, Poland (50%) […]
[…]
The other countries in the King’s College London (KCL) study, which surveyed 12,000 people in January, were Ireland, Italy, Germany, Norway but the UK and Poland tended to rate worst on matters of trust and legitimacy. For example, Poland — in each case followed by the UK — had the highest percentage of people who felt their government’s values were mostly different to theirs, who felt their government usually ignores people like them and who think that their government acts unfairly towards people like them.
Additionally, 66% of people in the UK felt their government was not well respected, again second only to Poland (76%).
Prof Bobby Duffy, director of the Policy Institute at KCL, said: “None of the countries in the study do particularly well, with large proportions in each saying they’re cautious in trusting their government, disagreeing that they are honest, truthful and provide unbiased information — although people do tend to be more positive in Norway and Germany than other nations.”
[…]
People in the UK had an unfavourable perception of government trustworthiness across a range of other questions too but this was largely in line with views in other countries.
They had a comparatively high degree of animosity towards the media, with 31% of the UK public saying they felt negatively towards news and media organisations. The only other country where the media were viewed in a similarly negative light was in Poland (32%). […]
By contrast, the UK had one of the highest favourable ratings for scientists, whose profile increased during the Covid pandemic. The proportion viewing scientists working at universities positively was 55% just behind the high of 56%, recorded in both Ireland and Italy.
Texas state Senator Roland Gutierrez says death toll is now 18 children in mass shooting
The death toll in a mass shooting targeting an elementary school on Tuesday has now risen to 21, according to Texas state senator Roland Gutierrez, including 18 children and three adults.
Speaking on CNN, Gutierrez relayed the new numbers as he was told by Texas police officials in a private briefing.
Gutierrez called the event “devastating”. “I can’t imagine what it would mean to send your child off to school in the morning and not have them return,” he said.
[…] It doesn’t matter how many kids to get shot or what new turn of perversion is added to the stale choreography of the latest school mass shooting. Literally nothing happens. That is power. When the mass shooting bacillus was first loosed on the country a quarter century ago there were some minor reforms. After those fixes were repealed we at least went through the motions of discussing possible reforms or restrictions after each new massacre. Today I don’t think anyone is under any illusion that reforms are possible even enough to start the conversation. We know the gun rules us.
Yes, a gun can kill you. And the rapid and sustained fire from an AR-15 type weapon can kill a lot of people very quickly. But that reality pales in comparison to this omnipotence of the gun itself in American society. The power of firearms is total. Each new mass shooting plays out the ritual again. That power is so total it’s no surprise that angry losers flock to become part of it.
Good news for democracy in Georgia: It’s hanging on despite last year’s new election law that sought to eliminate all the voter fraud that wasn’t there in 2020. As a matter of fact, Georgia saw a surge in early voting for the primary that set new records, with over 800,000 Georgians casting primary ballots by the end of early voting. That’s more than in 2018 or even in the 2020 primaries.
Not surprisingly, that’s led to a lot of rightwing outlets crying, “See? All those Democrats who worried about ‘voter suppression’ were just lying, so the new voting laws are only making elections more secure, not stopping anyone from voting, hahaha, what a bunch of liars!”
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, an enthusiastic supporter of Georgia’s SB 202, insisted the record turnout was a direct result of it, because of course he would. In a statement, Raffensperger claimed the “incredible turnout we have seen demonstrates once and for all that Georgia’s Election Integrity Act struck a good balance between the guardrails of access and security.” [bullshit]
Mind you, the 2020 election in Georgia (and the rest of the country) didn’t actually include any noteworthy incidents of fraud, apart from the predictable Trumpers voting twice to offset what they imagined was widespread fraud by Democrats. So it’s hard to say the “security” side of things accomplished a damned thing.
SB 202 did include one measure supporters claim made voting easier: it set minimum requirements for early voting, which hadn’t been mandated previously. It’s difficult to say that change truly offset the many ways the law restricted voting — like new voter ID requirements for absentee voting; limits on ballot drop boxes; the stupid ban on groups giving food or water to people waiting in line to vote; a prohibition on local governments using outside grants to pay for election administration; and a weird ban on mobile voting vans, which forbade Fulton County from using two such vehicles it purchased for $700,000 and used only in the 2020 election cycle. Some jurisdictions also eliminated voting on Sundays, in a pretty transparent attempt to curtail Black churches’ “Souls to the Polls” voting drives, which van-pool people to vote after services.
Ah, but early voting set records, so wasn’t all that worry about voter suppression misplaced, stupid libs?
Frankly, no, not so much.
For starters, much of the high early voting turnout for the primary elections was driven by the high-stakes Republican fights for nominations for governor, secretary of state, and for the Senate seat held by Raphael Warnock (D). As Raffensperger’s press release notes, early voting by Republicans far outweighed that by Democrats:
It’s not too surprising Democratic turnout is lower, since Stacey Abrams is running unopposed for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, and Sen. Raphael Warnock has just one opponent we’ve never heard of. That said, yes, good turnout for the other races, indeed, but the real impacts of the new law won’t really show up until voting for the general election gets going.
For another, it only makes sense that Democratic turnout this year will be higher because many voters are pissed off at the new law, as the Washington Post reports:
Voting rights groups and Democrats say they have changed their strategies to mobilize voters under the new rules. In Spalding County, for instance, local activists moved Souls to the Polls to a Saturday, and they defiantly promised that they would work twice as hard if that was what it took to protect voter access.
“It was a direct way to send a message to the Black community that they’re in charge now,” said Elbert Solomon, vice chairman of the county Democratic committee. “But every day we get people walking through the door, White and Black. A lot of people are concerned about their democracy.”
Raffensperger claims Abrams and President Biden “lied” about the law’s impact, but Republicans haven’t exactly been explaining why measures like banning mobile voting stations do a goddamn thing to “balance security and access.” Mostly, they just cut access, and the fact that Democrats so far seem willing to redouble their get-out-the-vote efforts doesn’t change that in the least.
It’s a little too early for fans of SB 202 to be claiming it’s had no ill effects, as the New York Times points out:
The picture will grow slightly clearer on Tuesday, when Election Day turnout can be observed; clearer still in the days afterward, when final absentee ballot rejection rates and precinct-level data will emerge; and will fully come into focus after the November general election, when turnout will be far higher and put more strain on the system. […]
“Just because turnout is up doesn’t mean that voters face no hurdles,” said Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine. “It could well mean that voters overcame those hurdles, and that means that time and money were put into efforts to assure that voters could overcome those hurdles. And that seems unjustified if those hurdles serve no important anti-fraud or other purpose.”
And again: It shouldn’t have to take an extraordinary effort to overcome the roadblocks to voting set up by the new law. If white, middle class voters can vote easily on their lunch hours, but Black voters have to take off a day from work in anticipation of hours-long lines, that’s not a demonstration of how beautifully the great pageant of democracy is working out. And that’s to say nothing of the potential fuckery that may yet arise from the provision in SB 202 that has led to GOP takeovers of local elections boards, which have indicated a willingness to reduce the number of polling places on the flimsiest of pretexts, and could do far worse, like arbitrarily disqualify voters or ballots. Gosh, not that Republicans would ever do such a terrible thing. […]
Contrary opinions about Ukraine are effectively banned from anything but fringe publications. So says [Katrina vandenHeuvel] in *checks notes* the Washington Post…
Journalists from countries deemed unfriendly to Russian media could lose accreditation
Russia’s parliament on Tuesday passed a Bill giving prosecutors powers to shut foreign media bureaus in Moscow if a western country has been unfriendly to Russian media, following the closure of some Russian state news outlets in the West.
The Bill […] also prohibits the distribution of articles or other materials from media that have been closed by the prosecutor’s office. […]
The journalists of a media organisation deemed to be an offender under the Bill would have their foreign ministry accreditation withdrawn — meaning they could not work in Russia.
The New York Times editorial, “The War in Ukraine Is Getting Complicated, and America Isn’t Ready,” published on May 19, immediately caused an uproar in Ukraine.
A veiled manifesto of appeasement from a newspaper known for its stellar coverage of Russia’s horrific invasion has disappointed many.
In the editorial, the New York Times editorial board argues that it’s too dangerous to assume that Ukraine can win the war. It says “Russia is too strong,” that Ukraine should make a “painful compromise” and give up some territories to Russia. The U.S. must understand the futility and stop “taunting” Russia, the editorial says. Meaning: Ukraine will lose anyway, stop helping it so it’s over faster.
In short, the editorial attempts to pass off appeasement and betrayal of the free world’s values as pragmatic reasoning.
Dark times have always shed light on those willing to compromise their values to preserve their daily comforts. Neither a French president, a German intellectual, nor an award-winning American newspaper are exempt from being wrong.
As a newsroom witnessing the war from inside Ukraine, we want to set the record straight.
Ukraine winning the war with Russia isn’t “unrealistic” or even “likely.” If we want the world to be anything like what we know it to be, then Ukraine winning is the only option.
And Western financial and military support for Ukraine is the only way to establish “long-term peace and security on the European continent” that the New York Times editorial board is rooting for.
Ukraine’s belief in its victory isn’t based on overconfidence. It’s based on necessity.
Any concession to Russia now will lead to another war sooner or later, while Ukrainians stuck in any region occupied by Russia will be tortured, raped, or killed. The New York Times is running story after story about the living hell through which Russia puts Ukrainian civilians in occupied territories. Meanwhile, its editorial board is suggesting that Ukraine should cede territories to Russia, where more atrocities will undoubtedly happen.
Appeasement isn’t the voice of reason. It’s fear and short-sightedness that will only make things worse, something we’ve all seen too many times in the past.
Allowing Russia to annex Crimea emboldened Russia to try to swallow the Donbas. When it invaded in 2014, carving up a sovereign state and killing civilians, the other world leaders’ tepid response made Russia’s bloody dictator feel empowered to do more.
It’s obvious that he’s been planning the full-scale invasion of Ukraine ever since. It’s often been said by world leaders and analysts that one of Vladimir Putin’s main miscalculations was assuming that the West would let him take Ukraine easily. It didn’t.
Now the New York Times is calling for the West to do what Putin expected and give up.
Make no mistake: If you appease a dictator, whose troops regularly indulge in war crimes, it will lead to a catastrophic geopolitical shift.
A Russian military victory would lead to land grabs and brutal conquest becoming the new norm. Allowing a power-hungry fascist dictatorship to succeed will encourage other dictatorships to try.
…
…The assumption that Russia, despite its colossal battlefield losses, is still a superpower with a potent military is a lie groomed by Russian propaganda over the past 15 years.
It’s a lie many in the West still believe, in spite of Russia’s modest-at-best progress in Ukraine and its losses of tens of thousands of soldiers and thousands of vehicles.
Russia has already lost over 40% of the territories it invaded since February. And yet, some continue to think that the Russian military is unbeatable.
The reality is that Russian corruption, theft, mismanagement, and lack of transparency led to the country’s military being poorly trained and equipped. Highly-motivated soldiers could have offset these problems. But Russia has no viable justification for the war it could feed its demoralized soldiers, who are often used as cannon fodder.
The Russian military is weak, its command structure is abysmal and it can very well lose the war to the smaller but much more motivated Ukrainian forces willing to defend their homes, families, and country until the last breath.
Meanwhile, following the New York Times’ advice will lead to more war, more destruction and a heavier burden on American people in the long run.
But perhaps one of the most striking features of the editorial is the complete lack of understanding of Ukraine and Ukrainians.
Ironically, the New York Times makes the same mistake that the Russians did when they attacked Ukraine in February. The Russians assumed that Ukrainians would welcome them or surrender. The New York Times editorial board should know better than to make similar assumptions about Ukrainians now.
If anything, the Gray Lady should learn from its mistakes, like when it ran a story about how modern and lethal the Russian military is, a month before the invasion would prove otherwise.
Because here’s the thing. Ukrainian society will never agree to any concessions. Those who don’t understand this simple fact don’t understand Ukraine at all, and perhaps shouldn’t share their uneducated speculations in one of the world’s leading media publications.
Even President Volodymyr Zelensky, however popular he is now, wouldn’t be able to persuade Ukrainians to concede. According to a recent poll by the Kyiv International Sociology Institute, 82% of Ukrainians believe that Ukraine should not give up territory for peace under any circumstances.
After seeing the atrocities committed by Russian troops in Borodyanka, Bucha and Mariupol, the Ukrainian people see very clearly that this is a war for survival against a fascist regime that denies Ukrainians the right to exist. Concessions would be a swift death sentence for thousands of Ukrainians. This fact apparently escapes the New York Times editorial board.
The newspaper doesn’t have to go far to find some clarity.
As professor Timothy Snyder pointed out in his spectacular guest essay, published on the same day as the controversial editorial, “so long as Nazi Germany seemed strong, Europeans and others were tempted. It was only on the battlefields of World War II that fascism was defeated.”
Ukraine will win, sooner or later, because no fascist state has ever truly prevailed over a free country.
The democratic world can make this victory come sooner and be less costly for the people of Ukraine and for the world. It can do so by stepping up military support for Ukraine and pressure on Russia.
Ukraine is fighting this war on behalf of the free world – to make sure it remains free. The free world must at least try to match the Ukrainians’ bravery.
Pres. Biden is speaking now about the shooting. Jill Biden is by his side. “When in God’s name are we gonna stand up to the gun lobby…do what needs to be done?”
Schools scared to death.
The truth is, one education under desks,
Stooped low from bullets;
That plunge when we ask
Where our children
Shall live
& how
& if
Details have emerged of what appears to be another alcohol-fuelled social event inside Downing Street during lockdown, one that was seemingly not investigated by police or the official civil service investigation.
According to the Mirror, between 30 and 40 staff drank alcohol and ate takeaway snacks to mark the final press briefing conducted by Boris Johnson’s then-spokesperson James Slack, on 17 November 2020.
A photograph obtained by the paper appears to show an official setting out bottles of wine and Champagne-type drinks. The picture was reportedly sent to No 10 staff on a WhatsApp group, in response to a message saying: “Time to open the Covid secure bar.”
The photo was then posted as a reply with the message: “The bar is open.” Other messages reported by the Mirror seemingly demonstrate premeditation in socialising, with one referring to “Wine Time Tuesday”, and others discussing going to buy “reinforcement booze”. One official says: “If someone can help me carry it I’m happy to go.”
The alleged event was four days after the leaving drinks for Lee Cain…
The 17 November event was not among gatherings investigated by the Met, and was not listed among those examined in the interim report into lockdown-breaching parties by the senior Cabinet Office civil servant Sue Gray. Her full report is expected to emerge on Wednesday.
Slack, who was a civil servant rather than a political appointee like Cain, was chosen to replace Cain as head of communications. The 17 November drinks were held to mark the last time that, as Johnson’s official spokesperson, he spoke to the media at the daily lobby briefings, according to reports.
At that time, because of the lockdown, the briefings were being held virtually rather than in person. Slack left No 10 in April 2021. That leaving party, held the day before Prince Philip’s funeral while indoor social mixing was still barred, was reported and investigated. He is now deputy editor of the Sun.
Evidence of what appears to be yet another social event, and one planned in advance, puts further pressure on Johnson ahead of Gray’s findings, amid reports more Conservative MPs could be submitting letters of no confidence in the prime minister.
If Gray’s full report is released on Wednesday, it would most likely be submitted to Downing Street in the morning and published shortly afterwards, with Johnson promising to give a statement to parliament and answer questions from MPs later that day. No 10 have said Johnson would then aim to hold a press conference….
A garden with hardly a bloom in sight and inspired by the dramatic transformation of land through the reintroduction of beavers to the UK has won best in show at the Chelsea flower show.
The garden – A Rewilding Britain Landscape by first-time Chelsea designers Lulu Urquhart and Adam Hunt – may lack eye-catching flowers but features a beaver dam, a pool with a lodge behind it, a shabby shed with corrugated iron roof and UK native plants.
Judges were won over by its evocation of a rewilded landscape in south-west England, which used West Country stone, reclaimed timber and sticks pre-gnawed by beavers – with the dam representing a re-established colony of the keystone species.
Beavers have been reintroduced to parts of the country after becoming extinct in the UK 400 years ago. The garden, designed for the charity Rewilding Britain, aimed to show their role as incredible bioengineers within a natural ecosystem, and incorporated crack willow, hawthorn and alder.
Unusually for the show, native grasses are shown as they would be seen in the wild, with their previous year’s growth and their pre-season seed-head remnants left on, together with the brown, former season’s dead foliage. A soundscape included the tail slap of the beaver and the creature’s mewing.
“It was a hard-fought debate between members of the judging panel to decide which garden to award best in show. In the end, all the judges were captivated by the skill, endeavour and charm of A Rewilding Britain Landscape – every step is exquisite,” said James Alexander-Sinclair, the Royal Horticultural Society chair of judges….
Pres. Biden is speaking now about the shooting. Jill Biden is by his side. “When in God’s name are we gonna stand up to the gun lobby…do what needs to be done?”
I know the gun lobby was a major force for decades. I’m not convinced that the gun lobby remains that powerful.
It seems that what may have happened is that the gun lobby’s advertising campaign to scare some citizens into thinking that they needed to buy not just one gun but an entire arsenal may have worked too well. Chris Hayes pointed out this evening that when gun sales slowed, gun manufacturers pushed the propaganda that guns are needed to defend oneself against the government. And for that you need an arsenal, and some militia-type friends with arsenals. (And now you need an arsenal for the supposed race war.)
There’s a big voting block in the USA of people who have added guns to their lives as if guns were religion … and they are still thriving on the fear factor. And some people are nurturing the delusion, and the adrenaline rush they get when they think that they are going to take on and defeat “government tyranny.”
The culture of violence and of owning mass quantities of guns has grown beyond the NRA. It exists now as a separate virus. It makes guns look like the answer to every problem disturbed people have.
Too many Republican politicians are delusional and batshitfuckingcrazy about every other issue, why wouldn’t they be deluded about guns as well? They can’t act to pass even reasonable background check laws to close loopholes. They can’t even do that … it would be against their religion.
We used to have a ban on the sale of assault rifles. Now those rifles are considered to be a human right, like freedom. It is a sickness.
Other things play a part, like the worship of “toughness,” and the toxic personality of Trump, and racism … but mostly it is just the same swamp that fosters every other negative trend, bad idea, and self-destructive “conservative” policy agenda. The NRA plays an increasingly small role in creating and filling that swamp.
I also think it may be all too convenient to blame the NRA. Politicians like these bear more of the blame:
Trump
Gov. Abbott
Sen. Cruz
Gov. Noem
Sen. Cornyn
Rep. Crenshaw
NC Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson
That’s the list from SC’s comment 454. Those people will be featured speakers at the NRA conference in Houston. Add people like Lauren Boebert, who always feature guns in their political ads and in their social media posts. Marjorie Taylor Greene too. Lots of Idaho politicians. They have to be voted out of office.
here’s hoping these artificial dens do manage to stabilise and increase the number of Northern Quolls.
KGsays
Sue Gray’s report into law-breaking at 10 Downing St. has been published. It’s exactly the sort of mealy-mouthed crapola to be expected of a senior civil servant selected by the very person most requiring rigorous investigation. Her peerage will not doubt be delivered as soon as politically expedient.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 471
I agree. Too much of the left has fallen for this idea that everything their opponents do can be traced back to money or class. Politicians and their supporters don’t “really” believe in the monstrous ideology they espouse. No, they just want to get rich. I think it’s because the mainstream left far easier to paint their opponents as greedy opportunists rather than deal with their actual beliefs. It’s simple to villainize a large weapons corporation, it’s far more politically dangerous to go after the culture of paranoid, jingoistic, racist, hero-worship that sustains those arms manufactures.
People who take part in insurrections against US government can be barred from office and 1872 act does not apply, court rules
People who take part in insurrections against the US government can be barred from office, an appeals court said on Tuesday, reversing a ruling in favor of Madison Cawthorn, an extremist Republican politician from North Carolina.
Hailing a “major victory”, Free Speech For People, the group which brought the case, said: “This ruling cements the growing judicial consensus that the 1872 Amnesty Act does not shield the insurrectionists of 6 January 2021 — including Donald Trump — from the consequences of their actions.”
Cawthorn lost a primary this month and will not return to Congress in November. But Free Speech For People pursued an appeal.
It also brought cases against Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, two Arizona Republicans, Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs, and an Arizona state representative, Mark Finchem. All have been unsuccessful.
[…]
In answer to Free Speech for People[Bellowing deluded bullshite], lawyers argued that an 1872 amnesty law for former Confederates did not only apply retroactively. Judges sided with them.
Ruling in the Cawthorn appeal, Toby Heytens, one of a three-judge panel of the US court of appeals for the US fourth circuit, wrote: “The available evidence suggests that the Congress that enacted the 1872 Amnesty Act was, understandably, laser-focused on the then-pressing problems posed by the hordes of former Confederates seeking forgiveness[to continue their reign of enslavement].”
Heytens also said only Congress could decide such matters, writing: “When the district court here tried to determine the effect of the 1872 Amnesty Act on Representative Cawthorn’s qualification for access to the ballot, the attempt amounted to a judging of his qualifications for office. The district court had no jurisdiction to make that call.”
[…]
blfsays
Follow-up to @356, First Dog on the Moon (who is Ozlandish) in the Grauniad, Self-reflection is usually for leftists and the weak but we need to find out who to blame for the election (cartoon), “There’s no time for dramatics because democracy has been MURDERED!” Some snippets (my transcription): “Every losing candidate was beaten from the left … If we lurch wildly to the right we cannot lose!”, “Voters claim to want action on climate change but what would voters know?!”, …
‘Bible of the bush’ urges party to concede global heating is real as Darren Chester compares Joyce’s boast about retaining seats to a surgeon saying an operation succeeded when ‘the patient died’
An editorial in the Weekly Times has delivered a rare sharp rebuke to Barnaby Joyce post-election, urging him and the National party to concede climate change is real and will affect all parts of the country, not just “leafy suburbs” in the city.
Known as the “bible of the bush”, the Victoria-based News Corp newspaper dedicated to rural and particularly agricultural issues […] “The lessons for Joyce and co are right before their eyes with increased support for two of their own. Darren Chester in Gippsland and Kevin Hogan in Page, both of whom believe climate change is real,” the editorial says.
[… lots of Ozland political maneuveringlying…]
Joyce ally Matt Canavan […] said the key issue at the election was the cost of living, not climate change.
We failed to prosecute that because we signed up to net zero. We couldn’t really point out the cost of crazy radical environmental action and because we failed to do that we lost government, Canavan said.
But exit polls done in key marginals found climate and environment policy was the top issue for voters in those electorates.
[…]
If my memory is correct — and I could easily be mistaken here — it was Joyce who resulted to look at(? acknowledge?) graphs and other evidence of Global Heating on a live(?) show when challenged by an expert (Michael E Mann?). Not the incident I am fumbling to recall (which was so long ago I believe Ed Brayton still had his blog here at FtB), but Dr Mann and eejit Joyce have sparred, How to fight climate change in a 3-minute spot on TV (November 2021), a post by poopyhead here at FtB.
blfsays
me@477, Oops! it was Joyce who resulted to look at → it was Joyce who refused to look at…
🎓New education standards
Russia’s Science and Higher Education Ministry says it plans to abandon the European higher-education standards adopted almost 20 years ago, pulling Russia out of the so-called Bologna education system. The future belongs to our own unique education system, Minister Valery Falkov told the newspaper Kommersant, insisting that Russia’s higher education priorities should reflect the interests of the national economy.
🤰Two draft laws to deal with those shifty foreigners
Lawmakers in the [Russian] State Duma adopted the first reading of federal legislation that would ban the services of surrogate mothers for foreign citizens. The bill would restrict surrogacy to married Russian citizens and unmarried infertile Russian women. The ban would not apply to married couples where one of the spouses is a Russian citizen. Deputies also approved the first reading of a draft law that will allow external management of Russian businesses, at least 25 percent of which belongs to companies from nfriendly countries. Courts would be empowered to order domestic takeovers in the event that one of these entities ceases operations in Russia without obvious economic grounds. The bill also stipulates qualifying criteria for external management, such as the production of socially significant or essential goods. An interdepartmental commission at the Economic Development Ministry would also be able to flag companies for takeovers. Researchers at Yale University’s School of Management say nearly 1,000 companies have officially announced they are voluntarily curtailing operations in Russia.
Forced takeover of foreign company is external management. War is special denazification. Freedom from Russia is slavery. Ignorance is Russian education. Ukrainian grain is Russian. Unfriendly countries in awe of Russia. Putin is genius. …
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Russian forces have launched fresh assaults on towns in eastern Ukraine, with the city of Sievierodonetsk increasingly in danger of being totally encircled.
The head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, said delays in arrival of western arms to the frontline had left Kyiv “catastrophically short of heavy weapons”.
The governor of Luhansk region, Serhiy Haidai, said the area was now without gas supplies and had limited water and electricity after the last gas supply station was hit.
Haidai added that Russian forces were attempting to “completely destroy” the city of Sievierodonetsk in an attempt to conquer the Donbas region, near Russia’s border. “They are simply erasing Sievierodonetsk from the face of the Earth,” Haidai said on his Telegram channel.
After failing to seize Kyiv or Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, Russia is trying to take the rest of the separatist-claimed Donbas’s two provinces, Donetsk and Luhansk, and trap Ukrainian forces in a pocket on the main eastern front.
In the easternmost part of the Ukrainian-held Donbas pocket, the city of Sievierodonetsk on the east bank of the Siverskyi Donets River and its twin Lysychansk, on the west bank, have become a pivotal battlefield as Russian forces have advanced from three directions to encircle them.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has accused Russia of trying to “blackmail the world” by saying it is ready to unblock Black Sea ports in return for the lifting of sanctions.
Kuleba tweeted that anyone considering accepting Russia’s “game” should “first visit the graves of killed Ukrainian children and talk to their parents”….
Yesterday the propaganda line at state TV was that there would be hunger but that countries that maintained good relations with Russia wouldn’t have to worry. Openly using a threat of starvation to coerce foreign leaders to stay silent about their crimes…which is another crime.
Here’s a link to the Guardian US-primaries liveblog. From there:
Donald Trump is facing a cold new reality this morning: the total power he thought he still held over the Republican party is no longer a thing.
Resounding defeats for his “big lie” candidates David Perdue, Jody Hice and John Gordon in Tuesday’s primaries in Georgia were a stunning rebuke for what critics have called Trump’s “vendetta tour” – his plan to take out the state’s top officials who rebuffed his efforts to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden.
Former senator Perdue was trounced by incumbent governor Brian Kemp, Hice failed to topple secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, and Gordon fell to attorney general Chris Carr.
It wasn’t a total blowout for Trump-aligned candidates in Georgia: his pick for Senate, former NFL star Herschel Walker, cruised home. And congresswoman Marjory Taylor Greene won her race at a canter.
But that in itself is alarming Republican leaders, who worry that Walker, who has a history of domestic violence, is the wrong candidate to be taking on Democratic senator Raphael Warnock in the fall, and that Greene’s extremism will turn off independent voters.
– In Alabama, Republican congressman Mo Brooks lost Trump’s endorsement, but won enough votes to reach a run-off to hold on to his seat.
– In Texas, attorney general Ken Paxton, who spoke at Trump’s 6 January Washington rally that preceded the Capitol insurrection, saw off a challenge from George P Bush, grandson of former president George HW Bush.
– And the only anti-abortion Democrat in the House, Henry Cuellar, has declared victory over progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros in their Texas district….
Donald Trump’s big lie lost bigly in Georgia on Tuesday night. Some might take this as proof that his spell over the Republican party has finally been broken, but that is what the Republican party wants people to believe.
The former president had been waging a personal vendetta against Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp and secretary of state Brad Raffensperger for failing to overturn the 2020 presidential election in his favor.
Trump handpicked former senator David Perdue and congressman Jody Hice to challenge Kemp and Raffensperger in the Republican primaries. Both parroted the big lie and both were soundly beaten. It was a tangible sign that even many Trump voters are now weary of “stop the steal” and eager to look forward. It was also a blow to Trump in a primary season where his scattergun endorsements have come up with a decidedly mixed win-loss record.
But studying Trump’s recent record as kingmaker misses the point. In fact, it actively helps Republicans create the illusion that they have moved on from “Make America great again” (Maga) even as they continue to push its radical rightwing agenda….
Public approval of the supreme court has dropped sharply following the leak of a draft opinion that would overturn the Roe v Wade decision guaranteeing abortion rights nationwide, according to a new poll.
Disapproval of the nation’s highest court was especially pronounced among the roughly two-thirds of US adults who oppose overturning Roe, the Associated Press says, while support for the court was high among those in favor, according to the Marquette Law School poll, which also found increased partisan polarization in approval.
Approval fell to 44%, with 55% disapproving of how the court is handling its job, the sample of more than 1,000 adults between 9 and 19 May found.
In March, 54% approved and 45% disapproved, itself a massive drop from the 66% approval the panel enjoyed in September 2020, the month that long-serving justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died.
Approval was fairly steady among Republicans from March to May this year, but fell sharply among Democrats and slightly among independents.
“NBC News: The Biden admin has stopped allowing the Russian government to make payments to its bondholders through U.S. banks, increasing the chances of Russia defaulting on its debt.”
“Watch this despicable exchange on the Kremlin-controlled Russian state TV about Putin’s brutal war against Ukraine: pundits say that Ukrainian children will have no fathers, no homes and a destroyed country.
Smiling, they add: ‘They’ll have McDonald’s, but it will be burnt’….”
Rachel Maddow looks at the past few months of reporting that have exposed the NRA’s lavish spending of donor and member contributions on luxury items for Wayne LaPierre, the organization’s C.E.O., and his wife.
This morning, Russian troops are once again gathering along the border of northern Ukraine. That includes forces massing in Russia near Sumy, and more gathering in Belarus near Chernihiv. This is likely nothing more than an attempt to distract Ukrainian forces fighting near Kharkiv and in the east, but it comes at a time when those Ukrainian forces appear to be pushed to their limits.
Back in March, before the collapse of Russian efforts to take Kyiv, both cities were nearly encircled by Russian forces and the nearby highways became salients reaching toward the Ukrainian capital. [map at the link]
But both cities were staunchly defended. As the Battle of Kyiv turned into a solid defeat for Russia, those forces scrambled to get out, and some of those who had proceeded down highways to the west were cut off and chopped up at villages along the way. By late March, Russia’s hold on the areas around all of these cities was looking tenuous. Days later, it began to collapse in earnest with Ukrainian forces surging out from multiple locations […] to break the Russian lines and scatter their ranks. By April 3, Russian forces were all but gone from this map, with Russian-occupied villages still existing only in the area around Kharkiv.
It was, perhaps, the greatest moment of the invasion from the Ukrainian side. They had met the full fury of the Russian military, withstood bombardments that leveled villages, battered cities, and filled mass graves. They had held, held, held … and won.
But on Wednesday morning, there was word that Russian forces were again gathering in the north. Exactly what Russian forces that might be isn’t clear. […].
The Pentagon keeps saying stuff like “Russia has 106 BTGs in Ukraine,” but that’s literally gibberish. On paper, a Russian BTG should have 600-800 soldiers, 10 tanks, and 40 infantry fighting vehicles (along with assorted artillery, air defense, and logistics/support vehicles). In reality, deployed BTGs rarely, if ever, arrived at full strength, in large part because of grift, but also because conscripts assigned to those units weren’t legally allowed to deploy outside of Russia (though it happened sometimes, it wasn’t widespread). At this point, Russian BTGs are mostly shattered remnants.
There have been reports of new Russian units entering the area of Ukraine, and videos from Russia have shown lines of trucks moving to the west. Of course, those lines have also included things like T-62 tanks that have to be at least 47 years old and have seen few, if any, upgrades in the interval.
As Ukrainian forces were recapturing villages and towns north of Kharkiv, Russia lobbed artillery shells into some towns just across the border near Sumy. It was clearly an attempt to distract Ukrainian forces, and hopefully force a few of them to relocate to meet this “new threat.” As it became clear that Ukrainian forces were not just clearing out areas west of the Siverskyi Donets River but making a cross to attack Russian positions on the east side of the river and threaten the supply lines passing through Vovchansk, Russia peeled away BTGs from the Izyum salient to create a kind of counter-counteroffensive in the north. [map at the link]
There are very mixed reports about the status of Ternova and Rubizhne. Ukraine has been consistently quiet about its actions in the area, not reporting on recaptured towns until days, or sometimes weeks, after indications that their forces had entered the area. Russia has repeatedly sent out false signals that it had taken a town or village even when there’s no evidence of any action. The combination makes it difficult to do more than read messages, look at satellite data, and … keep looking. But Russia has been more active in slowing what had been a high speed movement to take the areas west of the river and expand operations east of Staryi Saltiv.
It seems likely that, like earlier shelling, the new Russian forces gathering near Sumy and Chernihiv are intended to distract Ukrainian forces north of Kharkiv. Even if the Russian forces are a ragtag patch-together of the least capable troops in the Russian military driving around in tanks that are older than their parents, there’s no doubt they could do damage if they crossed the border and entered villages still recovering from Russia’s failed attack on Kyiv. Someone will have to meet them. Whether there is enough territorial defense available isn’t clear.
Right now, Ukraine’s advance to the north of Staryi Saltiv appears to be stalled. If Russian forces haven’t reoccupied Rubizhne, they’ve certainly been fighting right on the outskirts of that town. On the eastern bank, Ukraine doesn’t appear to have progressed beyond Buhaivka. There are some signs of activity, however, with shelling south east of Staryi Saltiv on Tuesday and fighting reported in the area of Pechenihy at the southern end of that big reservoir on Wednesday.
There’s no doubt Russia is continuing to expand their control in the east. On Wednesday alone, Russia appears to have completed the occupation of Lyman, captured the towns of Rozsadky and Svitlodarsk along the southern side of the Ukrainian controlled territory, and possibly taken parts of Luhanske. They’ve advanced forces along multiple routes and, perhaps most critically, appear to have advanced west of Popasna to cut Ukrainian supplies coming along the highway from Bakhmut.
Russia is in a stronger position to threaten Ukraine’s eastern cities than it has been at any time since the invasion began. The situation north of Kharkiv is far less rosy than it was two weeks ago, with Ukrainian forces apparently stalled and possibly in retreat from locations that were previously liberated. Things are looking tough.
None of this means Russia is about to “win the war.” It doesn’t even mean that Russia is close to achieving the pared down goals it announced after the ignominious retreat from Kyiv. Not that achieving those goals matters, because Ukraine won’t stop fighting just because Putin declares he has filled in his checklist. It is not time for panic.
Russia has been pushing their forces forward in patchwork units against defended positions. They’re still having far more failed attempts to advance than they are successful ones. Videos and images confirm that they are still suffering heavy losses. […] some of the “BTGs” that are now in operation are so worn down they’re practically nonexistent. But for all that, Russia is advancing. In the last two weeks they’ve taken more towns than at any time since the first week of the invasion. Ukrainian towns and long-prepared positions that have held through months of constant shelling and repulsed dozens of previous assaults have fallen.
This is a tough moment. In spite of just-arrived M777 howitzers, and in spite of Switchblades proving effective against a Russian tank, and in spite of maneuvering clearly designed to make Russia pay for every inch of advance, Ukraine is being pressed. There are reportedly reserve forces training in the west. Those fresh troops are getting up to speed with not just the regular arsenal of Ukraine, but with the whole set of new weapons systems that have been flowing in from NATO countries.
Meanwhile, there are also reports that Russia has used up a majority of its available high-precision weapons, that they are low on both parts and forces, and that even more forces are refusing to rejoin the fight. And Russia has suffered genuine disasters like the bridge crossing debacle which, we now know, came about in part because of just-delivered American artillery.
Russian troops aren’t 10 feet tall. Neither are Ukrainian troops. They’re tired. Stretched thin. The situation isn’t desperate. It’s not close to desperate. But Ukrainian forces sure could use some relief.
And a big victory wouldn’t hurt.
blfsays
When I first came here, this was all technobabble. Everyone said I was daft to build a pyramid scheme with technobabble, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into technobafflement. So I built a second one. That sank in a technobubble. So I built a third. That blew up, vanished, then sank into obscurity. But the fourth one’s now up. And that’s what you’re going to get, my precious marks, the most stoopid pyramid scheme in all of Scamland. Collapsed ‘stablecoin’ terra to be rebooted in attempt to recover losses. The conclusion:
[T]he relaunch does not guarantee that anyone will actually see a return. If distressed investors, such as the Ukrainian man who lost his entire $10,000 life savings in the crash, are to recover some of their wealth that will require others to be willing to buy in to the rebooted currency.
Swap pyramid scheme, due to sink, have an encounter with a vicious regulator, and be thrown into a deep dark dank dumpster. (With apologies to Monty Python.)
[…] Several Republicans offered their “thoughts and prayers,” or the hot new equivalent: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who received $176, 274 from the National Rifle Association (NRA) in 2019, said he and his wife were “fervently lifting up in prayer the children and families.” Mitch McConnell claimed to be “horrified and heartbroken” while he received $1,267,139 in donations from the NRA in 2019. Sen. Krysten Sinema was also “horrified and heartbroken,” as was Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who asked that we all join her in “lifting [the families] loved ones up in prayer,” just for good measure.
Rep. Tony Gonzales offered his prayers on Twitter as well, and even quoted a bit of scripture. Gonzales is the man of the hour. He represents Texas’ 23rd Congressional District, in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two teachers were slaughtered in cold blood Tuesday at Robb Elementary School. After his deeply felt offering of prayers for his dead constituents and their families, Gonzales conveniently forgot that just last year he bragged on Twitter about voting no on gun control. Welp, Twitter remembered. […]
Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson blamed the recent shootings on rap music, video games, and access to the Internet. Then he suggested we “not point fingers,” but take the time to ask ourselves “why did this happen, how could this happen,” and “what’s wrong with our society?” Interesting question from a Republican lawmaker. Here’s another: “What’s wrong with the culture in this country that allows something to happen in this country right now?”
Anyone want to tell Ronny that it’s his party? They’re what’s wrong with this country. They are the murderers hiding in the house in plain sight.
Oh, and by the way, CNN reported on Monday that Jackson, a former White House doctor, is being investigated for violating federal law for allegedly using campaign funds for his personal use. In 2021, Jackson was reviewed by the Department of Defense inspector general (IG) who concluded that he made “sexual and denigrating” comments to women, drank while taking sleeping medication on the job, and “established a workplace where fear and intimidation were kind of the hallmarks of him, his command, and control of his subordinates,” a witness interviewed by the Defense Department IG said. [video at the link]
Florida GOP Rep. Randy Fine decided to go on the offensive in the wake of a mass shooting of elementary school kids with a threatening tweet to President Joe Biden. Good timing, Randy!
“I have news for the embarrassment that claims to be our President—try to take our guns and you’ll learn why the Second Amendment was written in the first place,” Fine tweeted. […]
Down in Georgia, former NFL star and Trump-endorsed candidate Herschel Walker secured his place as the GOP Senate nominee. After his big win Tuesday, he was asked about his thoughts on gun laws by CNN’s Manu Raju. As usual, the man with the violent, shady past gave his usual: a barely comprehensible answer.
“What I like to do is see it and everything and stuff,” Walker said, and then walked away. […] He once held a gun to his now ex-wife’s head, telling her he was going to “blow [her] f—ing brains out.”
[…] Lastly, Colorado Republican Rep. Boebert, a rabid gun owner and advocate, offered five hollow words following the deaths of American children. “You cannot legislate away evil,” she tweeted Tuesday.
This is the same congressperson who followed another shit-stain lawmaker, Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, in posting Christmas cards on social media featuring their families posing with assault rifles. [yes, even the smallest of the children held assault rifles.] […]
Babies. All of them. What the hell is wrong when a country can’t get it together to protect these little innocent ones? What does this say to the world about America’s priorities? We are well beyond thoughts and prayers. We need Republicans to stop stalling gun reform #Uvalde
This seems rather funny, MPs launch inquiry into UK semiconductor industry amid global shortages. The alleged-issue is the takeover of teh “U”K’s largest chip fab by a Chinese firm, but what struck me as odd was this: “Nexperia, which is looking to acquire Newport Wafer Fab in a £63m deal”. (A chip fab is a factory that makes chips (semiconductors, not potatoes).)
A mere £63m (c.$79m) is peanuts, a nothing, for any fab, much less a “large” one. State-of-the-art fabs are well over $1bn each, so this clearly isn’t a state-of-the-art facility. From a profiling site: “0.18μm and above” (and implies the fab is over 30 years old). That’s chip-speak for how small the components on a chip are — and 0.18μm is late-1960s level technology; current is 3nm, some 60× smaller.
0.18μm is used in a lot of stuff (albeit I wonder at what voltage?), but it ain’t even close to the most advanced. So the MPs worrying about “the purchase [giving] China access to cutting-edge British semiconductor designs” have no idea what they are babbling about.
[…] Republican lawmakers and officials will “celebrate the Second Amendment” at a conference hosted by the National Rifle Association.
According to an announcement by the NRA unveiling the event—known as the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) Leadership Forum—it will be a “freedom-filled” weekend-long forum for “patriots” to “ celebrate freedom, firearms, and the Second Amendment.”
Trump is scheduled to speak at the event. Firearms will be prohibited because of his attendance, per the Secret Service. In addition to Cruz, Crenshaw, and Abbott, the NRA also notes that Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, and South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem are slated to appear.
Cornyn, however, has since backed out, according to Politico. He cited “an unexpected change in his schedule” that happened prior to the shooting in Uvalde. […] a staffer was unable to confirm independently if he will forgo the conference.
[…] Senator Cruz’s office said the lawmaker was “undecided.” Crenshaw did not immediately respond to a request for comment but a member of his staff said that he was “traveling.” Politico reported just before noon on Wednesday that he would not attend since he was traveling in Ukraine. Governor Abbott and North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson did not immediately return a request for comment. Nor did South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem.
Beto O’Roure, who hopes to oust Abbott from the gubernatorial spot, called on the incumbent to skip the money-making event for the NRA.
“Gov. Abbott, if you have any decency, you will immediately withdraw from this weekend’s NRA convention and urge them to hold it anywhere but Texas,” O’Rourke said on Wednesday.
[…] the U.S. has seen no less than 27 school shootings since Jan. 1 and the Gun Violence Archive reported on Thursday that there have been 213 mass shootings in America so far this year, including the one at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. […]
The NRA conference this weekend is still on. […]
This is an unsurprising sequence of events given the immovable stance that the NRA has taken since 1999, at least, when 13 students and one teacher were killed by two teenage shooters at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Several others were badly injured during that event.
[…] Jim Baker, an NRA lobbyist heard on the 1999 strategy call lamented the media coverage.
“At the same period where they’re going to be burying these children, we’re going to be having media… trying to run through the exhibit hall, looking at kids fondling firearms, which is going to be a horrible, horrible, horrible juxtaposition,” he said.
Another NRA official, Jim Land, insisted that the show must go on.
“I got to tell you, we got to think this thing through because if we tuck tail and run, we’re going to be accepting responsibility for what happened out there,” Land said.
[…] The 1999 convention in Denver ended up going forward.
The same NRA playbook has been in place for years and appears to be firmly couched now as the NRA’s convention for 2022 kicks off Friday.
[…] Trump confirmed that he would still attend the convention.
In a post that reads like it was written by anyone other than Trump himself, the former twice-impeached president posted: “No words can express the sorrow and grief of this absolutely horrible event. It is a moment in time which will never be forgotten!” […]
[…] What makes individual gun ownership a lesser right? It’s a right that only exists in the minds of a handful of hard-right Supreme Court justices who happen to be on the court at this moment. Until 2008, no federal court had ever ruled that the Second Amendment included a right to individual gun ownership. It was always understood as it was written: Guns were allowed in individual hands as a means to supply the armed forces.
Here’s the Milwaukee Independent looking at how Chief Justice Warren Burger discussed the Second Amendment.
The Gun Lobby’s interpretation of the Second Amendment is one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American People by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime. The real purpose of the Second Amendment was to ensure that state armies – the militia – would be maintained for the defense of the state. The very language of the Second Amendment refutes any argument that it was intended to guarantee every citizen an unfettered right to any kind of weapon he or she desires.
That the Second Amendment exists at all is more an accident of timing than an attempt to put guns in the hands of every American. The amendment grew out of a fear that having a standing army would leave the nation open to depredations by an authoritarian leader, or that the nascent democracy would be overthrown by a military junta. To that end, they explicitly inserted the Second Amendment as an alternative means of providing national defense. There were multiple drafts of the Second Amendment. Every one of them includes text explaining that this amendment exists only because it’s needed to provide for the nation’s defense. [That’s a good explanation.]
Just a year after the Constitution was ratified, George Washington nudged Congress to create an official U.S. military, but the still-fearful Congress limited that force to just few hundred soldiers and officers. It would be another six years before it was allowed to grow significantly. When war came in 1812 two things were immediately obvious: The number of soldiers then in the official U.S. military were far from enough to defend the nation, and the poorly organized civilian militias for which the Second Amendment was created were an absolute failure when it came to national defense.
In the next year, the professional military of the United States grew by over 300%. “Second Amendment solutions” were on their way out.
The Second Amendment is failure. It never worked for its intended purposes. It was born from the understandable fears of a new nation engaged in a radical new scheme. But it was a mistake. It may be the most costly mistake this nation has ever made other than failing to end slavery at the outset.
The right thing to do would be to recognize that mistake and pass a new amendment that simply ends the Second Amendment, just as the 18th Amendment was repealed by the 21st Amendment in 1933. (Take a drink.)
Instead, we get statements like this piece of profound ignorance. One that is wrong. Wrong. Wrong again. And then … still wrong. [video at the link]
Recognizing that an actual repeal of the Second Amendment—while absolutely just—isn’t likely, the next best thing is to simply recognize that the right to individual gun ownership is a lesser right, one whose appearance in that useless amendment subjects it to practical constraint.
The right to free speech is carved into the First Amendment without comment, restriction, or declaration of purpose. There’s no “so that we can have good political debates” or “so that people can provide accurate directions to the nearest Starbucks” attached to the right to speech. It is unlimited in the U.S. Constitution, but that has never stopped the nation from determining that there are words that can’t be said on broadcast TV or claims that can’t be made about that new stock offering.
Most of all, other rights, speech included, have had to face the constant test of changing technology. What can be said in an online forum? Who is responsible for policing that space? Who had the legal liability for speech that slips across the line into slander, or a call to violence, or hate speech? Congress and the courts decide these questions regularly.
An AR-15 is not a musket, damn it. It’s not “a modern musket” or the “equivalent of a musket” or anything like a musket, and all the bullshit in the world won’t make it so. Congress and regulators recognize that changing technology obligates them to change how they deal with other rights. They could at least do that much when it comes to guns.
The idea that any government body, from the local city council to Congress, can’t pass regulations limiting the technology that can be included in a weapon is ridiculous. It’s counter to the way we treat every other right, rights that are genuinely unbounded in the Constitution. With a combination of NRA-funded congressmen and a Supreme Court that’s at the most extreme edge of an extreme party, America has not just cut a right to individual gun ownership out of whole cloth, it has elevated this fake right above the restrictions that are constantly applied to genuine rights.
Fixing it take two things: a Congress willing to step up to its responsibilities in defending the public good, and an expanded Supreme Court that dilutes the power of justices who are deliberately and maliciously misreading the clear text of the Second Amendment to massacre children in fourth-grade classrooms.
It’s a right that only exists in the minds of a handful of hard-right Supreme Court justices who happen to be on the court at this moment.
There are literally millions of NRA-card-carrying gun-nuts who’d take issue with that. To them, that right is very, very real and they are willing to kill to keep it.)
(I wish our side of the abortion debate had that degree of dedication to reproductive rights. We probably wouldn’t be losing Roe if we did.
Why can’t the media and the politicians see that the problem doesn’t lie with a handful of wealthy elites, but a massive portion of the American population?
Beto O’Roure, who hopes to oust Abbott from the gubernatorial spot, called on the incumbent to skip the money-making event for the NRA.
Texas officials (two rows of slouching white dudes) are giving a morally bankrupt press conference about the shooting, and it was just interrupted by O’Rourke, who was escorted out after they attacked him from the stage.
[…] Ted Cruz, the US senator, said just a few hours after the attack the best way to keep kids safe was to have armed officers on campus.
Ken Paxton, Texas’s attorney general, told the rightwing news outlet Newsmax the way to save lives was to have teachers and other administrators who have gone through training and who are armed.
Their arguments were belied, however, by the facts of the Uvalde massacre. As the shooter entered the school, two local officers and a school guard opened fire but failed to stop him.
They’ve been taking lessons from teh master strategist, Putin, and his invasion of Ukraine: If it didn’t work the first time, try the same thing again. And again. And… E.g., build a pontoon bridge in broad daylight, start sending over troops and tanks, and watch the Ukrainians shell it & them into oblivion. That didn’t work, so do it again! In the same place! Same result. So try a third time… same plan, same place, same result. Texas tankies: Armed “good guys” didn’t stop it. So try armed “good guys” the next time…
Also, it’s ironic the armed “good guys” are supposed to be trained, when:
Texas has led the US with a steady stream of initiatives loosening restrictions on firearms ownership. Last year its Republican governor, Greg Abbott, enacted a law that removed almost all restraints on carrying handguns in public [including, as far as I know, any semblance of training –blf]
blfsays
The title is rather misleading, most of the listicle is about shooty mcshootfaces in France, with only some on the laws as excerpted below, How gun control laws work in France (possibly paywalled):
[…] (1)French people must undergo psychological test before getting gun licence
[…]
To own a gun, you first need to acquire a hunting or sporting licence, and this has to be regularly renewed and requires a psychological evaluation. Applicants with any criminal record are automatically refused.
There is also a blacklist of around 18,000 people who are banned from owning a gun.
Being in possession of a gun without the correct registration carries a maximum penalty of €75,000 and five years in prison.
[…]
(3)Hunters own most of the legal weapons in France
[…]
In recent years extra safety measures have been introduced in an attempt to tackle hunting-related deaths, including requiring hunters to take gun safety courses.
[…]
The source is broadly reliable, but tends to be incomplete and sloppy. I therefore presume there is more to it than said; e.g., is there a registrar (I don’t know)? What are the storage requirements? Etc., etc., … (again, I’ve no idea).
Donald Trump released a statement on his social media platform, Truth Social, saying that he still plans on attending the NRA convention in Houston this weekend.
…
In his statement, Trump made a peculiar stylistic choice and put the word massacre in quotes.
Biden to sign executive order on law enforcement reform
Joe Biden is about to sign an executive order increasing accountability in law enforcement and creating a national database of police misconduct.
In a statement from the White House, the president says the steps are needed following the killing two years ago of George Floyd in Minneapolis by a white police officer, who knelt on Floyd’s neck for nine minutes:
Two years ago, the murder of George Floyd exposed for many what Black and Brown communities have long known and experienced – that we must do more to ensure that our nation lives up to its founding promise of fair and impartial justice for all.
The incident sparked one of the largest social movements this country has ever seen, with calls from all corners to acknowledge the legacy of systemic racism in our criminal justice system and in our institutions more broadly.
As well as creating the database, Biden’s order bans the use of chokeholds and carotid restraints unless deadly force is authorized, and restricts the use of no-knock entries, such as the one used by police in Kentucky who killed an unarmed Black woman, Breonna Taylor, at her home in March 2020.
It also requires new standards that limit the use of force and require de-escalation for all federal agencies, among other measures.
The Biden administration blames Republicans in the senate for blocking the George Floyd justice in policing act, forcing the president to take executive action.
[Biden tweeted: “I’ve called on Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, but Senate Republicans have stood in the way of progress. That’s why this afternoon, I’m taking action and signing an Executive Order that delivers the most significant police reform in decades.”]
Followup to comment 499.
River crossing massacre – tectonic shift under way – Belgorod Update
“Commenting on NATO membership for Finland and Sweden, Russia’s dep representative to the UN [Dmitry Polyanskiy] says these countries will become ‘potential military targets for Russia’ as soon as the alliance’s subdivisions arrive. Then he floats nuclear war….”
Since we’re in a new chapter of the Thread,
Today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog.
Meduza’s ongoing Ukraine/Russia liveblog.
Kyiv Independent.
Darth Putin:
Is this thread moving over to a new page?
Re SC at 3 – That’s a good one, but weirdly enough, something like that could actually happen.
Over the years, Russian warplanes have semi-regularly “by accident” dipped briefly into the airspaces of Finland and other small countries in the Baltic Sea region. This is thought to be intended as low level intimidation and/or testing the effectiveness of our airspace monitoring. Last winter, a Russian civilian airplane applied a permit to make a weird detour across Finland for no apparent reason.
Now, as tensions increase, some security experts have predicted that Russia might do something more showy in this vein. For example, a Russian submarine might show up in Finnish territorial waters and make its presence very notable by needing to be rescued after “accidental” grounding in a shallow. It’d be be a showy military-diplomatic incident without (presumably) sparking an actual war. Frankly, I don’t quite understand the logic here, but this kind of speculation is currently seen on Finnish media.
So I was reading a few more reactions to Hulu’s Under the banner of Heaven. This review was OK, and it noted some facts I didn’t know or had forgotten:
It also linked to a 2019 essay in the Harvard Divinity Bulletin, “The Study of Religion on the Other Side of Disgust” by Robert Orsi:
(I could live without the gratuitous dig at atheists, but overall I was fairly surprised by the piece.)
Reportedly, the UK yesterday signed some kind of outstanding mutual security assurances with Sweden and Finland, just in time for our upcoming Nato application period. So, my thanks to all UK citizens who support this sort of thing.
It seems a bit unclear what exactly the UK is committed to, but we’ll take anything. In recent weeks, there’s been speculation on Finnish media on whether the US or some other major Nato country might provide us a “full security guarantee” during the application period. Experts have dismissed this as an unrealistic wish, while pointing out that we can expect guaranteed intelligence and material support from several countries. That in itself is very significant, since Finland’s own military has a high potential for making use of such support.
Presumably, “mutual assurance” means that we’d also help the UK against Russian aggression, though I’m not sure how that’d work out logistically. Sweden at least has a relatively strong navy and air force, whereas Finland mainly just has a strong infantry and field artillery. In Nato, we’ll be able to provide some amount of air, logistical and intelligence support for the Baltic countries.
New Lines – “Is Putin Sick – Or Are We Meant to Think He Is?”: “An oligarch close to the Kremlin was recorded on a tape saying the president is ‘very ill with blood cancer.’ Is this true, idle speculation or disinformation designed to make an erratic and paranoid dictator vulnerable?…”
Guardian liveblog:
NYT:
Jan. 6 Panel Subpoenas 5 Republican Representatives
May 12, 2022
Pres. Biden tweeted: “In remembrance of today’s tragic milestone, I’ve ordered the United States flag to be flown at half-staff in memory of the one million American lives lost to COVID-19.”
Guardian liveblog:
Ukraine update: ‘Russians are arriving to replace Ukrainians and live in their homes’
Guardian – “‘They were furious’: the Russian soldiers refusing to fight in Ukraine”:
lumipuna@7,
I wouldn’t place too much faith in a security assurance from the UK – this is Johnson and his cronies we’re talking about, who are currently preparing to renege on the international treaty they signed with the EU, specifically to the part of that treaty entitled the “Northern Ireland Protocol”. Johnson regards international treaties, as he regards all promises and agreements, as things to be made when it suits his interests, and broken likewise.
Wonkette: “‘Queen Of Canada’ Telling Followers Not To Pay Their Bills Is Making An Old Cult New Again”
New episode of Why Is This Happening? – “Episode #213: Elie Mystal” (YT link):
LOL – “That’s how you end up at the Olive Garden, folks.”
(Taking this opportunity to renew my recommendation of Silvia Federici’s Caliban and the Witch.)
A Trump-appointed judge issued another bad decision: California Can’t Keep Semiautomatic Guns From Young Adults, Court Rules
New York Times link
A panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected a judge’s argument that those under 21 were historically “believed unfit” for “responsible firearm possession and use.”
Humor/satire from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
Link
Sickening:
Video with subtitles at the (Twitter) link.
“The fact that Finland and Sweden are joining NATO supposedly isn’t directly related to Russia…” The hell? I think everyone’s been quite clear that it’s directly related to Russia.
Zachary Petrizzo, Daily Beast:
Excellent blog post here : :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/oceanoxia/2022/05/12/are-the-rich-safe-from-climate-breakdown-yes-and-we-should-do-something-about-that/
on Abe Drayton’s Oceanoxia which raises some really points I think.
.*
ABC TV’s National Press Club on channel 24 right now has the very omimpressive Penny Wong and Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne holding a foreign policy debate right now and repeated on c 2 from 12.30 pm noon here . (SA time.)
^ Fix : That’s meant to be : “very impressive Penny Wong..” & “really good, thought-provoking” points. Sigh, sorry.
Link to that TV debate here :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-13/federal-election-live-blog-scott-morrison-anthony-albanese/101063044
The Adelaide Refugee Vigil is on at 5 pm in Rundle Mall as usual this evening too :
Via the Adelaide vigil for Manus and Nauru fb page.
Think this tweet / meme seen the other day :
Describes it pretty accurately!
Recently posted to nextdoor.
“Related to political insults, fair is fair in many places. I won’t reflect Trump’s bigotry at his supporters, but insults in general are fair game. “Hand-wringers” for people who can’t deal with education about racism, sex education, gender, other people getting abortions…
I’m thinking about other things that Trump does that become fair game unless his supporters make another choice.”
“Hand-wringer'” was a shift from “pearl-clutcher” because I saw the usefulness of an non-sexist choice.
And the “related to political insults” part has to do with me labeling “fake news” as a political pejorative and pointing out that without an actual fake thing it’s just an insult.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From their most recent summary:
Business Insider – “UK justified in ripping up the Northern Ireland protocol because Brussels isn’t negotiating ‘in good faith,’ claims Jacob Rees-Mogg.”
Guardian – “Experts scorn UK government claim it can ditch parts of NI protocol.”
Guardian – “US congress delegation to fly to London as Northern Ireland protocol concerns grow.”
Guardian – “US secretly issued subpoena to access Guardian reporter’s phone records”:
More at the link.
“Female student in Nigeria beaten to death over ‘blasphemy’”:
Guardian – “George Monbiot: ‘On a vegan planet, Britain could feed 200 million people’”: “The author, Guardian columnist and environmental campaigner answers your questions on farming, fuel and plant-based food…”
I can’t speak to the accuracy of all the points made, but I like this format. Some of the issues raised in the questions and answers were new to me.
KG@15 notes teh “U”K’s current alleged-government “are currently preparing to renege on the international treaty they signed with the EU, specifically to the part of that treaty entitled the ‘Northern Ireland Protocol’. ”
Indeed. The States has been dropping hints that if teh “U”K drops the NI protocol, then there will not be a trade agreement with the States to replace the EU-wide agreement. The States is sending a bipartisan delegation to drive home the point; this is not surprising since Ireland (the island) is a big deal in the States, who helped to negotiate the Good Friday Agreement and are some sort of a guarantor of that agreement. The States friendliness with Ireland is not just a dummie thing, teh thugs have generally been very supportive as well. Broadly, teh “U”K is looking, if not at a “trade war” with the States (unlike the EU, e.g., UK should not fear EU trade war, says [former “U”K brexit minister David] Frost as he backs ripping up protocol), then at nothing better than WTO terms (with exceptions for the few areas where new agreements have already been agreed).
Off-the-top of my head, almost the only change I can guess at is if Putin orders the thugs to stop supporting Ireland. Keep an eye on what RT-in-the-States (Tucker Carlson, et al.) are bellowing.
A snippet from the above-linked Frost article:
(Rolls eyes, shakes head.) Putin’s acolytes will have to do better than that.
KG@492(previous page) observes “great care should be taken to minimise the risk of a direct Russia-NATO clash, and I am alarmed by some of the gung-ho sentiment () I see in some Daily Kos comments, for example.”
Indeed, I concur, especially on the taking great care part. Those comments at Kos — and as an aside, many thanks to Lynna for their continuing excerpting of their Putin’s invasion coverage — of the variety, whilst probably not always tongue-in-cheek, I’ve chosen to read that way (presuming Nato remains not directly involved): Ukraine hasn’t the resources to do that (attack Moscow city), which is c.700km from Kyiv (over 400km at the nearest point on the border), and it’s difficult to see any rational justification to do so. Doing-so would perhaps finally motivative the Russians (along with giving Putin an excuse to declare war and order a general mobilisation, etc.); with allowances for the fog of war and some regrettable individual-level incidents, Ukraine to-date doesn’t seem to that stupid.
Carefully-targetted raids on militarily-justified targets just over the border in Russia are a different matter (e.g., on artillery or anti-aircraft, military fuel and ammo dumps, or train tracks leading into Ukraine) — and Ukraine may be doing some of that, albeit to-date (as far as I am awares) have never announced (Russian-occupied territories excepted?), and if asked, have either been silent, or denied responsibility.
Guardian liveblog:
lumipuna@496(previous page) refers me to a Finnish penguin-themed response to Putin’s acolytes bellowing about Finland’s very probable forthcoming joining Nato.
+++ Out of Cheese Error +++*** Redraw (cartoon, not gun) ***
(With apologies to Terry Pratchett.)
Guardian – “Israeli police attack funeral procession for shot journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh”:
Guardian liveblog:
Ukrainian MFA Dmytro Kuleba re #12: “We could have already started using the new U.S. assistance package to more effectively save lives of Ukrainians who defend the democratic world. @POTUS, @SecBlinken, @SenateGOP, @SenateDems and American people were in strong support, and @RandPaul delayed so much needed support.”
A survey in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Americans love conspiracy theories, and that’s dangerous for everyone (all emphasis in the original, albeit my added emboldening & embedded links):
Video of #35 (Twitter link) – “Horrible scenes as Israeli security forces beat the funeral procession for slain journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and the crowd momentarily lose control of her casket…”
Bogus Ashley Bloomfield [New Zealand’s director general of health] vaccine letter goes viral among US far right and QAnon followers:
Some of the details pointing to an obvious fake include a “dubious footer on the supposed letter, which included hyperlinks that are tricky to click on printed paper and a purported Bloomfield signature that didn’t match other examples from the director general of health.” (I should point out including links in PDFs which are then printed is common practice, albeit if intended to be printed, the links are explicitly stated, e.g.,
https://etc.)Four House committee chairs ask Big Tech to archive evidence of war crimes in Ukraine:
“‘The Liberty Report’ hosted by Rand Paul’s dad began on Kremlin propaganda network RT. When RT became too publicly toxic, the show was moved to YouTube where it still pushes Kremlin propaganda 5 episodes/week.
Episode list is on IMDB…”
IMDB link at the (Twitter) link. You’ll be surprised, I’m sure, to learn that most of the other content is anti-vax garbage and homicidal lies about public health measures during the pandemic. Ron Paul’s role in moving people to the far right over the years isn’t sufficiently appreciated.
‘Lost’ Picasso spotted in Imelda Marcos’s home after son’s election win:
In England, ‘Hilarious’: Cornish pub will not change name despite letter from Vogue owner:
Dear Vogue (allegedly a magazine),
This village is named Vogue, and has been since the 17th C (we realise research is not your strong point, so to help you out, that’s over 300 years ago). Your alleged magazine, as you should be aware but probably are not, was founded in 1916 here in England (and a few years earlier in New York). So our village, Vogue, has existed for 200 years-and-a-bit longer than your alleged magazine. You owe us considerable royalties and fines for the unlicensed use of our name.
However, we are willing to overlook these violations of logic and moral rights provided you indicate an understanding that neither a village nor a pub — which is also older than your alleged magazine — is magazine, not even allegedly.
Sincerely yours with a large added feck off,
– The bemused international readers of the Grauniad
Ukraine update: Severodonetsk faces the storm
Snippets from Meduza’s live blog:
Er, that’s the undead — like vampires or Putin — who get staked.
Some snippets from that interview (Meduza edits in {curly braces}):
Followup to comment 45.
A few more details to add to the Ukrainian update:
A comment on a report (twitter) linked-to by the article excerpted by Lynna@45, about Putin’s “army” again failing to bridge a river:
Ah which point I started LOLing so much the mildly deranged penguin took the cheese and exited via a new penguin-shaped hole she
punchedran through the wall at some considerable speed…(How many quotes / scenes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail have been used to describe Putin’s antics and his war? The black knight comes up frequently, and I recall seeing “run away, run away” also used; probably others that I’m now forgetting…)
Today’s episode of the Guardian podcast – “The fight for the right to roam in the English countryside”:
Here’s an episode of A World to Win with Grace Blakeley from last year on the same general theme – “THE RIGHT TO ROAM: An interview with Nick Hayes”:
Listening reminded me of a fun chapter in Peter Mitchell’s Imperial nostalgia called “The adventures of the Imperial Wonder Boy: Rory Stewart and the fantasy of innocence”:
Such a striking contrast between the entitlement people like this feel not just to domestic spaces but to global spaces, including places that have just been invaded, and the exclusion of so many others.
Sanctions forcing Russia to use appliance parts in military gear, US says:
Yes indeed! In fact, I myself doubt there is any modern fab (semiconductor chip fabrication plant) which doesn’t use one, and probably both (software & equipment). The equipment isn’t always made in the States, but it very likely is designed in the States. Banning the use of such equipment and software (to make chips in, or exported-to, Russia) is a devastating move.
Modern fabs easily cost over one billion dollars each, with much of that cost being the equipment. None of that is easy to replicate (or even build). It takes years to build a single modern fab, and if you have to design and build your own equipment and controlling software as well… I’m guessing the software is (relatively) easy to pirate (steal), but cloning modern equipment, not so much…
Guardian liveblog:
Probably doesn’t really amount to much of anything (just sounds dramatic), found via the Grauniad’s current one madman’s war live blog, but seemingly garbled there; so from Reuters, Russia’s Inter RAO to halt power exports to Finland due lack of payment:
The not-excerpted Grauniad report suggests the problem is, in part, linked to Finland’s intention to join Nato.
As Fingrid says, it’s probably a lot of nothing, and if indeed linked to the forthcoming Nato application, another example of Putin shooting off his own feet. The European / EU electricity interconnect allows power to be distributed from whereever it is generated to where it is needed, so in principle, power generated in Portugal or Ireland could be used in Finland. (Ireland is not (yet) directly connected to the continent, all power interconnects go via the UK.)
Is it possible that Elon Musk will fuck up so much that he does not succeed in buying Twitter? Or will he, perhaps, be so dizzy from pivoting that all of his business deals fall apart?
Elon Musk tweets that his purchase of Twitter is ‘temporarily on hold,’ then backtracks
SC @49, I was reminded of a similar situation in the USA. Of course, the US has a lot more public land, but many low-income people are barred by entrance fees they cannot afford. Access to National Parks should be free, in my opinion, but the entrance fees can be quite high. For example, $35 per vehicle or $20 per person (by foot, bicycle, ski, etc.) per day to enter Yellowstone National Park. We pay taxes to support public lands, but many policy decisions have reduced taxpayer funded support for public lands, and those same policies have, via entrance fees, increased the commercial or capitalist aspects of maintaining public lands.
I live close enough to Grand Teton and to Yellowstone national parks to make day trips to those areas, but I can’t afford to go there.
Native American communities, many of them on the borders of public lands, are comprised mostly of low-income persons who cannot visit the lands on which their tribes used to roam.
We do have some national forest land, and Bureau of Land Management lands, to which I have free access. There are few or no facilities, and the “roads” may require a four-wheel-drive vehicle and an experienced driver, but there are plenty of places for primitive camping or hiking. National forests may have official campgrounds, but camping fees are charged there and you don’t really get away from other people, so I avoid those.
Ukraine update: Russia’s incredibly shrinking ambitions
This is kind of funny, and may be a schadenfreude moment. Steve Benen posted this summary of a Washington Post report:
Trump’s plans to control the state of Georgia’s governorship are in disarray.
Oh, I do hope so: President Biden’s nominees now have a majority on the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors. That could spell trouble for Louis DeJoy.
Wonkette:
Link
Wonkette: “Pandemic Investigation Finds Meat Industry Acted Like Common Scooby Doo Villain”
Wonkette: “Time For Another Episode Of ‘Regular Normal Conversations,’ With Tucker Carlson And Glenn Greenwald!”
https://www.wonkette.com/tucker-carlson-glenn-greenwald
Lynna @ #54:
Well, that’s infuriating.
I discovered several months ago quite by chance that new this year the NPS is offering a lifetime free pass for service members, veterans, and Gold Star families. Eligible people to whom I’ve mentioned it didn’t know about it.
At the bottom of that page is a link to other passes. They include a free lifetime pass for people with permanent disabilities, a free annual pass for kids in fourth grade, a free annual pass for federal volunteers, an $80 lifetime pass and a $20 annual pass for seniors (defined as 62+), and an $80 annual pass for everyone.
If you have PayPal I’d be happy to chip in a little for you to get a pass. :)
Guardian liveblog:
Guardian liveblog:
“Very worrying documentary evidence” pictured here (Twitter link).
Guardian liveblog:
Kyiv Independent:
The US State Department issued a statement on the events @ #35/39:
Referring to what they did as “intruding into her funeral procession” is ridiculous.
Their spokesman Ned Price. tweeting the statement, wrote: “The images we saw today of attacks on the funeral of Shireen Abu Akleh’s are deeply troubling. She deserved dignity as she was laid to rest.”
Heh. (Twitter link.)
Re 52, Finnish news are saying that RAO cites the bank embargo and difficulties in payment traffic as the reason why they’re cutting exports. There seems to be widespread opinion (in Finland) that the timing and the short notice are highly suspicious. Anyway, this isn’t causing any major problems here.
Guardian liveblog:
Kinda random thing here but in case anyone’s interested I noticed today that Mahonia – at least, I think but am not 100% sure Mahonia aquifolium or Oregon Grape or Holly-leaved Barberry ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahonia_aquifolium ) – has really sepctacularly vivid bright yellow wood beneath its bark.
@60. Lynna, OM : Wow. As if watching porn and sending death threats online is mutually incompatible with raping and oh, say , attacking the Capitol building and trying to lynch congress people. Basic logic – how does it work again? How many people / death threats does it take again to consider death threats seriously or asusme all of them are merely “venting” and not to be taken seriously?
As ways of venting and expressing emotions go, sending death threats to others is certainly NOT ok.
Porn, maybe? But the idea that porn deters rape, I think is dubious and unproven at best. Pretty sure I’ve heard the case – which I’m also not sure about – that porn may actually encourage, normalise and incite such sexual crimes as well. Almost certainly depending on exact types of porn consumed.
@62. SC (Salty Current) :
So very many dead Russians and Ukrainians alike and for what? Putin’s ego & imperial dreams?
So much damage done and grief and suffering caused so needlessly.
SC @61: “If you have PayPal I’d be happy to chip in a little for you to get a pass. :)”
Thank you, SC, that’s very kind. I have other, nearby public lands I can visit, so I don’t think a National Park pass for me is a good use of your money.
You are right, though, that it is infuriating to know that high entrance fees keep low-income people out of our national parks. Congress could change that … but not with so many Republicans against that, and against so many other things that they would classify as “welfare.”
Followup to SC @66: “Referring to what they did as “intruding into her funeral procession” is ridiculous.”
NBC News:
Washington Post:
Ukraine Update: Russia’s river-crossing debacle is beyond belief
I simply cannot bear to think that all of those soldiers died because Putin is delusional. What a waste.
Jalal Abukhater in the Guardian – “As we grieved for Shireen Abu Aqleh, Israeli police attacked us. They have no shame”:
Guardian – “North Korea: Kim Jong-un declares Covid outbreak a ‘great disaster’”:
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
The future was overrated. Here it is, 2022 and I get up in the morning and usually, some high official in Russia is threatening to kill me and a few tens of millions of people with nuclear weapons.
This doesn’t mean much.
The whole point of nuclear weapons is that you don’t have to be close to anything to use them. You can be on the other side of the earth. ucusa.org: “It would take a land- based missile about 30 minutes to fly between Russia and the United States; a submarine-based missile could strike in as little as 10 to 15 minutes after launch. Moving the missiles to near the Russian border cuts the flight time to Russia from 10-30 minutes to 5 minutes. Hardly worth the effort.
It also makes them easier for Russia to find and destroy.
.1. This is the country that has threatened Sweden and Finland for the last two centuries.
.2. Russia fought two wars with Finland in the mid-20th century and stole and ethnically cleansed 11% of their best land, Karelia.
.3. Russia lately has conquered two parts of Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, part of Moldova i.e. Transnistria, destroyed Chechnya twice, and is now trying to genocide Ukraine and Ukrainians.
I don’t see any reason why anyone would believe them at this point.
Right-wing extremists ramp up threats amid abortion-rights ruling turmoil
Georgia Judge Laughs David Perdue’s 2020 Election Lawsuit Out Of Court
Followup to comment 82.
Posted by readers of the article:
A dose of reality:
Link
The creator of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ reflects on the imminent demise of abortion rights
raven at 80:
There seems to be a strong consensus in Finland that we should not agree to host any foreign bases or nuclear weapons once in Nato. This stance is in part to avoid needless confrontation with Russia, so they can’t plausibly claim to feel threatened. Whether that makes any real difference (the actual placement of Nato “nuclear umbrella” weapons) is outside my expertise.
The Finnish discourse on this is almost comical, because it doesn’t seem like anyone (in practice USA or the Nato central organization) is interested in having a base in Finland. Likewise, the Nato nuclear powers (USA, France, UK) don’t seem to be handing out nukes to others like candy. However, if there was a US base in Finland, I wouldn’t trust it to remain nuclear free regardless of what was publicly agreed.
“What the “Life of the Mother” Might Mean in a Post-Roe America.”
New Yorker link
“We are going to see more deaths and more injuries,” Ghazaleh Moayedi, an ob-gyn in Dallas, said. “I don’t have to speculate about that at all.”
More at the link.
Ukraine update: Something big is happening, as the Battle of the Izyum Salient begins
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1525552874599632897
Video is available at the link. Apocalyptic.
Image at the link. https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1525507849740230656
Image of Zelenskyy meeting with Nancy Pelosi is available at the link. The difference is striking.
https://twitter.com/remap12/status/1525512397208821765
Video at the link.
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1525569978379927557
Lynna @87: From the update:
More like 30 in the full-time professional forces, actually. Unlike most western countries, Ukraine counts airborne/air assault/air mobile forces separately from the “ground forces” (aka “army”), even though they all fight on the ground. And the airborne etc troops are the elite.
The more I’ve looked into Ukrainian capabilities (at least on the ground) since Feb 24, the more I’ve thought “WTF was Russia thinking?”.
We Guess Something Happened With The Crypto?
Rob @91:
Yep, that was my train of thought too. Lately, I’ve come to the conclusion that Russia was not actually thinking. Not sure what they were doing, but “thinking” doesn’t seem to evident.
CNN liveblog:
At least 10 people are dead. White supremacist terrorist.
CNN liveblog:
There’s also a manifesto.
Guardian – “‘We will not go back’: thousands rally for abortion rights across the US”:
More at the link.
Guardian – “Judgment day for ‘narcissistic’ Greek pilot who killed British wife Caroline Crouch”:
Follow-up to #29 – Guardian – “Protests in Nigeria after arrests for ‘blasphemy’ killing of female student”:
Banner fucking day for hate murders.
“Ukraine just won the Eurovision Song Contest: Kalush Orchestra. ‘Save Mariupol, Save Azovstal’, the band’s singer appealed to the audience. By Eurovision rules, next year’s contest is hosted by the winning country. President Zelenskyy says it will be in Mariupol in 2023.”
“An arena full of Europeans screamed ‘Glory to the heroes’ in response to ‘Glory to Ukraine’. Unbelievable. Thinking of all our ancestors who died (were killed by Russia) so we could see this happen.”
“The Ukraine lads have said they will be back on the frontline on Monday. Take that in for a second. #GloryforUkraine #Eurovision”
“Ukraine’s commentator can’t stop his tears when he says we will win the war just as we won #Eurovision. Dedicates this victory to UA army that defends us and says it’s so deeply important for Ukrainians now.
P.s. he was commenting from a bunker”
Video at the (Twitter) link.
CNN liveblog:
They just said on air that this will be the only time they name him.
Kateryna Kruk:
Mike Masnick, Techdirt:
“Attorney General Merrick Garland in a statement says the DOJ is investigating the Buffalo mass shooting as a hate crime and act of racially-motivated violent extremism.”
Robert Costa, CBS:
All In last night (YT link) – “GOP Freaks Out Over Rise Of ‘Ultra MAGA’ Senate Candidate In Pennsylvania”:
MAJOR TRIGGER WARNING: The linked-to below video is scary, and at one point, heart-stopping, to the point where if you have certain medical conditions you might want to take precautions.
From one of Lynna‘s linked-to Kos articles is this video (with very clean sound): “One of the most impressive videos of the war so far”. Or as Kos described it, “This is some WWII–, Korean War–level intensity.”
Rob Grigjanis@91, A question / clarification, please, if I may: You refer to Ukraine’s Army (pre-invasion) as “professional”. In States(? Nato?)-speak, than means paid all-volunteer, i.e., no conscripts / draftees, albeit some countries (such as the States) do have a “backup” draft registration system in-place should it ever be “necessary” to (re-)activate the draft / conscription. Is that, or something recognisably similar, what you meant by “professional”? (I realise that you might be referring to only a part of Ukraine’s forces; e.g., the link below says “The Ukrainian Naval Infantry was the first service to convert to being staffed by fully professional marines”, albeit it’s unclear from the link whether-or-not those marines are still all-volunteer.)
The Ye Pfffft! of All Knowledge article explains conscription was ended in 2013, “[h]owever, due to the 2014 Russian military intervention in Ukraine conscription, as well as a partial mobilization, was reinstated in 2014.” President Zelenskyy had apparently intended to end conscription next(?) year, but Putin’s war might interfere with that intent.
From the Grauniad’s current one madman’s war live blog (quoted essentially in full):
Kalush Orchestra — Stefania (Official Video Eurovision 2022) subtitled in English. The video was filmed in Bucha, Irpin, and other locations near Kyiv.
Follow-up to me@31, In teh “U”K, alleged-PM Boris Johnson backs away from Northern Ireland protocol threat ahead of talks:
This is Johnson, so I don’t trust the claims. Even so, being told-off by Biden, the eminent arrival of the bipartisan delegation, and the signals there won’t be a States–”U”K trade agreement if the Good Friday Agreement is endangered (including scrapping the NI Protocol) have perhaps begun to penetrate his skull — albeit will perhaps exit the other side, as there nothing inside to engage with.
On the unevidenced assertion the Protocol is somehow causing economic problems on Ireland (the island, albeit this column is mostly about N.Ireland), The Northern Ireland protocol is said to be a blight on regional economy. That’s just not true (Grauniad edits in {curly braces}):
Another (prolonged) episode of non-functioning N.Ireland “government”-by-toddlers could be damaging.
Related to @108 & Eurovision, from the Grauniad’s current one madman’s war live blog:
Chris Riddell in the Grauniad, The emperor Johnson’s new clothes (cartoon): “Behold our prime minister, clad in fine raiment…”
This is, as one would expect, dishonest. Only one party, the “Democratic” Unionists, is preventing the functioning of the devolved assembly and executive.
KG@112, Yes, however, recall that both of the two major parties in Stormont are not-yet-potty-trained toddlers. Scolding just teh “D”UP would cause them to throw another tantrum, probably by engaging in some whataboutism, which Sinn Féin would throw a tantrum about, repeat… Of course, scolding both of them might also trigger tantrums, which is why experienced people are useful — which Johnson is not, in addition to being unreliable. He could, of course, do some good, but probably by having his mouth duck-taped shut so those experienced people can talk teh “D”UP down without triggering the other bunch of toddlers.
And a bit more on Ukraine’s win at Eurovision, from the Grauniad’s current one madman’s war live blog:
blf @107: Yeah, “professional” was the wrong term. I was referring to combat units which are not part of the Territorial Defence. But since 2014, the regular armed forces would include mobilized reservists.
The Onion, Ohio Law Mandates Rape Victims Send Thank You Notes For Gift Of Parenthood:
My recent comment seems to have been eaten. Nothing important.
Found via the Grauniad (Ireland says UK risks sending message it will break treaties in Brexit row), an opinion column by Pat Leahy in the Irish Times, Brexit’s back, and this time it’s snarlier than ever, some snippets (Irish Times edits in {curly braces}):
That opinion column was full of Irish political jargon, my apologies if I missed, or mis-explained, any with my editorialising.
Is potato.
Sorry! That’s Russian (and not just the cuisine), albeit I believe the joke was, at one time, true of Finnish cuisine.
More N.Ireland, albeit nothing to due per se with either brexit’s NI Protocol or the Good Friday peace Agreement, ‘Cruel and malicious’: sexist attacks dampen joy for Stormont’s new female members:
I assume, being one of the infamous toddlers, he’d just learned the word.
Some of the elected toddlers electors are toddlers.
Ukraine Update: American artillery proved decisive in Russia’s Bilohorivka bridge-crossing disaster
Addendum to comment 121:
Link
Video at the link.
Excerpt:
Somewhat surprisingly,
Drquack Oz said something sensible, Republican Senate hopeful Mehmet Oz calls far-right rival’s comments on Islam ‘reprehensible’:Wonkette: “Racist Kills Ten People In Hopes Of Convincing Nation To Not ‘Replace’ Him”
Followup to SC’s comment 95.
Some background about Buffalo:
New York Times link
The shooter was dressed sort of like a soldier, carrying weapons of war and wearing a bullet-proof vest.
A snippet from May I have a word about… how the Vikings changed the English language forever:
The Grauniad column referred to is The shifting patterns of English, “A series exploring the nuances, good and bad, of English”, by Jonathan Bouquet, a subeditor for the Observer (or “Sunday Grauniad”); it has been running since 2018. The Grauniad used to have a similar column of its own — name and author now escapes me — which was a must-read when I was living in teh “U”K.
Here in France, the Islamophobes and other nutcases are frothing, etc., again, Plan to allow burkinis in Grenoble swimming pools reignites French culture wars (France24 edits in {curly braces}):
From the Grauniad’s current one madman’s war live blog:
blf at 119:
To some extent yes, though Finnish or (I think) Russian cuisine was never as potato-heavy as, say, Irish.
At 491 on the previous page, raven quoted this excerpt from a 2003 article discussing the Finnish sentiments toward territories that were ceded to Russia after the 1939-40 Winter War. I wasn’t initially going comment on it for further background, but now I just stumbled on a very touching music video on YouTube. Posting the video here requires some tl;dr style background.
About half of historical West Karelia still remains within Finland, although the ceded portion was more fertile and more populous. As noted above, the area was settled by ethnic Russians and various other Soviet peoples – their descendants today are generally Russian speaking. Building a whole new society from scratch wasn’t entirely successful, but nowadays the local economy is not bad by the general (low) standards of rural Russia.
The best farmland was in the southernmost part of ceded Karelia (around the towns of Vyborg, Priozersk and Roschchino, going by their modern Russian names), which is not actually part of the Republic of Karelia, but another federal region of Russia called Leningrad Oblast (the periphery of St. Petersburg). This part has some decent economic activity, thanks to the vicinity of the big city, and also in part thanks to Finnish tourism. Since Soviet times, farming was concentrated in larger villages while smaller villages were often abandoned to forest. In the post-Soviet free market, farming has declined (much like in many rural areas of the West) but urban middle-class dacha plots proliferate.
North of Lake Ladoga, there’s much less economic activity and remaining population. By the way, this sort of relatively remote rural area would be struggling economically even if it had remained within Finland. Here, too, tourism and dacha settlement have brought some new life in recent years. Here, within the Republic of Karelia, towns such as Sordavala, Pitkyaranta and Suoyarvi have retained their Finnish names, albeit with a modified spelling in Latin Russian writing. In the far north, there are some ceded territories that are now almost entirely uninhabited, but not very many people lived in those areas to begin with.
The Republic of Karelia is mostly based on historical East Karelia, which is old Russian territory. It was established in the 1920s as an autonomous region for the Karelian people, whose language is closely related to Finnish. At the time, East Karelia had already become majority Russian speaking, while West Karelia was mostly Finnish speaking. Nowadays, Karelian language is an endangered minority language in Russia, as well as in Finland where the descendants of ethnic Karelian refugees have tried to maintain their language in diaspora. Many Finns aren’t even aware or don’t acknowledge Karelian as a separate language and ethnicity. The term Karelian is commonly used to include ethnic Finns of Karelia, including those living in postwar diaspora.
In East Karelia, Karelian language traditionally survived in remote rural communities, which have become largely deserted in late soviet and post-Soviet times. The language and culture has become increasingly threatened by displacement since WWII, and it didn’t help that the border between Finland and USSR was effectively closed for many decades. It also doesn’t help that the border has been largely closed again since 2020 due to the covid pandemic and Russia becoming a rogue state, with no end in sight. From the 1990s to 2010s there was much hope for building all kinds of cross-border economic and cultural collaboration, which would’ve been a lifeline for the ethnic Karelian community.
The topic of returning ceded Karelia to Finland was a Finnish fever dream during the 1941-44 Continuation War, then a taboo during Cold War, then it briefly resurfaced when the USSR collapsed. By then it was already unrealistic, thanks in part to the aforementioned ethnic restructuring and the decades-long rooting of the new settlers. In Finland, the surviving first-generation refugees were already quite elderly, but many of then at least got the chance to once more visit the ruins of their old home. Now, they’ve largely passed away and the new generations are gradually getting over the trauma of displacement. The topic was slowly fading further into irrelevancy even before the recent high political tensions.
Speaking of getting over that trauma, I found this recently published Karelian language music video from the folk band Loimolan Voima:
Terveh Vegarus
It’s narrated from the POV of someone born during WWII to a Finland-Karelian refugee family. The video apparently includes someone’s home video footage from a 1990 reconnection trip to the (long-abandoned) village of Vegarus and nearby places in the formerly Karelian-speaking Suoyarvi area. The lyric translation below is mine; it’s slightly haphazard and incomplete, as I don’t fully understand Karelian (The captioning on the video helped a lot).
Hail, Vegarus
I arrived in this world when the land was on fire
The fathers at the border were paying the ultimate price
The sky burned, I was born far from home
I was told, there never was a place
On earth like the one we left
Suddenly, we survived in strange places
I grew older, the sickle and hammer prevailed
Our own land … was behind the curtain
The grand utopia, the seventy-year regime
Finally, the border fell in the woods of Karelia
With my mother I got to see the birthplaces and the shores
She praised the Lord, bowing there with linen on her head
No longer do I travel the road myself
Nothing can break the connection within me now
Vegarus is near me, the fathers’ land even nearer
Whatever you … in the world, you can’t take it with you
Don’t let the home fall into oblivion
Go and light a candle for the memory
Though I’ve lived my life being lost
In Husanvuara I feel again like at my own home
At my own home
Hail, Suojärvi, hail, old Vegarus
As … I’ve longed here all my life
Hail, Suojärvi, hail, old Vegarus
In a thread about Finland was this hilarious cartoon about Putin’s threats against Finland for (applying to) join Nato.
Bottom of the barrel people rising to the surface: “Rep. Elise Stefanik promoted ‘great replacement’ conspiracy cited by Buffalo terrorist.”
Link
On the same day as Buffalo massacre, Ted Nugent calls for violence against Democrats in Trump rally
More at the link
Link
Some international commentators are said to be confused or rolling their eyes already because on Sunday, Finnish government signed a formal resolution about seeking Nato membership, which was billed in the media as “Finland decides to join Nato”. This was after the president and prime minister on Thursday formally announced their intent of seeking Nato membership, which was also billed in the media as “Finland decides to join Nato”. Today, the parliament is expected to vote in favor of the government acting according to the abovementioned resolution, which will be presumably also billed in the media as “Finland decides to join Nato”.
After that, there should be a few days of negotiating a membership deal for Finland and several months of waiting for it to be ratified in 30 Nato countries. After that, Finnish parliament will have to once again vote in favor of the abovementioned membership deal (which will be presumably billed in the media as “Finland decides to join Nato”) so that the government can sign it.
(Just to make things more confusing, a few weeks ago there was fake news circulating claiming that Finnish parliament had already voted in favor of Nato membership. What actually happened was that majority of the MPs had individually announced their support for Nato membership by then.)
At the Guardian.
Victorian Liberal party seeks to expel Bernie Finn over anti-abortion comments
For those not in-the-know, the Liberal party here in Oz is the largest conservative political party in the nation. Them throwing this meatbag out is rare evidence of them havimg a spine (though I remain cynical about their motive).
lumipuna@131,
Interesting snippet: Denys Prokopenko, commander of the Azov Regiment, is of Karelian ancestry, and apparently views Ukraine’s struggle as linked to the cause of Karelian independence from Russia. Prokopenko has been in the regiment’s predecessor, the Azov Battalion, since 2014, when it was an openly neo-Nazi formation, and was in his youth a member of the Dynamo Kyiv Ultras.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From there:
KG at 138,
That’s interesting. The wiki says that Prokopenko’s grandfather fought for Finland in Winter War, but the translated snippet of the source doesn’t actually say that. Also, how’d the family then end up living in Soviet Ukraine by 1991 (since Propkopenko was apparently born there)?
My best guess is the grandfather actually lived in East Karelia at the time, was forced to fight on the Soviet side and saw his brothers get killed in that war, while generally disapproving communism and (Russian) imperialism. Hence, the family has strongly sympathized with the Finnish side and kept up the memory of Winter War (which wasn’t much talked about in the later days of USSR). It’s also plausible the brothers (and some other family members?) were murdered during 1930s if the family was anti-communist.
AFAIK the movement for Karelian (republic) independence is extremely fringe, to the point that its suppression under current Russian regime doesn’t really make any noise. Finnish language sources note that Prokopenko has been seen displaying a flag that unofficially represents Karelian ethnicity and desire for cultural autonomy, historically also a desire for independence or political autonomy.
Anyway, now he’s apparently about to die in the ruins of Mariupol. Shit.
I had missed this last week, and apologies if anyone else posted it already – “GOP senators urge TV ratings board to warn viewers of ‘disturbing’ LGBTQ content”:
Some snippets from the Meduza live blog:
The Renault factory in Moscow was originally the Moskvich factory.
Reading between the lines here — and extrapolating from my knowledge of how payment cards work (there are some similarities) — I presume what is about to happen is some sort of certification of approval is about to expire, and those machines cannot get re-certified (or upgraded) or replaced. Russian-extended or approved certificates (or just ignoring the problem) will get around that hiccup within Russia, unless the equipment “self-bricks” on expiry (unusual, but possible). I have no idea if international destinations will be happy with Russian-originating flights using out-of-date / questionable certification.
blf@142:
“I have no idea if international destinations will be happy with Russian-originating flights using out-of-date / questionable certification.”
I can guess. Never mind the security certification, how about the certificates of airworthiness of the aircraft?
richardh@143, At least one Russian-certified aircraft was found at(?) an international destination (as far as I can recall, this was mentioned previously in this series of poopyhead threads). I don’t recall either the details or the outcome, but yes, They™ weren’t impressed.
Russian air passengers may soon face massive lines as they go through security.
How extremely different from the situation in the US.
Podcast episodes:
Guardian – “Marcos’ myths: the dictator’s son rewriting history in the Philippines”:
Radio Free Humanity – “Episode 68: Chomsky on Ukraine, and the Universal Grammar of Whataboutism (with Bill Weinberg)”:
(Speaking of ethnic minorities, their guest Bill Weinberg has a new podcast episode “Whither Khazaria?” I knew nothing about the Krymchaks and Karaites before; after this weekend I know slightly more than nothing, so that’s progress. Here’s a bit more about the “On Indigenous Peoples of Ukraine” law passed last year.)
Guardian liveblog:
:)
Ukraine update:
Link
Clarence Thomas’ misguided arguments take a self-defeating turn
The more Justice Clarence Thomas tries to defend the Supreme Court’s reputation, the more he ends up doing the opposite.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/cheney-gop-leadership-white-supremacy
Link
“Once Upon a Time in Londongrad, a six part series based on BuzzFeed News reporting, airs on Sky Documentaries and streaming service NOW from 31st May!…”
Trailer at the (Twitter) link. This looks amazing. I don’t know if we in the US will have access.
Guardian liveblog:
@ 151
Gee, Maj. does that mean that you’re going to support making sure every American can see a mental health professional and get treatment regardless of their ability to pay for it?
No! Of course not! That would be just a much “COMMUNISM!!!” as gun control.
When right-wingers start to target the mentally ill (that is, when they aren’t denying its existence, or claiming it’s actually demonic possession), they aren’t looking to treat them, they want to vilify them as potential criminals who are just a “bad day” away from murdering people and preemptively imprison them. They seek to criminalize the mentally ill as a scape goat rather than deal with the real issues.
Wonkette:
New episode of Geopolitics Decanted – “How effective is the Russian military: Analysis of the war in Ukraine (May 15, 2022)”:
This is the video to which they’re referring early on: “The Occupant.”
Followup, of sorts, to comment 121.
Ukraine update: Someone managed to cross the Siverskyi Donets River, but it’s not Russia
https://twitter.com/JulianRoepcke/status/1526245410410582017
OMG, that video!
It is possible, though not yet confirmed, that the Azov regiment my have surrendered in Mariupol … with some kind of prisoner exchange as part of the deal.
Zelenskyy is planning to provide details during his evening broadcast.
Guardian liveblog:
NBC – “New York’s red flag law should have helped thwart the Buffalo mass shooting. What went wrong?”:
More at the link.
Satire from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
More than 260 Ukrainian soldiers, many of them wounded, evacuated from Azovstal plant
This is still a developing story, but it seems – fortunately – probably not. The UN and International Red Cross appear to be involved, so Putin may be reluctant to break whatever agreement has been made. If Prokopenko does make it out, it will be interesting to see what use he makes of his “hero” status (which is admittedly justified – there’s no reason a neo-Nazi can’t be brave).
In other news, Turkey’s Erdoğan is threatening to block Finnish and Swedish NATO membership. His price for allowing it looks like being NATO subscribing to his persecution of the Kurds in Syria and in Turkey itself, and his absurd claims about his former ally Fethullah Gülen.
On whatever’s going on at the steel plant in Mariupol (e.g., evacuation), I wouldn’t be too surprised if the reason Putin is allowing it is to free up the besieging forces to be marched elsewhere for more raping and pillaging. With the added benefit of being able to claim it was done for “humanitarian reasons”, perhaps doubly-so if there is an exchange.
KG@164 writes, “[Erdoğan’s] price for allowing [Finland and Swedento join Nato] looks like being NATO subscribing to his persecution of the Kurds in Syria and in Turkey itself”.
This is all my own speculation, but that seems like something which could be (distastefully) fudged: Turkey’s “internal” affairs are not Nato’s business, and Nato is “not” involved in Syria, so “Ok” (through gritted teeth). Pushing his luck to try and get other Nato countries, Finland, or Sweden, to subscribe to his authoritarian take is perhaps — hopefully — a step too far, albeit maybe there is another fudge in the guise of a “(joint?) investigation” (again through gritted teeth), possibly involving the OSCE, which could also cover the Fethullah Gülen feud.
I’d like to recommend the BBC series Putin, Russia and the West. Originally broadcast in 2012, it was recently re-broadcast, and is available on BBC iPlayer (I don’t know what the availability of this is outwith the UK, but I’d be surprised if there’s no way to access it). Obviously it doesn’t cover events since 2012, but in some ways that’s an advantage, as it doesn’t view everything as leading up to the current invasion of Ukraine. The level of access the BBC got to key players (other than Putin himself) is astounding – I’d forgotten how (relatively) open Russia was ten years ago. I’ve watched the first 2 of the 4 episodes, and even though I have been following international politics throughout the period covered, there were many events I’d completely forgotten.
blf@165,
Yes, I’m sure. If, as appears, there has been an agreement, it’s because both sides see what they would gain from it as outweighing what they would lose. I speculate that Putin is preparing to try to negotiate a ceasefire, consolidate his territorial gains (probably annexing them to Russia), rebuild his forces, and wait for NATO/EU solidarity to crumble before renewing the attack.
@166,
Two of Erdoğan’s specific complaints are the failure to extradite people he wants to imprison\torture\kill, and Sweden’s ban on arms sales to Turkey. Submitting to him on either of those would be a fundamental betrayal of democratic values – which is not to say it won’t happen. As I’ve noted before, NATO is not and never has been about defending democracy.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their most recent summary:
Maddow last night – “Violent, Terroristic Racists Are A Recurrent Problem With No Simple Solution”:
There was a historical-background segment preceding this clip, but it’s not included.
Guardian – “‘I look at my government differently’: losses in Ukraine test Russians’ faith”:
Guardian:
“California police say 68-year-old suspect in church shooting was motivated by hate.”
“Beijing’s rhetoric in spotlight as Taiwan condemns California shooting.”
Ukraine update: Russia’s lone truth teller strikes again, so why does Putin keep him around?
Tucker Carlson is in a weal position when it comes to the mass shooting in Buffalo:
Link
In comment 174, “Tucker Carlson is in a weal position” should be “Tucker Carlson is in a weak position.”
In other news: Gorsuch breaks from conservatives in case of immigrant facing deportation for paperwork error
Guardian podcast – “Florida’s ‘don’t say gay’ bill”:
Here’s a link to the Guardian UK-politics liveblog. From their summary:
“ALERT: Michigan Court of Claims judge suspends enforcement of the state’s 1931 abortion ban, which could be instated if Roe is overturned. Says Planned Parenthood has ‘strong likelihood’ of winning an ongoing legal challenge over the law.”
Eli Savit:
From the latest summary at the Guardian Ukraine liveblog:
Cheat sheet from Taniel’s publication Bolts – “What to Watch in the May 17 Primaries”:
Guardian liveblog:
“Imagine reading this headline right after the invasion started — Russia warns Ukraine that they better not invade, as Ukraine has almost totally pushed Russian troops back to the border near Kharkiv….”
Russian headline at the (Twitter) link.
Re 182,
A couple weeks ago there was this discourse along the lines of “As Victory Day comes, what can Russia claim as a victory thus far in the dragged-out operation in Ukraine?”
I thought about joking that, for two and a half months, Russia’s heavy sacrifices have kept Russian borders safe from the Ukraine/Nato invasion that was supposedly a threat last winter.
SC @182, Ha! Funny in a black-humor way.
Ukraine update: Satellites tell a hot story of Ukraine driving for Russia’s throat
lumipuna @183, good point! I’m going to steal that interpretation and use it in conversation with friends. LOL.
In other news: [Republicans] spew same racist invasion rhetoric used by Buffalo shooter
On Turkey’s threats to throw the baby out of the pram, France24 offers this analysis, Can Turkey block Sweden and Finland’s entry into NATO? A snippet:
Wonkette: “Steve Bannon Says His Kinder, Gentler Racist Nativism Different From Buffalo Shooter’s Icky Murder-y Kind”
Link
Ben Shapiro’s Brain Trust: Replacement Theory True, So That Can’t Have Caused Mass Shooting
NYT – “Justice Dept. Requests Transcripts From Jan. 6 Committee”:
Washington Post link
Trump and Elon sitting in a tree, legal liability.
My beloved lost their job yesterday. We’d just started talking about getting the money together to try to adopt a kid again… and now it’s probably not going to happen. I’m devastated and they’re numb.
Guardian – “Orbán and US right to bond at Cpac in Hungary over ‘great replacement’ ideology”:
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
This Russian Colonel, Khodaryonok has said something I’ve noticed long ago.
It is obvious that Russia isn’t just fighting Ukraine.
They are fighting most of the world.
It is the EU, NATO, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Korea, USA, and Canada supporting Ukraine. Even Russia’s vassal states, the Central Asian republics like kazakhstan, and Belarus have already said it was a bad idea and they aren’t really supporting Russia.
Belarus is pretending to support Russia while being very careful to keep their army away from Ukraine.
China is supporting Russia but without a lot of enthusiasm. They would rather this had never happened so they could continue selling stuff to people and making money. They’ve got their own problems with the Covid-19 virus pandemic lockdowns.
Khodaryonok also pointed out another obvious fact. The Russian invasion is clearly a genocidal attack. They’ve gotten to the point of executing Ukraine civilians, kidnapping 1.3 million Ukrainians including 200,000 children, and searching out and burning books in the Ukrainian language.
So the Ukrainians are fighting like it is a matter of life or death. Because it is.
They’ve got nowhere else to go and no choice here.
The Russian soldiers are just conscripts being used as cannon fodder and they don’t have much at stake here.
Here’s a link to the Guardian US-primary-elections liveblog. From there:
More about the results at the link @ #180.
GMBigKev @ #193, sorry to hear that. Hope they find something soon.
Guardian – “Pollution responsible for one in six deaths across planet, scientists warn”:
SC @194, OMG, Tucker Carlson and Viktor Orbán, what an evil team. Yuck.
Sc @197, a small bit of almost-good news:
It was hard to watch local news on TV for the past two weeks. The channels were flooded with anti-Brad-Little propaganda that claimed Little was “anti-Trump” and a “RINO.” Somebody spent a lot of money trying to get Janice McGeachin to win. So glad she didn’t. I particularly disliked her gun, bible and giant pickup truck advert. She is basically a white supremacist, and a religious fanatic … with a gun.
Guardian liveblog:
Ukraine update: The tankies think everything—even the Ukraine invasion—is America’s fault
Oops! Recently I found my pocket-flask, which I could only recall filling with port before the pandemic. Ugghhh… So I (eventually) “tasted” it, by emptying it into my (emptied) vin glass, and… not port. Whiskey. Probably a single malt, but cannot identify which one. Definitely drinkable. And a rather large pour… Urrph! Tasty, but I’m obviously going to be staying in tonight. If my typeing becones morr errratic youu konw whu.
Ted Cruz dismisses lives of Buffalo and El Paso victims, triples down on racist ‘invasion’ rhetoric
“Biden in new statement says he ‘strongly’ supports Finland and Sweden’s NATO applications, and says while the applications are being considered the US will work w/them to ‘remain vigilant against any threats’ and ‘deter and confront aggression or the threat of aggression’.”
The enemy is here… How to make the perfect petits pois à la française — recipe (“How to be pretend peas are edible — a lie” (rough translation after some unidentified tasty single malt whisk(e?)y (see @203))). Some snippets:
A mild description of alleged-vegetable Daleks.
Look, the reason you cannot decide which sort of peas are edible is because (a) They aren’t; and (b) They eat you.
Using frozen peas gives you a few extra milliseconds (as they warm up) to kill them. Going off-planet and using nukes is still, however, a good choice.
In other words, how recently killed they were, and what was then done to further detoxify them.
Defrosting the suspended animation peas is very risky, even if you do have an army, space spaceship (preferably Tardis), etc., to cover your back as you make a high-speed strategic withdrawal.
The pro pea propoganta continues on, “[i]f you think the type of pea is contentious, wait until you hear how long you have to cook them for.”
Supposedly, the general area of S.France I live in is famous for its peas, but at least so far, the midly dereanged penguin has manabed to hold them off.
Guardian US liveblog:
McConnell makes it unofficially official: The Republican Party is now the white nationalist party
Toby Morton, former writer for the long-running animated comedy show South Park:
https://twitter.com/tobymorton/status/1526006448530116610
Right-wing school board candidates had a bad day in New York State and Durham, North Carolina
Yeah, that’s some good news … still scary though.
NBC News:
New York Times:
Commentary:
Link
Quoted in Lynna’s #204:
And, as I like to note, his father got asylum from the murderous (and of course US-backed) Batista dictatorship in the 1950s.
Why Mastriano’s primary win matters (even outside Pennsylvania)
Madison Cawthorn loses in GOP primary
It’s difficult to rank Madison Cawthorn’s many scandals, screw-ups, and failures, but one recent incident was largely responsible for derailing his career. Good news, but with a strange twist.
So, “nods to white supremacists, extravagant lies, accusations of sexually predatory behavior, [and] overt racism” do not prompt your fellow Republicans to turn against you, but speaking out about the sexual shenanigans and supposed cocaine use of your fellow Republicans will get you kicked to the curb.
Josh Marshall:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/early-voting-is-for-cucks-say-trumpers
Wonkette: “Crazy Fascist Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin Loses Primary, Won’t Be Idaho Governor”
The Wonkette article is accompanied by a photo of Janice McGeachin with her bible, her gun, her big-ass truck, and an American flag.
Guardian liveblog:
Ukrainian Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov:
Guardian US liveblog:
Florence coffee bar customer calls police over price of espresso:
Where I live in S.France, 1,50€ (c.1.60$) is, in my informal “analysis”, broadly the average for cafes (restaurants can be more expensive).
JFC
Pastor sparks controversy with rhetoric about Dems, Christianity
Can the pastor of a tax-exempt church tell his followers that Democratic voters are demons who are unwelcome in his congregation?
Would have been really nice if everyone had walked out.
Followup to comment 222: “You get out you baby-butchering’ election thief!” Greg Locke also said that to the supposed Democrats in his “Christian” congregation. He was really worked up. Spittle flying. Red faced. Looked like heart attack territory to me.
Ah, the chickens come home to roost: MyPillow Guy Gets an Indicted MAGA Clerk In Even More Trouble
The full text of the ethics complaint is available at the link.
Ukraine update: Russia threatens two Ukrainian cities in the east, but Russian failures continue
Quoted in Lynna’s #222:
Y’all Qaeda.
Ukraine update: Sometimes NATO doesn’t seem like much of an alliance
I don’t think the headline of this article matches the content.
@GMBigKev 193
I hope your wife finds another job soonest.
Justice: Dept. of Defense Inspector General Determines Col. Vindman was Victim of Illegal Retaliation
Link
Good news: US Women’s Soccer Team Finally Getting Equal Pay For Consistently Awesome Work
Podcast episodes:
SWAJ – “It’s In the Code, Ep. 4: Cool Kid Church”:
Bunker Daily – “Inside the Oxford Clique That Warped Our Future”:
This Is Critical – “The Deeply Weird Mind of Elizabeth Holmes”:
I posted about how funny episode 4 of the Hulu series was here several weeks ago. The next episode was OK, but it really got rolling in the last three episodes (6, 7, and 8). I was surprised by how good this was – the writing, the casting, the acting, everything. Like Heffernan, I’ve watched it several times, and keep noticing new things (in episode 6, in a scene where Erica Cheung is filling out her bizarre paperwork, Holmes is leading some media people on a tour, and can be heard in the background saying “This is our state-of-the-art lobby…”).
One aspect of the interview reminded me of something I’ve been thinking about and which I don’t believe has received enough attention. They’re talking about how even if Holmes’s technology had worked (which it couldn’t have done [OMG is that British? Should it be just “couldn’t have”? I can’t remember anymore!]) it wouldn’t have been remotely as revolutionary as all the hype suggested. There’s an element of all of this that probably hasn’t received enough attention:
Arizona Capitol Times (August 2021) – “Woman who changed AZ law to begin fraud trial”:
I’ve long argued that almost every aspect of health care needs to be radically overhauled. This wasn’t that, though – it was pretty much the opposite. This was ersatz personal “health freedom” for private profit. It was presented as some sort of consumer empowerment, but, as a doctor in the HBO documentary about Theranos/Holmes points out, people currently aren’t equipped to evaluate most blood tests, and the internet doesn’t help. This episode, propaganda, and law might well have helped to set the stage for the fatal stupidity of the rightwing “libertarian” response to the pandemic.
I’ve been reading Richard Francis’ Judge Sewall’s Apology: The Salem Witch Trials and the Forming of an American Conscience, which is taking months because so many other things keep intruding. The generally accepted idea of the culture surrounding the trials is contested by a number of works, including this one. Several people involved were like, WTF? That’s not logical, what’s in the Bible, how evidence works, at all reasonable,…
“This, (said he,) is a pining and consuming in the sense of the law. I add not.” is a perfect tweet.
“Well that was awkward…”
(Twitter link.)
Wow:
Apologies for the reversed embedded quotes in #235 – Andrés was responding to Musk.
“CONFIRMED: Bridget A. Brink to be US Ambassador to Ukraine
By voice vote.”
Guardian – “The person in the room? Court mulls if elephant has human rights”:
Still trying to get over #234…
This is from my blog in 2011. They’ve both since died – Shirley died last year at 72.
Correction to #240 – Jenny died in 2006. She was 34.
On the economic reality for Oz the ALP are far better economic managers :
https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/dont-believe-their-hype-the-coalition-has-blown-out-the-economy/
Plus :
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/experts-agree-labor-best-economic-managers,12620
In addition to :
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/worlds-best-economy-2019-no-not-the-coalitions-australia-,13272
@ SC (Salty Current) : Thinking elephants, well, mammoths, did you ever read any of Stephen Baxter’s Mammoth books (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mammoth_Trilogy ) written from their point of view? Thought they were pretty good and different & would recommend..
ManPenguin the Mustards, French dijon mustard supply hit by climate and rising costs, say producers:I wasn’t aware a problem was developing — and currently have no idea on availability where I live in S.France — but I could only find two jars of prepared mustard in the lair, both “gourmet”, one with truffe & pepper, the other with safran. And no mustard seeds or ground mustard. Hum… what has the mildly deranged penguin been up to?
From Business Insider:
Here are the 9 Republicans who voted against a bill to help poor families buy baby formula amid the ongoing shortage
Some of the worst, fascists in the House want to make sure children starve. I’m surprised Madison Cawthorn didn’t vote no just out of post-reelection-defeat spite. I’m sure their opposition is based on a principled stand for “freedom,” “liberty,” and, of course, “limited government.”
Satire from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
Funny, yes, but Oz can still harm people if he becomes a Republican senator.
Ukraine update: At Popasna, Russia is like the dog who finally caught a car
Irony is dead in Pennsylvania, where Trump demands they stop finding votes
StevoR @ #243, no, I didn’t know about those books, but they look interesting! I’ve added that to my list – thanks!
I’ve had a chance to listen to this BBC podcast, and thought it was very good – “Death by Conspiracy?”:
Josh Marshall:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/three-for-me-one-for-you
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
George Monbiot in the Guardian – “The banks collapsed in 2008 – and our food system is about to do the same.” Too much to excerpt, but here’s the conclusion:
Also too much to excerpt – Judd Legum in the Guardian – “Republicans just nominated one of the most radical governor candidates in history”: “Doug Mastriano may be one of the most radical candidates ever to receive a Republican nod and he has been clear that he will use that power…”
The Idaho Republican Party is merging with domestic terrorist groups, and it’s not going to end well
Julian Borger at the Guardian liveblog, re #234:
Imagine Dealing With This Many Condescending Anti-Abortion White Men and Not Losing Your Shit
A round of applause for Dr. Yashica Robinson.
The European country where “replacement theory” reigns supreme
How Hungary turned replacement theory into state ideology.
@ 255
But they won’t.
Wonkette: “Egad, A Dinesh D’Souza Movie LIED? Fetch Forth My Smelling Salts!”
Trump’s endorsement isn’t nearly as potent as he pretends it is
Some more campaign news, as summarized by Steve Benen:
Cartoon: Men Have No Choice, Ban Vasectomies!
Senate passes $40 billion Ukraine aid package
Link
Satire from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
Rainforest trees in the Aussie tropics dying are at double the rate they used to. Living half as long. There was a story on this on ..radio or TV today somewhere too and I’ve been noticing our local trees are looking stressed and some have died including some beautiful massive old ones like the one in front of the Blackwood library. This is Global Overheating, this is disturbing and has serious implications. This shouldn’t just be ignored or go under the metaphorical radar :
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/may/19/australias-tropical-rainforests-have-been-dying-faster-for-decades-in-clear-and-stark-climate-warning
Ukraine update: Cutting through the fog to get some sense of what’s happening at Staryi Saltiv
Nearly 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers evacuated from Azovstal now face uncertain fate
Happy World Bee Day everyone!
https://www.worldbeeday.org.au/
Tonight is the night before our Australian election. My thoughts and how I’m voting and why here :
.***
I so badly wish this election was over already. It is stressing me out so much and I’m so exceedingly worried by it. I wish it didn’t matter but it does and we really need the right result for the sake of all our collective futures – nationally and even globally. It’s not just the next three years but much further than that given the implications of Global Overheating – which should be the most defining issue of the campaign and affects everything, every area of our society, politics and world.
I can go through every area, every aspect of life and explain how much worse human caused Global Overheating is making life, how much harder and grimmer and more difficult and dangerous and tougher. I can up back every bit of this up with facts and logic and most of all evidence. But how long have we got? Not very long at all now really. The increased number and severity of Bushfires, heatwaves. droughts, storms, floods isn’t just physical disaster. There are survivors who lost their homes in the unprecedented bushfires still waiting for the aid they were promised by the thug who forced handshakes onunwilling people. There’s damage from flooding in Lismore and elsewhere still lingering. The pain of it won’t go away and it isn’t just phyiscal or even emotional but also financial pain, economic damage and the insidious, rotting of our political standards and conventions and whole system. There won’t be a return to normal because normal wasn’t sustainable and isn’t coming back.
The corruption is beyond merely monetary in terms of cold, hard cash or intangible dubuious electronic currency rorted, ripped off and hidden away. Its ethical corruption in the wilful ignorance and looking away from the abuse and bullying of others. In refugees indefinitely imprisoned for no fault or crime of their own. From fleeing wars that we waged and occupations that broke their nations, from Civil Wars sparked by climate change – a strong case that thats’ behind the Syrian civil war and almost forgotten Arab Spring. Flee for your lives and get jailed for the rest of them just because of your means of transport by the people who you hoped and thought would help you. How bad is that, Australia?
How bad does a Minister have to be to get sacked from the Scummo cabinet even if it turns out he’s revealed to be a rapist and gets a secret blind trust that would see any previous MP resign or be sacked instantly as one back in the 1980’s resigned just for accepting a single bottle of wine. How far have our standards fallen, our expectations dropped under this miserable, gaslighting, outright lying nightmare of a govt of the very worst. Especially when we recall that there are stories we barely get hints of coming from sleazy sex scandals in the Parliamentary prayer room and hidden deals to settle “alledged” (do I really need to use that word?) assault cases by very high placed ministers of the LNP govt exploiting their staffers. All whilst hypocritically, these same sleazebags encourage narrow-minded bigots to deny other people their right to merely exist as themselves and be treated as individuals and have their own private sex lives and identities which are consensual and harmless.
There’s so very much. Its overwhelming, its a sheer ugly weight like being drowned in a septic tank with more sewage flooding in every day, practically every hour, from the LNP’s arrogant, obscenely dishonest and corrupt mob of crooks and liars – and that’s only the bits that we know about already with who knows what and how much more we don’t.
I am so over this Murdoch IPA LNP regime disgracing our nation. So over this. They absolutely need to go and then face justice. We need an ICAC. We need arrests. We need consequences.
We need a better vision for our nation that is bolder, braver, kinder, fairer and more hoenst and more diverse and more welcoming and open to improving further.
But most of all we need them gone.
This election is our one last – yes, very likely last real chance.
We have to take it.
I’m not going to tell other people how to vote but this is how I’m voting and why.
I’m voting Greens and Climate Independents first to pressure small target ALP to move left and act better and improve. For genuine, priority 1, major immediate dramatic action on Global Overheating, on for compassion to refugees and ending the Offshore non-processing torture and torment of innocent people just like us but for luck of birth and circumstances. For restored political norms, conventions made laws and an end to the kakistocratic Murdochcracy we’ve slid into and its stinking corruption.
Then I’m voting ALP because they aren’t the same as the LNP by a very long way (even if not as long a way as I’d like) – their positions on ICAC, the ABC, the enable religiously-excused bullying law that Scotty from Hellsong demands a parlt pass if he’s re-eelected. I’m putting the LNP last because, well, re-read all the above paragraphs really.
I’m going to ask and plead with all my fb friends, everyone that reads this who can to consider at least doing likewise and for the reasons given here. Because this matters. This decides all our futures and not just for the next three years but for far, far longer than that. I wish this didn’t matter and I didn’;t have to do this but it does and here we are. Please.
Please.
Think and vote kind. Choose wisely and kindly. If you never do anything else for me and for yourselves, just do this. Please.
StevoR.
PS. As always a huge thankyou to all those who created and shared memes here. I hope others enjoy them and are made to think by them as I am. Thankyou to all for reading and thinking about this, please feel free to share.
.***
Any feedback or suggestions welcome.
From Talking Points Memo:
CPAC Leader Offers White Nationalists A Solution To ‘Great Replacement’: Abortion Ban
WOW! It’s almost as if there was some sort of link between white supremacy and fetus fetishism. What’s it called again? I think it’s come kind of religion…Cross… Cris… Oh CHRISTIANITY!
Ukraine update: A Russian volunteer’s story lays waste to the myth of the Russian “BTG”
For World Bee Day beautiful endangered bee story long – 20 min – version here on Bombus affinis the critically endangered Rusty-Patched Bumblebee here.
There’s also this 7 min long short version here too.
On this species :
https://beelab.umn.edu/rusty-patched-bumble-bee
My choice for today’s / this weeks (critically) Endangered Species of the Day / Week. We need to save this species.. and so very many more.
For World Bee Day beautiful endangered bee story long – 20 min – version here on Bombus affinis the critically endangered Rusty-Patched Bumblebee here.
There’s also this 7 min long short version here too.
On this species :
https://beelab.umn.edu/rusty-patched-bumble-bee
My choice for today’s / this weeks (critically) Endangered Species of the Day / Week. We need to save this species.. and so very many more.
For World Bee Day beautiful endangered bee story long – 20 min – version here on Bombus affinis the critically endangered Rusty-Patched Bumblebee here.
There’s also this 7 min long short version here too.
On this species :
https://beelab.umn.edu/rusty-patched-bumble-bee
My choice for today’s / this weeks (critically) Endangered Species of the Day / Week. We need to save this species.. and so very many more.
Huh. Dunno what happened there. My apologies for the double post above.
Oh & on one of the largest of all bumblebees which has been described in very mammalian~ish terms as a “flying mouse” and “a monstrous fluffy ginger beast” by British ecologist David Goulson (its wikipage) there’s this just under 5 min long Bombus dahlbomii clip here with some gorgeous footage & good info.
StevoR @277, I enjoyed that clip of Bombus dahlbomii, the “flying mouse.” :-)
I have a flowering tree in my back yard and it is so full of the sound of bees that you can hear it about ten feet away. BZZZZZ.
No giant fluffy ginger beasts though.
New Jersey Globe:
Oz is such a doofus.
Las Vegas Sun:
I feel your pain.
Evidence ties Trump directly to lawyer’s scheme to overturn election
It wasn’t just Donald Trump’s lawyers and operatives who tried to overturn his 2020 defeat. The former president himself was directly involved, too.
Glowing red orbs …. uh…
Link
Well, that was fun … but also a complete waste of Congress’s time.
Josh Marshall:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/fashing-very-strongly
Lynna @ # 273 quoting “Dmitri” quoting “Viktor”: So they said – decide for yourself if you want to go or not.
Numerous reports have had similar language of troops “refusing” or “rejecting” combat orders, occasionally with partial explanations of the rights of conscripts in the Russian army to do that. Which confuses me no end – when and where else do grunts get that sort of option? That wouldn’t get far even in the Vermont National Guard, and seems totally out of character for Putin’s Russia (though it does explain a lot of the failures in this “Special Military Operation”).
Large group of Republicans take stands: Pro-Putin, anti-feeding babies, pro-Big Oil price gouging
New emails show Ginni Thomas trying to get Arizona officials to overturn the election
Pierce @284, I don’t understand it either.
I wonder if it doesn’t illustrate an even more comprehensive lack of discipline in the Russian military than we have seen so far.
Monkeypox exploding in the US, Europe, Canada, much more rapidly and widely than previous outbreaks
Link
Wonkette: “MO Supreme Court Won’t Let St. Louis Gunhumpers Do Community Service On James O’Keefe’s Dildo Boat”
Tomorrow, federal election in Australia. If non-conservative parties lose, the country is going to be fucked for a long time. If you are Twitter-inclined, follow the action on #binnight and #ausvotes. Crunch time. I will be following in Germany from 10 am(6pm in Oz), this is important, think Trump vs Biden. The Australian ABC channel has a online viewing option on their Iview channels, and they have an iconic election analyst called Antony Green, who is like Freddy Mercury for elections, known to call election results when they become clear. So, yes it’s a party tomorrow, drinks will be had, but in a somewhat tense atmosphere, where loss is not an option if the country wants to progress. We had this situation in 2019 and the Sith just scraped through, and looted the country for the last 3 years. It must not happen again.
Pierce R. Butler@214, Lynna, OM@217,
I understand it’s because Putin refuses to call his war a war that there are legal ways for Russian troops to refuse to fight in it. Presumably he didn’t have the law changed in advance because (a) he didn’t expect serious resistance and (b) that would have been akin to broadcasting “I’m going to invade Ukraine – better get ready!”.
Sorry: @284 & @287
KG @ # 292: … because Putin refuses to call his war a war … there are legal ways for Russian troops to refuse to fight in it.
Still a very unusual regulation for any nation’s military. Something left over from a Yeltsin Happy Hour?
Pierce @294 and KG @292, yes that’s all technically true. However, we also have evidence of conscripts being more or less forced to sign military contracts — that would remove conscripts from the conscript category. And we have evidence of conscripts being so poor and ill-informed that they may have been sort of duped into joining the Russian military. We have tales of more experienced Chechen fighters hanging back a bit while they send conscripts to the front, with the implication that the Chechen’s will shoot the conscripts if they retreat or refuse to fight.
If those stories are true, you would think that Russia’s military leaders would also find other ways to coerce conscripts into fighting. Maybe the tale of one military leader giving conscripts the option to NOT fight is unusual?
Maybe some of the leaders themselves have given up on Putin’s failed war?
Ukraine Update: As Ukraine begs for MLRS, here’s a weapons system we absolutely shouldn’t send them
Good news: a trucker convoy seems to have “fizzled out.”
Link
Isn’t that just too bad. It’s a mess.
Link
New York Times: “Witness testimony and videos obtained by The New York Times show how Russian paratroopers executed at least eight Ukrainian men in a Kyiv suburb on March 4, a potential war crime.”
New York Times link
Videos and images are available at the link.
Associated Press: “Captive medic’s bodycam shows firsthand horror of Mariupol”
More at the link.
Cartoon: Elon Musk’s freak speech spending spree
The New York Times vaporizes its credibility. (Fuck the New York Times.)
The NYTimes is already saying we need to think about how much aid for how long we send to Ukraine.
.1. The war has just started. We have no idea how long it will last.
It isn’t up to us to put a time limit on it. The Russians don’t listen to us. The Ukrainians fight Russian genocide because they have no where else to go.
.2. NYTimes “Americans have been galvanized by Ukraine’s suffering, but popular support for a war far from U.S. shores will not continue indefinitely.” Oh really?
Our war in Afghanistan lasted 20 years, cost trillions of dollars, and accomplished nothing. Same with Iraq II.
What the American people want doesn’t have much to do with our wars.
And, we have no idea how long the American public will support Ukraine.
Because we haven’t had a war with a worthwhile objective since World War II and Korea. We aren’t bombing Third World brown people to oblivion here. In fact, all we are doing is supplying money, arms, and political support. The Ukrainians are taking heavy losses in lives here.
I would cancel my New York Times subscription but I’ve never had one.
As time goes on, I spend less and less time paying attention to it.
That editorial wasn’t written by one of their right wingnut hacks, but by their entire editorial board.
I shortened it a lot because it was repetitious, rambling, and didn’t really say much.
We in the USA, NATO, EU, and most of the rest of world really aren’t that involved in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We send the Ukrainians money, weapons, and supplies, all of which we have huge amounts of that we don’t really need.
The Ukrainians are the one paying the big price.
It is the Ukrainians that are fighting , dying, and being maimed for life every day.
The numbers aren’t too certain but they have lost thousands of soldiers, tens of thousand have been wounded, and tens of thousands of civilians have been killed or wounded. Whole cities and villages have been flattened like Grozny, Chechnya or most places in Syria.
A beautiful, happy song: “Boogie Wonderland.”
Aussie ABC news live coverage of our election here :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-21/federal-election-live-blog-scott-morrison-anthony-albanese/101085640
Thanks StevoR@305. ABC are much more definite about a Labor win than The Guardian. Can you explain why some Coalition results are reported as “Liberal”, some as “National”, and some as “LNR”?
YYYYEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSS!!!!! :-D
Boothby called fro the ALP.
For the first time in my lifetime Boothby is going have a MP who might actually represent me and who I didn’t put last or second last on my ballot paper. So happy about that. 😃
State and Federal former Lib safe seats Waite & Boothby now both ALP.. Wow. Phew. Wonderful! 😃
Even better the result looks like its either going to be a hung palrt with Greens balance of power or an ALP majority. Scummo is finished. Phew! 😃
LNR = LNP maybe? Liberal National parties form a governing Coalition of separate but united parties.. which also Ithink merged in Qld as the LNP there? Its complicated. There’s a weird blend there. But basically Liberal or National are part of the – I can now to my boundless relief and joy say – formerly governing coalition of regressive “conservative” parties.
Unless LNR is really LN R not P in which case ..dunno.. ?
StevoR@308
Sorry, yes, LNP!
…And congratulations on Australia’s escape from “Aussie Trump”!
L / NP = Liberal / National party(s)
That it? ALP 71 seats & LNP 49, 10 Independent /Other & 21 in doubt as of now..
Phew. So stressed about this. So happy about this.. So relieved about this. Wow. Phew. YEEES!!!
Pierce R Butler@284, et al., I think — this is all my own speculation — two somewhat different things are being conflated here, hence the confusion.
(1) Apparently, as mentioned in @284, Russian military conscripts cannot be ordered to actions outside Russia without a declaration of war. The key word there is “consript”. The Russian military also has contract soldiers (what others, such as Nato, would call “professional”), and those can be so-ordered into action. (There are also mercenaries, etc.)
I therefore speculate the (unverified) quoted “decide for yourself if you want to go or not” was a commander speaking to his (remaining) contract soldiers, and that that commander was human.
That is, (2) The commander know it was essentially a stupid suicidal mission, and had no desire to send his few remaining forces, probably thinking “Who the feck is going to know? Anyone who might talk will very probably also have to explain why they didn’t go.” (There are variations on this, e.g., the commander sensed a possible mutiny, etc.) Like others, I doubt Russian military “allows” such actions, but the commander and his remaining forces presumably realise — and can quite colourfully describe — that same military(‘s officers) are incompetent fools, easily fooled, or if necessary, bribed.
There seems to me to be a conflation on the Russian law about conscripts with the actions the professionals (contracts) will take in a desperate situation, rules be damned.
blf @ # 313 – Thanks for that, but if true, it still leaves some questions open.
Mostly, for me, concerning the thinking of Putin’s officers. Doesn’t any field commander who allows such an option leave him(-her-?)self open to permanent assignment cleaning latrines with their personal toothbrush for the rest of their career? How many “human” commanders will remain after a wave of such decisions?
Or, has Big Vlad lost control of his officers corps?
blf@313,
While Russia is not officially at war, Russian contract soldiers who refuse to go to Ukraine can be dismissed, but not prosecuted. The article seems to imply, but does not actually state, that the situation is different once they are in Ukraine.
Also from blf’s # 313: The commander …, probably thinking “Who the feck is going to know? …”
How does any reporter in western media claim to have found out what went on between Russian officers & troops? Do all these reports of “troops said, ‘nuh-uh!'” come from Ukrainian intel/propaganda?
Russian troops use Telegram sometimes to communicate with each other. Other people can access those conversations.
Russian troops use other kinds of unsecured communication, and that’s been true since the beginning of the war.
Pierce @316, see references to Russian telegram in comment 87; in blf’s comment 110; in comment 121 (good source); in SC’s comment 139; in comment 157, etc. Some Russians even use Twitter. And, no, I don’t think Big Vlad has ever had the control of his officer corps that he thought he had.
In related news: Ukraine update:
Michigan neo-Nazis tried to build ‘community’ at farmhouse, end up facing prison time instead
Followup to comment 297.
https://twitter.com/Crime_sprees/status/1527817790970859526
Commentary:
Grifters gotta grift.
Link
How The Fifth Circuit Used An SEC Case To Declare Open Season On The Administrative State
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/fifth-circuit-sec-agencies-supreme-court
More at the link.
Anti-vaxx, anti-lockdown rocker Eric Clapton tests positive for COVID-19
In @244, I observed I wasn’t aware of The Great French Mustard Shortage — well, now I am. Visiting a local shop for more mundane necessaries, I checked out the (prepared) mustards: The entire selection consisted of two bottles (not two brands, two bottles), in what (judging by the shelf labels) was supposed to have about eight brands. The two bottles were different brands, and as it so happened, one of them is what I probably would have gotten anyways, so I snaffled it. The slightly odd thing was there wasn’t any sign explaining (or apologising for) the shortage.
I’ve carefully hidden the rare bottle, so that you-know-who might not find it. I still have no idea what the mildly deranged penguin is doing…
“Voting is surging in Georgia despite controversial new election law.”
Washington Post link
No, Brad Raffensperger, you are wrong. You and other Republican’s tried to suppress the vote, but voters and voting-rights groups worked extra hard to overcome the new hurdles you put in place.
Again, all the work done to ameliorate the voter-suppression efforts of Republican legislators does create some good outcomes.
Do what you need to do. Vote.
blf @323, glad to hear that The Great French Mustard Shortage has been temporarily averted in your domicile.
In other news: Florida lawmakers scramble to fix a property insurance crisis before hurricane season
Grifters gotta grift.
Sen. Bill Cassidy says Louisiana’s infant mortality rate isn’t bad if you don’t count Black people
Wonkette: “MI State Rep Candidate Has Great Plan To Ruin Sex For Everybody”
Wonkette:”Why The Right Is Obsessed With Nonexistent Mid-Labor Abortions”
Some snippets from the Meduza live blog (in reverse chronological order (i.e., most recent first)):
I’m guessing where the missing opening quotemark goes.
On the Aussie election here’s the summarised winners and losers :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-22/federal-election-winners-and-losers/101089334
With great news for the Greens and Teal Independents and hope that our Murdochracy might finally take serious Climate action.
Plus the full, latest results as coutning continues here :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/federal/2022/results?filter=all&sort=az&state=all
Plus regularly updated live blog coverage here :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-22/federal-election-live-blog-labor-government-liberal-party/101088846
Such a great feeling and so relieved and happy to have an election go right for a change. .
Incidentally Albo will be Australia’s first PM with a non-Anglocentic name. Which, yikes, taken us this long for that?!.
Lynna@328, re: Cassidy’s take on maternal mortality
Maybe they can take a historical perspective and only count 2/3 of a mortality for black women.
Meanwhile in space news, we just possibly might be in for a meteor storm from the Tau Herculid showwr – details here :
https://www.universetoday.com/155928/we-may-see-a-tau-herculid-meteor-outburst-on-may-31st/ :
Also on that and more this compilation of astronomy and space exploration news here which goes for twenty minutes but is quite interesting I reckon.
Oh, plus we have this latest progress update on the JWST as well.
snarkrates@333, 2/3 or 3/5 ?
3/5’s is what is still in the States constitution (never formally repealed), albeit section 2 of the 14th amendment renders it moot.
@ 830
Back when I was young, stupid, Catholic, and conservative, I heard fetus-fetishists often claim that feminist women have abortions just to flaunt Gawd and “The Family.” (i.e. White, cis-het, monogamous, Christian, patriarchy.) I recall Rush Limbaugh often pontificate from his “golden EIB microphone” that “Feninism is a religion and abortion is its sacrament.”
Then there was Par Robertson’s infamous quote:
Legal-abortion-as-Infantcide is just another manifestation of the fear-mongering that gave us the Blood Libel, Q Anon, and Alex Jones.
Akira @336, that quote from Pat Robertson is laugh-out-loud ridiculous. I can’t believe he threw “witchcraft” and “destroy capitalism” into the mix. Ha! It’s perfect in a way.
In other news: Doug Mastriano did not need Trump to lead him to conspiracy theories. He’s been there for 20 years
Ukraine update: Russia’s advance stalls again, and a new Ukrainian tank brigade enters the fight
Ukraine received about 240 tanks from Poland. Ukrainians are now trained to operate those tanks. Ukraine also received Dutch armored personnel carriers.
Followup to comment 338.
More on Australian politics:
Link
Kate McKinnon Is Reportedly Leaving SNL. Let’s Relive Her Best Trump-Era Impressions.
Videos are available at the link. Impressions of Jeff Sessions, Rudy Giuliani and Kellyanne Conway.
More on Australian politics: Australian Election Results: Revenge of the Barbecued Koalas
Voters just kicked out the conservative government and climate action is back.
More at the link.
Wonkette: “Virginia County Considers Making Schools Celebrate Slavery, Confederate Generals Again”
Link
Ben Jennings in the Grauniad, On the US anti-abortion movement (cartoon).
First Dog on the Moon (who is Ozlandish) in the Grauniad, What will it be like (or what WOULD IT HAVE BEEN LIKE) under an Albo government?! (cartoon), dated 20th May (Friday), before Ozland’s election.
In what is possibly a reaction to that unsigned NYT pro-appeasement editorial (see, e.g., raven@304 & @305), Ukraine rules out any ceasefire deal that involves ceding territory to Russia. A snippet (my added emboldening):
Conspiracy theorists claim bird flu is fake news: :
The only clew I get is you have absolutely no idea what PCR is, at any level other than being an imaginary bogeyfiend.
As a dinosaur, the mildly deranged penguin is rather concerned about avian flu. However, she correctly — or at least more plausibly — blames the virus on peas, horses, and the Martians retaliating after their failed invasion.
Marjorie Taylor Greene Pushes Bill Gates Monkeypox Conspiracy (Newsweek edits in {curly braces}):
— teh eejit & others.
As a reminder, this is not the Onion.
blf @348, so much addled-brain bullshit in just one human brain? Very disturbing.
Marjorie Taylor Greene is not alone:
Link
The article also contains embedded links to other sources.
A followup, of sorts, to comment 349.
Wisconsin Republicans boo top GOP legislator for saying Trump’s election loss can’t be overturned
<rant>I don’t know what the feck it is, but for the past hour or so (starting at c.06h30 local time) some fsmdamnthing has been making a very annoying noise, somewhere in the village. The orientation of the lair makes it slightly difficult to pinpoint the direction, but it sounds like it’s coming from the (old?) harbour area. It’s vaguely similar to a yacht airhorn, but not as LOUD or shrill. I did a quickie measurement using the audio spectrum app on my phone, and it has two equal peaks, one at 100hz and the other at 562hz, both 70dB, essentially continuous. I assume it’s louder outside (I was trying to stay inside the pillow fort and haven’t ventured out yet).If it’s an airhorn, the yacht or whatever is sick. If it’s an alarm, it’s not working, nothing seems to be happening. If it’s a terrorist attack (e.g., a French rap band), I’m tempted to unleash both the mildly deranged penguin and several kraken (not that you can safely keep either “on a leash”!).
At the moment, I’ve closed all the windows, greatly diminishing the noise, and am listening to music via headphones (Horslips: The Book of Invasions (A Celtic Symphony) (video), since you didn’t ask).
I rather hope whatever fecking yacht it is (if that is what it is) is permanently banned from the village, along with the obviously incompetent captain. If it’s something else, fine the owner into oblivion.
</rant>Kyiv museums exhibit Russian artefacts with pride and a warning:
There are multiple images at the link.
Re my rant at @350, It’s now c.08h30, and sometime in the last half-hour or so, that horrible racket has finally ended. Dunno exactly when as I’d managed to block the sick airhorn (thanks Horslips!). No idea (yet, anyway) on just what it was or why it kept going for something over 90mins, or who the feck will (hopefully) be severely fined, etc.
blf@347,
But how can “bird flu” be real when birds aren’t real???
KG@353, It’s the batteries either exploding or corroding.
Alex Jones’ Unfounded Claims That Monkeypox Outbreak Due To Covid-19 Vaccines:
Follow-up to @345, which was dated before Ozland’s election: First Dog on the Moon (who is Olandish) in the Grauniad, Is it really true? Surely there is a false dawn! Are they really gone? Prime minister Albo! (cartoon). From the first panel (my transcription), “The huge cavern door rattles open and the voters of Australia emerge blinking into the sunlight — we have been too long in the rancid darkness. Enraged screeching echoes in the distance — the leathery wings of the vanquished flapping hysterically as they flee sun’s rays… it is done”.
Congratulations, Australia!
Some podcast episodes:
The Daily – “A Better Understanding of Long Covid”:
The Daily – “A Tactical Disaster for Russia’s Military”:
QAA – “Episode 189: 2000 Mules Trampling Dinesh D’Souza”:
More podcast episodes:
A World to Win – “The Roots of Britain’s 50-Year Drug War w/ Kojo Koram”:
CounterVortex – “Chomsky & the Orwellian manipulation of Orwell”:
NBN – “Paddy Docherty, Blood and Bronze: The British Empire and the Sack of Benin“:
Since Hulu has a new limited series on Teal Swan (only the first episode is available now), here’s a Conspirituality episode partially about her from last year – “48: Traumatic Influence (w/Kyra Haglund & Hala Khouri)”:
The segment begins at 47 minutes in.
Spotted via DailyKos Ukraine update: Ukraine is not interested in compromise or concessions, nor should it be (which I’ve leave for Lynna to do their usual excellent excerpting), https://t.co/MCTCffCVQW
Video at the link, sound and production quality is excellent.
In the comments there is a link to another performance of the song, also with excellent sound and production quality (albeit not as well staged), however, in that version, one short clip clearly shows a Russian desperately trying to exit their tank(?) as it is destroyed.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From there:
I wish I could install something on the devices of every politician, journalist, and speechwriter that would automatically zap any references to “barbarism” or “savagery” or animal-based insults. Really, this has to stop.
The Onion, Trump Urges Dr Oz To Declare Victory Against Biden In 2020 Election:
Quoted in Lynna’s #327:
But really, what are the odds of Florida getting hit by a major hurricane?
Guardian liveblog:
LOL.
Here in France, President Macron has revamped his cabinet (ministers), which perhaps the two attracting the greatest notice being Élisabeth Borne (New French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne, daughter of a stateless Auschwitz survivor), the first female PM this millennium; and Pap Ndiaye (Historian Pap Ndiaye, an expert on minority issues, is Macron’s surprise education pick), “a historian with an international profile, specialising in the social history of the United States and minorities, who was named to lead the Museum of the History of Immigration last year”. Some snippets from In pictures: the faces of France’s new government (the numbers refer to the images (17 in total)):
(3) “After serving as France’s ambassador to the United Kingdom since 2019, Catherine Colonna has been named foreign minister. Only the second woman to hold the key post […]”.
(6) “Historian and expert on US minority rights Pap Ndiaye was named France’s new education minister, taking over from conservative Jean-Michel Blanquer. Ndiaye first gained national prominence with his 2008 work, ‘The Black Condition, an essay on a French minority’ and is an outspoken critic of systemic racism and discrimination.” Blanquer was a disaster (see various previous comments in this series of poppyhead threads), and education was one of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s main issues (rightly so).
(8) “Newly appointed Health Minister Brigitte Bourguignon replaces Olivier Véran, who helped guide France through the Covid-19 crisis and will now serve as minister for relations with parliament. Bourguignon previously served as deputy mayor of the town of Boulogne-sur-Mer where she was in charge of battling against the exclusion of handicapped people and infants (2001–2012).” Boulogne-sur-Mer is in the extreme NE of France, seemingly about as far away from the mildly deranged penguin as it is possible to get without leaving mainland France.
(10) “France’s new minister of social services, the elderly and the disabled, Damien Abad, was the head of the conservative Les Républicains party’s parliamentary group at the lower house National Assembly before joining Macron’s camp. Diagnosed with arthrogryposis, a rare condition that affects the joints, Abad became the first handicapped MP in 2012.” However, Newly appointed French minister Damien Abad denies rape accusations.
(11) “Sylvie Retailleau, who has a PhD in physics and is a former president of Paris-Sud University, has been nominated minister of higher education and research (replacing Frédérique Vidal). Her nomination has been hailed as a sign that Macron wants to get serious about revamping the research capacities of French universities.”
(14) “Yaël Braun-Pivet, the new minister for overseas territories, was first elected MP in 2017 shortly after Macron’s election. A former criminal lawyer, she served as head of the National Assembly’s prestigious Laws Commission. She has long been an advocate for prison reform and organised several penitentiary visits for her parliamentary colleagues. She even spent a night at the Bois d’Arcy prison in 2019 to ‘better understand’ what living and working there was like.” The French prison system is notoriously awful (albeit, I presume, better than (many?) States (or “U”K?) prisons)).
(15) “Newly appointed French Culture Minister Rima Abdul-Malak has long been a communications and cultural adviser to Macron but this is her first official government role (replacing Roselyne Bachelot). Born in Lebanon, Abdul-Malak arrived in France at the age of 10 and grew up in Lyon. After graduating from Sciences Po university she became involved with Clown sans frontières, a humanitarian-cultural organisation that aids victims of war and natural disasters, from 2001 to 2006. […]” According to French Ye Pffft! of All Knowledge (« Ye Pffft! de Toutes les Connaissances »(?)), she was also a Cultural Attaché at the French Embassy in Washington DC. (She apparently isn’t from the Muslim tradition, which would have been perhaps ideal — lots of lovely exploding-with-spittle-and-rage nutcases.)
SC@362 snarks,”[W]hat are the odds of Florida getting hit by a major hurricane?”
According to hair furor, very unlikely: Hurricanes are shot from a big cannon in China, which borders the Pacific Ocean. To hit Florida, the hurricane would have to be in the Atlantic Ocean. The only way to get from the Pacific to the Atlantic is via the Panama Canal, which Carter sold off closing it to American shipping, so the hurricane would have to divert to the Suez Canal, which is blocked by a big sunken Chinese ship, meaning it’s trapped in the ice-filled Arctic Ocean. Unfortunately, the uppity people’s commune in S.Africa isn’t keeping the straight closed, so the hurricane might be able to sneak it via Obama’s secret moonbase on Mars. Hence the Space Force!
(I apologise for the above actually being coherent — hair furoriodisms of more than a syllieble are rather hard to do.)
Snippets from the Meduza live blog (Meduza’s edits in {curly braces}):
Guardian podcast – “A travesty in Turkey: the Gezi Park trials”:
blf @ #364, Ndiaye is an interesting pick!
I don’t think I’d previously heard of this organization, “dont la mission est d’apporter à travers le rire et le spectacle, un soutien psychosocial aux enfants et aux populations victimes de crises humanitaires ou en situation de grande précarité.” I hope it’s humor and entertainment more broadly and not, like, actual clowns; kind of afraid to investigate…
Guardian (from the other day) – “Trump shares CPAC Hungary platform with notorious racist and antisemite”:
Text quoted by blf in comment 366:
Projection. Sounds like Solovyov is describing Putin’s effects on the Russian people.
SC @362, and blf @365LOL.
Text quoted by SC in comment 360:
Yes. An apt and succinct way to describe Putin’s regime.
“Meanwhile on Russian state TV: head of RT Margarita Simonyan predicts that either Russia will win against Ukraine, or ‘things will end badly for all of humanity’. Simonyan, who studied in the US, tells Russians they should be rejoicing their children will never study in the West….”
Video with subtitles at the (Twitter) link.
@ 369
To paraphrase Douglas Adams: Charming fellow. I was I had a child so I can forbid them to marry him.
Ukraine update: Ukraine is not interested in compromise or concessions, nor should it be
Lithuanian Government:
blf @356,
note his last sentence: “Good riddance you jabbering ghouls”.
Progressive Australia’s sentiment exactly.
It is the equivalent of McConnell, Paul, MTG, LB, and another 15 GQP ghouls being voted out. And replaced by 15/17 progressive women. I don’t even live there anymore, but I cried all Saturday night., Because it is true, if the theocratic kleptocrats had been returned to office, Oz would have been irredeemably fucked. The conservatives’ answer so far seems to be to elect the chief ghoul their new leader, and lurch even further to the right, because the problem was that they were not fascist enough to begin with. Good luck with that.
Republicans want us to believe there’s an “open borders” policy. They also keep talking about drugs seized at the border. Both points can’t be true.
Why Saudi money for Kushner, Mnuchin is drawing fresh scrutiny
Shudder.
New York Times:
Right. That’s really bad. What do they intend to do with the 2024 presidential race?
In other political news, Pennsylvania, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman was released from the hospital. He was treated for a stroke. “I am feeling great, but per my doctor’s orders, and Gisele’s orders, I am going to continue to rest and recover,” he said. Gisele is his wife. Five days ago, Fetterman won the Democratic U.S. Senate primary in Pennsylvania.
The usual Trump nastiness, as summarized by Steve Benen:
Josh Marshall:
Link
Cheney Underscores ‘Threat’ Of Trump As Jan. 6 Panel Gears Up For Public Hearings
Video at the link.
SC @371, that sound like, “Let Russia win in Ukraine or Russia will blow up the entire planet.” I am really tired of the bullying threats coming out of Russia.
blf @356, that was great cartoon! “Schadenfreude beyond our wildest dreams.”
In other news: Texas Republicans threaten companies offering to pay for employees’ out-of-state abortions
@ 373
I always thought “Tankie” referred to authoritarian socialists who praised the old Soviet Union and the PRC. Granted, I suppose there is probably a lot of overlap with that group and the ones those who constantly blame “U.S. Imperialism” for all the world’s problems.
The Guardian now has a Partygate liveblog:
Photos at the link. They’re trying to deny it was a party, but it was quite plainly a party.
I don’t know what they put in their vodka (other than Polonium), but it’s a powerful hallucinogen. E.g., Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four was about liberalism, not totalitarianism, claims Moscow diplomat:
Guardian Partygate liveblog:
AZ GOP Gov Candidate Kari Lake Takes Bold Stance Against Curvy Women On ‘Sports Illustrated’ Covers
Well, wouldn’t that have some advantages? :-p
@373 &@383, On “tankie”, I myself thought it was a relatively recent invention but have never been too sure whom it refers to, other then it being some sort of an insult, mostly(?) applied to pro-Putin people. Whilst it is such an insult, it’s also a rather old term, Ye Pfffft! of Knowledge says:
However, that entry does not seem to mention Putin’s war in Ukraine and the recent usage, so there may be additional nuances in the current situation. Even so, “endorse, defend, or deny mistakes and crimes committed by authoritarian[s]” does appear to be very close to the current usage.
Akira @383, I think you are right. Thanks for the additional information.
In other news: The Real Groomers: 400-Page Report Details Massive Southern Baptist Sex Abuse Cover-Up
Soon it will be a felony for homeless folks to camp on public land in Tennessee
It sounds to me like Tennessee is just trying to push the unhoused people into neighboring states.
As blf@389 says, “Tankie” was originally aimed at western Communist Party members who supported the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. It became a more general term for those who slavishly followed the Moscow line during Soviet times. But a surprising number of Tankies and fellow-travellers have maintained the Moscow allegiance despite the disintegration of the USSR (usually combined with a fondness for the Chinese regime which is at least still run by a nominally Communist party); and justify the Putin-worship, if at all, with the line that American imperialism is just so much more powerful and evil than anything else in the world that anyone or anything that opposes it must be supported. And since those people, if not explicitly supporting Putin’s invasion, are desperate to excuse it, and to refocus attention on the evils of NATO and of supplying arms to Ukraine to fight Russian tanks, the name has gained new relevance.
Supreme Court extremists gut Sixth Amendment protections, make wrongful executions inevitable
blf @ #385, so Chomsky is now singing from the same hymnal as Zakharova. Orwellian exploitation of Orwell, indeed.
The CounterVortex podcast discusses this shameful misrepresentation in some depth, and also links to Orwell’s proposed preface to Animal Farm to which Chomsky refers, “The Freedom of the Press,” written in 1943 but not published until 1972. It is directed at British liberals, but not as an attack on liberalism or to suggest any tyrannical impulse inherent in liberalism, but to point to a turning away from liberal values, specifically in their rejection of critical writing about…Soviet Russia!
From the piece:
@ 387
<
blockquote>It’s not clear why Lake combined her fatphobia with transphobia in some twisted Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of bigotry.
It’s meant to disgust right-wingers. Look at what the insidious is trying to make us accept! Over-weight women and deranged perverts who think they’re the opposite gender!!! We know there are only two genders! We know that fat people are ugly, lazy, and unhealthy, but left is trying to say black is white and have us approve all manner of degeneracy!
Guardian Partygate liveblog:
They link to a tweet with one of the photos of Johnson at the party which reads:
Quoted in Lynna’s #387:
I still find it shocking that a substantial portion of one of the two major political parties in the US has decided that the most basic expectations of decent behavior – and not even of active kindness, just not to be gratuitously cruel! – are tyrannical. They’ve chosen as their leader a vicious man who revels in attacking and humiliating people, and they cheer most enthusiastically for his slanderous lies and bullying. They’re so determined to be mean that they’ve actually made it part of their political platform and given it an ideological veneer.
Guardian Partygate liveblog:
@ 397
It’s not shocking at all. Kindness, compassion, empathy; to the right these are for the weaklings and those who try to excuse “depravity: and “cowardice.” No, to be a REAL American you need to be tough, stoic, and immune to the complaints of the “crybaby” liberals, “mooching” minorities, the LGBTQ “freaks.” To them, “cruelty” is sign of strength.
Apropos of nothing, I love “leaving do.”
Kyiv Independent:
Akira MacKenzie @ #399, whoosh.
Kevin Rothrock:
Love this kid – The Hill – “Florida student suing over ‘Don’t Say Gay’ uses curly hair as commencement speech code”:
StevoR @ # 332: … Albo will be Australia’s first PM with a non-Anglocent[r]ic name.
Pls double-check that: sounds like he traces some roots back to … Albion!
Some snippets from the Meduza live blog:
Also at Meduza, 166 names: Investigative journalists at Proekt collect data on the military officials commanding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Many were born and raised there. (translated summary; I don’t think the full list / report has been translated (yet?)?):
Pierce R Butler@405, I cannot tell if you are joking or not…
From the Grauniad, Anthony Albanese is Australia’s first PM with a non-Anglo surname. So how do you pronounce it?:
So it seems Albo’s surname is Italian and suggests a (distant?) Albanian connection.
One set of absurd rumours has been there were high-level (or indeed, any) Nato personnel at the besieged Mariupol steel plant. There’s apparently a new variant of that nonsense, No, Russia did not capture a US admiral at Ukraine’s Azovstal steel plant (video):
blf @ # 407: … I cannot tell if you are joking or not…
Not quite sure myself, but I do find it a hard question to take seriously.
… an ethnic name for “an Albanian”…
Which brings us to: did Albanians settle in Albion and give it their name, as later the Britons and Angles did – or vice-versa? ;-)
New episode of Maintenance Phase – “The Trouble With Calories”:
Ukraine update: Russia captures another large town, but how much should we worry?
Ukraine Weapons Tracker:
https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1529003245296922627
Contrast the performance of the Switchblade with this video from Russia of one of their drones carrying out a bombing mission. Kyle Glen:
https://twitter.com/KyleJGlen/status/1529077456803708933
Videos are available at the link.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. Their most recent summary:
Finally, something far better […]: a compilation of Patron the mine-sniffing hero dog.
https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1529087924502937600
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Partygate/UK-politics liveblog. From there:
I don’t know if there’s a journalism award for liveblogging, but if there is the Guardian deserves it.
Guardian liveblog:
David Perdue closes out Georgia primary with astonishingly racist comments about Stacey Abrams
Yep. That’s a Trump-endorsed candidate for you.
Video at the link.
The Guardian also has a US-primaries liveblog!:
And here’s the Bolts cheat sheet:
Guardian – “Male Afghan TV presenters mask up to support female colleagues after Taliban decree”:
Marina Hyde in the Guardian – “Three cheers for the blind eye of the police: where would our leader be without it?”:
More at the link.
Wonkette: “David Perdue Says EV Truck Plant Jobs Too Woke, Georgians Can Drive Culture War To Work Instead”
Oh, FFS.
Link
Mehmet Oz is desperate, Trump is desperate, RNC Chair ronna Romney McDaniel is desperate … and they’re all acting like fools.
Guardian liveblog:
ABC – “Fort Bragg to be renamed Fort Liberty among Army bases losing Confederate names: Exclusive”:
A group of House Democrats want their leaders to defuse “a political time bomb” related to the ACA. The party would be wise to take this seriously.
Yikes!
New York Times, (as summarized by Steve Benen):
The good news:
Questions about ‘charity’ become Herschel Walker’s newest problem
The Georgia Republican’s personal background suddenly looks worse following revelations about a veterans’ program called Patriot Support.
Rep. Liz Cheney Remarks at JFK Profiles in Courage Award Ceremony | May 22, 2022
Cheney gave a rousing and truthful speech. The video is about 11 minutes long.
The video, and a transcript, are also available here: <a href=https://cheney.house.gov/2022/05/23/cheney-in-profile-in-courage-speech-every-one-has-a-duty-to-set-aside-partisan-battles-and-stand-together-to-preserve-our-great-republic/”>Link.
Excerpt:
SC @424, those all sound like good idea for the renaming. Progress!
In other news: Charges Filed In Gaetz-Linked Florida Ghost Candidate Scheme
“NEW: Alabama robocall backs Mo Brooks as a ‘Dixie fighter’ who’ll filibuster efforts to rename bases honoring Confederate officers. The Brooks campaign said it agrees with the message.”
Darth Putin: “I have united Kissinger and Chomsky in appeasement.”
Lynna @ # 429 – link is foo.
Fascinating – Katrin Tiidenberg:
Meduza – “‘Almost nobody is happy with Putin’”: “Meduza’s sources say a new wave of pessimism in the Kremlin has Russia’s hawks demanding more brutality in Ukraine while others scout for presidential successors…”
Guardian liveblog:
Link for comment 429:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/charges-filed-in-gaetz-linked-florida-ghost-candidate-scheme
My apologies for messing that up earlier.
OMG, as families are still burying the victims of the last mass shooting in the USA, (in Buffalo), we have another mass shooting today.
This is incredibly bad! An 18 year old man shot and killed 14 people at an elementary school in Texas. 13 of the victims were elementary students.
Some reports say that more people are dead.
For now, here is the NBC report:
Lynna@422 observes, “Mehmet Oz is desperate, Trump is desperate, RNC Chair ronna Romney McDaniel is desperate … and they’re all acting like fools.”
So what is it they act like when they’re not desperate?
Live Updates: 14 Students, 1 Teacher Dead in Texas Elementary School Shooting
New York Times link
I saw the news about the shooting in Texas earlier, but the first reports gave the impression that two people had been killed and that it was near rather than at the school. I worked out, and when I just finished and turned on the news they’re saying 14 kids and one teacher have been killed. I’m speechless.
Oh, FFS. Unbelievable.
Herschel Walker Completely Shocked To Learn Trump Thinks 2020 Election Stolen
https://www.wonkette.com/herschel-walker-trump-election-stolen
SC @441, yeah that went from bad to worse really quickly.
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/3499981-multiple-students-in-er-after-texas-school-shooting/
blf @439, “So what is it they act like when they’re not desperate?”
Like arrogant fools?
Guardian liveblog:
@ 421
Uhhhhh… Isn’t that the point of ANY capitalist enterprise?
CNN – “‘They were shooting directly at the journalists’: New evidence suggests Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in targeted attack by Israeli forces”:
Much more at the link.
Someone retweeted Gov. Abbott’s tweet about how he was mourning and grieving after the massacre, noting: “This man is scheduled to speak at the NRA convention in Houston this Friday.”
Population decline in Russia: ‘Putin has no other choice but to win’ in Ukraine:
The NRA tweeted yesterday:
Exxon must go to trial over alleged climate crimes, court rules (my added emboldening):
Moldova’s pro-Russian opposition leader detained on corruption charges:
“Being a political buzz-kill” is the best description of a lot of my political behavior. I usually target the US political right/conservatives/Rs, but the behavior in question is very often a broader problem, hence “buzz-kill”. Like the places the language about feeling and emotion isn’t consistent with how brains and minds seem to work, including hate. Or highlighting sexual harassment as a place where Biden is “the serial sexual harasser” and Trump is “the boundary breaking abomination”.
And a preference for interacting with and often judging the effectiveness of political insults. Disarming them through explaining them.
In addition to the NRA shills/grifters/propagandists, these are the other people scheduled to speak at their meeting in Houston on Friday:
Trump
Gov. Abbott
Sen. Cruz
Gov. Noem
Sen. Cornyn
Rep. Crenshaw
NC Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson
As PZ posted, the Attorney General of Texas,l Ken Paxton, has responded to the shooting of elementary school children in Uvalde by calling for arming more teachers. Yeah, that’s it, more guns is surely the answer. Sickness.
Greg Abbott:
That’s what the governor of Texas tweeted in October 2015.
Those elected politicians are making the problem worse!
Unfair monkeypox labeling must stop before our image goes from Curious George to Typhoid Mary:
There’s a hilarious cartoon by Andy Marlette at the end.
https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1529215918374813696
Video at the link, about five minutes long. Murphy presented an impassioned plea for Congress to act.
Excerpt from the video mentioned in comment 457:
Typical British headline, focuses entirely on teh “U”K angle, ignoring the five other countries surveyed (the famous “One Briton killed in earthquake” school of headline-writing), Six in 10 people in UK believe government ‘ignores rules’:
From the Guardian’s liveblog about the massacre in Texas:
#ProLifeMyAss is trending on Twitter.
Josh Marshall:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-cult-of-the-gun
Widespread Backlash To Racist GA Voter Suppression Law Doesn’t Make It NOT Racist Voter Suppression Law
Pathetic:
Duma passes Bill allowing Russia to close western news bureaus:
“Editorial: The Kyiv Independent’s response to the New York Times editorial board”:
Pres. Biden is speaking now about the shooting. Jill Biden is by his side. “When in God’s name are we gonna stand up to the gun lobby…do what needs to be done?”
Via the Guardian liveblog – Amanda Gorman has tweeted a poem:
Guardian – “‘The bar is open’: details emerge of new Downing Street lockdown event”:
Guardian – “Beaver-themed rewilding garden wins Chelsea flower show top prize”:
Beautiful photo at the link.
19 kids now. Sick fucking country.
SC @467:
I know the gun lobby was a major force for decades. I’m not convinced that the gun lobby remains that powerful.
It seems that what may have happened is that the gun lobby’s advertising campaign to scare some citizens into thinking that they needed to buy not just one gun but an entire arsenal may have worked too well. Chris Hayes pointed out this evening that when gun sales slowed, gun manufacturers pushed the propaganda that guns are needed to defend oneself against the government. And for that you need an arsenal, and some militia-type friends with arsenals. (And now you need an arsenal for the supposed race war.)
There’s a big voting block in the USA of people who have added guns to their lives as if guns were religion … and they are still thriving on the fear factor. And some people are nurturing the delusion, and the adrenaline rush they get when they think that they are going to take on and defeat “government tyranny.”
The culture of violence and of owning mass quantities of guns has grown beyond the NRA. It exists now as a separate virus. It makes guns look like the answer to every problem disturbed people have.
Too many Republican politicians are delusional and batshitfuckingcrazy about every other issue, why wouldn’t they be deluded about guns as well? They can’t act to pass even reasonable background check laws to close loopholes. They can’t even do that … it would be against their religion.
We used to have a ban on the sale of assault rifles. Now those rifles are considered to be a human right, like freedom. It is a sickness.
Other things play a part, like the worship of “toughness,” and the toxic personality of Trump, and racism … but mostly it is just the same swamp that fosters every other negative trend, bad idea, and self-destructive “conservative” policy agenda. The NRA plays an increasingly small role in creating and filling that swamp.
I also think it may be all too convenient to blame the NRA. Politicians like these bear more of the blame:
Trump
Gov. Abbott
Sen. Cruz
Gov. Noem
Sen. Cornyn
Rep. Crenshaw
NC Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson
That’s the list from SC’s comment 454. Those people will be featured speakers at the NRA conference in Houston. Add people like Lauren Boebert, who always feature guns in their political ads and in their social media posts. Marjorie Taylor Greene too. Lots of Idaho politicians. They have to be voted out of office.
Twenty years now since ‘Bowling for columbine’ :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_for_Columbine
but far too little has changed.
Meanwhile in astronomy specifically SETI news :
Seems the “Wow!” signal may possibly have been tracked to a sun-like star 1,800 light-years with the catalogue “name” of 2MASS 19281982-2640123 :
https://www.space.com/wow-signal-origin-star
Plus in some potentially good endnagered Dasyuridae maruspial news :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-24/artificial-dens-for-northern-quolls-in-far-north-queensland/101092662
here’s hoping these artificial dens do manage to stabilise and increase the number of Northern Quolls.
Sue Gray’s report into law-breaking at 10 Downing St. has been published. It’s exactly the sort of mealy-mouthed crapola to be expected of a senior civil servant selected by the very person most requiring rigorous investigation. Her peerage will not doubt be delivered as soon as politically expedient.
@ 471
I agree. Too much of the left has fallen for this idea that everything their opponents do can be traced back to money or class. Politicians and their supporters don’t “really” believe in the monstrous ideology they espouse. No, they just want to get rich. I think it’s because the mainstream left far easier to paint their opponents as greedy opportunists rather than deal with their actual beliefs. It’s simple to villainize a large weapons corporation, it’s far more politically dangerous to go after the culture of paranoid, jingoistic, racist, hero-worship that sustains those arms manufactures.
Blow to Madison Cawthorn as appeals court reverses ‘insurrectionist’ ruling:
Follow-up to @356, First Dog on the Moon (who is Ozlandish) in the Grauniad, Self-reflection is usually for leftists and the weak but we need to find out who to blame for the election (cartoon), “There’s no time for dramatics because democracy has been MURDERED!” Some snippets (my transcription): “Every losing candidate was beaten from the left … If we lurch wildly to the right we cannot lose!”, “Voters claim to want action on climate change but what would voters know?!”, …
More from Ozland as the “tiny marsupial of hope” (see @356) is occasionally sighted, Rural News Corp paper delivers sharp rebuke to Barnaby Joyce over Nationals’ climate ‘deniers’:
If my memory is correct — and I could easily be mistaken here — it was Joyce who resulted to look at(? acknowledge?) graphs and other evidence of Global Heating on a live(?) show when challenged by an expert (Michael E Mann?). Not the incident I am fumbling to recall (which was so long ago I believe Ed Brayton still had his blog here at FtB), but Dr Mann and eejit Joyce have sparred, How to fight climate change in a 3-minute spot on TV (November 2021), a post by poopyhead here at FtB.
me@477, Oops! it was Joyce who resulted to look at → it was Joyce who refused to look at…
Snippets from the Meduza live blog:
Forced takeover of foreign company is external management. War is special denazification. Freedom from Russia is slavery. Ignorance is Russian education. Ukrainian grain is Russian. Unfriendly countries in awe of Russia. Putin is genius. …
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Yesterday the propaganda line at state TV was that there would be hunger but that countries that maintained good relations with Russia wouldn’t have to worry. Openly using a threat of starvation to coerce foreign leaders to stay silent about their crimes…which is another crime.
Here’s a link to the Guardian Partygate liveblog. I can’t quote from it right now – the cynicism and dishonesty are too much.
Here’s a link to the Guardian US-primaries liveblog. From there:
They link to a full Guardian article – “Trump-backed nominees lost in Georgia, but can Republicans escape the specter of Maga?”:
Guardian liveblog:
“NBC News: The Biden admin has stopped allowing the Russian government to make payments to its bondholders through U.S. banks, increasing the chances of Russia defaulting on its debt.”
“Watch this despicable exchange on the Kremlin-controlled Russian state TV about Putin’s brutal war against Ukraine: pundits say that Ukrainian children will have no fathers, no homes and a destroyed country.
Smiling, they add: ‘They’ll have McDonald’s, but it will be burnt’….”
Video clip with subtitles at the (Twitter) link.
I often think about this 2019 Rachel Maddow report – “Reports Show NRA’s Lavish Spending On Luxuries For Wayne LaPierre”:
Ukraine update: As Russia captures towns in the east, it’s once again threatening the north
When I first came here, this was all technobabble. Everyone said I was daft to build a pyramid scheme with technobabble, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into technobafflement. So I built a second one. That sank in a technobubble. So I built a third. That blew up, vanished, then sank into obscurity. But the fourth one’s now up. And that’s what you’re going to get, my precious marks, the most stoopid pyramid scheme in all of Scamland. Collapsed ‘stablecoin’ terra to be rebooted in attempt to recover losses. The conclusion:
Swap pyramid scheme, due to sink, have an encounter with a vicious regulator, and be thrown into a deep dark dank dumpster. (With apologies to Monty Python.)
Link
Ameshia Cross:
https://twitter.com/AmeshiaCross/status/1529429833343811584
Photo composite of 16 of the young victims is available at the link.
This seems rather funny, MPs launch inquiry into UK semiconductor industry amid global shortages. The alleged-issue is the takeover of teh “U”K’s largest chip fab by a Chinese firm, but what struck me as odd was this: “Nexperia, which is looking to acquire Newport Wafer Fab in a £63m deal”. (A chip fab is a factory that makes chips (semiconductors, not potatoes).)
A mere £63m (c.$79m) is peanuts, a nothing, for any fab, much less a “large” one. State-of-the-art fabs are well over $1bn each, so this clearly isn’t a state-of-the-art facility. From a profiling site: “0.18μm and above” (and implies the fab is over 30 years old). That’s chip-speak for how small the components on a chip are — and 0.18μm is late-1960s level technology; current is 3nm, some 60× smaller.
0.18μm is used in a lot of stuff (albeit I wonder at what voltage?), but it ain’t even close to the most advanced. So the MPs worrying about “the purchase [giving] China access to cutting-edge British semiconductor designs” have no idea what they are babbling about.
Sickness:
Link
Mark Sumner:
Link
@ 492
There are literally millions of NRA-card-carrying gun-nuts who’d take issue with that. To them, that right is very, very real and they are willing to kill to keep it.)
(I wish our side of the abortion debate had that degree of dedication to reproductive rights. We probably wouldn’t be losing Roe if we did.
Why can’t the media and the politicians see that the problem doesn’t lie with a handful of wealthy elites, but a massive portion of the American population?
Texas officials (two rows of slouching white dudes) are giving a morally bankrupt press conference about the shooting, and it was just interrupted by O’Rourke, who was escorted out after they attacked him from the stage.
A snippet from US reels after massacre in fourth-grade classroom leaves 21 dead, followed by my commentary:
They’ve been taking lessons from teh master strategist, Putin, and his invasion of Ukraine: If it didn’t work the first time, try the same thing again. And again. And… E.g., build a pontoon bridge in broad daylight, start sending over troops and tanks, and watch the Ukrainians shell it & them into oblivion. That didn’t work, so do it again! In the same place! Same result. So try a third time… same plan, same place, same result. Texas tankies: Armed “good guys” didn’t stop it. So try armed “good guys” the next time…
Also, it’s ironic the armed “good guys” are supposed to be trained, when:
The title is rather misleading, most of the listicle is about shooty mcshootfaces in France, with only some on the laws as excerpted below, How gun control laws work in France (possibly paywalled):
The source is broadly reliable, but tends to be incomplete and sloppy. I therefore presume there is more to it than said; e.g., is there a registrar (I don’t know)? What are the storage requirements? Etc., etc., … (again, I’ve no idea).
Martin Rowson in the Grauniad, On Johnson’s reaction to Gray report (cartoon), “Greased piglet latest”.
Guardian liveblog:
Guardian liveblog: