Starlink says it limited Ukrainian military use, particularly for drones.
We already knew that Starlink was limiting Starlink use in Ukraine.
Now we know why.
As the Tweet states, apparently defending your country from Russian genocide is offense.
Much of SpaceX and Starlink support comes from the US government and the US military. You don’t think those 4,000 satellites are launched from Musk’s backyard.
They use government launch facilities at Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg.
Tweet
Yaroslav Trofimov @yarotrof
Starlink says it limited Ukrainian military use, particularly for drones, because the system was never meant to be used for “offensive purposes.” Guess defending one’s country is now offensive.
reuters.com
SpaceX curbed Ukraine’s use of Starlink internet for drones -company president
SpaceX has taken steps to prevent Ukraine’s military from using the company’s Starlink satellite internet service for controlling drones in the region during the country’s war with Russia, SpaceX’s…
11:08 PM · Feb 8, 2023
Fury in Ukraine as Elon Musk’s SpaceX limits Starlink use for drones
A senior Ukrainian presidential aide has reacted with anger after Elon Musk’s SpaceX said it had taken steps to prevent its Starlink satellite communications service from controlling drones, which are critical to Kyiv’s forces in fighting off the Russian invasion.
Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s chief operating officer, said at a conference in the US that the surprise decision had been taken because it had never been the company’s intention to allow Starlink to be used “for offensive purposes”. [WTF?]
That prompted an immediate complaint on Thursday morning from Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Ukraine’s president, Volodymr Zelenskiy, who argued that Musk’s business had failed to recognise Ukraine’s right to self-defence.
Russia has launched a major offensive in eastern Ukraine and is trying to break through defences near the town of Kreminna, the governor for the Luhansk region said on Thursday.
Serhiy Haidai told Ukrainian TV that Russian troops had gone on the attack and were trying to advance westwards across a winter landscape of snow and forests. There had been “maximum escalation” and a big increase in shooting and shelling, he said.
“These attacks are practically a daily occurrence. We see small groups [of Russian soldiers] trying to advance, sometimes with the support of heavy armour – infantry fighting vehicles and tanks – and sometimes not. There is continuous firing.”
(Haidai’s claims need to be taken with a grain of salt. IIRC, several weeks ago he suggested the Russians were withdrawing or had withdrawn from the area.)
Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine has intercepted plans by Russian secret services to destroy Moldova.
Speaking to European Union leaders in Brussels, Zelenskiy said he recently told Moldovan President Maia Sandu about the alleged scheme, Reuters reports.
Speaking through a translator, the president said:
I have informed her that we have intercepted the plan of the destruction of Moldova by the Russian intelligence.
Zelenskiy, who said the plan was very similar to the one devised by Russia to take over Ukraine, said the documents showed “who, when and how” the plan would “break the democracy of Moldova and establish control over Moldova.”
He added that he did not know whether Moscow ultimately ordered the plan to be carried out.
Francis Fukuyama’s “The End of History and the Last Man” changed political discourse forever. Peter and Michael peel back his muddled history and fluffy rhetoric, revealing several more layers of muddled history and fluffy rhetoric.
On Thursday morning, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine warned in their daily update that Russia is “Trying to take full control over the territories of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.” In the process, Russia is attacking at five points of the line: near Kupyansk in the far north; in the area around Kreminna; north and south of the long-battered city of Bahkmut; northwest of Donetsk around Avdiivka; and in the south along a front that includes the town of Vuhledar.
This “five fronts” approach led Russia to spawn at least 19 assaults on Russian towns and villages. It also shelled an astounding 115 settlements, hit 67 sites with attacks from MLRS, conducted 41 air strikes, and engaged in three long-range missile attacks. All that in a single day.
The scale of the Russian offensive, when written out this way, is certainly daunting. In fact, it looks overwhelming. And it might be, if almost every aspect of this winter offensive didn’t seem to be generating an absolute disaster for Russia. That includes two battles that are now vying to enter the record book as among Russia’s top five defeats of the entire invasion.
Back in May, kos wrote about Russia’s attempted crossing of the Siverskyi Donets River near Bilohorivka. At the same time that Russia was attacking the city of Severodonestk, it attempted to create a makeshift bridge across the river, which would have allowed it to bring forces rapidly into areas that were then behind the Ukrainian lines. Only Ukraine spotted the effort while the bridge was still in the planning and was prepared on the south bank of the river.
Over a three-day period, Russia made as many attempts to cross the river; even though they were aware they were under Ukrainian observation and that artillery was being brought to bear on their bridge under construction, they tried again. And again. Each time, Ukraine waited until the bridge was almost complete, and until Russian forces were lined up to cross, before simply pulverizing whole lines of vehicles. In all, at least 82 armored vehicles were destroyed, including 14 tanks and 35 BMP armored fighting vehicles. [image at the link]
Though Russia lost more forces in the attempt to drive that “40 kilometer convoy” down the road from Belarus to Kyiv, it’s hard to find an incident where Russia suffered a larger loss in a smaller space than on that riverbank west of Bilorivka.
But that doesn’t mean they’ve stopped trying. Over the last week, Russia made at least two attempts to move north near the town of Vuhledar. The first of these ended in a widely reported disaster. So did the second. But now the scale of the failure related to an effort to advance to the southwest of Vuhledar on Tuesday is becoming clear and … holy ****.
[Tweet and images at the link]
Each of the attacks at Vuhledar seems to have resulted in greater losses than the last. Which should not be a surprise. When Russia keeps trying to make the same kind of advance in the same location, artillery, MLRS, and drones are already targeting the area and ready to go. So Ukraine can dispatch them even faster and more efficiently. That’s just how it worked at Bilohorivka — each Russian defeat was worse than the one that came before.
And in this case, Russian forces seem to be moving slowly through relatively open territory, over roads that are heavily mined. Videos show vehicles creeping along, trying to swing around when members of their convoy strike a mine, and coming under patient, precise strikes from artillery guided in by drones hovering constantly overhead. All the while, Russian infantry clusters first around one vehicle, then another, dashing without an apparent plan from place to place, trying to find something like safety … until all the vehicles, and the people, are gone.
Though this video attributes the destruction to the use of HIMARS, really, there doesn’t seem to be good evidence that this is the case. [video at the link]
Just look at that area. Look at the clear, prolonged view that Ukrainian forces have of the approaching Russians. Any precision artillery is capable of this sort of brutal disassembly. Even traditional artillery could manage it with the real-time correction available from observation drones. [images at the link]
On the left of this image is some of the carnage in the wake of the attempted bridge crossing at Bilohorivka. On the right is a partial scene from one of the disasters near Vuhledar. It’s not certain which list of losses is greater, and Russia might try it again today.
And wait. That’s not all.
The biggest offensive that pro-Russian channels have been talking about for the last two weeks was the supposedly enormous move that was coming from Kreminna. After weeks of Ukrainian forces knocking on the city’s door, Russian forces—including both Wagner Group and VDV—were supposedly massed in the area for a major attack that would see Russia remove Ukrainian forces from Luhansk, recapture Lyman, and once again threaten to attack major cities in Donetsk across that same Siverskyi Donets River.
What had been seen so far didn’t look that major, as Ukraine reportedly repulsed attacks on two small villages northwest of Kreminna, but the big show was reportedly still coming. And here it is…[Tweet and video at the link]
Russian forces attempting to move into the wooded areas where Ukrainian troops have dug in during the last weeks apparently met with not just a repulse, but pure destruction. In the video, the Ukrainian soldier repeatedly talks about “separatists,” so the forces who were driving these former vehicles may have been LPR forces … though it’s not clear many such forces remain.
The New York Times reported on Kreminna this morning, warning that, “Better trained and equipped Russian divisions have joined tens of thousands of newly mobilized soldiers trying to break through well fortified Ukrainian lines.”
If this is the case—and it matches the scale of the build-up that’s been described by both Russian and Ukrainian sources—then a single defeat in the woods south of Kreminna, and the repulse of attacks on small towns along the highway to the west of the city certainly isn’t the end of this struggle. [good caveat] But it’s one helluva beginning.
Among the locations where Ukraine reports repelling Russian forces on Wednesday are Stelmakhivka, west of Svatove, and Bilohorivka, 12 km to the south of Kreminna. But, unlike Tuesday, Kreminna and the villages immediately to the west and south were not on the list of places where Russian assaults had been driven back. Either that’s a sign that Russia’s actions in the area were limited, or it’s a signal that Russia is meeting with some success in parts of this battle. Right now, we don’t know.
Further south, Ukraine reported halting Russian advances in Bakhmut, Krasna Hora, Paraskoviivka, Ivanivske, and Chasiv Yar. That’s pretty much everywhere that fighting was going on in the Bakhmut area. However, there’s no doubt that Russia has continued attempted movements both north and south of the city, and the situation there remains tenuous. The addition of names like Fedorivka and Vesele to this list shows that Russian forces are continuing to attempt a movement north and west of the breakthrough made near Soledar two weeks ago.
Bohoyavienka shows up on the list, and its position 8 km behind Vuhledar would be concerning, but this apparently refers to the pile of wreckage seen above, which was made along a highway running west of Vuhledar that would have led to Bohoyavienka had Russia not been stopped where they were.
Another concerning location on the list is Novokalynove, which is several kilometers from any previously reported Russian action in the area northwest of Donetsk. Hopefully, this is also an “assault in the direction of…” and not anything happening close to that location. […]
Good news, everyone. Over 10 million Americans have volunteered to go off to Ukraine and join Russian death row prisoners in fighting for Wagner Group. So many Americans have signed up, that Wagner can stop hauling people out from under their prison bunks.
Or at least, that’s what Wagner Group is claiming.
“After the release of a Wagner commercial we have received over 10 million applications from US citizens wishing to join the Wagner PMC to fight NATO. We are considering 1 million. Therefore the recruitment from 🇷🇺 prisons is temporarily suspended,” press service of Prigozhin🤪
[From comments posted by readers of the Twitter thread: “Someone tried to DDoS their website and they took it for 10M real applications? 🤡”]
More Ukraine updates, some of which have already been mentioned upthread, but we do find a few more details here:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was apparently everywhere, meeting with everyone on Wednesday. The images of him standing in his military garb amongst the business-suited men and women of European leadership continue to be absolutely iconic. The day that Zelenskyy next knots up a tie is going to be both extraordinarily happy, and kind of disappointing.
While in the U.K. on Tuesday, Zelenskyy made an open play for the British government to pack a few modern jets in with those Challenger tanks that will be reaching Ukraine in about a month. On Wednesday evening, following Zelenskyy’s talks with seemingly every European leader, there was a message that appeared to indicate that—typhoons? tornados? mirages? Eurofighters?—were on the way.
Zelenskky’s chief of staff, Andrii Yermak, told reporters that, “The issue of long-range weapons and fighter jets for Ukraine has been resolved. Details a little later.”
That’s definitely something to anticipate. Russia has lost at least three Su-25 attack aircraft that were providing support to Russian forces near Bakhmut over the last week. However, these planes have continued to give Russia an edge when an a breakthrough is needed, and Ukraine’s Air Force, though it carried out a reported 21 air strikes on Wednesday, is at a definite disadvantage when it comes to making an impact at the front.
However, it’s unclear not just what Europe would be willing to send, but what they could send that would be appropriate to the situation.
Reuters is reporting this morning that SpaceX is going to take steps to prevent Ukraine from using the Starlink internet system to conduct offensive operations. Company president Gwynne Shotwell said that “Ukrainians have leveraged [Starlink] in ways that were unintentional and not part of any agreement,” and that the system was “never meant to be weaponized.”
In replies on Twitter, Elon Musk has indicated that this has to do with the use of Starlink by Ukrainian drones and that, confusingly, this is a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. Both “do” and “don’t” seem to involve denying services to Ukraine.
Starlink has proven to be an effective means of communicating with larger, long-range drones because its transmissions don’t depend on local infrastructure and are difficult to block. However, it’s difficult to understand what either Shotwell or Musk is saying as a reason for this action.
Ukraine has made effective use of unmanned aircraft for spotting enemy positions, targeting long-range fires and dropping bombs.
“There are things that we can do to limit their ability to do that,” [Shotwell] said, referring to Starlink’s use with drones. “There are things that we can do, and have done.”
Exactly who was complaining about how Ukraine was using Starlink? Did this request come from Russia, or did SpaceX, acting on its own, decide that this was something Ukraine wasn’t allowed to do? […]
More than 200 political prisoners were released by Nicaragua this morning. The 222 prisoners were put on an early morning flight to Washington and will arrive in the next few hours.
On state television a judge said the government had decided to “deport” the prisoners, saying they had been declared traitors and can never again serve public office.
A U.S. State Department spokesperson said Nicaragua made the decision “unilaterally,” but that the United States had “facilitated the transportation” and the political prisoners would be admitted into the United States for “humanitarian reasons.” …
Reginald Selkirksays
I think the “Previous Thread” link needs to be updated. it didn’t send me to the most recent previous version.
So. Musk takes down the parts of StarLink that Ukraine utilizes for drones. And then, the very next day, Russia starts a ‘major’ offensive? Were I a more cynical man, I would wonder at the timing.
ravensays
Going to repost my comment on Starlink and Ukraine because it makes an important point.
Apparently, SpaceX/Starlink don’t want Ukraine to do what?
Use Starlink to defend themselves against a Russian invasion.
It’s absurd and evil.
By claiming not to choose sides, they are in fact, helping the Russians.
The number of reasons I dislike Elon Musk is going up rapidly.
Starlink says it limited Ukrainian military use, particularly for drones.
We already knew that Starlink was limiting Starlink use in Ukraine.
Now we know why.
As the Tweet states, apparently defending your country from Russian genocide is offense.
Much of SpaceX and Starlink support comes from the US government and the US military. You don’t think those 4,000 satellites are launched from Musk’s backyard.
They use government launch facilities at Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg.
Tweet
Yaroslav Trofimov @yarotrof
Starlink says it limited Ukrainian military use, particularly for drones, because the system was never meant to be used for “offensive purposes.” Guess defending one’s country is now offensive.
reuters.com
SpaceX curbed Ukraine’s use of Starlink internet for drones -company president
SpaceX has taken steps to prevent Ukraine’s military from using the company’s Starlink satellite internet service for controlling drones in the region during the country’s war with Russia, SpaceX’s…
11:08 PM · Feb 8, 2023
johnson catmansays
re Reginald Selkirk @7: What you want is the “Older Comments” link at the bottom of the current comments. The “Previous Thread” does, in fact, send you to the previous incarnation of the Infinite Thread (#XXV in this case).
ravensays
So. Musk takes down the parts of StarLink that Ukraine utilizes for drones.
They can’t really do that.
AFAICT, all they can do is limit Starlink operations in areas around where the front line battles are taking place.
Which of course, is exactly where the Ukrainian military needs to use Starlink for their own communications among themselves.
As well as using Starlink for controlling drones.
Oggie: Mathomsays
raven @13:
I stand corrected. Actually, sitting down right now, but I still stand corrected.
Yesterday, I defended the position that, sure, he’s been sailing straight into the weeds for years, but not even Seymour Hersh is that dishonest and foolish. I was wrong. He’s exactly that dishonest and foolish. Naturally, the New York Post is running Hersh’s absolutely unsupported claims today, because trying to make things worse is the New York Post motto. Hersh himself is now eagerly sharing his story with Russian state media agency, TASS.
Seymour Hersh, the DC journalist who went around trying to stop the Global Magnitsky Act in 2016 is now trying to claim that the US blew up the Nordstream pipeline (when it was Putin). Wonder what’s motivating this guy?
From comments posted on Twitter:
The Swedes concluded the blast came from inside the pipeline, not outside. Most likely a bomb attached to the maintenance pig which the Russians control.
The White House on Wednesday dismissed a blog post by a U.S. investigative journalist alleging the United States was behind explosions of the Nord Stream gas pipelines as “utterly false and complete fiction.”
Reuters has not corroborated the report, published by U.S. investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, which said an attack was carried out last September at the direction of President Joe Biden.
“This is utterly false and complete fiction,” said Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council. Spokespeople for the CIA and State Department said the same.
The pipelines are multibillion-dollar infrastructure projects designed to carry Russian gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea.
Sweden and Denmark, in whose exclusive economic zones the blasts occurred, have both concluded the pipelines were blown up deliberately, but have not said who might be responsible.
The United States and NATO have called the incident “an act of sabotage.” Moscow has blamed the West for the unexplained explosions that caused the ruptures. Neither side has provided evidence.
[…] Hersh is a former New York Times and New Yorker reporter who won numerous awards for his investigative journalism, including about the Vietnam War and the 2004 Abu Ghraib scandal following the U.S. invasion of Iraq. […]
Tucker [Tucker Carlson, Fox News host] did not like Joe Biden’s State of the Union. Last night he made fun of Biden’s “steaming pile of word purée” and claimed that no world leader could understand what Biden talked about during his speech, not even Xi Jinping. […]
“But the trained seals in the crowd LOVED IT,” Tucker said. “They clapped consistent with their species!” [… video at the link]
TUCKER: Sorry, that’s unfair to seals. There’s not a SEAL IN THE OCEAN or even at Sea World who would wear an I Love Abortion pin!
Yeah?
TUCKER: That is TOO LOW even for marine mammals!
He’s just circling around and around this dead-end analogy.
TUCKER: They may eat LIVE FISH, but they’re not GHOULS!
We swear we are not making up this transcript. We are being overly charitable to suggest it’s ad libbing gone wrong. If this was on the teleprompter? If Tucker or one of his Mini-Mes wrote it?
Anyway, Tucker finally got to his point, which is that Democrats are monsters who cheerlead for an ancient religious rite of child sacrifice. You know, for any Jew-hating QAnon lovers out there in TV Land who might bewatching Tucker and get off on blood libel references. (Hello, Tucker viewers!)
TUCKER: Congressional Democrats, by contrast, are ghouls, Take a look at this pin, which has replaced the American flag on their lapels. Notice that the “O” in abortion is in the shape of a heart. They literally love abortion. Now, let’s set aside the politics and ask an honest question, “Who loves abortion?” Honestly, who loves abortion?
People who need them. People whose own lives have been saved by them. People who are mature enough adults to understand that abortion has always existed, will never not exist, and that it’s not a shameful, regrettable procedure to need or want.
TUCKER: Maybe you think abortion should be legal, but do you love abortion? Do you think abortion is a wonderful, affirming act you feel so proud of you brag about it with jewelry? If you feel that way you should know that you are not defending a medical procedure, you wouldn’t say that about an appendectomy — no. You are promoting an ancient religious rite called human sacrifice. That’s what this is, promoting human sacrifice. Let’s stop lying about it, it’s very obvious now.
Fuck you.
Tucker of course doesn’t cite any sources for his lie that supporting abortion is an “ancient religious rite called human sacrifice.” He just says “Let’s stop lying,” which is one of Tucker’s most prominent tells that he’s gonna do some (more) lying.
Tucker transitioned from one kind of QAnon blood libeling to another:
TUCKER: And speaking of death cults, Joe Biden made his case last night for the sexual mutilation of children.
Oh for fucks sake, here we go. Biden said “transgender young people” should be able to live with “safety and dignity.” Tucker is against that. Noted.
Tucker said Biden couldn’t even explain what all the letters in “LGBT” stand for, and then lied and said hospitals are doing “mastectomies on little girls” and are “castrating children.” Does he cite sources? No, because he’s using the most inflammatory language possible in order to lie to his easily brainwashed viewers and make them think children’s hospitals are literally sexually mutilating little children. (Always so weird how obsessed these white conservatives are with little kids’ junk.)
Real sources don’t back up what he’s saying in any way,shape or form.
Tucker said Democrats are “bragging” about sexually mutilating children. He said, “Joe Biden, the guy who showered with his daughter, causing her to develop sexual compulsions as an adult, calls the sexual mutilation of children ‘safety and dignity.’ That’s dark. Really dark.”
What’s really dark is that Tucker Carlson is allowed to lie like this without any real-world consequences. (Obviously Tucker is lying about what Joe Biden’s daughter wrote in the diary that was stolen from her and exploited by white fascists.)
A quarter of Ukrainians are at risk of developing a severe mental health condition as the country grapples with the year-long Russian invasion, a special advisor to the World Health Organization (WHO) has said according to Reuters.
Michel Kazatchkine, special advisor to the WHO Regional Office for Europe told reporters:
WHO estimates that at this time, one out of four people in Ukraine is at risk of severe mental health conditions.
In a recent visit to the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, Kazatchkine said he had seen dozens of military personnel hospitalised with “acute and tragic anxiety, depression and psychiatric conditions”.
“Mental health is becoming a predominant public health issue in Ukraine,” he added.
ravensays
Sweden and Denmark, in whose exclusive economic zones the blasts occurred, have both concluded the pipelines were blown up deliberately, but have not said who might be responsible.
I can’t see that the USA would blow up those pipelines.
We had zero reason to do so.
They were already shut down, not being used, and not likely to ever be used again.
The Europeans discovered the hard way that Russian gas was too expensive.
You had to give up your national sovereignty and national security to pay for it.
Wasn’t worth it.
The Swedes concluded the blast came from inside the pipeline, not outside. Most likely a bomb attached to the maintenance pig which the Russians control.
I hadn’t heard this.
That makes it easy for the Russians to blow up their own pipeline.
Guess he needed something to distract people from noticing that the R’s gave up their flag lapel pins and are now wearing AR-15 pins.
—————————
A reminder that Tucker Carlson has admitted in court that he tells these lies for entertainment.
————————
I don’t know if anybody has mentioned this part of Tucker’s commentary, but he actually defended George Santos AGAINST Mitt Romney, and had a guest on who agreed with him. They giggled and smirked about how awful Romney was.
I would say this is a new low for Tucker Carlson, but I’m sure it isn’t.
—————————-
You really want to talk about which party is fine with sacrificing children? Every time a school gets shot up all your people do is screech about how regulating guns is worse than a few dead kids. So fuck right off with the fake outrage.
———————–
The concerning part, though, is the ears this garbage gets poured into.
————————–
“Joe Biden, the guy who showered with his daughter,” was invented by Project Veritas when they stole and Ashley Biden’s diary and “published” alleged excerpts.
————————–
aw yes, Democrats support the evil ancient religious rite called “human sacrifice.”
As opposed to Tucker Carlson ancient religion that glorifies human sacrifice in which he ritually and cannibalistically drinks the blood and eats the body of his religious leader every sunday in a rite called “communion.”
————————–
Having suffered the misery associated with a ruptured appendix that did require emergency surgery I know that I am inordinately fond of them.
The Florida High School Athletic Association’s board of directors has voted 14-2 to remove questions about high school athletes’ menstrual history from a required health form for participation in high school athletics.
Thursday’s emergency meeting focused on the debate around menstrual cycle information. But in a less-discussed change to the requirements for Florida athletes, the newly adopted form asks students to list their “sex assigned at birth.” The previous version asked only for “sex.”
[…]
Do you think abortion is a wonderful, affirming act you feel so proud of you brag about it with jewelry? If you feel that way you should know that you are not defending a medical procedure, you wouldn’t say that about an appendectomy — no.
I’ve said this about numerous medical procedures and drugs.
Tucker…said hospitals are doing “mastectomies on little girls”…
The New York Times is now reporting that the death toll in Turkey and Syria has surpassed 20,000.
ravensays
“How Angry Parents Forced Florida to Back Down From Forcing Student Athletes to Reveal Menstrual History”
More on the outrageous menstrual history questions.
There is zero reason for the schools to know anything about someone’s menstrual history and a lot of reasons for young women to refuse to answer those questions.
Not least of which is that creepy guys with an unhealthy sexual interest in children are not uncommon in fundie xian areas and/or in schools.
Time
How Angry Parents Forced Florida to Back Down From Forcing Student Athletes to Reveal Menstrual History
179
Anisha Kohli
Thu, February 9, 2023 at 11:46 AM PST·5 min read
Florida student athletes narrowly avoided a policy change that would’ve made it mandatory to answer questions about their menstrual histories after a major push from parents and students alike who were outraged at the idea.
The Florida High School Athletics Association (FHSAA) Board of Directors—which oversees sporting regulation for more than 800,000 students—had an emergency meeting in Gainesville on Thursday, and after receiving more than 150 letters from the public, which overwhelmingly opposed mandatory menstruation disclosure, the board voted to stop asking athletes the menstrual questions altogether.
In the letters, some of which were read aloud at the meeting, people shared personal anecdotes about the privacy of menstrual history, while some alleged transphobic motives and reproductive health oppression were behind the proposal.
In January, FHSAA released a draft update to the current physical evaluation form—which all athletes are required to fill out. The draft proposed making it mandatory for all athletes to answer if they’ve had a menstrual period, and if so, how old they were when they first had it, when their most recent period was and how many periods they had in the past year.
In early February, the association’s executive director released a counter proposal that won Thursday’s vote: removing all personal health questions and only requiring that a medical professional verifies that an athlete has a clean bill of health. The new form will be used during the 2023-24 school year.
Prior to the decision, some parents were outraged at the idea that their children may be forced to share the history and called it “an overreach.”
“We don’t need intervention from an athletic department. A conversation about a young girl’s menstruation needs to remain among that girl, her parents and a physician. These boundaries are important and they need to be protected,” Jenn Poggie, a Floridian mother of three girls, told TIME prior to the decision.
Poggie and her 16-year-old daughter, Ivy Carlson, who plays varsity soccer at her high school in Tallahassee, were furious when they first heard about the original draft. “It’s just such an invasion of privacy,” Poggie said.
Earlier this week, Poggie made it her mission to educate other Florida parents about what was going on with FHSAA’s proposal and launched a campaign called, “Privacy. Period!” Her petition demanded that FHSAA reject the recommendation that athletes answer mandatory menstrual health questions and garnered more than 230 signatures in one day.
“My health relating to my fertility had no effect on my ability to run,” one commenter wrote on Poggie’s petition. “This is an archaic request that is an invasion of privacy and in misalignment with PHI (Protected Health Information) compliance,” another said.
Nearly 900 people also sent FHSAA letters asking them to oppose the move, according to The Palm Beach Post.
On Tuesday, FHSAA organized the emergency meeting after 30 Democratic Florida legislators sent the association a letter requesting that they rescind the draft proposal that included mandatory menstruation questions.
“Sometimes as adults, you can forget how sensitive that is for a young girl. I mean, some of these girls have just begun menstruation, or it’s new to them, and it’s very personal,” Poggie said. “They don’t even talk to their friends about it, or some are even hesitant to talk to their own parents.”
Carlson said she is incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of sharing her period history with her school, adding that no one other than a doctor should have access to that kind of private information.
“They could ask female students about what they think and if they’re comfortable or not comfortable, and just get their side of things,” Carlson told TIME. “It shouldn’t just be adults saying do this, do that.”
FHSAA board members considered the debate over a lengthy two-hour meeting, deciding that although menstrual questions have been on the form for decades, it’s time to change that. “We are not doctors,” board member John Gerdes said. “For me, the balance does tip over to the privacy issue.”
“We’ve clearly heard from our stakeholders,” board member Brenda Longshore said before promptly voting to strike the menstruation questions.
Florida students have already been at the center of political tug-of-war, with with the state’s massive school staffing shortage, Gov. Ron DeSantis’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, efforts to remove books from course curricula and school libraries. All of that put Florida in the middle of America’s polarizing culture war over education politics and how much say parents should have in their children’s education.
“I think students are rightfully fearful,” Maxx Fenning, president of PRISM, an organization dedicated to LGBT-inclusive education and sexual health resources for South Florida youth, told TIME ahead of Thursday’s decision. Fenning said that policies like making sharing menstrual information mandatory obstruct “their privacy, their ability to control what information is and isn’t distributed and to who.”
Amid a legal battle currently underway over a 2021 Florida law that bars transgender female students from playing on women and girls’ sports teams, Fenning specified that transgender women and girls are particularly vulnerable under such policies.
“It’s rooted in an effort to place further pressure on transgender students,” Fenning said. “[They] just want to play sports with their friends.”
“Living in a post-Roe world, where young people—especially people with uteruses—are increasingly fearful of giving out information about their menstrual history,” Fenning added, “these things can become potentially dangerous.”
Campaigners like Poggie are satisfied with their success at halting a policy that Poggie says would’ve been “appalling,” but just like elsewhere in the country, debates around school curriculum and parents’ and students’ rights don’t seem to be ending anytime soon.“
It’s clear when placed in a context with what we’ve seen in the state of Florida, the ways in which these institutions have been weaponized,” Fenning says. He said he anticipates there are already more restrictions in the making.
Special counsel Jack Smith is overseeing inquiries into Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack and the former president’s handling of classified documents after he left office.
ormer Vice President Mike Pence has been subpoenaed by the special counsel investigating former President Donald Trump, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Special Counsel Jack Smith was appointed in November by Attorney General Merrick Garland to lead the Justice Department’s Trump inquiries, which include the investigation into the former president’s handling of classified documents after he left office as well as aspects of the investigation into Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
[…] In December, NBC News reported that Smith had subpoenaed local officials in key presidential swing states for any and all communications involving Trump, his campaign and a series of aides and allies who assisted in his effort to overturn the 2020 election.
The move was an indication that Smith is probing into a scheme involving fake electors, a slate of individuals who signed documents purporting they were their states’ rightful electors and asserting Trump was the victor instead of the rightful winner, President Joe Biden.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
A few more people who disliked Sarah Huckabee Sander’s speech:
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders came under strong criticism from liberals for her dystopian response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address in which she assumed the mantle of “anti-woke” cultural warrior queen and attacked LGBTQ and Black Americans.
But it seems that her speech also left a sour taste among some right-wing extremists who found her SOTU response insulting because she bit the hand of the man who fed her and brought her into the national spotlight as the chief White House spokesperson — namely Donald Trump.
Sanders, 40, who was recently sworn in as Arkansas’ first female governor, also said, “It’s time for a new generation of Republican leadership.” Trump is now 76.
[…] Dobbs [Fox Business anchor Lou Dobbs] said Huckabee Sanders’ speech was “unacceptable” and “an insult to President Trump because she didn’t mention his name once, even when lengthily recounting a Christmas visit to the troops in Iraq by the president and first lady.
“To not mention his name, to talk about ‘new leadership’ -– it looked like the Governor’s Association had written much of that speech, and aligned themselves with Ron DeSantis,” Dobbs said, calling it a “lack of respect to POTUS.” [Sheesh, are they all as thin-skinned as Trump? Or thin-skinned for him?]
Steve Bannon, a former White House political strategist who was convicted on two federal criminal contempt charges, agreed that her remarks were “an insult to Trump.”
“She does not exist, politically, if it’s not for President Trump,” Bannon added. “I thought the speech was terrible.”
Bannon said “wokeism is very important,” but there were other important issues like the debt ceiling that needed to be raised in her speech.
“She not intellectually capable of going to the heart of the matter, right? Let’s be blunt.” Bannon said, adding “This was like written by Ron DeSantis and the entire RGA.” [ouch, and a bit misogynistic on Bannon’s part]
Dobbs chimed in by saying that failure to mention the former president’s name was “a metaphor for what the donor class is trying to do to Donald Trump right now.” He said big GOP donors wanted to use Trump’s legacy for “a RINO presidency that they can control.” […]
Sanders has taken on the look that you would expect from her evangelical prissy philosophy— dowdy, mean and sad. It is inevitable that people reflect their nature, soul, or whatever you call it. As John Lennon said “one thing you can’t hide… is when you’re crippled inside.”
In a study released on Thursday by the Brookings Institution, [Steve] Bannon’s show was crowned the top peddler of false, misleading and unsubstantiated statements among political podcasts.
More details from the article:
Mr. Bannon has spent the past few years parlaying his stint as the chief strategist for former President Donald J. Trump into a prominent role as a right-wing personality. His hourlong “War Room” podcast episodes are released at least twice daily, even as Mr. Bannon faces various legal challenges, including a guilty verdict last year for contempt of Congress and accusations from Manhattan prosecutors that he defrauded conservative donors.
[…] Researchers at Brookings downloaded and transcribed 36,603 podcast episodes from 79 political talk shows that had been released before Jan. 22, 2022. When researchers compared the shows’ transcripts against a list of keywords and common falsehoods identified by fact checkers, they found that nearly 20 percent of Mr. Bannon’s “War Room” episodes contained a false, misleading or unsubstantiated statement, more than shows by other conservatives like Glenn Beck and Charlie Kirk.
Overall, about 70 percent of the podcasts reviewed had shared at least one false or misleading claim, the researchers found. Conservative podcasters were 11 times as likely as liberal podcasters to share a claim that fact checkers could refute. […]
Florida students learned 12 percent less each year from third to eighth grade than the national average from 2009 to 2018. The next worst state was Alabama, according to The Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University. Florida’s political and education leaders completely ignored that finding…
When those results came out last fall, Gov. Ron DeSantis crowed on Twitter that, “We kept schools open in 2020, and today’s NAEP results once again prove that we made the right decision. In Florida, adjusted for demographics, fourth grade students are #1 in both reading and math.”
Tellingly, DeSantis ignored the eighth grade results, which came out far worse than fourth grade — just as they have in every NAEP cycle since 2003…
ravensays
Zelenskyy: Ukraine caught Russian plan to ‘destroy’ Moldova
This isn’t the least bit surprising and was already known a long time ago.
Russia operates solely on the basis of might makes right.
If they can invade and conquer a region, that is what they will do.
I’m sure if Ukraine falls, Moldova might last a week.
Then it is on to Georgia and Kazakhstan.
The big prize after Ukraine is Kazakhstan, a large empty country full of natural resources.
Associated Press
Zelenskyy: Ukraine caught Russian plan to ‘destroy’ Moldova
European Council President Charles Michel, front right, speaks with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, front second right, and Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, second row center, as they pose with other European Union leaders for a group photo at an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday, Feb. 9, 2023. European Union leaders are meeting for an EU summit to discuss Ukraine and migration. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Thu, February 9, 2023 at 4:36 AM PST·2 min read
BRUSSELS (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday that his country has intercepted plans by Russian secret services to destroy Moldova, and Moldovan intelligence confirmed the claim.
Speaking to European Union leaders in Brussels, Zelenskyy said he recently told Moldovan President Maia Sandu about the alleged scheme.
“I have informed her that we have intercepted the plan of the destruction of Moldova by the Russian intelligence,” Zelenskyy said through a translator. He said the documents showed “who, when and how” the plan would “break the democracy of Moldova and establish control over Moldova.”
Zelenskyy said the plan was very similar to the one devised by Russia to take over Ukraine. He added that he did not know whether Moscow ultimately ordered the plan to be carried out.
After Zelenskyy’s comments, Moldova’s Intelligence and Security Service released a statement confirming it has received “respective information from our Ukrainian partners” and said it has also identified “subversive activities, aimed to undermine the Republic of Moldova, destabilize and violate public order.”
“At the moment, we cannot provide more details as there is a risk of jeopardizing various ongoing operational activities,” the statement read, adding that all of Moldova’s state institutions “are working at full capacity and will not allow these challenges to happen.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov charged last week that the West was considering turning Moldova into “another Ukraine.” He alleged that the West backed the 2020 election of the pro-Western Sandu, claiming that she is eager to take the country into NATO, merge Moldova with Romania and “practically is ready for anything.”
In December, Moldova’s national intelligence agency warned that Russia could launch a new offensive this year with the aim of creating a land corridor through southern Ukraine to Moldova’s Moscow-backed breakaway region of Transnistria.
Transnistria broke away after a 1992 civil war but is not recognized by most countries. It extends roughly 400 kilometers (250 miles) from the eastern bank of the Dniester River to the country’s border with Ukraine. Russia has about 1,500 troops nominally as “peacekeepers” in the breakaway region.
Pierce R. Butlersays
Lynna @ # 15: From comments posted on Twitter: The Swedes concluded the blast came from inside the pipeline, not outside.
So far, I haven’t found anything confirming, or even repeating, that. Although, I haven’t looked at Twitter itself…
StevoRsays
Break from bad news – albeit an endnagered oratleats classed a svulnerable species. :
An endangered species living in a dangeous place – the border of the two Koreas – and on dangerous tall cliffs there and in Russia and China too; the Long tailed Goral (Naemorhedus caudatus) is this Week’s Endangered Species of the Week. A mountain-loving Asian ungulate this species is threatened by habitat loss, hunting, fragmentation of its habitat into smaller sub-populations & competition with domestic livestock. There might be as many as ten thousand of these animals left in total – or perhaps as few as just 2,500 remaining but apparently each increasingly isolated sub-population has no more than a thousand mature individuals each. Found in small patches of Russia and China as well as the Koreas both North and South; this is far from your average goat although a relative of those and resembling them also in being great at climbing too. Understatement! (See footage included in linked comments below.) Also known as the Amur Goral although that name is somewhat misleading as they are found elsewhere as well. Their tails also don’t seem all that long to me making that name less than brilliantly appropriate as well. Whatever you call them, they are surprisingly graceful and rather adorable browsing mammals that aren’t well known and are in steep trouble given the trends affecting them and human impacts that have their numbers falling. – Me on fb tonight.
In case people want something different or as what Phil Plait used to call a “palate cleanser” on his old blog(s).
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Ukraine said Russia launched “massive” missile and drone attacks on Friday, a day after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited some European countries to push for long-range weapons. On Friday morning, “the enemy struck cities and critical infrastructure facilities,” the air force said, adding that seven Iranian-made “kamikaze” drones were launched from the Sea of Azov and six Kalibr cruise missiles from the Black Sea.
Russia also carried out a “massive” attack with “up to 35 anti-aircraft guided missiles” targeting the Kharkiv region in the east and the southern Zaporizhzhia region, it said. In Kharkiv, “critical and infrastructure facilities were targeted” resulting in fires that were “quickly” put out, governor Oleg Sinegubov said. He said nobody was injured but some parts of the city were without power. “Energy and industrial infrastructure” suffered damaged in Zaporizhzhia, leaving sections of the city without electricity, local official Anatoly Kurtev said.
Romania’s defence ministry has said that a Russian missile launched off a ship near Crimea this morning crossed into Moldovan airspace before hitting Ukraine, about 35km northeast of Romania’s border.
In a statement, the ministry said:
The Romanian Air Force’s surveillance system detected on Friday an air target, most likely a cruise missile launched from a Russian ship in the Black Sea near the Crimean Peninsula.
The closest the target trajectory got to Romania’s airspace was recorded by the radar at roughly 35 kms northeast of the border.
Romania is a member of the Nato military alliance.
Moldova’s defence ministry has already confirmed that a Russian missile violated its airspace earlier today, and urgently summoned the Russian ambassador.
The Moldovan ministry said it “strongly condemns the violation of the airspace” and called on Moscow to “stop military aggression against a neighbouring country”.
A Russian former governor has been sentenced to 22 years in a maximum security prison for double murder.
A court outside Moscow found Sergei Furgal, who was governor of the far-eastern Khabarovsk region, guilty of attempted murder and ordering contract killings of business rivals.
Furgal, 52, has denied the charges, which relate to alleged crimes from 2004 and 2005, when he was a prominent local businessman in Russia’s far east.
Elected in a shock victory in 2018, Furgal, a member of the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, beat the ruling United Russia party by a landslide margin.
His detention in 2020 sparked massive anti-Kremlin protests in the Khabarovsk region, with tens of thousands of locals coming out on to the streets for weeks. His supporters have said the charges were politically motivated, to punish him for taking too independent a line from Moscow.
Vladimir Putin fired Furgal days after his arrest in 2020, citing a “loss of trust”, and installed a more pro-Kremlin figure in his place.
In a statement posted on Telegram, Russia’s prosecutor general’s office said:
The court established that Furgal and his accomplice, guided by selfish motives and a desire to increase the income of a commercial organisation controlled by him, … created an organised group in 2004 to commit murders of competitors.
Speaking at the court, a lawyer on Furgal’s defence team, Boris Kozhemyakin, said the verdict was “unlawful” and that he and his colleagues would appeal and seek an acquittal.
In his closing statement to the jury last week, Furgal continued to deny all charges against him. He said:
If you condemn us, the innocent, it will be a great sin because those actually guilty will walk free, breathing the fresh air [and] smiling.
Two-thirds of white evangelicals and most Republicans are sympathetic to Christian nationalism, a new survey has found.
According to a national survey released on Wednesday by the Public Religion Research Institute and Brookings Institution, 29% of white evangelical Protestants qualify as Christian nationalism adherents while 35% qualify as sympathizers.
Meanwhile, more than half of Republicans are classified as adherents or sympathizers, at 21% and 33% respectively.
The survey also found that Christian nationalism adherents are nearly seven times more likely than non-adherents – 40% vs 16% – to agree that “true patriots might have to resort to violence to save our country”. Among those that support such political violence, 12% indicated that they have personally threatened to use or actually used a gun, knife or other weapon on someone in the past few years.
Additionally, half of Christian nationalism adherents and 38% of sympathizers endorse the idea of an authoritarian leader “who is willing to break some rules if that’s what it takes to set things right”.
…
The survey comes as the US experiences an increasing number of Americans shifting away from religious affiliations, as well as a declining number of churches across the country. Data released last year by the Pew Research Center found that Christians in the US could be a minority group by 2070.
Nevertheless, there appears to be an growing number of Christian nationalism supporters, especially as far-right politicians such as Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and Florida governor Ron DeSantis publicly endorse the ideology via comments such as “We should be Christian nationalists” and that Republicans should wear the “full armor of God”.
Russia launched more than 50 missiles at Ukraine today, prime minister Denys Shmyhal has said, adding that most of those missiles were shot down.
Posting to Telegram, the Ukrainian PM said:
Russia cannot accept failures and therefore continues to terrorise the (Ukrainian) population. Another attempt (on Friday) to destroy the Ukrainian energy system and deprive Ukrainians of light, heat, and water.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s air force has said it shot down 61 of 71 Russian cruise missiles today. It said Russia had used eight Tu-95MS strategic bombers, and that they had fired X-101 and X-555 missiles from the Caspian Sea and the city of Volgodonsk in Russia.
A Telegram update from the air force said:
As of 11:30 a.m., the enemy had launched 71 X-101, X-555 and Kalibr missiles. The air defence forces, Air Force and other components of the Ukrainian Defence Forces destroyed 61 enemy cruise missiles.
Belarus fell seven places in the Democracy Index this year, leveling at 153rd.
The Economic Intelligence Unit, the research and analysis division of the Economist, publishes the annual report using the following criteria: electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties.
The Democracy Index dubbed Belarus one of 2022’s “worst performers,” giving it an average score of 1.99 out of 10.00.
Belarus received a staggering 0.00 for “electoral processes and pluralism.” Since the fraudulent presidential election in 2020, Belarusian dictator Lukashenko has violently clung to power and stifled opposition.
The publication has labeled Belarus an authoritarian regime since its first report in 2006.
Russia also took a hit, falling 22 places in the Democracy Index to 146th – the steepest decline in 2022.
…
Russian aircraft remain in Belarus even after the end of the joint flight exercises conducted by Minsk and Moscow, monitoring group Belarusian Hajun reported.
…
Lukashenko signed a decree on Feb. 6 to create an interdepartmental commission that will allegedly allow dissidents to return to Belarus without facing charges.
He said Belarusian nationals accused of a crime who wish to return to the country can submit an appeal before Dec. 31, 2023 – and make a public apology for any “wrongdoing” committed since Jan. 1, 2020.
The committee will consist of 29 individuals, including notorious Belarusian propagandists and pro-regime officials.
Among them are Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Aleinik, state-owned Belteleradio Chairman Ivan Eismont, Deputy Head of Belarus’ KGB Ivan Tertel, propagandist Andrei Mukavozchyk, and – randomly – Belarusian Hockey Federation Head Alexander Bogdanovich.
Lukashenko also falsely stated that the number of Belarusians who have fled the country is at most 2,000 to 4,000 individuals.
However, the PACE Committee on Migration, Refugees, and Displaced Persons reported that somewhere between 200,000 to 500,000 Belarusians have fled the country since the fraudulent elections in 2020.
On Jan. 24, Lukashenko reiterated the need to get so-called “fugitives” – a term used by Belarusian authorities to refer to exiled opponents of the regime – to return to Belarus.
Exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya has urged Belarusians not to trust the regime’s promise.
The Belarusian Border Committee reported that it detained 52 so-called “extremists” at the border upon returning to the country in 2022. Political prisoner Tatsiana Kurylina, who decided to trust the authorities’ promise, now awaits trial facing up to 15 years behind bars for running a Telegram chat that opposes Lukashenko’s regime.
…
The creation of a pro-regime political party, “Belaya Rus,” was announced on Feb. 7.
“We need a force that will be a reliable support for the Belarusian state and its leader, the head of our state,” Belaya Rus’ Chairman Oleg Romanov said.
Romanov claimed the party has “no political ideology.” [LOL]
On Jan. 25, the Belarusian parliament passed a bill on “political parties and other public associations,” imposing further restrictions on their creation and existence.
The bill raises the minimum number of political party members from 1,000 to 5,000 and requires that political party founders be born and reside in Belarus.
Political parties can be disbanded for the following: promoting so-called “war propaganda,” “terrorist” and “extremist” activities, actions that “harm the state (or) public interests,” and the “reception of funds and other property from foreign sources.”
Belarusian experts say new regulations leave zero room for opposition to Lukashenko’s regime. Instead, they attempt to fabricate the existence of a democratic political system.
…
Belarusian athletes who oppose Lukashenko’s regime have called on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to allow them to participate in the upcoming 2024 Summer Olympics.
They also asked the IOC to ban those who support Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine or the Belarusian government.
The Belarusian Sports Solidarity Foundation published a declaration signed by over 50 people to “support the reinforcement of the sanctions already in place” against Russia and Belarus.
The IOC said on Jan. 25 that it plans to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to participate in the Olympics under a neutral flag, despite international appeals to exclude them entirely.
The IOC said it will prolong its sanctions against the two countries, which include a ban on national symbols and the invitation of government officials, but will not prevent athletes from participating “just because of their passport.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the move. The Baltic states have also urged the IOC to reverse its decision, adding that a boycott is an option.
“Now is not the right time to consider their return; that is our position,” the Olympic Committees of Nordic countries said in a joint statement on Feb. 7.
…
A Minsk court sentenced Vital Brahinets, the former lawyer of Belarusian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, to eight years in prison on politically motivated charges.
On Feb. 2, Brahinets was convicted of creating a so-called “extremist group,” “grossly violating public order,” “inciting hostility,” and “calling for sanctions that harm national security.”
Bialiatski is the founder of human rights watchdog Viasna and a co-winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize.
The trial against Bialiatski and his three colleagues began on Jan. 5. The four defendants face up to 12 years in prison for various politically motivated charges.
Brahinets was also Belarusian lawyer Andrey Machalau’s attorney. Machalau defended clients in politically motivated cases and had his license secretly revoked. He was then sentenced to two years of house arrest for using a “fake document” in a legal trial.
Many lawyers undertaking politically motivated cases have faced persecution in Belarus.
Viasna said at least 70 Belarusian attorneys have had their licenses revoked since 2020.
…American evangelicals are socialized via homeschooling, Christian schools, churches, and the subculture in general to apply the Bible and Christian teachings to every aspect of their lives. That includes attempting to implement a theocratic policy agenda, so that our nation might be “blessed” for its “obedience to God’s authority.”
It’s been frustrating watching pundits actively struggle not to understand this over the last few years. Not wanting to face that White evangelical support for Donald Trump does, and always did, make perfect sense with respect to White evangelicals’ version of the Christian faith, many have clung—against the available evidence—to the corollary notions that “real” Christians could never be authoritarians and insurrectionists, and that Trump-loving Christian nationalists must not darken the doors of churches very often. The data tell a very different story.
We’ve known since 2016 that a majority of frequent churchgoers voted for Trump in that year’s election, and since 2017 that among White evangelicals specifically, frequent church attendance correlates not with lower, but with higher Trump support. A new report by PRRI now confirms the trend with respect to the broader phenomenon of Christian nationalism, the preferred ideological vehicle for evangelicals’ pervasive authoritarian attitudes.
…
And yet, rather than face the truth about the nature of conservative, mostly White evangelicalism, some continue to rehearse the same tired arguments that do nothing but reinforce Christian privilege—and, presumably, help those who are defensive about Christianity to feel better about themselves….
The man who marched around the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, waving a Confederate battle flag that he also used to threaten a Black police officer was sentenced Thursday to three years behind bars.
Kevin Seefried, 53, teared up before U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden in a Washington, D.C., courtroom. The judge told him that bringing the flag into “one of our nation’s most sacred halls” was “outrageous.”
“I never wanted to send a message of hate,” Seefried told the judge, according to The Associated Press…
Russia’s federal media watchdog has a secret team of people tasked with protecting Vladimir Putin’s ego—and alerting the president’s spooks should there be any online mentions of him as a “bald dwarf,” Hitler wannabe, or a “thief.”…
“Gaetz introduces resolution to end military and financial aid to Ukraine”
Matt Gaetz and the Trumpists are at it again.
They are open traitors and supporters of genocide.
The cosponsors of the bill, which are many, are the usual open fascists of the GOP.
“America is in a state of managed decline, and it will exacerbate if we continue to hemorrhage taxpayer dollars toward a foreign war,” he said. We must suspend all foreign aid for the War in Ukraine and demand that all combatants in this conflict reach a peace agreement immediately.”Cthulhu, this guy is stupid.
.1. No, American is not in a state of managed decline.
If any country is, it is Russia which is rapidly declining in every way.
.2. We aren’t spending all that much in Ukraine.
To destroy our main enemy’s military, it is extremely cost effective money, well spent.
.3. Yeah, demanding that Russia get out of Ukraine is going to work really well.
It probably won’t even make what passes for the daily news in Russia.
Gaetz introduces resolution to end military and financial aid to Ukraine, urge peace deal
Adam Shaw
Thu, February 9, 2023 at 7:19 AM PST·3 min read
Gaetz introduces resolution to end military and financial aid to Ukraine, urge peace deal
In this article:
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., is introducing a resolution in the House on Thursday that calls on the Biden administration to end U.S. military and financial aid to Ukraine — while also urging all involved to secure a peace agreement after nearly a year of war in the region.
The resolution, the “Ukraine Fatigue Resolution” is being introduced by Gaetz and 10 co-sponsors and calls for the U.S. to “end its military and financial aid to Ukraine and urges all combatants to reach a peace agreement.”
The resolution notes that since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the U.S. has been the top contributor to the Ukrainian war effort, with more than $110 billion in financial, military, and humanitarian aid to the U.S. ally. It includes more than $27.4 billion in security assistance.
In January the U.S. announced additional security assistance, including approval by President Biden of 31 Abrams M1 tanks to Ukraine. On top of that, reports suggest another $2 billion could be in the pipeline.
“This is about freedom, freedom for Ukraine, freedom everywhere,” Biden said, making that announcement.
The resolution lists the enormous amount of equipment that the U.S. has provided to the country since the beginning of the conflict. It also cites Pentagon officials who have said the munitions have “severely depleted United States stockpiles, weakening United States readiness in the event of conflict.”
It also claims that by providing assistance, the U.S. is inadvertently contributing to civilian casualties, and notes U.S. estimates that 40,000 civilians had died in the conflict.
Concern about the continued U.S. funding of the war has grown among a subset o f Republicans as the conflict has dragged on, with lawmakers highlighting issues at home that could use additional funding – including what they see as a failure to protect the U.S. border against a historic migrant crisis.
MATT GAETZ RIPS ‘BIPARTISAN COALITION’ THAT FAVORS WAR IN UKRAINE
Gaetz, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said the U.S. has been the top contributor to what he called an “everlasting conflict.”
“America is in a state of managed decline, and it will exacerbate if we continue to hemorrhage taxpayer dollars toward a foreign war,” he said. We must suspend all foreign aid for the War in Ukraine and demand that all combatants in this conflict reach a peace agreement immediately.”
The co-sponsors on the resolution include Reps. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., Paul Gosae, R-Ariz., Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., Thomas Massie, R-Ky., Mary Miller, R-Ill., Barry Moore, R-Ala., Ralph Norman, R-S.C. and Matt Rosendale, R-Mont.
Gaetz had taken aim at both parties for the additional funding for Ukraine earlier this week on the House floor, asking if there was a limit to the funding the U.S. was prepared to provide.
“How much more for Ukraine? Is there any limit?” he asked on the House floor. “Which billionth dollar really kicks in the door? Which redline we set will we not later cross?”
Republican leadership had broadly remained in favor of funding the war effort. Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell said in December said that “providing assistance for Ukrainians to defeat the Russians is the No. 1 priority for the United States right now according to most Republicans.”
However, in October House Leader Kevin McCarthy was more cautious, saying that Republicans wouldn’t write a “blank check” for Ukraine.
Russian forces likely lost “at least 30” armoured vehicles in a single, failed attack near the eastern Ukrainian city of Vuhledar earlier this week, British intelligence said on Friday, sparking renewed anger among prominent Russian pro-war telegram channels over Moscow’s military blunders.
“Russian troops likely fled and abandoned at least 30 mostly intact armoured vehicles in a single incident after a failed assault,” Britain’s defence ministry said in a daily briefing.
Last month, Russia launched a fresh Russian assault around the southern Donbas town of Vuhledar, as Moscow stepped up its assault on the eastern front.
The Ukrainian ministry of defence on Friday released a video on Twitter that appeared to show several Russian armoured vehicles and tanks scattered across the battlefield near Vuhledar.
“There are clearly questions to the command for this episode, a lot of equipment was lost…The tank division has lost its combat capability,” wrote Rybar, a pro-war blogger with over a million followers.
Another Russian soldier with the callsign “13th” called for the execution of commanders responsible for the failed offensive.
“I just have no words…They need to shoot a dozen generals and a couple of dozen colonels…then maybe the rest will start thinking,” the soldier wrote on Telegram.
The Russian ministry of defence has not yet commented on the incident. Earlier this week, defence minister Sergei Shoigu said that the military operations around Vuhledar were “progressing”.
They’re very consistent in their responses to people who make them angry: disparage them using misogynistic and homophobic slurs and then call for them to be killed.
A group of 35 countries will demand that Russian and Belarusian athletes are banned from the 2024 Paris Olympics, according to Lithuania’s sports minister Jurgita Šiugždinienė.
The US, Germany and Australia are among the countries whose ministers participated in an online meeting today to discuss the call for the ban, a Lithuanian ministry spokesperson said.
Šiugždinienė said:
We are going in the direction that we would not need a boycott because all countries are unanimous.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, was in today’s call with 35 ministers, the spokesperson said. They said Zelenskiy’s message to participants was that principles of neutrality cannot apply to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) recently moved away from having an outright ban on athletes from Russia and Belarus and is investigating ways they can qualify for the Olympics under a neutral flag.
Ukraine’s athletes have accused the IOC of rewarding Vladimir Putin’s aggression and being “on the wrong side of history”, and Ukraine has threatened to boycott the games if Russian and Belarusian athletes compete.
cicelysays
I wish to post a link to a TikTok about “Correctile Dysfunction”, but without splattering the thing itself onto the page.
How do I do this?
_
Owen Whooley is an associate professor of sociology at the University of New Mexico. His book On the Heels of Ignorance: Psychiatry and the Politics of Not Knowing deals with the tumultuous history of psychiatry and its equally unstable present. In his book, he documents psychiatry’s ignorance, insecurity, hubris, and hype. Owen Whooley is an expert in the field of the sociology of mental health, sociology of knowledge, and sociology of science.
In this interview, we will cover his histography of psychiatry, engage with his writings on the DSM, and talk about what gives psychiatry its almost supernatural powers to rise from near death over and over and over.
“Surrounded by children, DeSantis signs the ‘Parental Rights in Education’ bill,” ABC13 reports. “Biden partnered with organization which questioned parents’ rights to be notified about their kids’ transition” Fox News tells us. “Parental rights isn’t a partisan issue. It’s what’s best for our children,” an opinion column in The Washington Times warns. We’ve heard these cries for over a century from reactionary forces: we’re just a bunch of scrappy “parents” protecting our kids from sinister, secular forces of state control.
But what does “parents’ rights” mean exactly? Which parents’ rights are we talking about? Which “rights” are we centering, and who funds which parents to assert which set of rights that, we are told, are essential to these “parents”?
There is, of course, no essential “parents” cohort with a coherent ideology and view on education. But, as a term, it’s a useful stalking horse for far right political projects targeting education, namely those opposing secularism, anti-racism, LGBTQ existence, labor, and teachers unions. A skeleton key for whatever reactionary cause doesn’t want to be presented as such. After all, who could oppose “parents’ rights.” Like the clever term “pro-life,” the “parents’ rights” label is similarly designed to put advocates of secularism and progress on the defensive, to erase parents who oppose a far-right agenda, and court sympathetic and whitewashing coverage from corporate media.
On this episode, we discuss the history of “parents’ rights” as a popular right-wing slogan, from its uses in opposing child labor laws in the early 20th century to pushing religious indoctrination in public schools in the 1990s to today’s attacks on trans people and teachers unions; how its evocation by the right––and acceptance by media outlets––obscures the darker motives and political forces at work; and why any media framing of what “parents” want or don’t want is inherently mugging bullshit.
What do you call parents who side with the ADF, a right-wing legal advocacy group, against their own transgender teens? “Bigots” would be one valid response. So of course The New York Times recently published an article deeply sympathetic to the parents in question, playing up tropes associated with the anti-trans Right and so-called trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs) in what members of the trans community and allies have long since recognized as a troubling pattern at America’s “paper of record.”…
Yep, Biden still has the Republicans on the ropes.
Republicans really do fear that their past and present “reform” proposals for Social Security are going to become widely known.
It’s hard to know who’s having more fun thumping GOP Sen. Rick Scott of Florida for his proposal to sunset Social Security and Medicare—President Joe Biden or Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
On the one hand, President Biden was initially cagey about exactly which Republicans wanted to cut the programs and “politely” declined to name names during his State of the Union speech. Then Biden jetted off to the critical battleground state of Wisconsin and never looked back. The principal GOP offenders—Republican Sens. Scott, Mike Lee of Utah, and Ron Johnson of the Badger State—rolled off Biden’s tongue like butter.
[I will add to this list Ron DeSantis who expressed his support for privatizing Social Security in 2012, Lindsey Graham who argued for structural reforms to Medicare and Social Security in 2012 (Ditto for Marco Rubio in 2017), and effing Mitch McConnell who called Medicare and Social Security the real drivers of debit that are entitlements which should be adjusted (he said that in 2018).]
[…] Biden’s intentions weren’t the least bit subtle when he headed to the University of Tampa to deliver remarks on—you guessed it—Social Security and Medicare.
The White House had helpfully adorned every seat at the venue with pamphlets that resembled Scott’s plan, according to The Washington Post, but bore the White House logo on the back. The pamphlets included the text of Scott’s 11-point plan stating that “all federal legislation sunsets in 5 years,” then the White House added, “This means Medicare and Social Security would be on the chopping block every five years under Senator Rick Scott and Congressional Republicans’ plan.”
From the podium, Biden proceeded to dunk on Scott, who’s up for reelection next year in a state with the second-highest percentage of residents 65 or older.
“The very idea the senator from Florida wants to put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block every five years I find to be somewhat outrageous—so outrageous that you might not even believe it,” Biden marveled.
“Well, I guarantee you, it will not happen,” Biden pledged. “I will veto it. I’ll defend Social Security and Medicare.”
Who can blame Biden? It’s a total layup that Scott brought upon himself, much to the chagrin of McConnell—who had hoped to keep Senate Republicans’ entire agenda under wraps […]
[…] During an interview Thursday, McConnell sought to insulate Senate Republicans from the entire fiasco, saying the proposal to sunset Social Security and Medicare wasn’t a Republican plan, it was a “Rick Scott plan.”
Then McConnell went for the jugular, calling Scott’s plan a “bad idea” before contemplating how it might affect his electoral prospects next year.
“I think it will be a challenge for him to deal with this in his own reelection in Florida, a state with more elderly people than any other state in America,” McConnell said.
[…] researchers found that claims of election fraud rose by over 600% in the days leading up to the Capitol insurrection, with the increase concentrated, unsurprisingly, among conservative media.
The study, conducted by the Brookings Institution, analyzed 36,603 episodes from 79 different podcast series in order to determine podcasting’s effect on public discourse.
What researchers found was that nearly 70% of the podcasts they examined shared at least one unsubstantiated or false claim, […]
Due in part to his prodigious output, the researchers found that Steve Bannon was the worst offender, blasting out dozens of episodes a week.
“Bannon’s War Room, which produced both a high number of episodes and shared the most unsubstantiated or false claims in the dataset, topped the list, […]
They also found that just ten podcasts contributed more than 60% of the unsubstantiated and false claims about politics and public health in their research, and conservative hosts were 11 times more likely than liberals to share such information.
The Big Lie held a significant place within this trend: “After voters cast their ballots, podcast hosts and guests regularly promoted the lie that the election had been stolen from Trump, relying on debunked evidence, hearsay, and blatant conspiracy tropes to bolster their claims,” the researchers’ report on their findings reads.
Social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter faced increased scrutiny for the role they played spreading misinformation leading up to the attack. “At the time,” the study notes, “podcasts barely registered as a concern.” […]
Bannon’s “War Room,” currently one of the top-ranked “news” series on Apple Podcasts, publishes up to four episodes a day, up to six days a week. […]
…In countries in the global south that are on the frontiers of resource extraction, being an environmental activist is extraordinarily dangerous. A 2021 Global Witness report estimated 1,700 environmental activists have been killed in the last decade. But, as Kate Aronoff wrote in The New Republic, Terán’s death is a worrisome sign that this deadly violence against environmental protesters could become a reality in the United States, too. Terán’s death is the first known example of someone killed by law enforcement while engaged in environmental “land defense” activism.
“This idea that violence against environmentalists is something we only see in the jungles of Brazil, has really made us blind to the situation we’ve now found ourselves in in the United States,” says Will Potter, Distinguished Journalist in Residence and Civil Rights Fellow with the University of Denver Animal Law Program who has reported extensively on environmental activism.
…
The confrontational tactics of “Cop City” opponents —which range from nonviolent tree-sits to destroying a work crew’s truck—aren’t exactly new in the history of radical environmental activism. But this protest is singular because of its target: the same police who will be called on to repress future environmental movements. “What makes this campaign pretty ominous to law enforcement and people like Governor Kemp in Georgia, is [opponents of Cop City are] uniting and connecting all of these threads,” Potter explains. Unlike protesters who sit in trees in endangered forests throughout North America, he says, the Atlanta forest defenders are combining that environmentalist ethos with a critique of the policing apparatus in the US. In addition, the history of the area informs their actions because it “is connected to a prison plantation that has also been part of this land. And it’s connected to a war on indigenous people, that stretches back for hundreds of years. It isn’t just an environmental campaign.”
Potter’s 2011 book Green Is The New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement Under Siege is the story of how we got here. Beginning in the mid to late 1990’s, so-called “eco-terrorists” were the FBI’s top domestic terror concern—more so than white supremacists, anti-government militias, and anti-abortion groups. Potter argues that corporate lobbying by fur, biomedical, and other industries was primarily responsible for the disproportionate focus on environmental activists by the federal government. For the next 30 years, radical environmental movements that committed acts of property destruction but did not hurt any humans or animals were crushed by terrorism charges in what Potter dubbed “The Green Scare.” Like the anti-communist Red Scare of the 1940s and 1950s, Potter writes that the crackdown on so-called “eco-terrorists” was to “push a political agenda, instill fear, and chill dissent.”
“The use of the term ‘terrorist’ is a very, very effective way for the media and the state to drive a wedge within these movements, and to discourage people from being involved in these kinds of actions,” says David Pellow, Director of the Global Environmental Justice Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Pellow, (whose class I once took as a college student), studied the radical environmental groups of the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front, whose members became poster children for eco-terrorism. “The irony is that the reason why we have these radical movements and formations is precisely because mainstream tactics and strategies aren’t working,” he notes.
In the same raid that led to Terán’s death, seven other forest defenders were arrested and charged with domestic terrorism under a 2017 law that expanded the designation of the statute. As Alleen Brown reports in Grist, there are now 19 people who have been charged with domestic terrorism in connection to the Stop Cop City protests. According to arrest warrants that Brown reviewed, the basis of the charges rests on the claim that “Defend the Atlanta Forest” is a “group” that the department of Homeland Security has formally called “Domestic Violent Extremists.”
“Nine are alleged to have committed no specific illegal actions beyond misdemeanor trespassing,” she writes. “Instead, their mere association with a group committed to defending the forest appears to be the foundation for declaring them terrorists.” They face potentially 35 years in prison….
Much more at the link. They note that “the Atlanta Community Press Collective, a group of activist writers and researchers, issued a statement calling for a worldwide ‘Week of Solidarity to Stop Cop City’, from February 19-26.”
This morning, it’s possible to say this once again: Bakhmut holds. Three weeks ago, it appeared that the city was about to finally be overwhelmed after months of holding out against sustained daily assaults that have cost Russia tens of thousands of troops and an unknown quantity of hardware. Two weeks ago, rumors had it that Ukraine was deserting the city with Russian “pincers” about to close from both north and south. One week ago, it seemed unlikely that Ukraine could hold out even for a day. They are still there.
On Friday, there are reports of heavy fighting in Ivaniske to the southwest of the city, and that the pace of combat northeast of the city, in the area around Krasna Hora and Paraskoiivka, is increasing—though it barely seems possible that it could increase from what’s been seen over the last few days. [map at the link]
Meanwhile, Russian sources are claiming that Wagner mercenaries crossed the M03 Highway near the village of Zaliznyanske, cutting Bakhmut’s final lifeline. But since Russia has been celebrating the “encirclement and fall” of Bakhmut every day for a month, it’s hard to know how seriously to take these reports.
There are some pretty good reasons to doubt the reports that Russia has crossed the highway at Zaliznyanske. For one thing, Wagner forces were reportedly repulsed from an area east and south of that village on Wednesday. There were also other Russian reports that contradicted the idea of moving south across the highway, saying that Russia was actually circumventing that location and continuing west for an attack on Minkivka.
In any case, Russian sources are absolutely convinced that Bakhmut has already been encircled, somewhere, that all its lines of supply have fallen, and that now—right now—Russia is about to take the city over the bodies of 100,000 trapped Ukrainian soldiers.
In the words of one of Russia’s most popular propaganda shows … time will tell.
A quick note: I’m aware that many of the highways in Ukraine got renamed some time ago. What I routinely call the M03 is also known as the E-40, and other roads like the P66 also have new names. My intention isn’t to cause confusion. It’s just that the Google Earth maps have one set of names, and if I don’t stick to that, the images and the text will be constantly out of sync.
While everyone was looking at Bakhmut, Vuhledar, and Kreminna, Russia launched another major attack just west of Donetsk into the town of Avdiivka. This is an area that has seen fighting every single day since the invasion began, and every single day Russia has failed to move the line. However, this time, Russia sent multiple armored companies and engaged in a battle running over three days to finally break the defenses at Avdiivka once and for all.
So how did that go for them? [video at the link]
Another Russian disaster that left at least seven tanks and 30 BMPs destroyed, along with an unknown number of Russian fighters. In a war where Russia has already lost over 1,700 tanks and 2000 infantry fighting vehicles, that may seem like a drop in the bucket. But the bucket has been getting a lot of fresh drops in the last week.
Some reports are putting Russian losses in this one assault on Avdiivka at three full companies. But here’s the part that may be even more amazing: Russia is trying it again right now. As in … right now.
Just as with Vuhledar, it seems Russia is insisting on directing armor along the same highway day after day, expecting different results. Have they heard that Ukrainian forces were running out of bullets? Because otherwise, it’s hard to understand the tactics of this “big offensive” so far.
On Thursday, Russia sent a small wave of Iranian-made drones toward several cities in Ukraine. Now that Ukraine has experience with these drones, and has both acquired and positioned more anti-aircraft guns, most of these drones were shot down. In fact, it’s possible that all of them were shot down, as Ukrainian officials didn’t report any damage caused by this latest wave of drones.
However, there was another reason to be concerned. In the last two months, Russia has often followed a wave of drones with air strikes and missiles. Why? That’s unclear. Maybe they think the drones somehow “soften up the targets.” Or maybe all these weapons are intended to arrive at the same time, but Russia’s timing is bad. In any case, the drones-followed-by-missiles pattern has repeated several times, and that happened again late on Thursday night and into Friday morning.
The general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces reports that Russia launched a total of 71 missiles, of which 61 were shot down. Reportedly at least two of these missiles passed over Moldova before aimed aat targets in Ukraine. The missiles in both cases appear to have been destroyed. [Update: The latest UA update puts the total at “over 100” missiles in the overnight attack, with 71 being cruise missiles.]
The incident has caused the Moldovan Foreign Ministry to summon the Russian ambassador. Perhaps more significantly, Ukraine claims that at least one of the missiles also passed into the airspace of NATO member country, Romania, which scrambled fighter jets to intercept a cruise missile launched from a ship on the Black Sea. However, as of Friday morning, Romania is saying no. Their military says that the missile skimmed along the border, but didn’t actually violate NATO airspace.
[…] Did Russian missiles overfly Romania? It seems as if it was a very close thing (see the part about how Romania scrambled fighter jets for a possible intercept). It also seems that Romania is not ready to make the claim that Russia sent missiles through NATO airspace, which would certainly have consequences. As for Moldova, there seems to be no doubt that Russia flew its missiles over Moldova, and not for the first time. But since Russia has been able to park forces in Transnistria since 1992, they have little concern about what Moldova thinks.
As many as 35 of the missiles launched overnight appear to have been aimed at two targets: the cities of Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv. [Image at the link] Both cities have been mentioned as potential targets in the “big new Russian offensive,” and Luhansk governor Serhiy Hayday indicated that he believed the attacks were signals of cities Russia intended to assault in coming days. However, that big offensive continues to be less big than people had expected by this point.
There’s also a question of just how much longer Russia can keep up attacks like the one launched overnight. The number of missiles launched made it by far the largest attack in 2023, and it’s likely no coincidence that the launch followed immediately on Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s meetings with European leaders this week. Russia wasn’t just launching missiles, it was sending a signal—though what it means is open to interpretation.
It appears that missiles in this wave aimed at civilian areas were all shot down, including 10 missiles that were targeted at Kyiv. Six missiles reportedly impacted various energy-related targets, including electrical substations. […]
Missile launches against Ukraine rose sharply in October, following the successful Ukrainian counteroffensive east of Kharkiv. The regularity and intensity of these attacks were such that, in November, Ukraine’s defense minister released estimates suggesting that Russia was burning through its supply of precision weapons and would likely be all but out of any such weapons before spring. The minister suggested that this would mean Russia would have difficulty in conducting any new offensive and would “struggle” to hold onto occupied territory.
[…] There was one aspect of this that everyone seemed to notice:
Another sign that Russia’s stock of precision missiles is running dangerously low is the repurposing of air defense and anti ship missiles into a ground attack role. These systems are ill-suited for use against ground targets, lacking the firepower and accuracy.
[…] So … is Russia running out of missiles, as some analysts have now been suggesting for months? It certainly doesn’t seem that way when they’re still able to loft 71 missiles in a single night. But the real answer is a little bit of a yes and a bit of no.
Russia has almost certainly reduced its stocks of ground-launched S-300 missiles by a massive amount. It went into the war with something like 7,000 of these weapons. It’s likely they now have fewer than 1,000. It’s worth noting that the S-300 missile is not just used as an offensive weapon, but as part of the S-300 air defense system. So Ukraine is often shooting down S-300 missiles with … S-300 missiles. Some of the S-300s, perhaps most, that Russia has launched against Ukraine were repurposed air defense missiles. That’s part of what makes the identification of that missile debris in Poland a little less than certain.
[…] Even so, Russia reportedly expended 35 of its remaining S-300 stock in its attack last night, which may be a record.
Russia has also burned through hundreds of its P-800 cruise missiles (also known under a number of other names, including 3M55, Oniks, and Yakhont) and the air-launched variant, Kh-61. Better than 400 of these missiles have now been fired, either from ground locations or air-launched by aircraft circling over Russia. Russia really likes this missile. It’s very fast—Mach 2.5 or better—and it’s been difficult to intercept. However, the use of this missile was declining even before the fall. Likely because Russia’s remaining supply is far less than what it has already used.
Russia has also been burning through its stock of the Kh-101 in some of the attacks, including on Thursday night, but Ukraine seems to have no trouble shooting down this supposedly stealthy missile. Russia has used up better than half the Kh-101 it ever made, firing them into Ukraine, and has only enough left to involve this missile in another one or two attacks. Production of this missile has always been in the form of a trickle, so don’t expect them to make a rapid reappearance once they’re gone. [tweet and image at the link]
The not-so-speedy Kh-35 cruise missile—launched by planes, ships, or even helicopters—has often replaced its zippier, sneakier cousins in the mix. But Russia has two problems with these. First, they’ve also burned through a majority of their stock (repeat this for pretty much every missile in their arsenal). Second, these are slower, older, less capable cruise missiles of the “follow a fairly limited set of paths” variety. Ukraine has gotten very good at picking them off. Even so, they keep getting used. In part, that’s because the mechanisms of the Kh-35 (a jet engine, not a liquid-fueled rocket, and electronics that go back to the 1980s) make it one of the two missiles—along with the Kalibr anti-ship missile—that Russia seems capable of building in quantity at this point. In recent attacks, Russia has really dusted off the old stock to employ the Kh-55 cruise missile, which left official production in 1981 and is another generation cruder in every way.
To put all this very long wandering into a much shorter package: Russia is running low on high-precision missiles that are difficult to intercept, so it keeps building more of what it can. Some of those missiles are decently accurate, but old, slow, and easy to knock down. Others are harder to intercept, but also hugely inaccurate.
That’s how you end up with nights like last night: 71 missiles launched, 61 missiles shot down, 6 missiles apparently impacting near targets, 4 missiles going seemingly into nothing at all, and at least 2 missiles generating international incidents. And even though it’s building low-end missiles, Russia is not apparently building enough to keep up with what it’s using.
[…] Why doesn’t Russia target its missiles to take out more important Ukrainian military targets? Because it can’t.
[…] We’ll be watching this, though every previous “Big Putin Speech” has turned out to be about as impactful as the current “Big Russian Offensive.” You never know. Maybe he’s going to resign.
⚡️ Putin to address Russian parliament before one-year anniversary of invasion of Ukraine, on Feb. 21.
The announcement comes amid concerns that Russia may renew its offensive to mark the one-year anniversary of the all-out war.
[…] Donald Trump sees an opportunity to pummel his GOP rivals on their support for slashing Social Security and Medicare. […] Trump actually sought to cut the popular programs while he was in the White House.
In fact, Trump routinely released proposed budgets that targeted Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid for hundreds of billions in cuts collectively.
In 2019, Vox reported that over the next decade, Trump’s 2020 budget proposal sought to spend $1.5 trillion less on Medicaid by diverting $1.2 trillion to a block-grant program in the states, $25 billion less on Social Security, and $845 billion less on Medicare.
The Trump administration said some of those reductions would result from cost savings rather than actual cuts in benefits, but the intent was very clearly an effort to cut the programs, particularly Medicaid and Social Security.
Trump made a similar push in his 2021 budget proposal.
And yet, last month, Trump released a video in which he warned House Republicans not “to cut a single penny from Medicare or Social Security.” Trump’s admonishment came as House Republicans were raising the specter of leveraging the debt ceiling negotiation to secure social-safety-net cuts.
I[…] In his 2016 bid, Trump regularly pledged to “save” Social Security and leave them untouched, a contrast he relished using against his fiscally hawkish Republican opponents.
As 2020 campaigning got underway, Trump made the mistake of admitting on camera that slashing the programs was indeed on his radar.
“Will entitlements ever be on your plate?” a CNBC reporter asked in a Jan. 20, 2020, interview.
“At some point, they will be,” Trump responded, “At the right time, we will take a look at that.”
Clearly, the admission didn’t land well because three days later, Trump tweeted, “Democrats are going to destroy your Social Security. I have totally left it alone, as promised, and will save it!”
[…] Ignoring his record in office, this week, Trump spokesperson Steve Cheung sent a statement to several outlets saying, “President Trump has been clear where he stands on the issue. Others will have to decide which side they’re on. And others will have to answer to past positions they’ve taken.”
[…] The Washington Post found that nearly everyone from Florida Gov. DeSantis to former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley either took votes or bullish stances or both on significantly reforming Social Security and Medicare.
As a congressional member, DeSantis voted three times to raise the retirement age for Social Security and decrease spending on it.
[…] “What they need to be doing is looking at entitlements,” Haley said in a 2010 interview on Fox News. “Look at Social Security. Look at Medicaid. Look at Medicare. Look at these things, and let’s actually go to the heart of what is causing government to grow, and tackle that.”
[…] It’s a target-rich environment for Trump, and he will surely be screaming his support for Social Security and Medicare from the rooftops—never mind what he would have done to the programs if Democrats hadn’t had the power to stop him.
“I’m not the first person to say it, and I’m not going to be the last, but when you find out how integral fungi are to our existence, it makes everything else feel insignificant,” says Max Mudie, whose foraging expeditions reveal the otherworldly elegance, diversity, and minutiae of the myriad denizens of the “wood wide web.” Documenting a range of fungi and slime molds living in the U.K., the Sussex-based photographer is fascinated by the sheer breadth of colors, sizes, and textures he encounters in both rural and urban spaces….
Jordan’s big ‘weaponization’ hearing flopped so badly that even Fox News didn’t carry it
To say Barely Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s tenure thus far has been rocky is putting it mildly. It all started with the four-day, 15-vote saga of his crawl to power in which he shed any scrap of dignity or principle with every capitulation to the Freedom Caucus and assorted maniacs he made. His majority had a brief moment of glory when it managed to come together in an act of petty retribution and bigotry to strip a Black Muslim woman, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) of one of her committee assignments.
That led up to this big week, when the plan was to overshadow President Joe Biden’s state of the union address with a couple of blockbuster investigative hearings. It didn’t really work out that way. Biden absolutely owned them Tuesday night, goading them into exposing themselves for what they are. So McCarthy was counting on Jim Jordan and James Comer to give him the comeback of a couple of blockbuster hearings. What they delivered even Fox News wasn’t having.
Comer’s big Oversight hearing on Twitter’s alleged collusion with the FBI to keep them from seeing Hunter Biden’s dick pics didn’t even manage to convince Fox News host Laura Ingraham. Watch her trying to coach GOP Rep. Clay Higgins (LA) into having anything at all real. [video at the link]
[…] “We’ll get back into it for anything newsworthy,” anchor John Roberts said after showing a brief clip. There wasn’t anything newsworthy, just a bunch of cranks airing their long lists of grievances and being embarrassed by the Democrats on the panel.
Let’s start with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Hillary Clinton:
Grassley uses his opening statement to accuse Hillary Clinton of colluding with the Russians in 2016 (to defeat herself). Completely absurd. [video at the link]
And Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Hillary Clinton. But her emails! [video at the link]
And Hunter Biden: [video at the link]
And Dr. Anthony Fauci: [video of Ron Johnson asking if Fauci helped to create Covid.]
Those were the headline witnesses: “a rousing presentation from two old guys who apparently wanted to vent every grievance real and imagined they’ve experienced over the last 20 to 30 years,” in the summation of Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly (VA).
There was also Fox star Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii turned whackadoodle conspiracy theorist who was there because Hillary Clinton made her a victim of “cancel culture” and smeared her. Gabbard donned her tinfoil to warn, “individuals in our government, often working through their arms in the mainstream media and big tech … get to decide what is true and what is false.” Frequent Fox guest Jonathon Turley showed up to be embarrassed by Democratic Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL) and Dan Goldman (NY).
There was one Democratic member of congress invited to speak, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), whose testimony brought sanity to the proceedings, but also exposed the gravity of what Republicans were trying to do with it. “Millions of Americans already feel that ‘Weaponization’ is the right name for this special subcommittee,” Raskin said. “Not because weaponization of the government is its target, but because weaponization of the government is its purpose.”
”The odd name of the weaponization subcommittee constitutes a case of pure psychological projection. When former President Donald Trump and his followers accuse you of doing something, they’re usually telling you exactly what their own plans are. By establishing a select subcommittee on weaponization, they’re telling us that Donald Trump’s followers will continue weaponizing any part of the government they can get their hands on to attack their enemies, defined as anyone who stands in the way of their quest for power.” […]
“Oversight must be organized around a comprehensive search for the truth, truth that will lead to progress, and not around revenge, which will lead us as a country to chaos and ruin,” he said. [video at the link. Raskin is going through chemotherapy for cancer treatment and that is why he is wearing a bandana on his head. He continues to work hard.]
It was hardly the triumph Jim Jordan and Kevin McCarthy thought they were going to have. That’s not going to stop them, but it certainly exposed them for what they are.
[…] John Kirby, a national security spokesperson for the White House, said the Defense Department was tracking a “high-altitude object” over Alaska at 40,000 feet that posed “a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight.
The object was shot down within the last hour at President Biden’s direction, Kirby said, and landed in U.S. waters.
The government is still collecting information about the object, Kirby said. It is not yet known whether it was operated by another country, or if it was privately or commercially owned. Kirby also would not say if the object was a balloon or another device.
“We’re calling this an object because that’s the best description we have right now,” he told reporters. […]
Amish country farmers say George Santos took puppies, left bad checks. So says an article posted by The Washington Post.
It was after dark when George A. Santos approached the farmer in Pennsylvania’s Amish country looking to buy at least eight puppies.
He promised a wire transfer of more than $5,000 but it never appeared, the farmer said in an interview. He said Santos ended up writing a smaller check — and driving off with four golden retrievers.
“Something inside me said I just cannot trust him,” the farmer told The Washington Post, speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect his privacy.
The check bounced.
The farmer, who has not previously spoken to the media, said he called police following the encounter in 2017. It took nearly two years for the authorities to locate Santos back home in New York, but he was eventually charged with theft by deception, according to a brief mention in The Star, a local newspaper in York County. In May 2021, the paper reported, the case was dismissed under a provision of Pennsylvania law that allows misdemeanor charges to be dropped when a prosecutor consents and “satisfaction has been made to the aggrieved person.”
Indeed, the farmer said he was finally paid for his four dogs. In his handwritten bank ledger, he wrote: “George Santos reimburse bad ck.”
The farmer told The Post he did not think that Santos, a Republican elected to Congress in November after brazenly lying to voters about his past, should be in public office. […]
Also from the Washington Post: FBI finds one additional document with classified markings at Pence home.
From the New York Times: The prime minister of Moldova, a Ukrainian neighbor rattled by the war, steps down. Natalia Gavrilita had been prime minister since 2021, when she took charge of the government after elections gave a strong majority in Parliament to pro-Western politicians.
From NBC News:
Fears of a “secondary disaster” were momentarily eclipsed Friday by a flurry of dramatic rescues that saw survivors pulled from the rubble four days after earthquakes devastated Turkey and Syria, killing more than 23,300 people.
Emergency services, volunteers and families have toiled despite diminishing hopes for those still trapped in the subzero temperatures. Streets have grown heavy with bodies wrapped in blankets, while residents have huddled over fires amid a sea of makeshift morgues and temporary shelters.
The government and aid groups have distributed millions of hot meals, as well as tents and blankets — but many feared that would not be enough, setting off a “second disaster” of hunger and exposure. Help was still struggling to reach many people in need, fueling fears of sickness among the ruins. […]
The featured speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference’s Ronald Reagan Dinner next month will be failed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake. CPAC organizers announced the decision yesterday.
In the initial months after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, hundreds of thousands of people left Russia. Some were fleeing the war’s economic repercussions or the country’s accelerated descent into authoritarianism, while others saw emigration as a moral necessity. Then, in September, Putin’s mobilization announcement set off a new wave of panic, causing another 700,000 or so to leave Russia in a span of just two weeks (though some have since returned).
A huge number of these wartime emigrants ended up in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, sparking what some have termed a “Russian migrant crisis.” The result on the ground in these countries has been an unprecedented reversal of a decades-old status quo that had Central Asian migrants moving to Russia to perform manual labor for relatively high wages, often while being subjected to racism and mistreatment from locals.
To learn about how this reckoning has played out on a human level, The Naked Pravda spoke to migration researcher and journalist Yan Matusevich, who’s spent the last five months conducting interviews with Russians newly arrived in Central Asia.
U.S. officials said Friday the undercarriage of the Chinese spy balloon shot down Saturday — where the surveillance equipment and other technology was housed — has been located in waters off South Carolina.
The official told ABC News Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz it was found Thursday and is largely intact.
It has not yet been retrieved, the officials said, but that will likely be done with a crane or a winch from a vessel.
…
One official said it is 30-feet-long or more…
Because of harsh conditions, measures have been taken to ensure that the debris underwater doesn’t move with the currents. Among those measures, the official said, was the addition of weights and acoustic-pinging devices so they can be easily located once operations resume.
Attorney General Ken Paxton and four of his former top deputies who said he improperly fired them after they accused him of crimes have reached a tentative agreement to end a whistleblower lawsuit that would pay those employees $3.3 million.
In a filing Friday, attorneys for Paxton and the whistleblowers asked the Texas Supreme Court to further defer consideration of the whistleblower case until the two sides can finalize the tentative agreement. Once the deal is finalized and payment by the attorney general’s office is approved, the two sides will move to end the case, the filing said…
Once the deal is finalized and payment by the attorney general’s office
AKA the people of Texas.
is approved, the two sides will move to end the case, the filing said…
So that just leaves the matter of…the crimes.
ravensays
“China Balloon Had Western-Made Parts With English Writing, Lawmakers Told”
Where have we seen that before?
The Iranian Shahed drones are almost all foreign parts. 75% of them are American made.
I do have to say that the Chinese response to the balloon shoot down was pathetic. They should have just said oops, sorry, no we won’t do that again and then shut up.
These days everything is famous for 15 minutes and the world would soon be on to something else.
This was a big balloon. 200 feet tall and the payload, which has been located on the ocean floor is 30 feet long. They are saying the payload may be 1000 lbs.
Bloomberg
China Balloon Had Western-Made Parts With English Writing, Lawmakers Told
Peter Martin, Daniel Flatley and Jennifer Jacobs
Thu, February 9, 2023 at 11:50 AM PST·2 min read
(Bloomberg) — An alleged Chinese spy balloon that traversed the US had western-made components with English-language writing on them, members of Congress were told on Capitol Hill Thursday, people familiar with the matter said.
China Balloon Had Western-Made Parts With English Writing, Lawmakers Told
Biden administration officials briefed lawmakers about the writing behind closed doors, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. The officials included representatives from the State and Defense Departments as well as the intelligence community.
The presence of the components was described by several of the people, who declined to elaborate further on exactly which ones were Western-made. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the writing was discovered before the balloon was shot down Saturday or found in the wreckage afterward. Recovery operations for the balloon’s payload continued off the coast of South Carolina.
A spokesperson for the National Security Council declined to comment. The State and Defense Departments didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Biden administration officials said earlier Thursday that US spy planes had managed to take high-resolution photos of the balloon as it traversed the US. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is combing through the debris, but FBI officials who briefed reporters on Thursday said the review is in its early stages and agents haven’t yet seen the balloon’s main payload.
Senator Marco Rubio, the vice chair of the Intelligence Committee, said after a briefing for senators that one of the key advantages to using balloons instead of other aircraft is that they have the ability to stay on location for long periods of time and provide cheap, continuous intelligence. He played down the technical capabilities of the balloon.
Senator Dan Sullivan, a Republican from Alaska, said one question is whether US or other companies have been helping China build these balloons.
China has rejected allegations of spying, maintaining that the aircraft was a weather balloon that blew off course.
China’s Ministry of Defense said Thursday it has declined to talk with the US about the balloon because “the use of force violates international practice and sets a bad precedent,” according to a statement from spokesman Tan Kefei. “The US hasn’t created a proper atmosphere for dialogue,” he added, calling the downing of what China considers a civilian balloon “irresponsible.”
–With assistance from Steven T. Dennis.
Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek
Why is there a laptop mentioned? Some of the documents had been copied onto the laptop! There were also some classified documents on a thumb drive!
Former President Donald Trump’s legal team turned over more documents with classified markings and a laptop belonging to an aide to federal prosecutors in recent months, multiple sources familiar with the investigation told CNN.
The Trump attorneys also handed over an empty folder marked “Classified Evening Briefing,” sources said.
The previously undisclosed handovers – from December and January – suggest the protracted effort by the Justice Department to repossess records from Trump’s presidency may not be done. [Well that’s an understatement!]
The Trump attorneys discovered the documents with classified markings in December, while searching through boxes at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence. The lawyers subsequently handed them over to the Justice Department.
A Trump aide had previously copied those same documents onto a thumb drive and laptop, not realizing they were classified. The laptop, which belonged to an aide, who works for Save America PAC, and the thumb drive were also given to investigators in January. [Yikes!!]
Russia appears to be draining an enormous reservoir in Ukraine, imperiling drinking water, agricultural production and safety at Europe’s largest nuclear plant, according to satellite data obtained by NPR.
Since early November 2022, water has been gushing out of the Kakhovka Reservoir, in Southern Ukraine, through sluice gates at a critical hydroelectric power plant controlled by Russian forces. As a result, satellite data shows that the water level at the reservoir has plummeted to its lowest point in three decades. Separate images provided by the commercial companies Planet and Maxar show water pouring through the gates, and shoreline along the giant reservoir emerging as a result of the rapidly falling water levels. [water level chart at the link, showing a steep decline this month — available at the link]
At stake is drinking water for hundreds of thousands of residents, irrigation for nearly half-a-million acres of farmland, and the cooling system at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Late last week, the International Atomic Energy Agency said it was aware of the potential risk posed by dropping water levels at the reservoir.
“Even though the decreased water level does not pose an immediate threat to nuclear safety and security, it may become a source of concern if it is allowed to continue,” the IAEA’s director General Rafael M. Grossi said in a statement.
A major water source
The Kakhovka Reservoir is a massive, man-made lake roughly the size of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. It is the final body of water in a network of reservoirs along Ukraine’s Dnipro River. Since the 1950s, it has been used to provide drinking and irrigation water to parts of Ukraine’s southern districts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. A lengthy canal leading from the reservoir also supplies Russian-occupied Crimea.
[…] Russia appeared to have spent several months using the Kakhovka Reservoir to refill a network of reservoirs in Crimea, according to David Helms, a retired meteorologist with decades of experience working for the U.S. federal government, most recently at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. “There’s 23 reservoirs; they’re topped off,” he says.
[…] A Feb. 7 statement on Telegram from the local government said that if the level fell below 13.2 meters, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant’s cooling system, which relies on water from the reservoir, would be in peril. The statement said that Ukrhydroenergo, Ukraine’s hydro electric company, believes the discharge is being done deliberately by the Russians.
[…] Helms believes the deliberate discharge is another way for Russia to hurt Ukraine. Now that Crimea’s reservoirs are full, he says, this could be a way for Russia to hamper Ukraine’s economy, which depends heavily on agricultural exports.
“It’s as good as knocking out the power grid,” he says.
But Kuns is less certain of Russia’s intent. He points out that most of the affected agricultural areas are in Russian-held parts of Ukraine. “It just seems strange that they’d be doing a scorched-earth on territory that they claim publicly that they want to keep,” he says. […]
My bet is that Russia does not think those parts of Ukraine will be under Russian occupation much longer. Russia thinks it will lose the war there. However, Russia does think that it can hold on to Crimea.
[…] In this forgotten pocket of rebel-held northwest Syria, there were no international rescue workers to save them. No aid shipments brought painkillers to the survivors when stocks ran low. Just six miles away, across the border in Turkey, thousands of tons of relief poured in; support teams from as far away as Taiwan answered the Turkish government’s call for help. But Syria, divided against itself and isolated from much of the world, was left to pick up the pieces alone, as it has again and again over more than a decade of war and dislocation.
In the shattered town of Jinderis, at least 850 bodies had been recovered by Friday morning. Although hundreds are still missing, few believed there were any lives left to save. “We needed help here, we asked for help here,” said the town’s mayor, Mahmoud Hafar. “It never came.”
[…] On Friday, the Bab Al-Salama border crossing into Syria was almost empty. A single ambulance with flashing lights was waiting to enter. The only Syrians crossing back were those being returned to their families in body bags.
On a rare visit to this Syrian enclave, controlled by Turkish-backed armed groups, The Washington Post found communities gripped by shock and bewilderment, and very much alone. In Jinderis, fathers stood watch over the remains of their homes and told of waking up to find their wives and children dead. As hulking excavators clawed the rubble, searching for a 13-year old boy, a man asked reporters to help him contact the United Nations for help. “Maybe they don’t know what happened in Jinderis,” he said. “No one could see this and not come here.”
This part of Syria has endured crisis after crisis, home to millions of people who have braved war and displacement, hunger and disease. Even before the earthquake, 4.1 million here required humanitarian assistance. […]
“We heard that Jinderis was the worst,” said 21-year-old Mohammed Jassim, who went to assist in the rescue effort after learning that his aunt, her husband and their children had been killed in their home there. “They said there were hundreds under the rubble and they didn’t have the equipment to help them.”
All day, he heard the cries. There were scratches on his hands from clawing at the earth. “Imagine still crying out after four days,” he said, and his expression turned hollow. “It’s unimaginable. Everyone died.”
[…] The area’s health facilities were hanging by a thread long before Monday’s earthquakes. Assad’s forces and their Russian allies systematically bombed health facilities, forcing hospitals underground as doctors fled. On Monday morning, the tidal wave of casualties pushed remaining facilities to the breaking point. In the town of Afrin, doctors estimate that around 70 percent of the patients they saw came from Jinderis.
“We had to refer many of them for amputations,” an emergency nurse, Ahmed Saqar, 53, said on the phone. Without backup, his team was exhausted — survivors and saviors at the same time, one colleague said. […]
In place of damaged or destroyed hospitals, a series of field clinics have sprung up in Turkey, with doctors and nurses from around the world.
An ambulance pulled up to the cluster of red tents that now serves as the main hospital in the ruined city of Antakya, on Friday morning. It was bringing in a woman pulled from the wreck of her home after nearly 100 hours under the rubble.
Though one of her legs was fractured and she had been hit in the head by a falling concrete block, she was conscious and able to speak. She wanted to know where her two children were. But they had not yet been found.
For the doctors in the field hospital, hastily constructed in a parking lot, miracles had grown nearly routine, but there were never enough of them. As the days pass and more dead than living people are taken from the rubble, they grow rarer and rarer.
At the field hospital, 200 patients are no longer arriving every hour, as they did on Monday and Tuesday.
Yet people continued to be tugged from the debris, requiring treatment for crushed limbs, dehydration and exposure. That often meant amputation. For many pregnant women, it had meant going into trauma-induced early labor.
“If I told you what I’ve been through, what I’ve seen these last five days, maybe the movies wouldn’t seem that dramatic by comparison,” said Halil Kabadayi, 25, a nurse in the maternity ward — that is, a red tent — who had dropped everything to come from the city of Izmir, Turkey, to volunteer.
Given the extent of the destruction, the fact that Antakya has established a semi-functioning medical system is remarkable. Monday’s earthquake took out hospitals as well as homes, leaving emergency responders across 10 provinces unable to care properly at first for people crushed by collapsing buildings.
Since then, however, a new, makeshift health care system has been constructed amid the devastation by volunteers from around Turkey and the world. While the most severely wounded were sent to undamaged hospitals in other provinces for treatment, field hospitals in the heart of the earthquake zone sprung up to stabilize the newly rescued, treat more minor injuries and manage the diseases that are flaring in the disaster’s wake. Even pets rescued from the rubble were receiving volunteer medical care at a pop-up animal hospital in Antakya.
“Our work has just begun,” said Dr. Ferit Kilic, 38, an emergency-room doctor at a government hospital in Istanbul who volunteered to help on Monday. “As health teams, we’ve been here for five days with no shower, no toilet. But these aren’t important. Each life we save is important for us.”
One medical student hitchhiked 375 miles to the disaster zone as soon as he heard about the earthquake; Mr. Kilic flew in from Istanbul on a plane full of volunteer doctors and nurses. A veterinarian and her boyfriend drove in from Ankara intending to help humans, only for her to end up treating pets. An Indian maxillofacial surgeon and the rest of his army medical team set off for Turkey, one of multiple medical groups from around the world who would show up to help.
“I just heard the news and thought, I can’t stay at home,” said Mumtaz Buyukkoken, 27, a medical intern from the Turkish city of Konya. He said he had spent the days since the earthquake helping to set up a makeshift hospital in a school in the coastal city of Iskenderun, where one of two hospitals was knocked out of commission. […]
As the chaos and trauma calms from the early days after the disaster, it often falls to the doctors not only to treat the patients’ wounds but to try to reunite them with their scattered households, assuming they are alive: parents separated from children, children from siblings, owners from pets, and few able to find each other on their own because electricity and mobile service remain scarce.
[…] Rendered suddenly homeless on Monday, many people had gone all week without medication for chronic diseases such as asthma, diabetes and hypertension.
[…] Hundreds of thousands of people were living in crowded tents without access to toilets, showers, soap or much nourishing food, and conditions were ripe for infectious diseases to spread. People were burning whatever they could find to keep warm in freezing temperatures, developing constant coughs from the acrid smoke. No toilets, not even port-a-potties, meant many people were drinking less than they should to avoid having to relieve themselves out in the open, and that was leading to dehydration, doctors said. […]
WASHINGTON (AP) — Within hours of an Air Force F-22 downing a giant Chinese balloon that had crossed the United States, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reached out to his Chinese counterpart via a special crisis line, aiming for a quick general-to-general talk that could explain things and ease tensions.
But Austin’s effort Saturday fell flat, when Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe declined to get on the line, the Pentagon says.
China’s Defense Ministry says it refused the call from Austin after the balloon was shot down because the U.S. had “not created the proper atmosphere” for dialogue and exchange. The U.S. action had “seriously violated international norms and set a pernicious precedent,” a ministry spokesperson was quoted as saying in a statement issued late Thursday…
One of the two Donald Trump supporters accused of plotting to firebomb Sacramento’s state Democratic headquarters building is asking a federal judge to accept a plea deal that would net him up to nine years in prison, and “begging you for a chance to redeem myself.”
In a four-page handwritten letter filed in court in San Francisco, Ian Benjamin Rogers begs Senior U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer to accept his word that he regrets his actions and deserves a chance to rebuild his life after prison….
NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s government on Friday withdrew its appeal to citizens to mark Valentine’s Day next week not as a celebration of romance but as “Cow Hug Day” to better promote Hindu values.
The appeal had attracted widespread criticism from political rivals and on social media.
A terse statement issued by the government-run Animal Welfare Board of India said the appeal issued Wednesday “stands withdrawn.”
Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, a political analyst, said the call to hug cows had been “absolutely crazy, defying logic.”
“The decision to withdraw the government appeal was to prevent the politics of Hindutva (Hindu nationalism) from being ridiculed in the face of severe criticism from all quarters,” he said…
whheydtsays
Re: Lynna, OM @ #70…
I used to live in Albany, CA which is across San Francisco Bay from the Golden Gate. After my wife and I went through CERT training, we got occasional invitations to events involving the local fire department. Some were downright fun, like being a volunteer “victim” in a major airport disaster drill. On another occasion, we got invited to talk by a Red Cross representative on how to set up and run an emergency shelter the way they did. This is worth knowing, because if you do it their way, they’ll reimburse 100% of any expenses…and if you don’t do it their way, they won’t. After the talk there was time to get questions answered. One that a bunch of us were interested in was: If there is a major local earthquake (the area is close to the Hayward Fault), how long would it be before the Red Cross would be able to bring in substantial relief supplies? In other words, how long would be be on our own and reliant only on what was locally available? The answer was “7 to 10 days.” Keep in mind that this is not just in the US, but in California, a state that takes disaster planning seriously.
So…if you want to how long it’ll be that you have to make do with what you’ve got–and, hopefully, what you have stored as disaster supplies–now you know. Plan for 1 to 1.5 weeks.
ravensays
“A lunar landscape with residents who hate us’ Russian military source tells Novaya Gazeta that Moscow is gearing up for a new offensive”
Which is no surprise.
The end of this war isn’t remotely in sight.
All that is happening is the Russians and the Ukrainians are taking heavy casualties and losing a lot of weapons.
“As a result of the attacks, we end up getting a lunar landscape with the remnants of a population that hates us, rather than inhabited settlements. Enemy sabotage and reconnaissance groups operate in the occupied territories. They stab you in the back, plot the land for the artillery, mine the roads, take prisoners. In circumstances like these, holding the front can only be done at the cost of enormous losses,” he said.
Not much to show for a year of war.
This is from Meduza which is Russian but based in Latvia.
‘A lunar landscape with residents who hate us’ Russian military source tells Novaya Gazeta that Moscow is gearing up for a new offensive
6:27 am, February 3, 2023 Source: Novaya Gazeta Europe
Russia is preparing to launch a new offensive in Ukraine, Novaya Gazeta Europe reported on Friday, citing a source from the Russian military.
According to the source, Russia’s generals are ready to turn tens of thousands of their own servicemen into “mincemeat” at the behest of their superiors. At the same time, he said, the generals aren’t taking into account any of the obvious risks this kind of maneuver carries.
“The Ukrainians get absolutely accurate information about all of our movements from Western intelligence agencies,” he said. “Amassing enough forces in a particular area without exposing them to strikes from [Ukrainian] HIMARS and long-range artillery is impossible.”
Among the problems likely to plague the potential upcoming assault, the source listed the difficulty of capturing new territories, the challenges of maintaining control over newly-captured areas, and the inevitable stretching of the front line, which makes it even harder to transport food and munitions.
“As a result of the attacks, we end up getting a lunar landscape with the remnants of a population that hates us, rather than inhabited settlements. Enemy sabotage and reconnaissance groups operate in the occupied territories. They stab you in the back, plot the land for the artillery, mine the roads, take prisoners. In circumstances like these, holding the front can only be done at the cost of enormous losses,” he said.
The source didn’t specify where Russia plans to launch the offensive, but military experts who spoke to Novaya Gazeta said that Russia could try to push to front line further away from the annexed part of the Donbas or Crimea, attempt a new offensive in the Zaporizhzhia region, or launch an attack on the Volyn region in Western Ukraine from Belarusian territory.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Half of Russia’s main battle tanks in Ukraine are likely to have been captured or destroyed in combat, a senior US defence official has said.…
The latest intelligence update from the UK’s Ministry of Defence states that a key factor in the alleged termination of the Russian mercenary group’s prisoner recruitment drive is likely to be the “increasingly direct rivalry between the Russian ministry of defence and Wagner”.
Wagner founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said on Thursday that the group had “completely stopped” recruiting prisoners to fight in Ukraine….
Ukraine’s general staff of the armed forces has published its latest update on Russian casualties, including 1,140 soldiers in the past day.…
Also, 9 tanks and 19 artillery systems.
Immigration authorities in Argentina are cracking down on Russian women who since the invasion of Ukraine have started travelling to Buenos Aires to give birth in order to gain Argentinian citizenship for their children.
The director of Argentina’s immigration office, Florencia Carignano, said on Friday that a judicial investigation has been launched into what she described as a lucrative business that promises Argentinian passports for the Russian parents….
Zemfira, one of Russia’s most popular singers, has been placed on a list of “foreign agents” on grounds that she supported Ukraine and criticised Russia’s “special military operation” in that country, according to the Russian justice ministry.
Zemfira, whose full name is Zemfira Ramazanova, “openly supported Ukraine, held concerts in unfriendly countries while speaking against the special military operation and received support from foreign sources”, Russian state-run Tass news agency has reported, citing a ministry statement.
An ethnic Volga Tatar born in the central Russian region of Bashkortostan, Zemfira began performing in 1998 and gained popularity in Russia and other ex-Soviet states.
She was known to oppose the war in Ukraine and for a time her website featured the slogan “No to war”. She reportedly left Russia to settle in France after Vladimir Putin ordered his troops to invade Ukraine last February.
Individuals labelled “foreign agents” by the Russian government have often been subjected to police searches and other punitive measures. Many have left the country in the past year.
The ministry has added several other people to its “foreign agents” list, including opposition politician Dmitry Gudkov, political analyst Abbas Gallyamov, and activists Aleksandra Kazantseva and Tatyana Nazambaeva for “LGBT propaganda”.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary group, has said Russian forces must capture the Ukrainian stronghold of Bakhmut to proceed with their campaign, but acknowledged that Ukrainian troops were mounting fierce resistance.…
At an event in California last weekend, the Koch family political network announced it would move away from Donald Trump, and invest in congressional elections in a bid to break from the far-right, Trump-supporting politicians who have come to the fore in recent years.
Americans for Prosperity Action, founded by Republican megadonors Charles Koch and David Koch, who died in 2019, would be seeking to “turn the page on the past”, it said, in remarks that were covered extensively, and favorably, in the US media [they were positively giddy on Morning Joe].
But it didn’t take much to expose the hypocrisy of AFP Action’s commitment to move away from Maga politicians who, it said, “go against core American principles”.
Present at the network’s meeting in Palm Springs were two of the reactionary and far-right Republicans AFP Action claims it is trying to thwart.
In Eric Schmitt, a Missouri senator, and Andrew Ogles, a congressman from Tennessee, AFP Action had invited two newly elected men who tried vigorously to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and seem to have little interest in turning the page on history.
Schmitt, who has invoked the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, has already backed Trump for 2024, while Ogles, a culture warrior whose campaign pitch was that the US needs to “go back to honoring God and country”, giddily accepted Trump’s endorsement last year.
If, in inviting two politicians who appear to embody the essence of Trumpism, AFP Action exposed a separation between what it says and what does, then it should come as no surprise.
For much of the last decade the Koch-funded group has pledged to move away from far-right Republicans, before sending tens of millions of dollars towards those very officials.
As investigative newsletter Popular Information put it: “The reality is that few individuals have spent more money to legitimize Trump and his allies than Charles Koch.”
In 2020, Charles Koch, who has an estimated net worth of $68bn, told the Wall Street Journal he would focus on “building bridges across partisan divides to find answers to sprawling social problems”. In a book, published that year, Koch said he regretted his funding of the Tea Party, a far-right movement that emerged under Barack Obama’s presidency.
At the beginning of 2021, AFP Action chided Republicans’ actions around the January 6 insurrection and their efforts to prevent Biden taking office. A total of 147 Republicans in Congress voted to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
“Lawmakers’ actions leading up to and during last week’s insurrection will weigh heavy in our evaluation of future support,” the organization said.
But the pledges from Koch and his network did not come to pass. AFP Action spent $63.4m in the two years leading up to the 2022 midterm elections. Popular Information reported that 86.7% of that spending went to candidates who had been endorsed by Trump.
…
In 2018, Koch criticized Trump’s presidency, and said he would be willing to back Democrats. AFP Action went on to spend $3,948,640 supporting Republicans and $2,835,924 opposing Democrats, Popular Information reported, and zero dollars on Democrats.
Going back further, Koch said in 2016 that he not support Trump – or Hillary Clinton – in the presidential election. But, Popular Information found: “He spent millions on ads that, while formally opposing Democratic Senate candidates, savaged Trump’s opponent Hillary Clinton.”
Given Koch’s, and AFP Action’s history, it seems unlikely there will be much change in the future.
And for all AFP Action’s talk of “bad candidates who are advocating for things that go against core American principles”, and of ending bipartisanship, it seems perfectly happy with the Republican members of Congress so far.
On an AFP Action “national scorecard”, which gives elected officials scores out of 100 for their performance in office, so far every single Republican has a score of 100.
The paper “includes a foreword by the former Australian immigration minister Alexander Downer, who was commissioned under Priti Patel’s tenure as home secretary to review the UK Border Force. In it, he describes Channel crossings as ‘an existential crisis for the government’.”
Thousands of laborers from Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan came to Britain [in 2022] under the U.K. government’s Seasonal Workers Scheme designed to address a severe shortage of farm workers due to Brexit.
The day of the war: 106 missiles, 30 drones, dozens of destroyed buildings, over 1,000 occupiers killed near Donetsk. And Putin declares with a smile “we did not start wars, we do not kill.” Define this behavior. Would you like to enter into any kind of agreement with him?
Speaking at the White House on Friday, Mr Kirby said the debris field of the object shot down on Friday was “much, much smaller” than the balloon shot down last Saturday off the coast of South Carolina.
He said that the object was flying at 40,000ft (12,000m) over the northern coast of Alaska.
It had already flown across Alaska at a speed of 20 to 40mph (64km/h) and was out over the sea travelling towards the North Pole, when it was shot down.
…
Helicopters and transport aircraft have been deployed to collect debris from the frozen waters of the Beaufort Sea.
…
According to ABC News, the object seemed to have no propulsion.
It seemed to be floating, “cylindrical and silver-ish grey”, reports the network’s chief global affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz, citing an unnamed US official.
Pentagon press secretary Brigadier General Pat Ryder said the object was “not similar in size or shape” to last week’s Chinese balloon.
He confirmed that an F-22 jet had shot down the object with a sidewinder missile at 13:45 EST (18:45 GMT) on Friday.
…
Gen Ryder said a significant amount of debris had been recovered so far. It was being loaded on to vessels and taken to “labs for subsequent analysis”, he added.
Officials said they had not yet determined whether the object was involved in surveillance, and Mr Kirby corrected a reporter who referred to it as a balloon.
He did not specify where exactly the object was shot down, but the Federal Aviation Administration said it had closed about 10 sq miles of US airspace airspace above Deadhorse, northern Alaska, before the F-22 fired.
The site is about 130 miles from the border of Canada, whose Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Twitter he had been briefed on the “object that violated American airspace” and “supported the decision to take action”…
…GB News launched in 2021, to massive media interest, with a promise to become a patriotic centre-right alternative to the BBC and Sky. That did not happen. The launch was a technical and editorial disaster and an object lesson in how hard it is to make a rolling news channel work smoothly. But then something disturbing took place. As its ratings dwindled, the channel opted for a new approach. It dedicated itself to conspiracy theories on the furthest fringes of the right….
LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — Hundreds of Muslims descended on a police station in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province Saturday, snatched a blasphemy suspect from his cell and took him outside and lynched him, police said.
Senior police officer Babar Sarfaraz Alpa said a man identified only as Waris had been in police custody for desecrating pages of a copy of Islam’s holy book, the Quran. He said Waris pasted images of himself, his wife and a knife on several pages of the book, displayed them and threw them about in the rural district of Nankana…
A classified briefing for House lawmakers on the Chinese spy balloon turned tense on Thursday when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) went after administration officials for waiting days before shooting down the surveillance device.
“I had to wait in line the whole time. I was I think the second to last person, and I chewed them out just like the American people would’ve,” Greene told The Hill. “I tore ‘em to pieces.” …
Ukraine claims to have destroyed a prized Russian BMP-T armored vehicle, nicknamed the “Terminator,” in Luhansk…
The “Terminator” was designed to support other armor and infantry units and can engage three different targets at once using its four weapons operators.
Its weapons include twin 30 mm guns, four supersonic Ataka anti-tank missiles with a range of almost four miles, two AG-17D grenade launchers, and one coaxial 7.62 mm PKTM machine gun.
The vehicle was first designed in the late 1980s, and is made by Russian company Uralvagonzavod, the Russian military’s leading tank producer. The Russian army purchased only 10 of the vehicles in 2017…
Many of the themes and topics we explore in “It’s In the Code” figure prominently in the experience of those who have been traumatized by participation in high-control religious environments. But what is “trauma”? How is it possible that something as widespread and seemingly mundane as participation in very mainstream American religious communities can be “traumatizing”? Dan finds the answers to these and other questions in this interview with Dr. Laura Anderson, founder and head of the Center for Trauma Resolution and Recovery, which specializ[es] in working with those processing religious trauma.
ravensays
“Scientists Find Fossil of Biggest Penguin Ever”
This one is 350 lbs and lived 57 million years ago.
Scientists Find Fossil of Biggest Penguin Ever
They say it would’ve weighed a whopping 350 pounds. That’s more than an ostrich.
Monisha Ravisetti
Feb. 10, 2023 4:03 p.m. PT
An artist’s reconstruction of Kumimanu fordycei and Petradyptes stonehousei.
Simone Giovanardi
While searching through the beachy boulders of New Zealand’s South Island, a crew of international scientists stumbled on an exquisite find: fossilized evidence of two new penguin species that roamed (or waddled) Earth more than 50 million years ago.
But most importantly, one of the discovered penguins, dubbed Kumimanu fordycei, is probably the largest ever to have lived. A co-author of a study on the discovery, published Wednesday in the Journal of Paleontology, had a rather compelling way of putting it.
“At approximately 350 pounds, it would have weighed more than [basketball player] Shaquille O’Neal at the peak of his dominance!” Cambridge University’s Daniel Field said in a statement. For comparison, emperor penguins, aka the largest penguins now living, weigh in at a maximum of 100 pounds (45 kilograms), according to a release. And a male ostrich, the largest bird now alive, can weigh up to about 290 pounds.
In terms of the height of this ancient (and perhaps slam-dunking) penguin, the first author of the study, Daniel Ksepka of Connecticut’s Bruce Museum, tweeted out an image of what he calls the team’s “best guess.” It looks to be about the size of a human (if not bigger), but thankfully it seems much smaller than the monstrous penguin predicted to inhabit Earth post-humanity by paleontologist Dougal Dixon in 1981. Dixon imagined a 12 meter (nearly 40 foot) behemoth. Yikes.
The other species, named Petradyptes stonehousei, constituted five of the nine revealed specimens, yet was likely only slightly larger than a modern emperor penguin, the team said. It weighed in at about 110 pounds (50 kilograms).
Together, the two novel species have confirmed for scientists that penguins got really big in their early evolutionary history, and the discovery sheds light on how these flightless birds’ flippers changed over time.
“Fossils provide us with evidence of the history of life, and sometimes that evidence is truly surprising,” Field said. “Many early fossil penguins attained enormous sizes, easily dwarfing the largest penguins alive today.”
Against a dull teal background, three skeletal diagrams of penguins can be see. From left to right, they descend in size.
Skeletal illustrations of Kumimanu fordycei, Petradyptes stonehousei and a modern emperor penguin, showing the sizes of the new fossil species. Simone Giovanardi
Mega penguin analysis
Zeroing in on an iconic penguin trait, flippers, the team used techniques like laser scanning and environmental analysis to estimate various aspects of the two extreme species.
First off, the team used laser scanners to create digital models of the bones and compare them to other fossil species such as the emperor penguin. That’s how the researchers started extrapolating how big the prehistoric birds probably were. But some information was also gleaned by checking out the boulders within which all the specimens — flipper bones and muscle attachment points — were found to begin with.
The rocks themselves were identified as being about 57 million years old, and the fossil species are thought to have lived between 59.5 million and 55.5 million years ago.
This timeline falls within the late Paleocene era, and more specifically, it’s roughly 5 million to 10 million years after the end-Cretaceous extinction, when the asteroid Chicxulub wiped out the dinosaurs. In a way, this means the giant penguin might’ve had more peace than you’d expect for an ancient animal — unperturbed on a more-or-less dino-free Earth.
“Kumimanu fordycei would have been an utterly astonishing sight on the beaches of New Zealand 57 million years ago, and the combination of its sheer size and the incomplete nature of its fossil remains makes it one of the most intriguing fossil birds ever found,” Field said.
And if you’re wondering whether the lifestyle of a massive penguin differs from the daily rituals of cute little penguins we’re used to, the answer is probably yes.
For example, the researchers explain, a bigger penguin could capture larger prey, be better at conserving body temperature in cold waters, and could maybe migrate across the globe and set up residences beyond their hometown.
A lot of ancient animals seem to have been significantly bigger than their modern-day ancestors, such as the dinosaurs, wooly mammoths and even this dog-size scorpion. Some experts hypothesize this is because of environmental factors like higher oxygen content in the air. Others believe it might’ve been because of efficient food uptake, as the penguin discovery team hints at.
“Large, warm-blooded marine animals living today can dive to great depths. This raises questions about whether Kumimanu fordycei had an ecology that penguins today don’t have, by being able to reach deeper waters and find food that isn’t accessible to living penguins,” Daniel Thomas of Massey University and study co-author said in a statement.
The newly unearthed giant species dubbed Kumimanu fordycei was named in honor of Ewan Fordyce, a professor emeritus at the University of Otago in New Zealand. “Without Ewan’s field programme, we wouldn’t even know that many iconic fossil species existed, so it is only right he have his own penguin namesake,” Ksepka said in a statement.
The smaller find, Petradyptes stonehousei, has a much more literal name. It’s derived from the Greek words “petra” for rock and “dyptes” for diver. Stonehousi, though, honors the late Bernard Stonehouse, whom the release calls the first person to observe the full breeding cycle of the emperor penguin.
Oggie: Mathomsays
The Terminator was designed specifically to serve in suburban/urban/center city combat zones. The multiple weapon systems, each much less powerful than an MBT’s main gun, are meant to be used against semi-hardened defenses — houses, apartment and office buildings — rather than other hard-skinned vehicles.
One of its biggest problems during development was the software to allow the combat crew to actually use the weapons, differentiating between different targets and different munitions. I had understood (this may be superseded) that Russia had basically given up on the idea of multiple targets, of different types, for multiple weapons due the difficulty of interfacing control and intelligence in targeting — crews in combat vehicles have very limited ability to see and understand what is happening outside their vehicle and, when asked to multitask with different weapons, targets and target types, the crews become overwhelmed. Which is also one of the big reasons that the multi-turreted tanks of the late 1930s (the T-35 and T-28) were so unsuccessful during the Winter War and the initial invasion of the Soviet Union.
Unbelievably, the Ukrainian military reports that the hottest area of fighting right now is … Vuhledar. Reportedly repeated attacks are being made right along the tracks where the previous attacks failed. It’s like Bakhmut, only even more costly and pointless. [video at the link]
Over the last week, as Russia supposedly opened a new offensive in Ukraine, there has been one number rising quickly — the number of Russian soldiers killed each day. With repeated disasters near Vuhledar, a failed attack based out of Kreminna, and what looks to be two full companies lost in a fruitless assault on Avdiivka, Russia has been throwing away its troops at a sustained rate far greater than it did at any point in 2022.
Four days ago, it was big news when Ukraine reported 1,030 Russian soldiers killed in a day, with most of those losses taking place near Vuhledar or Bakhmut. That marked Tuesday as the biggest day for Russian losses since the invasion began. Then Russia lost over 900 more on Wednesday, and 900 more on Thursday as another catastrophic advance at Vuhledar was followed by that failure at Kreminna. The Friday number was something of a decline, with “only” 750 Russian troops eliminated — a rate that, if it continued, would still see more than 270,000 losses in a year.
But then the astoundingly foolish assault on Avdiivka combined with more bad decisions at all of the above, and the end result is that on Saturday the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reported that Russia had lost an absolutely staggering 1,140 men in one day.
There are estimates that Russia now has 320,000 troops in Ukraine. If they keep falling at the rate they were lost this week, all of them will be dead before the end of the year.
It’s worth noting that those Russian losses haven’t come in the form we’ve become familiar with after watching months of activity near Bakhmut — small companies of men sent across fields or along streets betweened ruined buildings with little to no armor support. All week long the losses have come in the form of entire armored units blasted to smithereens along roadways. In part this has come because Russia has done what Ukraine refused to do: attempt to assault fortified positions in conditions that meant armor was restricted to traveling along a few narrow roadways. In part it’s because Russia seems to be replicating with its armored forces the tactics that it had “mastered” with infantry — if at first everyone gets killed, just send more.
The result of this is that each of these days has come not just with astounding losses of men, but almost equally staggering losses of equipment. Since Tuesday, Ukrainian forces have destroyed 36 Russian tanks. Twenty five tanks were lost in two days. These are unsustainable levels of loss.
Granted, what Russia has seen this week falls well short of the numbers lost in the largest battles of World War II. Over the course of the war, they lost a nearly unbelievable 80,000 tanks. But that was when they were building tanks at a rate of better than 20,000 a year. Their current capacity is estimated at only 200–250 tanks per year.
Here’s another way of thinking of it: In World War II, Russia went through about four years worth of tank production capacity during the four years of the war. In Ukraine, they’ve already burned through over 12 years of production capacity, and that’s assuming the high end of production estimates. If Russia stopped right now, it would take them until 2036 to get their tank number back to where it was the day they rolled into Ukraine.
And there’s another big difference. What happened at Vuhledar and Avdiivka wasn’t a tank-on-tank / man-on-man clash. Ukraine has no comparable losses from these battles. It’s hard to even think of them as battles. They were just instances of Russia slowly driving lines of vehicles and herding terrified men, down long muddy roads, and waiting as artillery picks off those who didn’t already manage to hit a mine. They are entirely one-sided losses. [aerial photo at the link]
At the outset of the invasion, estimates of Russian tanks available—from freshly minted T-90M back to Vietnam era T-62 sitting in fields—were put at around 8,000. But that doesn’t mean Russia had 8,000 tanks ready to go to the front. Many of those tanks were damaged, or had systems so outdated they needed mandatory updates before being brought into the fight. Russia can manage to refit old tanks at a rate of about 600 a year.
Put it all together, assuming that sanctions or shortages don’t interfere, and Russia is estimated to be capable of sending about 20 new tanks and 50 refitted older tanks into Ukraine each month.
If the estimates from the Ukrainian armed forces are correct, Russia is losing an average of 270 tanks each month. Even the verified numbers from Oryx show a rate of loss over 140 tanks per month. Here’s what those losses look like if we take the levels over the first 12 months of fighting and project them out through the end of 2023. [chart at the link]
There’s a lot of fudging in this chart. The losses of Russian tanks have been in no sense smooth over this whole period, with big peaks coming during the initial Russian invasion, then again during Ukraine’s counterattack into Kharkiv. The chart also makes it seem as if Russian losses started in January, simply because that’s where I stuck the zero. But you get the idea. Russia has been losing tanks at a high rate since the invasion began, and projecting those rates into the future indicates that Russian losses by the end of the year could be over 6,200 tanks — and that’s if the increased rate seen so far in 2023 doesn’t continue.
Now, factor in Russia’s supposed 8,000 tank stockpile, add 20 new tanks each month along with 50 remanufactured older tanks, drop that on top of losses, and how do things look? [chart at the link]
If the losses confirmed by Oryx are the only tanks Russia is losing, then their actual “burn rate” is relatively small. Something like 70 tanks a month. But if the Ukrainian military is accurate in estimating tanks destroyed, Russia is bleeding tanks from their stockpile at a rate of around 200 a month. By the end of this year, fewer than 3,000 will remain out of that 8,000 at the outset.
Which leads to a whole new set of questions. How many of those tanks are really fit for battle, even if they are hauled in for an update? Some number of these tanks are going to be so stripped down, so lacking in basic gear, so damaged, so subjection to both corruption (in the form of theft) and corruption (in the form of rust) that they can’t be salvaged. How many? And perhaps most importantly, just how many tanks can Russia burn in Ukraine if that means leaving the rest of its borders undefended? Now repeat this exercise for infantry fighting vehicles, and armored personnel carriers, and artillery, and helicopters, and people.
The war in Ukraine has become largely a war of attrition. Russia seems to want it this way. And there are reasons that might work for them. Ukraine went into the war with around 2,000 tanks. Oryx confirms 434 of those lost, but the actual number, as with Russia, is certainly higher. How many tanks is Ukraine making each month? None. Ukraine’s tank factory, which had been cranking out the modern T-84, has been more or less silent since 2014, as many of the parts it used were made down in Crimea. Ukraine can’t build any tanks right now, and it doesn’t have piles of old tanks to refit. Instead, Ukraine has to depend on tanks coming in from the West, and on refitted Soviet-era tanks from its allies. Those are absolutely not infinite sources. That formula also repeats on almost every large piece of equipment in the war.
But if Russia is counting on Ukraine running out of some vital component of war first, it’s going to have to stop doing what it’s been doing this week at Vuhledar and Avdiivka.
⛏ Due to Russia’s endless human wave attacks Ukrainians have to dig deeper trenches as the current ones are filling up with machine gun bullet casings.
For the last few days, multiple Ukrainian sources on Telegram, Twitter, and other social media have been showing videos like this one with claims that they are precursors to a new Ukrainian counteroffensive. Several of these videos include some new Western equipment, though not yet Bradleys or tanks. [video at the link]
It seems far more likely that the images that are on some channels being portrayed as if they represent Ukrainian units just about to plunge into battle, are actually scenes from training happening in the west of Ukraine, or even outside Ukraine. [yep]
Amid all the claims that Russia is preparing a new offensive here, there, and everywhere, there is one nation that doesn’t believe it. That nation happens to be Ukraine. As the Kyiv Post reports on Saturday, Ukrainian intelligence says that Russia is already being as offensive as it can, and that concerns over some new mass attack are unwarranted.
Andriy Chernyak, a representative of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, claimed rumors and reports of a pending massive attack were misplaced.
He told Kyiv Post: “While information is spreading about a large-scale Russian offensive planned for Feb. 24, Ukraine’s military intelligence reports that Russia has already launched a full-scale offensive on Feb. 24 last year, which is still ongoing.”
That may sound like little more than a pun, Chernyak indicated that, in the estimate of Ukrainian intelligence, Russia doesn’t have the resources or capability of conducting some new mass assault. Instead, they’ll continue doing what they’ve been doing for months — making smaller attacks along the line, hoping to identify locations where Ukrainian defenses are weak, hoping to make tactical gains.
He added: “However, according to our information, Russian command does not have enough resources for large-scale offensive actions.
Because it must be said … Bakhmut holds. Yesterday’s map of positions appears to be still good — though it may be a bit generous to Russia. Russian claims to have already cut off the highway west of Bakhmut appear to be more aspirational than real, and Ukraine continues to hold positions in the city with no apparent concern about their ability to get supplies in or troops out.
Russian sources are drawing new maps this morning with many, many more red arrows, insisting that the encirclement of Bakhmut is nearly complete. They have Russian forces in Chasiv Yar (they’re not) as well as occupying Orikhovo-Vasylivka (also nope). Actual movement on the ground appears to be minimal. Ukraine is not only still operating all the way out at the eastern end of Bakhmut, they’re counterattacking Wagner positions in the surrounding area. The video below looks to be on the extreme northeastern edge of Bakhmut. [video at the link]
Russia can draw lines on maps all day, but that doesn’t make it so. You have to feel sorry for Russian kids who are going to grow up believing this ****. [map at the link]
The new map of Russia, already in stores and soon – in the classrooms. So disgusting and so patently absurd – many “Russian” territories are not even controlled by the Russian forces. Orwellian.
Another Russian Su-25 was just reported shot down near Bakhmut, apparently with a MANPADS. That’s the third one this week. The plane appears to have plowed into the ground northeast of the city. […]
Oggie @88, thanks for the additional information. That makes sense.
More Ukraine update:
Who thinks Russia is “prepared to go on the offensive?” The New York Times does. And they think that Ukraine is also gearing up for large scale battle.
Russia, wary of the growing Ukrainian arsenal of Western-supplied weapons, is moving first.
Using tens of thousands of new conscripts in the hope of overwhelming Ukraine, its forces are attacking heavily fortified positions across bomb-scarred fields and through scorched forests in the East. They are looking for vulnerabilities, hoping to exploit gaps, and setting the stage for what Ukraine warns could be Moscow’s most ambitious campaign since the start of the war.
The article isn’t wrong in the sense that Russia is doing exactly this — sending tens of thousands of men shuttling around the line and staging assaults at various locations in hopes of finding that “weak spot” through which they can poke a fresh salient. They’re also not wrong about Ukraine assembling new units to initiate a counter offensive, but wanting to wait until more Western weapons arrive and units are back from training on new systems and tactics. [photo at the link]
Where the Times is overplaying this can be seen in the fields around Bakhmut. Even if Russia does find a place where they can advance, it doesn’t mean they’re going to spring across Ukraine and pounce on Kyiv. Their logistical issues have not evaporated. They’re still incapable of sustaining a large force far away from an occupied railhead. They’ve also still failed to generate anything that looks like combined arms tactics, limiting their advance to grinding artillery tactics. That might change when the weather supports greater flexibility for armored movements, but unsupported tank advances have long been the best way to dispose of tanks.
Ukraine is also not prepared at the moment. They took Kharkiv […] ran to a near halt when it met stiff resistance around Lyman. Right now, they’re buckled down by the same constraints that are limiting Russian movements, and Ukraine has also not yet demonstrated large-scale combined tactics in the field. The best thing Ukraine has done all winter comes in not giving into the desire to order an all out assault on Svatove or Kreminna, resulting in the kind of defeats Russia is currently experiencing.
Right now, both militaries may be massing forces in different locations, but neither seems capable of conducting a coordinated large scale attack — including the part where you have to sustain those forces after they punch a hole in enemy lines. Claims that Ukraine is about to mount a major assault on Zaporizhzhia seem especially tenuous in light of all the defensive work Russia has been doing in that region.
It’s understandable that Russia is scared of incoming Western gear and of the forces Ukraine is training on effective tactics to use that equipment in combined arms warfare. They should be scared. It’s not clear that Russia can do anything about it.
t has grown increasingly manifest over the past decade that our corporate media overlords have discovered that dividing the nation with ‘culture war’ narratives and misinformation is the road to profitability. Fox News pioneered the model, only to be superseded in recent years by social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, whose profit-driven push for “engagement” has ensured that outrageous lies and smears have become the coin of the realm of public discourse, and radicalization and organization by right-wing extremists an accepted norm.
Twitter under Elon Musk has become the apotheosis of this model. While Musk has welcomed back to the platform an array of banned accounts—white nationalists, COVID disinformation artists, conspiracists, and a variety of far-right trolls—and helped generate radicalization and violence, a new report shows that Twitter is reeling in millions of advertising dollars through these accounts thanks to their massive “engagement”—and ads from companies like Apple and Amazon are now appearing next to content created by neo-Nazis, conspiracy theorists, and antisemites.
[…] analysis shows that 10 accounts have already amassed 2.5 billion tweet impressions since Twitter rolled out publicly visible impression-counts on Dec. 15, 2022, putting them on track to reach 20 billion impressions over the course of a year. […]
The top 10 influencers studied by the CCDH: Andrew Tate, currently under arrest in Romania on human-trafficking charges. Tate is a notorious misogynist who says rape victims “bear some responsibility” for being raped. Tate, who was a successful kickboxer, peddles the idea that men need to live up to their true “alpha” form, and says he believes men have gotten too soft.
Robert Malone, a COVID-denialist doctor who claims, among other things, that the COVID vaccines are driving up rates of insanity. He also claims that the “science is settled” that the vaccines “are not working”.
Andrew Anglin, the notorious neo-Nazi who founded the alt-right website Daily Stormer. Anglin is currently a federal fugitive on a federal warrant regarding the millions he owes following a lawsuit filed by the victims of trolling campaign he organized in Montana.
Gateway Pundit, the far-right conspiracist news site run by Jim Hoft, widely regarded as “the dumbest man on the internet.” Hoft’s site has long hosted a ceaseless array of disinformation, which lately have included election-denialist claims that the 2022 election was stolen from Republicans. GP also features climate denial and COVID misinformation.
Emerald Robinson, the onetime Newsmax reporter embedded in the White House Press Corps who was sacked for saying that COVID vaccines let authorities track people with a satanic bioluminescent marker. […]
Rogan O’Handley, a host for the far-right One America News (OAN), who refused to show viewers any footage of the Jan. 6 committee hearings, calling it a “clown show” and “unconstitutional.” He also recently amplified claims by vaccine conspiracist that Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin’s heart attack was caused by vaccines.
Stew Peters, one of the chief progenitors of the anti-vaxxer “Died Suddenly” conspiracy theory, which claims that thousands of people are suddenly keeling over as a result of the COVID vaccine.
Peter McCullough, a Texas doctor who was disavowed by Baylor Medical Center after he spread misinformation about the vaccines—and who cited a bogus “study” to claim that hundreds of European athletes had died suddenly after being vaccinated.
Ronnie Steven “Rizza” Islam, a Scientologist and internet personality who claimed that “China has recovered without using vaccines” and denounced “wicked government-sponsored health assassination through strategically placed liquor stores, low-grade GMO food in stores and fluoridated water.” He also regularly posts antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric.
Anthime Gionet, known since his days as leading alt-right figure as “Baked Alaska,” is a white supremacist internet personality who was present for multiple violent far-right protests, including the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. He not only was present for the Jan. 6 insurrection, but invaded the Capitol and participated in the vandalization of Nancy Pelosi’s office (for which he has been sentenced).
[…] ads for such major national brands as Apple TV, the NFL, and Fiverr appeared next to content from the 10 extremist influencers on its list
[…] antisemitic accounts, as Media Matters notes, “are also subscribed to Twitter Blue, the paid subscription service introduced by Musk that’s been a boon for scammers, misinformers, and hate speech. Musk recently stated that Twitter Blue accounts will be able to share revenue ‘that appear in their reply threads’.”
[…] Our research shows that there is a depressingly banal answer to why Elon Musk would reinstate the accounts of self-professed Nazis, disinformation actors, misogynists and homophobes—it’s highly profitable […] Just 10 of these reinstated bad actors will generate billions of Twitter views, all of which Elon Musk can sell to household brands and advertisers, such as Apple, Amazon, and the NFL. Brands’ ads are appearing right next to Nazi-level hate and lies that can kill […]
ravensays
The result of this is that each of these days has come not just with astounding losses of men, but almost equally staggering losses of equipment. Since Tuesday, Ukrainian forces have destroyed 36 Russian tanks. Twenty five tanks were lost in two days.
These are unsustainable levels of loss.
“These are unsustainable levels of loss.”
We’ve been hearing this for a long time.
So far it isn’t evident in the Russian attacks.
We also saw this in Vietnam. The daily body count, much of which was made up.
Still the Viet Cong and NVA took heavy losses, maybe a million total.
And they just kept coming.
I wouldn’t bet on time being on Russia’s side though.
This is genocide.
The Ukrainians have no place to go and every reason to keep on fighting to the end.
Two outlets tracking reactions to Tuesday’s State of the Union address show that President Joe Biden’s speech was received well by roughly seven in 10 Americans while also moving public opinion in his direction. In fact, both outlets found that Biden’s appeal to the country moved the greater public, along with independents and soft partisans in his direction by roughly 20 points or even more.
CNN’s poll found that a 72% majority of Americans reacted positively to Biden’s address, with the percentage of viewers who said Biden’s policies would move the country in the right direction increasing from 52% before the speech to 71% after the speech.
[…] Here are some other Navigator takeaways from the soft partisan and independent swing voters:
Confidence in Biden’s ability to handle the economy made a net 42-point improvement as he listed his accomplishments. “Voters reacted positively when he mentioned taxing the rich, job creation & low unemployment.”
Infrastructure proved to be one of the most popular elements of Biden’s address, with net confidence in him improving 38 points. “Dial ratings peaked when Biden referenced replacing lead pipes in 10M homes.”
Health care was already one of Biden’s highest-rated issues entering the speech at 48%; but it increased to 58% after the speech. “Voters overwhelmingly reacted positively to the announcement that insulin costs are capped to $35/mo for seniors.”
From a polling perspective, it’s difficult to find many, if any, downsides to President Biden’s 2023 State of the Union address. It was about as good a performance as one could hope for and probably even better than many had hoped for. […]
A 25-year-old activist has ousted an incumbent who had backing from the state’s top party leaders to become the new chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party.
Anderson Clayton, the Person County Democratic Party chair and president of the state party chairs’ association, was elected Saturday to a two-year term as party chair by the N.C. Democratic Party’s Executive Committee. Clayton defeated Bobbie Richardson, 73, a former state lawmaker who had become the N.C. Democratic Party’s first Black chair in 2021…
Under its new Republican leadership, the 118th Congress’ judiciary committee may choose to start each hearing with the pledge ― an amendment to the rules put forth by Gaetz, who said it allowed members to invite “inspirational constituents” to lead it.
The first honor went to Corey Beekman, a retired National Guard member accused of killing a man in 2019 whose case has not gone to trial.
Gaetz did not mention this aspect of his guest’s backstory. Beekman led the pledge in his military dress uniform on Feb. 1…
A lawyer in Brazil died after his gun was discharged by an MRI scanner and shot him.
Leandro Mathias de Novaes had taken his mother to get an MRI at the Laboratorio Cura in São Paulo on January 18 when the freak accident took place, according to CNN Brasil.
The lawyer, 40, reportedly neglected to inform hospital staff about his concealed weapon, despite being instructed to remove all metal objects before entering the MRI room.
The magnetic field from the MRI scanner pulled the firearm from his waistband, causing it to fire and shoot him in the stomach.
He was taken to hospital, where he survived for several weeks before dying of his injuries on February 6.
The attorney was known for his pro-gun views, which he frequently shared on Instagram and TikTok…
ravensays
“Russian failures at Vuhledar show poor training of Russian conscripts – ISW”
I’m sure that is true. A lot of the mobiks were given more or less no training and sent to the front.
I’m also sure their officers aren’t all that good either. They generally stay way behind the front lines.
The New Voice of Ukraine
Russian failures at Vuhledar show poor training of Russian conscripts – ISW
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Sat, February 11, 2023 at 5:57 AM PST·2 min read
Analysts note that the recently released footage of the Russian assault near Vuhledar has become “the latest point of neuralgia in the Russian information space.”
Read also: Putin may have overestimated Russian military’s own capabilities to capture Donbas by March — ISW
“Russian milbloggers (military bloggers) claimed that the same Russian commanders who oversaw highly attritional assaults by the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade on Pavlivka (near Vuhledar) in November 2022 are responsible for the effort to capture Vuhledar, and argued that the video illustrates that these commanders continue to make the same costly mistakes,” ISW analysis said.
Analysts add that one of the Russian bloggers separately stated that the Eastern Grouping of Forces commander, Lieutenant General Rustam Muradov, is responsible for Russian tactical failures around Vuhledar, and another blogger even called for public trials to punish high-ranking officers who repeatedly fail on the battlefield, arguing that Russian forces will continue to repeat the same mistakes if these commanders remain in their positions.
Read also: UK intelligence lists typical problems of mobilized Russian troops
Analyzing footage that caused outrage in the Russian military blogosphere, the ISW noted that “these Russian forces engaging in highly dysfunctional tactics that are far more indicative of the fact that the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade is likely comprised of poorly trained mobilized personnel, (rather) than of poor command.”
Read also: Mobilized Russian soldiers sent to frontline without food, equipment, says Luhansk governor
“Russian milbloggers likely blamed Russian commanders to downplay the fact that the systemic poor training of Russian mobilized personnel will likely continue to result in similar tactical failures throughout Ukraine,” ISW wrote.
Analysts concluded that Russian milbloggers have routinely accused Russian commanders of being responsible for tactical failures throughout the war, and are likely to shift the overall Russian military failure in Ukraine from the Russian military as an institution onto individuals.
Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
ravensays
Tweet
James @JamesPower91
BREAKING: It’s official
@elonmusk & @SpaceX
have now removed Starlink for military use to the Ukrainian Army!! He sure seems to be siding a lot with the Russians lately, makes you wonder his agenda…
SpaceX has just prohibited the Ukraine military from using Starlink.
I’m not even sure how legal this is.
It is however, extremely scummy.
It is quite clear that Musk has gone completely pro-Russian and pro Russian genocide.
SpaceX has received billions of dollars from the US government and US military. Plus they use US government launch facilities at Cape Canaveral and Vendenberg. Plus, the US government is one of their biggest customers.
I’m sure right now in the US government and US military, there are a lot of generals who are extremely angry at Musk and SpaceX. And trying to figure out how to stop dealing with them. This is called biting the hand that feeds and then trying to claw their eyes out. Not smart.
We can’t have our national security depend on a flaky idiot like Elon Musk. Musk isn’t even a native US citizen, he is from South Africa.
ravensays
Scott Kelly @StationCDRKelly
·
Follow
.@elonmusk Ukraine desperately needs your continued support. Please restore the full functionality of your Starlink satellites. Defense from a genocidal invasion is not an offensive capability. It’s survival. Innocent lives will be lost. You can help. Thank you.
Scott Kelly says it as well as any.
It won’t do any good.
Scott Kelly is a former astronaut. His identical twin brother is the Senator from Arizona.
The US government should seriously consider not doing business with Elon Musk any more.
He isn’t reliable and he has aligned himself with our enemy, Russia.
PS Twitter has been overrrun with Russian trolls. It is becoming useless. No surprise.
ravensays
I’m not the only one who Musk has alienated.
He is rapidly alienating most of his customer base, including the Pentagon. The Defense Department, meanwhile, confirmed it’s looking for other satcoms to do business with.
One company is the Bill Gates associated Kymeta “The biggest difference between our terminals and the Starlink terminals, besides the fact that we would never shut them off, is our terminals work on the move,” Marks said.
You can tell the US military is pretty ticked off. They aren’t used to having a supporter of their enemies as one of their suppliers in the USA, like Musk and Starlink.
They are going to get another supplier but it won’t happen fast.
SpaceX has 4,000 satellites in low earth orbit and getting that much hardware and launching it takes a lot of time. They were talking about 2027.
Oct. 19, 2022, 2:32 AM
Rivals of Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite communications are gaining attention from the Pentagon as Musk draws criticism for Starlink’s unavailability in contested areas like Ukraine.
Musk has threatened to cut off financial support for Starlink service in Ukraine, an essential communications tool to combat Russia’s invasion. The Defense Department, meanwhile, confirmed it’s looking for other satcoms to do business with.
One competitor to Starlink is Kymeta, a Bill Gates-funded company that has donated and sold its technology to Ukraine. Kymeta’s chief development officer Bill Marks said Musk’s threats to cut off service in Ukraine and limit availability in contested areas like Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014 in a move seen by the UN as a violation of international law, were “egregious.”
“I’m sure there’s blood on his hands for that,” he said.
Starlink did not respond to several requests for comment.
Walter Berger, Kymeta president and co-CEO, said Gates’ continued interest in the company is due to the technology’s future role in “democratizing connectivity” and support of larger initiatives like fixing rural broadband silos.
The US military expected to see this kind of technology in 2027, Marks added.
“It’s disrupted them and they’re trying to figure out ‘How do you field that five years before we expected to see it?’,” he said. “And then you have commanders who are going, ‘I don’t care what you expected, I want them now.’”
DOD ‘Backbone’
Kymeta currently works with the DOD and is in talks with other NATO countries about its antenna that’s held up in various ground conflicts over the last two years, Marks said. The company positioning itself as a better and more reliable satcom provider than Starlink, a message aimed directly at the Pentagon.
A 2021 policy paper from the Mitchell Institute, an aerospace industry think tank, said satcom services could become “the backbone of DOD’s networks.” They are destined to become part of the Pentagon-wide Joint All-Domain Command and Control, or JADC2, initiative to connect sensors and communication across all branches of the military.
“The reason the US military likes our technology is that if you were an adversary and you do something to compromise one of the satellites, our antenna will switch to another satellite. And it does it all within less than a second,” Marks said. “The soldiers would’ve never lost connectivity.”
The military agencies that Kymeta has spoken with want flexibility, redundancy, and security. Marks tells them that Kymeta is modular—it can hook up to low-earth orbit and geosynchronous equatorial orbit satellites as well as cellular networks. He makes a point of noting Starlink works as a single network system.
“The biggest difference between our terminals and the Starlink terminals, besides the fact that we would never shut them off, is our terminals work on the move,” Marks said.
Kymeta has classified and unclassified contracts with several Pentagon departments and civilian agencies. The federal government has reported more than $6.6 million in unclassified contracts with the company.
Kymeta also supports maritime and industrial vehicles used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and firefighters battling wildfires. The company announced a broadband partnership with OneWeb’s low-earth orbit satellite network. The LEO terminal is set to launch in early 2023.
To contact the reporter on this story: Patty Nieberg in Washington at
ravensays
“Kymeta’s chief development officer Bill Marks said…“I’m sure there’s blood on his hands for that,” he said.
From the article above.
I’m getting the impression that Musk is about to find out how obnoxious and destructive you can get before people a lot more powerful decide enough is enough.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Appearing on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, has cast doubt on whether it would be able to supply Ukraine with fighters jets.
Duda said sending F-16 aircraft would be a “very serious decision” that was “not easy to take”.
The latest defence intelligence update from the UK Ministry of Defence says that over the past two weeks, Russia has likely suffered its highest rate of casualties since the first week of the invasion of Ukraine.
The update, posted to Twitter, continues:
The Ukrainian General Staff release daily statistics on Russian casualties. Although Defence Intelligence cannot verify Ukraine’s methodology, the trends the data illustrate are likely accurate.
The mean average for the last seven days was 824 casualties per day, over four times the rate reported over June-July 2022. Ukraine also continues to suffer a high attrition rate.
The uptick in Russian casualties is likely due to a range of factors including lack of trained personnel, coordination, and resources across the front – this is exemplified in Vuhledar and Bakhmut.
Russian forces over the weekend continued to shell Ukrainian cities amid a grinding push to seize more land in the east of the country, the Associated Press reports.
One person was killed and one more was wounded on Sunday morning by the shelling of Nikopol, a city in the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, Governor Serhii Lysak reported. The shelling damaged four residential buildings, a vocational school and a water treatment facility.
In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, one person was wounded after three Russian S-300 missiles hit infrastructure facilities overnight, regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said.
Ukrainian forces also downed five drones — four Shahed killer drones and one Orlan-10 reconnaissance drone — over the partially occupied Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions on Saturday evening, Kyiv’s military reported.
The attacks come as Russian forces push to take over more land in the eastern industrial heartland of Donbas, comprised of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Ukrainian and Western officials have warned that Russia could launch a new, broad offensive there to try to turn the tide of the conflict as the war approaches the one-year mark.
But Ukrainian officials say that Moscow is having trouble mounting such an offensive.
“They are having big problems with a big offensive,” Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told Ukrainian television on Saturday night.
“They have begun their offensive, they’re just not saying they have, and our troops are repelling it very powerfully. The offensive that they planned is already gradually underway. But (it is) not the offensive they were counting on,” Danilov said.
A US-based thinktank noted that it is also Russia’s pro-Kremlin military bloggers who question Moscow’s ability to launch a broad offensive in Ukraine. They “continue to appear demoralised at the Kremlin’s prospects for executing a major offensive,” the Institute for the Study of War said in its latest report.
British Intelligence reveals reasons for Russia’s heavy losses
UK Defence Intelligence believes that the increase in Russian casualties is likely due to a range of factors, including a lack of trained personnel, coordination, and resources across the front, as seen in Vuhledar and Bakhmut. Likely to get worse rather than better as the Russians lose more soldiers and weapons.
British Intelligence reveals reasons for Russia’s heavy losses
EUROPEAN PRAVDA — SUNDAY, 12 FEBRUARY 2023, 09:38
Russia has likely suffered its heaviest losses since the first week of its invasion of Ukraine over the past two weeks.
Source: UK Defence Intelligence, as European Pravda reports
Details: UK Intelligence points to the Ukrainian General Staff’s daily reports on Russian military casualties, noting that they cannot verify the Ukrainian methodology. They emphasise, however, that the trends illustrated by this data are likely accurate.
The mean average over the past seven days was 824 Russian casualties per day, which is four times higher than in June-July 2022. British Intelligence emphasises that Ukraine also continues to suffer from a high attrition rate.
UK Defence Intelligence believes that the increase in Russian casualties is likely due to a range of factors, including a lack of trained personnel, coordination, and resources across the front, as seen in Vuhledar and Bakhmut.
Earlier, British Intelligence expressed its assumptions as to why Wagner’s Group is halting recruitment of prison inmates.
Apparently the War of the Worlds has begun. Marjorie Taylor Greene is quite alarmed, what with Montana having nuclear missile silos & stuff. Blah blah something Americans demand answers & so forth.
Of course, the questions being asked are straight out of UFO unsolved mystery TV–Are aliens preparing to take out our nuclear missile defense to open the way to an attack on Earth? Is the American government hiding it to avoid panic, or even worse, in collusion with the aliens? Some experts believe…
lumipunasays
Raven at 87: Interesting!
In terms of the height of this ancient (and perhaps slam-dunking) penguin, the first author of the study, Daniel Ksepka of Connecticut’s Bruce Museum, tweeted out an image of what he calls the team’s “best guess.” It looks to be about the size of a human (if not bigger), but thankfully it seems much smaller than the monstrous penguin predicted to inhabit Earth post-humanity by paleontologist Dougal Dixon in 1981. Dixon imagined a 12 meter (nearly 40 foot) behemoth. Yikes.
…
The rocks themselves were identified as being about 57 million years old, and the fossil species are thought to have lived between 59.5 million and 55.5 million years ago.
This timeline falls within the late Paleocene era, and more specifically, it’s roughly 5 million to 10 million years after the end-Cretaceous extinction, when the asteroid Chicxulub wiped out the dinosaurs. In a way, this means the giant penguin might’ve had more peace than you’d expect for an ancient animal — unperturbed on a more-or-less dino-free Earth.
Crucially, it seems that these large penguins evolved to fill a niche left open by mosasaurs, and whatever other large marine predators went extinct at the end of Cretaceous. They did before whales evolved, but eventually, the largest penguins were outcompeted by cetaceans.
Dougal Dixon’s fictional giant penguins had become fully aquatic by evolving vivipary, like mammals. It seems this isn’t easy for birds and other archosaurs, and probably the size of early penguins was limited by their need to walk on land to lay and brood eggs. Though who knows what might’ve have happened by now if there were no whales…
Turkey’s construction codes meet current earthquake-engineering standards, at least on paper, but they are rarely enforced, explaining why thousands of buildings toppled over or pancaked down onto the people inside.
ravensays
The attacks on libraries continues.
The right wingnuts have a new hate, books and libraries. “Sen. Heather Cloud, R-Turkey Creek, speaks about a bill she introduced to restrict minors’ access to certain library materials.”
There is so much wrong with these laws that it is hard to know where to start. It’s just cuckoo right wingnut complaining.
.1. The libraries aren’t in charge of your children!!!
You are as a parent.
Asking the librarians to supervise a thousand or so children is unreasonable.
The bill would also set new standards for material reviews that would give appointed local library boards the final say on what is sexually explicit, rather than libraries.
.2. This is mindless censorship. What they are calling obscene is material most people wouldn’t even notice as obscene. And, who is going to appoint these local censorship bodies?
.3. Louisiana must have forgotten that cable TV and the internet exists. Just about any kid can use the internet and see sexually explicit material that is way beyond anything a public library would carry.
And, I’m sure if the kids want to, they do exactly that.
The real targets here are LGBTQI kids and adults and Trans children and adults.
Critics say bill to restrict library materials is a solution in search of a problem
BY: PIPER HUTCHINSON – FEBRUARY 12, 2023 6:00 AM
A blonde woman stands behind a podium bearing a sign that reads “protecting innocence” to her left stand another blonde woman and a white man
Sen. Heather Cloud, R-Turkey Creek, speaks about a bill she introduced to restrict minors’ access to certain library materials. Rep. Julie Emerson, R-Carencro, center, plans to introduce a similar bill. Attorney General Jeff Landry, right, is supporting both bills.
A bill the Louisiana Legislature will consider seeks to restrict minors’ access to certain library materials. Critics are concerned the proposal will violate the First Amendment and weaponize the state board that approves funding for library construction projects.
Senate Bill 7, sponsored by Sen. Heather Cloud, R-Turkey Creek, would require libraries to set up a card system that would allow parents or guardians to designate whether their children are allowed to check out certain materials. The bill would also set new standards for material reviews that would give appointed local library boards the final say on what is sexually explicit, rather than libraries.
The bill has the support of Attorney General Jeff Landry, the current Republican frontrunner for this fall’s governor’s race.
Cloud’s bill also sets out financial penalties for libraries that do not comply. It forbids the State Bond Commission from approving the financial packages for any construction projects that would benefit a noncompliant library. The proposal would also allow, but not require, local governments to withhold funding from libraries.
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Free speech
Katie Schwartzmann, director of Tulane’s First Amendment Law Clinic, laid out several concerns with the bill in an email to the Illuminator.
“This bill addresses a problem that does not exist,” Schwartzmann said. “Our state obscenity and material harmful to minors laws already protect children from inappropriate sexual content.”
Schwartzmann pointed out the bill does not include any guidance for preserving constitutionally protecting material, which gives unelected volunteer appointees the role of deciding what information their community can access.
It’s about limiting the scope of information and literature that’s available to the public.
– Katie Schwartzmann, director of Tulane’s First Amendment Law Clinic
“In Louisiana, censors have tried to ban books that even mention same-sex relationships and sexual identity,” Schwartzmann said. “This bill invites more of that and provides a process for government actors to decide what ideas can be in our library books without limits.”
Schwartzmann said forcing public employees to make content-based decisions about the free exchange of ideas with no guidance will lead to unconstitutional discrimination.
To illustrate her point, Schwartzmann pointed out that, at face value, the bill could remove the Bible, which contains passages that describe explicit sexual activity, rape, incest and abortion, from libraries.
“This bill is not about what it purports to be,” Schwartzmann said. “It does not simply regulate obscene materials to children. If a book is obscene, it already can be removed. It’s about limiting the scope of information and literature that’s available to the public.”
In a statement, the Louisiana Library Association also raised concerns about the constitutional implications of Cloud’s bill.
“Any efforts by groups or individuals to manipulate library collections towards a particular viewpoint will always be resisted by libraries,” the statement said. “This is our long-standing defense of the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment. When it becomes clear that efforts are being made to dehumanize a particular portion of the population by stigmatizing their voices or restricting access to information or ideas, the library and its supporters will always protect the basic human and civil rights of the community it serves.”
Landry has challenged criticisms that he is violating the First Amendment.
“Nowhere in this report, we call for censoring or banning of books. This is about what’s appropriate for children,” Landry said at a Tuesday press conference on the topic.
Money talks
Cloud’s bill includes a big stick to keep libraries in line. Forbidding the State Bond Commission from taking up any matters that benefit noncompliant libraries could mean their construction projects could be denied.
This wouldn’t be the first time that the Bond Commission has been used to punish a locality for a political position the state didn’t like.
After Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022, the State Bond Commission withheld its approval for funding a critical New Orleans project after the city adopted a resolution asking city entities not to enforce the state’s abortion ban. Landry led the charge to hold back the money and had support from Republican lawmakers on the commission.
At the time, Treasurer John Schroder, the commission’s chairman who is also running for governor, criticized Landry’s efforts to politicize the commission’s work.
“We’re playing politics with this. I don’t like it,” Schroder said at a commission meeting “This is a bad, bad road to get on.”
Months later, the Bond Commission approved the allocation with Landry remaining a holdout.
The Illuminator reached Schroder by email and asked if he would have a similar response to this effort to insert politics into Bond Commission decisions.
“Politics aside, if the Legislature passes a law and the governor signs it then, of course, I will abide by it,” he said. “That’s upholding the oath I swore as a public official.”
New Orleans City Council President JP Morrell, who served on the Bond Commission during his time as a legislator, argued that not only is it morally wrong for its members to take a political stand, it’s also fiscally irresponsible.
“When the Bond Commission kind of weighs in to try and blackmail jurisdictions into adopting their social causes and social positions, in order to do something that should just be a transaction that is backed with the full faith and credit of the state but funded by local government, it’s really problematic,” Morrell said.
“Markets across the country and internationally pay attention to when Louisiana weaponizes the Bond Commission for social crusades,” Morrell said, “and what it does is it makes our markets seem volatile.”
Morrell said the Bond Commission used to be a neutral space and Republicans are setting a bad precedent by politicizing its work. This could come back to bite them if the political pendulum swings the other way, he added.
With Russia’s failing big winter offensive racking up massive losses the last few days, why don’t we check in on the tankies and see how they’re coping? […] As a reminder, a tankie is someone who believes that imperialism is bad, and only the United States can be imperialist. Everything else, and I mean everything, is the fault of the United States. […]
Let’s start here at home, with New York assemblyman Ron Kim, from NY City. The Democratic socialist did a lot of good during COVID times by exposing former NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s coverup of nursing home deaths, and state-policy wise, appears to be on the right side of most things. But he’s a tankie.
The fact that you can’t question the war in Ukraine as a Democrat is a clear sign we are susceptible to authoritarianism in this country.
There is a real problem when you think “people will criticize my stupid-ass idea” is somehow akin to “authoritarianism.” In Russia, flashing a blank piece of paper is construed as war criticism and leads to arrest and years of imprisonment. That’s what authoritarianism looks like.
No one is saying Kim can’t “ask a question.” He can ask it! Literally no one is stopping him. So why the melodramatic “woe is me” act?
In replies to that tweet, several people pointed to the letter by the House Progressive Caucus demanding peace talks, and how they were forced to back off after receiving fierce blowback. But, did any of them get jailed for releasing the letter? Fined? No! They simply decided they didn’t want to defend the indefensible! It’s not as if the Progressive Caucus is afraid to take tough positions. They get criticized all the time and they hold firm without retracting. But in this case, they were wrong, and they made the (wise) determination that it was better to retract the letter than to try and stand by it. That’s not “authoritarianism,” that’s just politics.
Not to mention, in our modern discourse, the “I’m just asking questions” dodge is about the lamest piece-of-shit misdirection for spewing bullshit. It’s what the QAnon and MAGA crowds say when challenged on their disinformation, conspiracy theories, and outright lies. It’s how Fox News tries to spread its fake “news” even if there’s nothing there. “People are asking questions about Hunter Biden’s laptop.” What’s wrong with “asking questions”? Are you afraid of what the answers might be?
It’s all such horse crap. I love this response:
You absolutely can question it. Several House Ds even published a letter questioning it. It’s just that other people might criticize you for it, and if that’s your problem, then the only thing you don’t like about authoritarianism is that you’re not the authority.
We are susceptible in this country to authoritarianism, that’s not wrong. People support Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. That’s all the evidence you need. But if Kim wants to cozy up to Vladimir Putin and his war of imperialism and extermination, then by all means, he’s free to do so! But he needs to stop whining about how authoritarians won’t let him speak […] and be firm enough in his convictions to deal with the criticism from people who don’t think rape and murder are okay.
[…] Imagine writing this [Tweet from Caitlin Johnstone claiming that “The right looks for converts, the left looks for traitors.”], pretending Donald Trump and his ilk don’t exist. Conservatives literally walk around calling each other RINOs (Republicans In Name Only), but sure, the right doesn’t look for traitors. […] the fight for purity isn’t something relegated to just some ideological groups.
[…] Hinkle isn’t a tankie, he’s a reactionary white supremacist. Donbass Devushka is a tankie. [Tweet from Jackson Hinkle, retweeted by Donbass Devushka, claiming that, “the US government just perpetrated one of the most consequential terror attacks in human history: the explosion of the Nord Stream pipelines.”] And seriously, “one of the most consequential terror attack in human history” 🤣🤣🤣. How many people died? Zero. Okay … Well, what about economic damage? Well, you see, Russia had already cut off gas supplies to Germany. So doing the math … carry the one … the economic damage was … zero.
[…] jumping on the Seymour Hersh story claiming the United States destroyed the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline between the Russia and Germany.
Here is Snopes on that story:
Hersh uses the testimony of one person, mixed alongside that aforementioned historical or political commentary, as evidence for every significant aspect of the alleged conspiracy […]
This same source, evidently, is knowledgeable about internal CIA, State Department, and deep sea diver politics in addition to the specific deliberations held by a secret interagency panel. He is, in Hersh’s reporting, the sole basis for claims of Norway’s knowledge of and involvement in the operation […]
This story, when deconstructed, is merely a pile of purported second-hand information allegedly collected by someone connected in some unknown way to deliberations of a highly secret, multi-agency task force. Such a story falls prey to the same criticisms of other more recent work published by Hersh, which has relied on similarly questionable anonymous sources.
If the U.S. did conspire to destroy the Nord Stream pipeline, Hersh’s reporting has not proved that case. Hersh has, instead, made a very successful blog post that essentially transcribes a compelling story someone unknown to the general public told him.
If you didn’t catch Snopes’ subtle sarcasm, the idea that a single person would know about deliberations inside the CIA, State Department, the planning room at the unit of divers who supposedly carried out the mission, and Norwegian internal deliberations, is ludicrous on its face. Even if his source was CIA Director Bill Burns, would he know or care about the intricate internal politics of the deep sea diver community?
In any case, there’s a reason why real journalism requires multiple corroborating sources, and Hersh doesn’t even bother to try. Blumenthal, who once fancied himself a journalist, doesn’t care. Some random guy, who knows everything, told him some shit. It was a cool story, bro.
[Snipped details, tweets and video of some tankies claiming that most of the Russian vehicles retreated intact from the assault near Ugledar, aka Vuhledar, see comment 89. Not true. That claim did not age well. Debunking video at the link.]
Here’s video of all the failed attacks and the aftermath. New video from Vuhledar shows that whatever is left of that Russian naval industry has run out of armor, and are now doing Bakhmut-style human-wave attacks: [video at the link]
It’s not just that the Russians With Attitude account was wrong, we all get stuff wrong in the fog of war. It’s just how confidently wrong it was. They never hedge or say things like “this video doesn’t support their claims.” They decide they know the truth, and whether it has any bearing to reality is irrelevant.
Meanwhile, tankies are the dumbest people in the world. [Tweet claiming that Belarus’ lack of access to the sea is a geopolitical cruelty, and asking Lithuania and Latvia to “resolve this by donating your coastlines.”]
Mongolia’s lack of access to the sea is a geopolitical cruelty. [map at the link]
Russia and China — it’s time you resolve this by donating your coastlines.
Seriously, what is it with these supposed “anti-imperialists” who are obsessed with enabling Russian (and Chinese) imperialism?
Now, imagine being so far gone, that even when real Russian nationalists tell you the truth, you refuse to believe it. [Tweet at the link] Prigozhin is the war criminal CEO of Wagner mercenaries (many recruited directly from prison) spreading death, torture, and mayhem throughout Africa, Syria, and Ukraine. He was a Kremlin caterer known as “Putin’s chef” who somehow ended up building his private army, one that is now in open conflict (both rhetorical, and reportedly in the field) with Russia’s defense ministry.
He is also the architect of the strategy of sending waves of unprotected infantry until they eventually overwhelm defensive positions, forcing Ukrainian retreats to the next prepared defensive line. His troops have made some territorial progress around Bakhmut in the last two months (after 8 months of nothing), but at the costs of thousands of dead per kilometer gained. For a Russia desperate for any victory, they think the blood sacrifice is worth it. But it’s obviously unsustainable, and Prigozhin, who has been cut off from further prison recruitment, knows it.
Therefore, Prigozhin says it’ll take two years to conquer the Donbas, three to the Dneiper. At current rates of advance, that timetable is ridiculously optimistic. It would likely take decades, at a cost of hundreds of thousands more dead. […] But at the very least Prigozhin acknowledges that any dreams of a quick Russian victory are long gone. Any further advances will be attritional and, given Russia’s inability to wage efficient war, time consuming. [Snipped text from tankies claiming that Prigozhin was joking, as well as a tweet from Glenn Greenwald painting Ukrainian’s as Nazis.]
To hear the Glenn Greenwald-Putin apologists, everything is Azov and it’s all just a bunch of neo-Nazis running around Ukraine. The fact that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish is an inconvenient fact that must go unmentioned, of course.
That Azov was founded as an anti-Russian resistance movement in 2014 by white Nazi nationalists is true. No one disputes that. But as CNN notes, Azov’s military and political wings parted ways in 2016, as the military unit was assimilated into Ukraine’s National Guard. The political wing, the National Corps party, is a fringe movement, garnering only 2.15% of the vote in the 2019 parliamentary elections. Glenn’s idea that they were “the most dominant” group in Ukraine is laughable on its face. In European terms, where far right movements have much more steam in places like France, Italy (they’re in charge!), and Germany, this is a pittance of a showing.
There are likely still Nazis in the unit, just like we have them in our own armed forces. But the Azov regiment has been fully assimilated into the Ukrainian army and dramatically expanded during this war, from regiment to brigade—a threefold increase. The unit gained legendary status for its early-war defense of Mariupol, helping recruitment among rank and file Ukrainians (well beyond its founding neo-Nazi roots). Since then, it has played a major part in the liberation of Kharkiv oblast, and is currently in Bakhmut.
Of course, no one is “worshipping” Azov. Greenwald is so melodramatic. But no one can doubt that their defense of Mariupol was the stuff of legends, and that has bred respect.
[Snipped tweet and video claiming that women in Kabul, Afghanistan are “brainwashed sheep working for the CIA” […] “the behavior of these women would be condemned whether it’s in Afghanistan, Iran, China, or Russia.” The video shows women protesting after the Taliban banned female university education. Looks to me like Russian bots or propagandists working on Twitter.]
I mentioned a few days ago that political reporters remain way behind when it comes to seeing through the flimflam of Republicans’ schemes to cut or dismantle Social Security. I was reminded in a TPM Reader email a few mornings ago how often the press accounts of its financing itself remain trapped in GOP talking points. In X number of years, we hear again and again, Social Security will become “insolvent”.
But this isn’t true. At best, it’s a totally misleading way to describe how the federal government pays for things.
Social Security and Medicare are funded (almost entirely) by a payroll tax of approximately 15% on wage and salary income up to a statutory cap, which currently stands at $160,200. That is tax is split between the employer and the employee. That funds the two programs. A couple generations ago, Congress increased the tax to build up a surplus to pay for the benefits of the baby boom generation. That’s the “trust fund”. Social Security “lent” that extra money to the rest of the federal government, i.e., it purchased government bonds. Eventually that Trust Fund will run out of bonds to cash in. The current estimate is that that will happen in the mid-2030s. This is when Social Security supposedly become ‘insolvent”.
But that’s a meaningless term. The federal government has to pay its promised benefits and if they can’t all be paid by out of payroll taxes the remainder can and will be paid out of general revenues. This was actually the assumption about what would eventually happen back when the program was founded almost a century ago. (Look it up.)
This doesn’t mean it’s a non-issue. It means there will be funding gap and that’s just a budgetary issue to be resolved. It’s not ‘insolvent’. That’s just scare talk. Now, how can the funding gap be resolved? You could just pay the remainder out of general revenue (the general tax base of income, corporate, capital gains and other taxes that are not tied to any specific program). But there’s another more straightforward approach: just rejigger the payroll tax.
You could simply raise the payroll rate. But that’s a bad idea. One of the first articles I ever wrote as a working journalist – 25 years ago – was on this point: payroll taxes are really regressive. (The linked article says 2001 but it was actually published in 1998.) You’re paying about 7.5% on the first dollar you make up to $160,200. No deductions or anything. Every dollar. Most economists would say you’re actually also paying the employer side too since that’s money that goes to the cost of employing people that would otherwise go to the employee. So there’s a good argument that low and middle income workers are paying a flat tax of 15% on every dollar they make. It makes no sense to raise that rate. The simpler and more equitable solution is just to raise the cap.
It gets raised every year by a calculus tied to cost of living and related measures, sort of like an inverse cost of living adjustment. But I mean raise it to a higher level beyond the annual increase. There are various ways to do this. You can just raise the number from $160k to say $200k or $250k. Or, perhaps more equitably, you could leave the cap at $160k and have it kick in again starting at $500k. That way you put most of the burden on very high income earners.
Obviously there are a limitless number of ways you can do this. The point is that there are really basic budgetary changes that solve the problem – the problem being a larger share of retirees to younger workers. (Another way to help with this problem is to welcome more working age immigrants. But that’s a solution for another post.) Of course, you could just start cutting benefits – as Republicans want to do. But that’s a values question more than an economics one. Who should carry the burden of this shortfall, seniors on fixed incomes or the people getting rewarded most in the current economy. Income inequality is a key part of this equation on every front, both as a matter of equity and adjusting Social Security finances and also because rising income inequality has itself weakened Social Security financing. As more income has been pushed into the higher tax brackets, more income has been removed from the Social Security tax base.
The global point is that there’s no ‘insolvency’ or ‘bankruptcy’. That makes the whole thing sound like some looming crisis which it’s not.
In the USA the childcare crisis is an economic crisis that affects everyone.
[…] The United States is facing a growing child care crisis.
Its economic impact has more than doubled since 2018, rising to a staggering $122 billion annually in lost earnings, productivity and revenue last year. Meanwhile, the crisis itself threatens the future of the U.S.’s youngest minds and is hindering employment and educational advancement of the American workforce.
That’s according to a new report from the bipartisan Council for a Strong America. In comparison to the economic impact seen in 2022, in 2018 the toll was estimated at $57 billion per year. Both the pandemic and insufficient policy have exacerbated challenges, the report authors say.
[…] “This is not just a problem for individual parents and families. It’s a problem for all of us. It’s impacting the economy, and it’s impacting our communities,” said Hedgepeth.
[…] The crisis can be broken down into three key, interrelated challenges: affordability, accessibility and quality of care.
For infants, the average cost of center-based child care — or care provided in non-residential, commercial buildings — is more than in-state, public college tuition in 34 states and the District of Columbia […] the average national price of child care was around $10,600 each year.
Meanwhile, those in need of child care services are often young couples who may not have that much disposable income to spend […]
The steep price means lower income families, who are disproportionately families of color, often have limited access to services. Exacerbating the disparity, throughout the pandemic, more families of color faced child care closures than white families.
[…] When the pandemic struck, parents kept their kids home out of fear of contracting COVID-19. This led to centers temporarily closing and workers leaving the sector for jobs that posed fewer health risks or were higher paying. And once workers leave the industry for such positions, they may not return.
[…] “Nationwide, the workforce is 7 1/2 percent smaller than it was before COVID. So that’s a loss of about 80,000 providers,” […] just over half of U.S. residents live in child care deserts, or areas where there are more than three children under the age of 5 for every licensed child care slot.
[…] for children aged zero to three, providing educational care — not just supervision — is crucial.
“If we’re not stimulating those zero to three minds and growing the brain processing speed, then they arrive at 3k, 4k, and 5k, not ready to learn like their peers. They’re behind and they will probably stay behind pretty much for their whole academic career,” […]
Some businesses have taken it upon themselves to address child care affordability and accessibility gaps by securing slots in local centers for employees’ children or investing in onsite child care.
[…] The American Rescue Plan allotted $39 billion to states to address the crisis. States used the money to waive or reduce parental co-pays. The money also helped expand eligibility to more middle-class families to qualify for assistance.
[…] The federal relief is set to expire in 2024, prompting fears of a second wave of closures in the child care business.
[…“My biggest concern is really that long term issue of how we are going to stay competitive as a country with other countries that are doing more in terms of early childhood,” said McBride. […]
Another high-altitude object was shot down on Sunday afternoon, this one over Lake Huron, three U.S. officials confirmed to ABC News, marking the latest in a string of such incidents.
The object was shot down by a U.S. military aircraft, according to one of the officials.
A senior administration official said President Joe Biden directed that the object be shot down “out of an abundance of caution and at the recommendation of military leaders.”
This official said the object shot down was detected on radar over Montana on Saturday and was seen again on radar over Wisconsin and Michigan on Sunday.
The object was octagonal in structure, unmanned and traveling at about 20,000 feet, the official said. There is no indication of surveillance capabilities but the administration cannot rule that out…
From Wonkette’s coverage of the upcoming Super Bowl:
[…] On one QAnon message board, one user explains “If you thought the Grammy performance was bad, I can only imagine what we will see during the Super Bowl halftime show. Rihanna is a known member of illuminati, a witch, and a Satan worshiper. It’s no coincidence to me that a 7.9 magnitude earthquake hit just hours after the Grammys.” [JFC]
Another poster questioned this, asking “I know God has full power and control, but why would He strike another nation with earthquakes if they aren’t the ones who put on that satanic ceremony? Why not knock California out?” but that fool was quickly educated by people who understood that it was actually the Satanists themselves who did it, because they have that kind of power and also needed a human sacrifice.
“God probably didn’t have anything to do with the Earthquake. It may be HAARP-induced i.e. manmade. A vulnerable fault, a sacrifice – ritual.”
“The cabal has the means to create earthquakes, forest fires, manipulate weather. Then they blame it on climate change. They keep repeating the same formula.”
“Not a matter of God hitting it. Human sacrifice is a major role in satanic worship. This sacrifice is in the thousands.”
See, it all makes sense now.
The really fun thing about the Illuminati these days is that, as far as most of these people are concerned, it is largely made up entirely of people of color, the vast majority of them being music artists — Beyoncé and Jay-Z are in charge of everything, reportedly, but also John Legend and Chrissy Teigen are involved somehow as well. Mary J. Blige, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and everyone else who did the Superbowl halftime show last year? Also in the Illuminati. Katy Perry is also, reportedly, very involved with the Illuminati.
Unfortunately, some of our big Satanic plans will be thwarted this year, thanks to far-right craft store Hobby Lobby, which purchased a major ad during the Superbowl to tell people all about how Jesus just gets them. Even if they are rebels who will never ever be any good. Even if they are rebels who never ever do what they should. [videos at the link]
Despite Hobby Lobby’s far-right leanings, the ads are mostly targeted to liberals, like with this ad about how Jesus was the original influencer that features what we can assume is meant to be a Black Lives Matter protester hugging a cop. [video at the link]
[…] Slate reports that “the ad group has arranged for volunteers from more than 20,000 churches to respond to questions from viewers through the website. It also features reading plans and a number to text for prayers from volunteers, or words of encouragement.”
Because probably a whole bunch of heathens are going to see the ad and then decide they want to accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior … unless the halftime show is really good.
DONBAS REGION, Ukraine — The soldier knelt in the snow, aimed a rocket launcher and fired in the direction of Russian troops positioned about 1 mile away. He was set up at a Ukrainian firing position and looked just like the other Ukrainian troops fighting south of the city of Bakhmut in one of the most brutal theaters of the war.
But he and his comrades are not Ukrainian. They are soldiers in a Ukrainian military unit made up entirely of Russians who are fighting and killing their own countrymen.
They have taken up arms against Russia for a variety of reasons: a sense of moral outrage at their country’s invasion, a desire to defend their adopted homeland of Ukraine or because of a visceral dislike of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. And they have earned enough trust from Ukrainian commanders to take their place among the forces viciously fighting the Russian military…
China is getting ready to take down an unidentified object flying over waters near the port city of Qingdao, which is home to a major naval base for the People’s Liberation Army, Chinese news outlet The Paper reported…
ravensays
“Wyoming Republicans are criticizing a child marriage bill that seeks to raise the legal age to 18. It’s sponsored by one of their own party members.”
Here are the real pedophiles in action. Republicans, in this case, the clown show in Wyoming.
“The email continues that since minors are capable of bearing children before they are 16, marriage should be an open option “for the sake of those children.”” Right. Because a young child who was raped and got pregnant should always marry her rapist. And children raising children is always a good idea.
Cthulhu, these people are sick in the head.
“For minors to whom God has given a child, states should allow for the best interest of that child,” another argument read.
FFS, this pastor doesn’t even know how babies are made. When a 12 year old gets pregnant, I don’t think that god had anything to do with it.
This is a fundie xian and especially a Mormon thing and there are a lot of Mormons in Wyoming. They claim they don’t have a problem with teen age pregnancy. Because if their kids get pregnant they force them to get married.
They never say how stable those marriages are or how long they last. Probably not long.
Wyoming Republicans are criticizing a child marriage bill that seeks to raise the legal age to 18. It’s sponsored by one of their own party members.
Wyoming Republicans are criticizing a child marriage bill that seeks to raise the legal age to 18. It’s sponsored by one of their own party members.
Lloyd Lee
Sat, February 11, 2023 at 11:07 PM PST·4 min read
Wyoming considers implementing minimum marriage age of 18.
Wyoming is one of 8 states that does not have a minimum age requirement for marriage.
A new bill seeks to set a minimum age of 18 with an exception for 16 and 17-year-olds.
The Wyoming Republican Party sent an email Thursday raising “concerns about constitutional rights.”
The Wyoming Republican Party criticized a bill on Thursday that seeks to implement a minimum age requirement for marriage as the new law makes its way through the state legislature.
The bill is sponsored by Rep. Dan Zwonitzer, a Republican, and would raise the state’s legal marriage age to 18 years old. There is an exception carved for 16 and 17-year-olds provided they receive consent from a parent or guardian.
In a mass email sent Thursday, the Wyoming Republican Party argued the law raises “concerns about constitutional rights” and denies “the fundamental purpose of marriage” as well as “parental rights.”
“Marriage is the only institution in Wyoming Statute designed to keep a child’s father and mother living under the same roof and cooperating in the raising of any children that they, together, conceive. That is the NATURAL RIGHT of every child” the group wrote.
The email continues that since minors are capable of bearing children before they are 16, marriage should be an open option “for the sake of those children.”
The Wyoming Republican Party did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In an email to Insider, Zwonitzer said “last year there was some rumbling against the bill, but no outright hostility, especially from the Party.”
Wyoming is one of eight US states that does not have a hard-line minimum age requirement. Other states include California, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, West Virginia, and Washington.
Current Wyoming law states that marriages involving minors under 16 must receive court approval and parental or guardian consent.
According to deputy state registrar Guy Beaudoin, the state of Wyoming licensed an average of 4,200 marriages per year in the last 11 years. An average of about 20 marriages per year involved someone who was 18 years or younger. Beaudoin did not specify how many of those marriages involved someone under 18.
The email from the Wyoming Republican Party also linked to a blog, Capitol Watch for Wyoming Families, that encourages constituents to email their state representatives and ask them to vote “NO” on the bill. The website is run by a pastor.
The blog post argues that the state should have legal protections for minors who wish to marry and that parents should be the “first line of defense for minors who may or may not be mature enough to give consent to marriage.”
“For minors to whom God has given a child, states should allow for the best interest of that child,” another argument read.
The bill passed a third reading in the House on January 20, 36-25, with 25 Republicans voting no. There are currently three Democrats in the House who voted yes for the bill.
Rep. Mike Yin, a Democrat, tweeted a copy of the Wyoming Republican Party email on Thursday and accused the group of wanting children to get married “full stop.”
“Just to be clear, they are attacking a bill sponsored by a member of their own party,” Yin wrote.
Zwonitzer previously co-sponsored a similar bill in 2018 that would have set the minimum age at 18 with no exceptions, according to The Casper Star-Tribune. The new bill adds language around exceptions for 16 and 17-year-olds.
“The previous sponsor [former Democrat congressman Charles Pelkey] has had a lot of health issues and I was hoping to do something good for him by bringing it back again,” Zwonitzer told Insider. “He was very invested, and it never made sense to me why the bill didn’t go all the way through the legislature, so I keep bringing it back.”
The congressman told Cowboy State Daily that it is “audacious for the Republican Pary to suggest that as soon as you can give birth to a child you should be allowed to get married.”
“There are 12- and 13-year-olds in the country who wind up with pregnancies, and we certainly don’t want them to be able to get married, in my opinion,” he told the local news outlet.
Tethyssays
All these stories about UFOs are bizarre.
An octagonal structure? That doesn’t sound like a weather balloon, but I’ve no idea what a flying octagonal structure might look like.
I expect the Jewish space lasers look like menorahs, so the octagon isn’t Jewish
I’m actually shocked that there isn’t more Qanon type hysteria over alien invasions.
larparsays
The company you keep. Elon Musk is sitting next to Rupert Murdoch at the Super Bowl. I not sure which one this is a worst look for.
StevoRsays
So.. breaking news today of finally, finally some positive changes to Australian policy on refugees here :
Yes. A good long overdue start. But offshore processing not abolished yet and no release of the people from the prisons of Manus and Nauru yet so I gather.
China says US high-altitude balloons have flown in its airspace without permission more than 10 times since the beginning of January 2022. “It’s not uncommon as well for the US to illegally enter the airspace of other countries,” foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said during a briefing.
“Since last year alone, US balloons have illegally flown above China more than 10 times without any approval from Chinese authorities,” he added.
Mr Wang, responding to a question at a regular media briefing in Beijing, did not provide further details. .
..(snip).. White House national security spokesman John Kirby flatly denied Beijing’s assertions.
“Not true. Not doing it. Just absolutely not true,” he said in an interview with MSNBC.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, says “the reality is that we are seeing the start already” of a new Russian offensive in Ukraine.
President Vladimir Putin is sending “thousands and thousands more troops”, accepting “a very high rate of casualties” and taking “big losses” but putting pressure on the Ukrainians, he says.
“What Russia lacks in quality, they try to compensate in quantity,” he says, which he says highlights how urgent it is for the west to supply Ukraine with more weapons.
The faster Kyiv can be supplied with weapons, ammunition and spare parts, fuel, the more lives can be saved, he says.
Ukraine has accused Silvio Berlusconi of “kissing Putin’s bloody hands” after Italy’s three-time former prime minister blamed Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion of the country.
In comments that unleashed a wave of criticism, Berlusconi said that if he was leading the Italian government now, he would not seek a meeting with Zelenskiy, arguing that if the Ukrainian president had “stopped attacking the two autonomous republics of the Donbas” then “this would not have happened”.
“We are witnessing the devastation of his country and the slaughter of its soldiers and civilians,” said Berlusconi, who during his time as prime minister nurtured close relations with Vladimir Putin. “I judge this gentleman’s behaviour very, very negatively.”
Berlusconi, whose Forza Italia party is part of a coalition led by the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, urged the US to step in with funds to rebuild Ukraine on condition that Zelenskiy orders an immediate ceasefire.
Meloni’s office swiftly released a statement after Berlusconi’s comments reiterating her government’s firm support for Ukraine.…
Hungary’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, has announced that he is visiting Minsk today with the aim of keeping “channels of communication open”.
In a Facebook post, Szijjártó wrote:
Obviously many will attack me for this visit, but our stance is clear: channels of communication must be kept open. If we had not done this, I would not be able to convey the message of a call for peace.”
Szijjártó’s visit to Belarus’s capital comes as a group of 35 countries, including the US, Germany and Australia, have demanded that Russian and Belarusian athletes be banned from the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Meanwhile, the Belarusian state-run Belta news agency has reported that the country will host three drills of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russian-dominated alliance of former Soviet states.
Moldova’s president, Maia Sandu, has accused Russia of planning to use foreign saboteurs to overthrow her country’s government, prevent it from joining the EU and use it in the war against Ukraine.
Sandu’s comments came after Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said last week that his country had intercepted plans by Russian secret services “for the destruction of Moldova” – claims that were later confirmed by Moldovan intelligence officials.
Speaking to reporters at a briefing today, Sandu said:
The plan for the next period involves actions with the involvement of diversionists with military training, camouflaged in civilian clothes, who will undertake violent actions, attack some state buildings, and even take hostage.
The purposes of the plot were to “overthrow the constitutional order, to change the legitimate power from Chișinău to an illegitimate one”, she said, “which would put our country at the disposal of Russia, in order to stop the European integration process.”
She said the plan involved citizens of Russia, Montenegro, Belarus and Serbia entering Moldova to try to spark protests in an attempt to “change the legitimate government to an illegal government controlled by the Russian Federation”.
The Moldovan leader, whose country borders Ukraine, has repeatedly expressed concern about Moscow’s intentions towards the former Soviet republic and about the presence of Russian troops in the breakaway Transnistria region.
She defiantly vowed:
The Kremlin’s attempts to bring violence to our country will not succeed. Our main goal is the security of citizens and the state. Our goal is peace and public order in the country.
Russia may have lost an entire brigade of the elite 155th naval infantry while storming the eastern Ukrainian city of Vuhledar, according to a report.
A “large number” of Russian forces, including the command staff, were “destroyed” near the cities of Vuhledar and Mariinka in Donetsk, a Ukrainian official, Oleksiy Dmytrashkivskyi, has told Politico.
He said Russia had also lost about 130 units of equipment, including 36 units of tanks, in the past week.
Russian forces were also losing 150-300 marines a day near Vuhledar, he said. He estimated the brigade to have comprised about 5,000 soldiers in all, whose members had been killed, wounded or taken prisoner.
Dmytrashkivskyi, head of the united press centre of the Tavriskiy district of Ukrainian defence forces, told the news website:
The 155th brigade already had to be restaffed three times. The first time after Irpin and Bucha; the second time they were defeated near Donetsk – they recovered again. And now almost the entire brigade has already been destroyed near Vuhledar.
He added that he wished western weapons would “come more quickly, as that would give us the opportunity not only to protect ourselves and hold the attacks but also finally push them out of our territory”.
Agence France-Presse have a little more of those quotes from Jens Stoltenberg earlier about concerns over munitions production to supply Nato….
The Nato secretary general said the alliance needs “to ramp up production” of ammunition as Ukraine’s rate of usage is far outstripping current capacities and draining stockpiles.
“The war in Ukraine is consuming an enormous amount of munitions, and depleting allied stockpiles,” Stoltenberg told journalists.
“The current rate of Ukraine’s ammunition expenditure is many times higher than our current rate of production. This puts our defence industries under strain.”
Stoltenberg admitted that Nato was facing a “problem” as current waiting times for large-calibre ammunition have grown from 12 to 28 months.
But he insisted he was confident steps taken so far meant Nato members were “on the path that will enable us both to continue to support Ukraine, but also to replenish our own stocks”.
Ukraine’s state broadcaster Suspilne reports on Telegram that Ukrainian forces began training today in operating Leopard 2 tanks in Germany, in a programme that will last until the beginning of April.
German defence minister Boris Pistorius has announced that the tanks should arrive in Ukraine by the end of March.
The Russian state-owned news agency Tass is reporting that today Russia has launched an automated system called Oculus to detect internet content which breaches Russia’s law. Tass [“]reports[“]:
The system recognises images and symbols, illegal scenes and actions, analyses text in photo and video materials. Oculus automatically detects such offences as extremist themes, calls for mass illegal events, suicide, pro-drug content, LGBT propaganda and more.
In general, the creation of the system is a response to provocations and anti-Russian actions on the part of foreign resources. In 2022 alone, based on the data of the prosecutor general’s office of the Russian Federation, 102,627 online resources with fakes were removed and blocked, including those about the course of a special military operation in Ukraine.
Tass claims that usually an agent can manually check 106 images and 101 videos a day, but the Russian government agency deploying the system says it will check more than 200,000 images a day.
Russian courts have frequently imposed fines on western internet media companies over the last year for hosting what they claim is fake content about Ukraine.
Reginald Selkirksays
@121: China has several controversial territorial claims. Suppose the USA flew spy planes over the South China Sea, or specifically the Strait of Taiwan. China would probably complain that those flights were over Chinese territory.
China should restrain its forces so that they do not commit any “provocative act,” the Philippine military said on Monday, after Manila accused China’s coast guard of using a laser to try to disrupt a resupply mission to its troops in the South China Sea.
The Philippine coast guard said its vessel was assisting a navy mission to deliver food and supplies to troops stationed on an atoll in the disputed waterway on Feb. 6 when a Chinese coast guard ship directed a “military-grade laser” at the ship temporarily blinding its crew at the bridge…
A Russian general was poisoned by a letter laced with an unknown toxin, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said in a Telegram post on Monday.
Kadyrov, who is also a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said his top general in Ukraine has been poisoned after handling a letter that was sent to him on February 8.
Apti Alaudinov, who commands the Akhmat special forces, picked up a letter that was “saturated with a poisonous substance,” Kadyrov said.
The general “sensed this by the bitter, specific smell and took action in time: he treated his hands and washed his nasal cavity,” Kadyrov added.
The Chechen leader said that Alaudinov and other personnel who came into contact with the envelope sought immediate medical assistance in a Moscow clinic and are now “on the mend.”…
The Washington Post has a new report on the financial ties between Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, twice-impeached seditionist ex-president Donald Trump, and Trump top adviser and grifting son-in-law Jared Kushner. The short version is that the relationship has been brazenly corrupt since, at the absolute latest, Mohammed’s successful operation to murder Washington Post writer and regime critic Jamal Khashoggi….
Anna Rivina, the founder of the Russian anti-domestic violence advocacy group Nasiliu[dot]net (“No to Violence”), has been denied entry to Georgia, where she’s been living since leaving Russia, the independent news outlet Holod reported on Sunday night.
Rivina was reportedly stopped by border guards upon returning to the country from Armenia. According to Holod, she’s currently in Tbilisi awaiting deportation.
On February 10, the Russian Justice Ministry declared Rivina a “foreign agent,” claiming that she distributes “false information about the activities of the Russian authorities and negative information about the Russian Defense Ministry.” Nasiliu[dot]net was added to the “foreign agents” list in December 2020.
ravensays
The US State Department is asking all US citizens to leave Russia.
IMO, this is way late.
Human life is cheap and meaningless in Russia.
And, that means YOU!!! That US passport isn’t going to help you at all if the Russians decide to take you hostage.
Russia has millions of people in poorly marked graves scattered around everywhere.
Russian security services have arrested U.S. citizens on spurious charges, singled out U.S. citizens in Russia for detention and harassment, denied them fair and transparent treatment, and convicted them in secret trials or without presenting credible evidence.
Is this how you want to spend your vacation?
Tweet
FLASH @Flash_news_ua
⚡️ The US Embassy in russia called on Americans to leave the country immediately.
“Do not travel to russia due to the unpredictable consequences of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. US citizens who live or travel in russia must immediately leave the country”, reports the website.
and
Edited for length, US State Department warning
Travel Advisory: Russia – Do Not Travel
Home | News & Events | Travel Advisory: Russia – Do Not Travel
Do not travel to Russia due to the unpredictable consequences of the unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russian military forces, the potential for harassment and the singling out of U.S. citizens for detention by Russian government security officials, the arbitrary enforcement of local law, limited flights into and out of Russia, the Embassy’s limited ability to assist U.S. citizens in Russia, and the possibility of terrorism. U.S. citizens residing or travelling in Russia should depart immediately. Exercise increased caution due to the risk of wrongful detentions.
The U.S. government’s ability to provide routine or emergency services to U.S. citizens in Russia is severely limited, particularly in areas far from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, due to Russian government limitations on travel for embassy personnel and staffing, and the ongoing suspension of operations, including consular services, at U.S. consulates.
In September, the Russian government mobilized citizens to the armed forces in support of its invasion of Ukraine. Russia may refuse to acknowledge dual nationals’ U.S. citizenship, deny their access to U.S. consular assistance, subject them to mobilization, prevent their departure from Russia, and/or conscript them.
U.S. citizens should note that U.S. credit and debit cards no longer work in Russia, and options to electronically transfer funds from the United States are extremely limited due to sanctions imposed on Russian banks. There are reports of cash shortages within Russia.
Russian security services have arrested U.S. citizens on spurious charges, singled out U.S. citizens in Russia for detention and harassment, denied them fair and transparent treatment, and convicted them in secret trials or without presenting credible evidence. Furthermore, Russian authorities arbitrarily enforce local laws against U.S. citizen religious workers and have opened questionable criminal investigations against U.S. citizens engaged in religious activity. U.S. citizens should avoid travel to Russia to perform work for or volunteer with non-governmental organizations or religious organizations.
Survey: 89% of Ukrainians ready to keep fighting even if Russia uses tactical nukes.
The 2023 Munich Security Index said that 93% of Ukrainians believe the only acceptable condition for a ceasefire requires the complete withdrawal of Russian troops, even from occupied Crimea.
ATLANTA (CN) — The judge overseeing the investigation into possible criminal efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results by former President Donald Trump and his allies announced Monday that key parts of the special grand jury’s report will be released later this week.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney’s decision comes after he heard arguments last month from District Attorney Fani Willis, who urged the judge to keep the final report secret until her office determines whether to pursue charges, and news outlets arguing for its release.
McBurney ruled the introduction and conclusion of the report, as well as a section in which the grand jurors expressed concerns that some witnesses may have lied under oath, will be released publicly Thursday.
Police Major General Vladimir Makarov, who until last month was the deputy director of the Russian Interior Ministry’s Anti-Extremism Main Directorate, reportedly shot and killed himself this morning at his home outside Moscow. He was 72.
P.S. Anybody who posts a “falling out of a window” joke in response will be blocked instantly.
…I meet up with the White Helmets, expecting to find them looking for survivors. But it is too late. Ismail al Abdullah, is weary from effort, and what he describes as the world’s disregard for the Syrian people. He says the international community has blood on its hands.
“We stopped looking for survivors after more than 120 hours passed,” he says. “We tried our best to save our people, but we couldn’t. No-one listened to us.
“From the first hour we called for urgent action, for urgent help. No-one responded. They were just saying, ‘We are with you’, nothing else. We said, we need equipment. No-one responded.”…
Gov. Ron DeSantis set out to punish Disney, and as The New York Times reported, the Florida Republican succeeded — at least in part.
Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida gained control on Friday of the board that oversees development at Walt Disney World, a move that restricts the autonomy of Disney, the state’s largest private employer, over its theme-park complex and strips some perks enjoyed by the company for 56 years. The changes are the result of a bill that the Florida Legislature approved at the urging of Mr. DeSantis, who fought with Disney last year over an education law that limits the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools.
The far-right governor seemed eager to thump his chest last week, boasting, in reference to his victory over Disney, “There’s a new sheriff in town.”
Sort of. As the Times’ report explained, DeSantis’ original plan was to revoke Disney World’s designation as a special tax district, which has “effectively allowed Disney to self-govern the 25,000-acre resort since its founding.” That’s not the policy the governor ended up with: The Republican will instead have control over the local district’s board.
That matters, and it’s likely to have an impact on Disney’s bottom line, but the company will “be allowed to keep … almost all its perks, including the ability to issue tax-exempt bonds and approve development plans without scrutiny from certain local regulators.”
[…] the trouble began when Florida Republicans approved what critics have labeled the “Don’t Say Gay” policy. Disney was initially silent on the matter, but under pressure from many of its employees, the corporate giant eventually criticized the GOP’s anti-LGBTQ measure.
For DeSantis, the mild and inconsequential criticisms could not stand — and the drive to punish Disney began soon after. The governor said the company “crossed the line” by daring to oppose his regressive policy after it’d already passed, and his lieutenant governor, Republican Jeanette Núñez, questioned whether companies like Disney even have the “right to criticize” state policymakers’ work.
On the one hand, DeSantis insists Florida is the nation’s “freest” state. On the other hand, he and his GOP allies had no qualms about targeting one of his state’s largest businesses for expressing an opinion that was out of step with the Republican Party’s culture war.
To be sure, there’s no reason to see the Reedy Creek Improvement District — the extraordinary Orlando-area benefits originally afforded to the Disney Corporation in 1967 — as untouchable, and there’s ample room for a spirited debate over how policymakers approach special corporate benefits. To have concerns about how Republicans approach these issues is not to say that Disney or any other private-sector giant somehow deserves lucrative breaks from politicians.
But motivations matter, and the idea of a business facing punishment because it fell out of line with the GOP’s rhetorical demands is extraordinary.
Reginald Selkirksays
@136: I have no idea who Kevin Rothrock is. But to him I say: “Block me, bro.”
[…] An Associated Press report added that in addition to the folder, Trump’s lawyers also recently provided federal investigators with a laptop belonging to an aide to the former president.
For his part, Timothy Parlatore, the attorney representing Trump in the special counsel’s investigation, told CNN that the folder in question — marked “Classified Evening Summary” — was empty and found in the former president’s bedroom.
“He has one of those landline telephones next to his bed, and it has a blue light on it, and it keeps him up at night,” Parlatore said. “So he took the manilla folder and put it over so it would keep the light down so he could sleep at night.”
In other words, according to the lawyer’s version of events, Trump was bothered by a light on his phone, so he blocked it with a “Classified Evening Summary” folder he took from the White House.
[…] Let’s not forget that it was in May 2021 when the National Archives and Records Administration first reached out the former president’s team, asking for the return of missing documents. It was in May 2022 when Team Trump received a subpoena. It was in June 2022 when the former president’s representatives said he and his operation no longer had any relevant materials in their possession.
And it was yesterday when Trump’s lawyer said his client was using a “Classified Evening Summary” folder as a lampshade.
Let’s also note that the latest disclosures were voluntary and the result of a search by an outside firm. In contrast, President Joe Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence invited the FBI to search their homes.
To state the obvious, we haven’t heard the last of this one.
“Russians abandon wartime Russia in historic exodus”
I wouldn’t want to visit there much less live there.
There isn’t much of a future in Russia, a vicious dictatorship run by a Stalin wannabe.
Russia already has the typical European demographic crisis, falling population numbers. They are acutely aware of it.
That was in fact, one of the reasons to invade Ukraine, to gain 44 million more people.
Instead they are losing their best and brightest at about 1/2 million to 1 million a year.
Plus all the men killed and wounded in Ukraine.
Initial data show that at least 500,000, and perhaps nearly 1 million, have left in the year since the invasion began — a tidal wave on scale with emigration following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991.
http://www.washingtonpost.com
Russians abandon wartime Russia in historic exodus Francesca Ebel, Mary Ilyushina 12 – 15 minutes
Young people in front of a monument of the Soviet era in Yerevan, Armenia, on Feb. 2. (Tako Robakidze for The Washington Post)
YEREVAN, Armenia — As Russian troops stormed into Ukraine last February, sending millions of Ukrainians fleeing for their lives, thousands of Russians also raced to pack their bags and leave home, fearing the Kremlin would shut the borders and impose martial law.
Some had long opposed rising authoritarianism and the invasion was a last straw. Others were driven by economic interest, to preserve livelihoods or escape the bite of sanctions. Then, last autumn, a military mobilization spurred hundreds of thousands of men to flee.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war has set off a historic exodus of his own people. Initial data show that at least 500,000, and perhaps nearly 1 million, have left in the year since the invasion began — a tidal wave on scale with emigration following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991.
Now, like then, the departures stand to redefine the country for generations. And the flood may still be in its early stages. The war seems nowhere near finished. Any new conscription effort by the Kremlin will spark new departures, as will worsening economic conditions, which are expected as the conflict drags on.
The huge outflow has swelled existing Russian expat communities across the world, and created new ones.
Some fled nearby to countries like Armenia and Kazakhstan, across borders open to Russians. Some with visas escaped to Finland, the Baltic states or elsewhere in Europe. Others ventured farther, to the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Thailand, Argentina. Two men from Russia’s Far East even sailed a small boat to Alaska.
The financial cost, while vast, is impossible to calculate. In late December, Russia’s communications ministry reported that 10 percent of the country’s IT workers had left in 2022 and not returned. Russia’s parliament is now debating a package of incentives to bring them back.
But there has also been talk in parliament of punishing Russians who left by stripping them of their assets at home. Putin has referred to those who left as “scum” and said their exit would “cleanse” the country — even though some who left did not oppose him, or the war.
With the government severely restricting dissent, and implementing punishment for criticism of the war, those remaining in the depleted political opposition also faced a choice this year: prison or exile. Most chose exile. Activists and journalists are now clustered in cities such as Berlin, and the capitals of Lithuania, Latvia and Georgia.
“This exodus is a terrible blow for Russia,” said Tamara Eidelman, a Russian historian who moved to Portugal after the invasion. “The layer that could have changed something in the country has now been washed away.”
While Ukrainian refugees were embraced in the West, many countries shunned the Russians, uncertain if they were friends or foes and if, on some level, the entire country was culpable. Some nations have blocked arrivals by imposing entry restrictions, or denying new visas, at times spreading panic among Russians, especially students, already abroad.
Meanwhile, the influx of Russians in countries like Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, which long sent immigrants to Russia, has set off political tremors, straining ties between Moscow and the other former Soviet states. Real estate prices in those countries have shot up, causing tensions with local populations.
Nearly a year after the start of the invasion — and the new outflow of Russians — Washington Post journalists traveled to Yerevan, and to Dubai for a close look at how the emigres are faring, and to ask if they ever plan to return. Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, a former Soviet republic, is a destination for Russians with lower financial mobility — an Orthodox Christian country where Russian is the second language. By contrast, pricey Dubai, in the Persian Gulf, is predominantly Muslim, Arabic-speaking, and attracts wealthier Russians seeking either glitz or business opportunity.
Yerevan
For many fleeing Russians, Armenia was a rare, easy option. It is one of five ex-Soviet countries that allow Russians to enter with just a national ID — making it a popular destination for former soldiers, political activists and others needing a quick escape.
Given shared religion and common use of Russian language, Russians typically do not face animosity or social stigma. Obtaining residency permits is also straightforward, and living costs are lower than in the E.U.
Yerevan has attracted thousands of IT workers, young creatives and working-class people, including families with children, from across Russia, who have established new schools, bars, cafes and robust support networks.
In the courtyard of the “Free School” for Russian children, established in April, Maxim, a construction company manager, was waiting for his 8-year-old son, Timofey. The school started with 40 students in an apartment. Now, there are nearly 200 in a multistory building in the city center.
Maxim, whom The Post is only identifying by first name due to security reasons, flew to Yerevan from Volgograd to avoid the mobilization last September. “We left for the same reason everyone did: There was suddenly a real danger in the country for me and, above all, my family,” he said. continues
Feb 13 (Reuters) – Specialists from Russia’s defence ministry are building a water pipeline system that would connect the country’s Rostov region bordering Ukraine with the Donbas region inside Ukraine, the state TASS news agency reported late on Sunday.
Moscow last year claimed the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which make up the broader Donbas region in Ukraine, as “republics” of Russia, in a move condemned by most members of the United Nations as illegal.
The project, to be completed in the next few months, will have the capacity to carry 300,000 cubic meters of water per day and will include two 200-km (124-mile) lines, TASS reported, citing the defence ministry…
In so many ways, the National Football League (NFL) is one of the most racist American institutions. The players are predominantly Black, but the head coaches are almost all white. And the owners—well, you know the answer to that one. Ask Colin Kaepernick if you have any questions. He has all the receipts.
So when conservative bobbleheads such as Rep. Lauren Boebert and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene spew their venom about the divisiveness and “wokeness” of the Black performers at Super Bowl LVII Sunday night, forgive me if I throw up just a little in my mouth at the hypocrisy.
The pre-game performance of the hymn “Lift Every Voice and Sing” by Abbott Elementary star and Emmy Award winner Sheryl Lee Ralph seemed to push our congressional Karens over the top. Although followed by Grammy Award-winning Babyface’s “America the Beautiful” and then Rihanna in all her resplendent beauty, they must have been screaming into their AR-15s—not to mention watching two Black quarterbacks on the field.
As USA Today’s Mike Freeman wrote, “This wasn’t the Super Bowl. This was Wakanda.”
“America only has ONE NATIONAL ANTHEM,” tweeted Boebert recklessly, using her caps button without reason. “Why is the NFL trying to divide us by playing multiple!? Do football, not wokeness.”
“Lift Every Voice and Sing” became the unofficial Black national anthem when it was adopted by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1917. It was written as a poem by NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson in 1900 and first performed as a song in Jacksonville, Florida, by 500 schoolchildren in honor of President Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. The song became a rallying cry during the Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s and 1960s.
Greene tweeted, “Chris Stapleton just sang the most beautiful national anthem at the Super Bowl. But we could have gone without the rest of the wokeness.”
If only the congresswoman from Georgia knew that Stapleton has been vocal in his support of the allegedly “woke” ideal of Black Lives Mattering.
“Do I think Black lives matter? Absolutely … I don’t know how you could think they don’t,” Stapleton said during an interview on CBS This Morning in 2020. “There’s a very broad awakening that I guess has come about, and it’s time for me to listen. And it’s time for other folks to listen.”
Of course, Ralph took it all in stride, announcing on Twitter Sunday morning, “It is no coincidence that I will be singing the Black National Anthem, Lift Every Voice and Sing at the Super Bowl on the same date it was first publicly performed 123 years ago (February 12, 1900). Happy Black History Month!“
Lastly, […] Trump wasted no time criticizing another yet Black woman. That’s just his jam. This time, Trump decided to go after Rihanna, calling her performance the “worst in halftime show in Super Bowl history.”
Trump’s obviously still salty after the Grammy-winning pop star spray painted “Fuck Donald Trump” at the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas.
And if all this didn’t piss off the white conservatives, American Sign Language interpreter Justina Miles, the first Black woman to perform at a Super Bowl, gave it all she had and more.
[…] these days, we have our Spidey-senses up when watching events like this to see what is going to upset the joyless racist white MAGA fascist contingent of society. What is going to bother them so much that they once again demonstrate that they’re not suitable for polite company, that they’re not qualified to hang with normal people, that they are the rudest party guests in the known universe?
Would it be the endzone on the field, were it said, “End Racism?”
Is it the fact that for the first time ever at a Super Bowl, along with “The Star-Spangled Banner,” there was a performance of “Lift Every Voice And Sing,” AKA the Black national anthem?
Actress and singer Sheryl Lee Ralph performed “Lift Every Voice And Sing.” Chris Stapleton performed “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Both were absolutely stunning. [videos t the link]
[snipped stupid comments from Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene, already presented in comment 144]
[…] As many people are pointing out, the fact that both of these women used the word “woke” is just a really revealing tell on their part, that when white conservatives say “woke,” all they really mean is the “N”-word. They mean their white power feels threatened.
Here’s Kari Lake, sitting reportedly during the Black national anthem: [photo at the link]
Boebert also had this genius thought to share:
I bet the NFL is furious the two quarterbacks in the Super Bowl are open about their Christian faith.
I personally love it!!
Athletes expressing religious faith? What will they think of next?
Just keep yelling about things, congresswoman, we’re sure you’ll accidentally make a coherent thought at some point.
The halftime show was Rihanna, who did a fun medley of all her biggest hits and in the process revealed that she was pregnant with her second child. We had a hard time trying to figure out what would enrage white MAGA fascists about that — she was covered head to toe and so were her dancers, with the exception of some glimpses of abs; a couple of the songs had slightly racy lyrics, maybe sorta kinda; she was pregnant, for God’s sake! Would they be upset that you couldn’t tell her dancers’ genders at first glance, which raises the threat level for MAGA bro types to accidentally get aroused by a dude?
Luckily, Donald Trump was available just to wail about it, though we are not even sure he’s clear what he’s mad about:
The former president took to his Truth Social platform to fume: “EPIC FAIL: Rihanna gave, without question, the single worst Halftime Show in Super Bowl history.
“This after insulting far more than half of our Nation, which is already in serious DECLINE, with her foul and insulting language. Also, so much for her ‘Stylist!’” The rant came after a 2020 image of the music icon spray painting “F*** Trump” on a car resurfaced ahead of the show.
Ah, so it was more about how he’s thin-skinned and easily upset, and had nothing to do with her actual performance. Obviously, Rihanna is a Black woman, which as we all know is a well-known trigger for MAGA types and for Trump. All of this is on brand. He probably wrote it beforehand.
Maxine Waters also notes:
Donald Trump is just mad because the multibillionaire Rihanna is richer than he is, and also more talented. You go girl!
[snipped details about advertisements for Jesus, Elon Musk keeping bay company, etc.]
In summary and in conclusion, there was a football game last night, and the worst people in the world managed to find a reason to get upset about it.
Twitter users put Mastodon usernames in their handles and trumpeted their migration. The new traffic knocked many Mastodon instances, or servers, offline. In less than two months, Mastodon’s monthly active users climbed from 380,000 to more than 2.5 million. But not everyone stuck around. Mastodon’s active monthly user count dropped to 1.4 million by late January. It now has nearly half a million fewer total registered users than at the start of the year. Many newcomers have complained that Mastodon is hard to use…
johnson catmansays
re Lynna @148: FOR SURE!!! Wang-Tang Sweet Poontang is definitely much more family friendly!!
A horrific disaster took place in East Palestine, Ohio, and it is being largely ignored by the media, […]
Safety regulations were ignored and a train carrying deadly chemicals derailed.
There are reports it’s already killing animals.
This may be one of the largest ecological disasters in US history.
There were roughly 100,000 gallons or 1,000,000 pounds of Vinyl Chloride leaked, spilled and burned at #EastPalestine crash.
Acid rain and Phosgene will decimate the zones ecology.
[…]
Vinyl chloride is not only flammable, but it’s also a brain, lung, blood, and liver carcinogen. Authorities decided to burn hundreds of thousands of gallons of this chemical after a train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio.
With all due respect, that’s an exaggeration and isn’t true. There very likely are multiple aquifers in the area, at different depths (and stratigraphic positions) and in different locations, with good hydraulic connection between some and little to no groundwater movement between them in others.
There is no doubt that there will be some groundwater contamination from this incident. Although vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) is a gas above around 8°F, some of it will be dissolved in water (rain or soil pore water) and eventually migrate to groundwater. The solubility of VCM is pretty high for an organic compound; around 2,700 milligrams per liter (mg/L), compared to its maximum contaminant level for drinking water in the U.S. of 0.005 mg/L. For what it’s worth, since VCM is a human carcinogen, its unenforceable maximum contaminant level goal is zero, as it is by EPA policy for all carcinogens.
In short, there will be some groundwater contamination. Its geographic extent and its vertical extent will have to be determined, at very great cost to the railroad (and the company whose liquified vinyl chloride was being shipped). I’m not trying to make anyone feel sorry for the responsible parties: just noting that this will be a very, very expensive problem to assess and try to solve.
Once the problem is defined reasonably well, what to do about that contamination will have to be determined based on a wide range of factors.
In the meantime, it looks like Norfolk Southern will be in the water supply business over a substantial area for the foreseeable future. If they aren’t, corrupt politicians or agency decision makers would be the cause of that.
————————-
Former volunteer firefighter here. From what I remember of our hazmat training, 1 mile is a pretty standard initial evacuation radius — for a major hazmat incident — until the situation can be assessed. It could subsequently be increased or decreased depending on conditions. Wind speed and direction, current and forecast, are factors (along with the nature and size of the spill, of course).
Vinyl chloride vapor is heavier than propane gas and considerably heavier than air.
—————————-
bottom line is that we shouldn’t be shipping toxic chemicals around the nation by unreliable means.
We’ve already established the fact that railroad owners are stripping the money out of the industry, not re-investing in their income-source.
Underpaid employees and dangerous working conditions with poorly-maintained equipment mean that “accidents” like this aren’t really all that accidental.
As long as there are profits to be had, the safety people, pets, wildlife and the environment is unimportant.
—————————–
I did hear about this story during the past week on NPR and couldn’t say whether it had more coverage beyond this. But there were definitely concerns about the toxicity and there were evacuation measures. We will have to see what after-effects may still exist because of the choice to burn off the chemicals. But I understood, in part, the decision was better than running the risk of having these chemicals feed an uncontrolled explosion.
[…] And who among us has never decided to cover up our too-bright nightstand electronics by hunting down an empty government folder marked “classified evening summary” to act as an ersatz shield? It happens all the time. It was a choice between that folder and, quite literally, absolutely anything else, and Donald made his choice.
After going on television to freely admit that Donald was indeed personally wandering around Mar-a-Lago with the government documents he told investigators he didn’t have, and making sure to let America know that this was humorous, and not at all incriminating, Donald’s lawyer also tried to make clear that the folder marked “classified evening summary” was, somehow, not actually classified. It was “not a classification marking,” said Timothy Parlatore.
We’re not going to engage much with that, because it’s either another in the very long string of lies Trump’s lawyers have told or, generously, a bit of lawyer-weaseling meant to dodge the question of what the folder actually was and how it got there.
[…] we know there was some series of events that led to a presumably White House-controlled “classified evening summary” folder getting transported to Mar-a-Lago, emptied of its contents, and finding a new life as Donald Trump’s bedside detritus even as Trump himself was insisting he didn’t know nothin’ about no government papers.
The folder presumably once had something in it. Where is that something now? Who has it? Who removed it? What chain of events led drowsy Donald Trump, annoyed at a too-bright light on a phone that he possesses despite having enough money to purchase phones with fewer or no lights if he wanted to, reaching for something to block the light with and laying hands on an empty government “classified evening summary” folder as the most likely choice?
Donald Trump is allegedly very rich! If none of the usual solutions can be made to work, whether it be electrical tape, some other not-transparent tape, a small scrap of paper, a book, an endangered animal’s severed ear, or literally any paper on Earth that does not have the word “classified” on it, Donald Trump could hire some tuxedoed grump to stand next to his bed while holding an umbrella between Donald and the light. He could hire Eric to do it—it’s about time that slug learned the value of labor.
Whatever happened, we know that Donald Trump had his mitts on another folder meant to contain “classified” government information, we know he was doing something with it that led to that folder ending up in his bedroom, on his bed, or on a table, or in a drawer, and that, however it came to Mar-a-Lago, it’s apparently empty now.
What a funny story! This lawyer is right, this whole episode is hilarious!
[…] “I kind of look at Social Security the way I do the Department of Defense and our defense spending,” Rounds [Senator Mike Rounds, a Republican from South Dakota] told Jake Tapper. “We’re never not going to fund defense, but at the same time, every single year, look at how we can make it better and I think it’s about time we start talking about Social Security and making it better.” That’s Ron Johnson’s idea—throw the programs into the same pot as the rest of government spending and fight out funding for them on an annual basis. That’s the same Ron Johnson who calls Social Security a Ponzi scheme.
Rounds wasn’t finished, though, going even further to put in a plug for the other bad idea they just can’t let go of: privatizing it. “Republicans want to see Social Security be successful and be improved. And the best way to do that is to take a look at other successful pension programs that the vast majority of us … would include in their portfolios.” That’s a big tell right there, because the “vast majority” of Americans (especially those who are not white and wealthy) do not have portfolios they are managing.
The digging. They just can stop.
Look at Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), House Majority Leader, who really whiffed it last week after the speech. “The president, for a few weeks now, has been falsely saying that there are people that want to get rid of Social Security and Medicare. And it’s been inaccurate for a long time—and you saw last night when he tried to pin it on us,” Scalise, told NBC News Wednesday.
“We want to strengthen Social Security by ending a lot of those government checks to people staying at home rather than going to work,” Scalise said. It might be the first time a Republican has endorsed work requirements for a retirement program. [LOL] Behind the garbled message, you could see Scalise’s greasy little wheels turning: He’s got Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid all lumped together in his head […]
It’s unforced errors like these from Rounds and Scalise that are going to keep Biden hammering them on the issues.
[…] “Complaining that the President is accurately shining a light on plans they don’t want their constituents to know about is very much not the defense they think.” […]
In a slightly amused conclusion to her initial statement, Karine Jean-Pierre has clarified there is no evidence of aliens or extra terrestrial activity in the recent taking down of UFOs over North America.
With a smile on her face (and to the laughter of many assembled journalists) she says she loved the movie ET, but wanted to reassure the US population there was no indication of life from other planets coming to Earth.
Thank goodness there are still sane people in charge
Astronomers have revealed that a Chinese satellite fired green laser beams over the state of Hawaii – at a time when tensions are boiling over between Beijing and Washington after several foreign objects including a Chinese spy balloon were shot down over the US in recent days.
Scientists at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) captured the mystery beams of light on video through its Subaru-Asahi Star Camera on Mauna Kea back on 28 January.
Footage of the incident shows green laser light beaming over the cloudy sky over Maunakea in Hawaii.
At the time, the space agency said that the lights were thought to be from a NASA remote-sensing altimeter satellite.
But, on 6 February, the NAOJ made a correction note, instead revealing that the “most likely candidate” for the laser beams was China.
NASA scientists “did a simulation of the trajectory of satellites that have a similar instrument and found a most likely candidate as the ACDL instrument by the Chinese Daqi-1/AEMS satellite,” the agency stated…
Reginald Selkirksays
@157:
Rounds [Senator Mike Rounds, a Republican from South Dakota] told Jake Tapper. “We’re never not going to fund defense, but at the same time, every single year, look at how we can make it better and I think it’s about time we start talking about Social Security and making it better.”
Supposing Social Security might need to be “made better” at some point. Republicans – who have consistently called for the program to be eliminated since 1935 – are not the people I would ask to do it.
Supposing you owned a dog, and your neighbor had threatened to poison your dog. Then you get called out of town for a while. Is that neighbor the person you would ask to care for your dog in your absence? I think not.
“Republicans want to see Social Security be successful and be improved. And the best way to do that is to take a look at other successful pension programs that the vast majority of us … would include in their portfolios.”
They must have gotten a hold of a copy of Roget’s Thesaurus. They are not using the word “privatize.” Privatization would not be an improvement for Social Security, it would be to change its basic nature in a destructive way.
Contrary to what the “COVID-19 isn’t a threat to children” contingent says, COVID-19 is a leading cause of death among children. Yet “not antivax” doctors continue, either unknowingly or knowingly, continue to recycle old antivax tropes to argue against vaccinating children against this disease….
…Meanwhile, the family had spent several days getting to know the forest that Tortuguita had spent months defending. Called Weelaunee by the activists – a Muscogee (Creek) name for the forest – Terán spent one afternoon visiting a southern red oak tree that Tortuguita had climbed only a month before being killed, in an effort to save the tree from being knocked down in December.
Several other trees with treehouses the activists built have now been felled during the sweeps that have been occurring for months. Tortuguita was able to protect the red oak, known by those staying in the forest as Frog Palace, that winter day, but the tree was toppled days later. On an unusually warm afternoon this week, Terán slumped on to the tree’s trunk, dwarfed by its size as it lay on an embankment.
“There’s a sadness in the whole forest,” Terán said, adding that she felt her son’s spirit wherever she stepped….
Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #162…
Many of the comments are suggesting going after the tracks. What I’m wondering…how well would the locomotives cope with being hit by at ATGM?
ravensays
“Ukraine Has the Battlefield Edge”
Or so this article in the Atlantic claims.
I wouldn’t take that claim too seriously, as much as I wish it were true. Right now, it is a stalemate, neither side is able to advance.
Ukrainian success has come down to skillful use of modern weapons against this incompetent and demoralized enemy. A succession of Wunderwaffe, or wonder weapons, has been much hyped: Turkish Bayraktar attack drones, Javelin anti-tank missiles, and, most recently, HIMARS rocket artillery. All of these have had an impact, but none individually has been decisive.
The article does make a good point.
We’ve seen that supplying Urkaine with modern weapons has helped a lot but none have proved decisive. We are still hoping though. Maybe better tanks. F16s, and what next?
The article also ignores that the Russians are slowly learning and adapting.
As the conflict in Ukraine nears its first anniversary, both sides have settled in for a long war. Russia mobilized some 300,000 reservists in September to stabilize its front as winter set in. Despite recent successes in Kharkiv and Kherson, Ukrainian leaders are now warning that a new Russian offensive is imminent, boosted by these reinforcements. Some analysts believe that this offensive may already have begun. But there is little reason to expect that increased manpower alone will lead to Russian victory. Ukraine’s Western backers should hold their nerve and keep providing Ukraine with what it needs most: modern weapons and the training to use them effectively.
After the invasion’s initial repulse, Russian President Vladimir Putin procrastinated on further mobilization as long as possible, summoning reserves only when the situation forced him to. Russia does not have a ready and deployable reserve like America’s Army Reserve or National Guard. Russian reservists are simply men who previously served as one-year conscripts—most of them many years removed from the military. Less than 10 percent of those now mobilized had carried out any refresher training within five years of leaving active service. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu himself noted that the average age of mobilized soldiers was 35.
Hastily equipped with old weapons, Russia’s mobiks were rushed into combat—with predictable results: immediate heavy casualties. According to a recent estimate from Norway’s defense chief, the total number of Russians killed or wounded in the war is nearing 200,000.
Russia’s belated, partial mobilization did put men in uniform in Ukraine in time for winter, but at the cost of some social unrest and a significant brain drain. A spate of protests occurred and several recruiting stations were set on fire or shot up, while hundreds of thousands of young men, many of them from Russia’s educated professional class, have fled to neighboring countries such as Armenia and Georgia.
Numbers alone are seldom the determining factor in modern war. All else being equal, the side that can throw more troops into battle has a big advantage. But all else is almost never equal. In this war, the Ukrainians’ superior ability to both employ and evade firepower has been the crucial component.
Historians and pundits are apt to note Russia’s record of eking out victories of grinding attrition and invoke the country’s tolerance for enormous casualties and its scant regard for the lives of its soldiers. But the character of war (though not its nature) has changed since the days of Peter the Great and Napoleon. In a process that began more than a century ago, modern firepower has “emptied” the battlefield, as military analysts say. Units have to disperse and seek cover and concealment from enemy observation and the fire that follows it. That has become only more emphatically the case on battlefields surveilled by satellites and growing drone fleets.
Firepower is key to victory, but its effects depend on the relative tactical skill and flexibility of the forces employing and facing it. Advances in military technology have dramatically magnified the rewards for superior combat skill—while punishing ineptitude ever more harshly. In his 2004 Military Power, the Columbia professor Stephen Biddle dubbed this “the modern system.” Armies that lack the tactical proficiency and cohesion to disperse and survive in the face of enemy surveillance and firepower are little better than targets. The Russians have demonstrated in this year of conflict that they are that kind of army.
In manpower terms, the Russian armed forces entered the war with a professional core of contract soldiers that was too small, augmented by hundreds of thousands of conscripts with basic training and the expectation that they would only ever be asked to fight in a war of national defense. Thanks to the shortage of noncommissioned officers—the hands-on tactical leaders who ensure small-unit success in Western armies—Russian troops immediately showed a deficit of discipline that has made them vulnerable to determined Ukrainian defenders. Vehicles have frequently been abandoned undamaged, communications security (such as limiting cellphone use during fighting) has been nonexistent, and troops have huddled together for a false sense of security, making them big targets for Ukrainian firepower. Within a week of the initial invasion, Russian soldiers were sometimes sabotaging their own vehicles to evade combat.
Ukrainian success has come down to skillful use of modern weapons against this incompetent and demoralized enemy. A succession of Wunderwaffe, or wonder weapons, has been much hyped: Turkish Bayraktar attack drones, Javelin anti-tank missiles, and, most recently, HIMARS rocket artillery. All of these have had an impact, but none individually has been decisive. Javelins and HIMARS are not new; both systems were first fielded in the 1990s. They have, however, been brutally effective against poorly employed Russian troops and vehicles. By some estimates, Russia has lost half of its entire operational tank fleet in a year of fighting.
Less high-profile than the hardware, Western training and advising have been almost as significant. The Ukrainians identify and prioritize Russian targets, but the U.S. military reportedly provides the precise GPS coordinates for a great majority of HIMARS strikes. Though difficult to quantify, U.S. training of Ukrainian forces since Russia’s initial incursion back in 2014 has undoubtedly played a role in Ukraine’s success to date. A far more ambitious effort planned in Germany could help Ukrainian forces increase their overall proficiency in combined arms even as they suffer heavy casualties and continue to integrate tens of thousands of new soldiers into their formations.
For two decades, Putin has been free to rule as he wished by insulating the Russian people from political concerns, an implicit bargain that runs from the oligarchs to the middle class. His reluctance to mobilize has been driven at least in part by fear of a political backlash to the call-up. It remains to be seen whether Russian mobilization ends up being a bigger threat to Putin’s hold on power than to Ukraine’s sovereignty.
Ukraine appears now to have lost the manpower advantage it briefly held last year. But Russia’s increased numbers are unlikely to overcome Ukrainian will and skill. As the French philosopher Voltaire noted more than two centuries ago: “God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best.”
It just can’t be overstated just what a disaster Vuhledar has been for Russia’s war effort in Ukraine.
The area around Vuhledar has been a graveyard for Russia’s supposedly elite naval infantry since last November, when they got smacked on their way to taking the nearby town of Pavlivka. Eventually, Ukraine retreated from Pavlivka, but only because Vuhledar sits on high ground overlooking a valley. It was just easier to defend. Pavlivka is gray territory these days, sitting empty.
Unlike Bakhmut, Vuhledar has actual strategic value because of, you guessed it, logistics. From that perch, Ukraine has fire control over key Russian supply lines in the “land bridge” connecting mainland Russia to Crimea. [Tweet and map at the link]
After reportedly reconstituting those naval decimated infantry units three times, Russia launched a new operation to take Vuhledar in late January. The results were the same. But thing is, repeated disaster hasn’t dissuaded Russia from trying, and trying again. In fact, Vuhledar is currently the hottest part of the front. Though, unlike Bakhmut, the heat is all being felt by just one side. The biggest reason? Mines. And not the mines we’re used to seeing, buried by engineers along suspected approaches. [Tweet and video describing the “highly unprofessional behavior” of the Russian military forces.]
Yes, Ukraine is flooding that approach with artillery and guided anti-tank missiles. But in video after Vuhledar video, most of the damage is being done by simple land mines. And therein lies the key to Vuhledar’s defense—a weapon the U.S. has been delivering for some time with absolutely zero fanfare.
Look at the Jan. 6 aid package from the United States: 1,200 155mm rounds of Remote Anti-Armor Mine (RAAM) Systems
Or the one from Oct. 4: 1,000 155mm rounds of Remote Anti-Armor Mine (RAAM) Systems
And Oct. 14: 5,000 155mm rounds of Remote Anti-Armor Mine (RAAM) Systems
Looking at past aid packages, it seems Ukraine first got them in September of last year, yet neither Mark Sumner nor I have ever dwelled on those, focusing on sexier line items like HIMARS ammunition, M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, or TANKS. So what are these RAAM systems?
They are a 155mm artillery shell with 9 anti-tank mines crammed inside. The shell is fired over a field. An airburst fuse pops the case open in the air, thus scattering the nine mines to the ground below. [Image with projectile parts labeled is available at the link]
This means that defenders can mine wide approaches without exposing engineers to enemy fire on dangerous missions to lay the mines. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing in Vuhledar. I shared one video above. Here’s another: [video at the link: "I have not enough hands to facepalm this."]
And another: [video at the link]
Russian sources have confirmed that it is, indeed, those RAAMs that are doing the damage: [Tweet and images at the link]
They are only 12cm x 6cm, with 1.8 kgs of explosives in them. In inches, that’s 4.7’ x 2.35’, and 4 lbs of explosives. Those little guys sure do pack a punch! Russian sources note that these vehicles were destroyed on routes that had already been supposedly cleared by combat engineers. That’s the beauty of these rounds—Ukraine can plug any hole immediately.
Russia has reported seeing them around the entire front lines, from Kreminna-Svatove up north, all the way down to here. Undoubtedly more have been laid on the approach to Zaporizhzhia, in case Russia tries to advance in that direction.
Yesterday, Russia resumed its attacks on Vuhledar, but this time, they lacked armor. Just like around Bakhmut, Russia attacked with human waves of hapless infantry. [video at the link]
Either they ran out of armored vehicles after losing dozens in the last week or so, or they are so afraid of these small RAAMs that they’d rather kill off their remaining infantry than lose more vehicles attempting to protect them.
Amazing what those little guys have done to crush what was supposed to be Russia’s big winter offensive. Still, don’t celebrate just yet! Who knows what else Russia might have ready to go. But as of now, everything has fizzled.
It’s been fun watching Russian war blogger Rybar try to spin the Vuhledar disaster. The lede is delicious:
Regardless of whose equipment it was, the incident is an extremely tragic and unpleasant episode, comparable to the losses of columns in Bilohorivka, Brovary, north of Popasna, and in the Kherson Region.
It’s Rybar, Russian media, so there’s some silliness as usual, claiming that the battle began when “the Russian Armed Forces took the enemy by surprise: during intense fighting, they advanced to the settlement.”
In the age of satellite surveillance and drones, the idea that an armored column could take Ukraine by surprise is patently absurd. There is no evidence that Russian forces ever made it anywhere into Vuhledar, and quite to the contrary, lots of evidence that they were stopped by the aforementioned minefields and other ambushes. Vuhledar literally has tall apartment buildings bristling with anti-tank crews overlooking the vast open approaches. [image at the link]
Russian artillery has been working to reduce those high-rises to rubble: [tweet and video at the link]
This picture is unbelievable. You can see those tall apartment buildings at the edge of town, giving Ukrainian defenders a clear view of the surrounding area. [Tweet and image at the link]
The “cottage area” is also referred to as the “dachas.” This was a residential single-family home neighborhood, as opposed to the apartment buildings on the west side. Russia did, at some point, reportedly reach the dachas, and the area was home to fierce fighting, but it’s considered a gray zone now, occupied by no one. Rybar notes in its writeup the importance of remote mines in the city’s defense:
Remote mining of streets and approaches continued – almost all the fields were covered with mines even before the Russian offensive, and during the week of fighting the Ukrainian Armed Forces installed over a hundred more barriers.
Rybar claims hundreds of Ukrainian losses in its failed attacks, which … whatever. Maybe, maybe not. Probably not. It’s an interesting alternate view of the battle; even if mostly fictional, elements of truth are likely embedded. And in the end, they admit what we all see in the videos above:
he delayed engagement of the motorized rifle units and the ensuing destruction of the convoy was only possible because of the overall unpreparedness of the infantrymen who were engaged in the battle.
Mass mining of the approaches and inadequate use of all available electronic warfare [to suppress surveillance drones] means led to the predictable result of a rather narrow mine-free breach, into which the column of armored vehicles plunged.
Their entire route was tracked by UAVs and shot through by artillery and anti-tank crews.
This story has a happy ending, and we’re seeing much of the same with Russia’s other offensive attempts at this time. However, there is a cautionary tale here—Ukraine would face exactly the same challenges when it eventually launches its next major counteroffensive.
Breaching open fields, against well-prepared defenses, under drone surveillance the entire time, through minefields, and under intense artillery barrage is brutally difficult, and will be bloody. This is why combined-arms warfare is so critical, it’s why the U.S. is currently training Ukrainians in it in Germany, and why it will take months more to drill the troops to execute this complicated choreography.
It takes a lot to go from what Russia disastrously attempted in Vuhledar, to a competent combined-arms breach like this: [video at the link]
Wonkette: “Did You Need More Proof Trump Knew There Was No Fraud? Okay, WaPo Brought You Some.”
Donald Trump’s claim to have thought the 2020 presidential election was rigged took yet another hit this weekend when the Washington Post reported that outside number crunchers hired by the campaign investigated every crackpot theory and Internet rumor put forward by the weirdos in Trump’s orbit and found they were all horse shit. Because of course they were all horse shit — Trump announced that the election had been stolen on November 3, before the votes had even been counted.
“Frankly, we did win this election,” he told crowds at the White House after a drunken Rudy Giuliani convinced him to declare victory, just as Steve Bannon had promised he would. The Big Lie was always a lie in search of a back story to make it “true,” and the people who believed it continue to believe it because acknowledging that the country soundly rejected their filthy orange deity would break their brains. It’s true because you believe it, and not the other way around.
The analysis was performed in the weeks after the election by the economics consulting firm Berkely Research Group. The campaign funded the work through a series of corporations, which may or may not have been an attempt to shield it from public view. It’s worth it to take a step back and ask why this coming out now. Might it have something to do with Special Counsel Jack Smith’s grand jury investigating the former president’s role in the lead-up to the January 6 Capitol Riot? Because he’s been all the way up the ass end of that campaign, as well as the PACs that doled out cash. So … hmmm.
Whatever the reason, it seems this analysis was commissioned as part of an effort by the campaign to either marshal proof of Trump’s vote fraud claims for use in his dozens of law suits, or, failing that, to talk the old man down so he would go quietly to Florida and not light the country on fire. If so, it failed spectacularly in both goals. Despite the diligence of the firm’s econometricians, who chased down every breathless report that the election was #RIGGED in seven swing states, no evidence of significant fraud or anomalies emerged. Because, of course, there was none.
“They looked at everything: change of addresses, illegal immigrants, ballot harvesting, people voting twice, machines being tampered with, ballots that were sent to vacant addresses that were returned and voted,” a source told the Post. “Literally anything you could think of. Voter turnout anomalies, date of birth anomalies, whether dead people voted. If there was anything under the sun that could be thought of, they looked at it.”
But this failed to put the issue to rest for Trump or his MAGA faithful:
Senior officials from Berkeley Research Group briefed Trump, then-chief of staff Mark Meadows and others on the findings in aDecember 2020 conference call, people familiar with the matter said. Meadows showed skepticism of the findings and continued to maintain that Trump won. Trump also continued to say he won the election. The call grew contentious, people with knowledge of the meeting said.
That would appear to confirm that Trump had actual knowledge that the stories he was feeding to his supporters about rampant electoral fraud were bullshit. You know, in case we needed more evidence besides every sane lawyer in the White House from Bill Barr on down telling him there was no fraud. (No, we do not count Jeff Clark, that guy gives brain worms a bad name.) FFS, Trump’s own campaign data guy told him days after the election that there was no fraud and he’d lost.
And yet that demented terrorist is still spraying his faithful with toxic lies:
Will Trump Hating Prosecutor Jack Smith be investigating the FACT that they SPIED on my campaign, even as I was in the Oval Office, they Stuffed the Ballot Boxes (per 2000 Mules), used Covid to cheat, that the FBI pushed Twitter & Facebook around, causing massive voter disruption, and so much more? That’s really what he should be looking at, not asking a very decent Mike Pence why he didn’t send the votes back to State Legislatures for scrutinization, which he could have done. Get the RIGGERS!
That post is from Friday of last week. It has 41,000 likes, even in the airless vacuum of Trump’s janky Truth Social platform.
Meanwhile the New York Times tells us that the special counsel is going balls to the wall in an attempt to finish up before the 2024 election gets into high gear. Which is cool and all, but hurry the fuck up, man! It’s two years after the crime, and the perpetrator is out there promising to do it again. All due haste is well in the rearview mirror — we’re already at nick-of-time-thirty. In fact, it’s nigh on too-damn-late o’clock. […]
“U.S. jets have shot down 4 flying objects in 8 days. Here’s everything we know.”
Almost nothing.
We have no idea what they are, where they came from, or what their purpose is.
It’s entirely possible that the smaller balloons flying lower, are in fact, weather balloons that people launched and lost track of.
They aren’t flying saucers. I don’t think you can cross interstellar distances in small balloons.
U.S. jets have shot down 4 flying objects in 8 days. Here’s everything we know.
Biden ordered the downing of an airborne object over Lake Huron Sunday.
2.2k
Dylan Stableford
Mon, February 13, 2023 at 10:14 AM PST·6 min read
The U.S. military shot down an unidentified object over Lake Huron on Sunday, the third such event in three days and the fourth in little more than a week.
President Biden ordered the downing of the UFO, which a U.S. official described as octagonal, with “strings hanging off” and no discernable payload.
The object was flying low at an altitude of about 20,000 feet when it was shot down by an F-16 fighter jet with a Sidewinder missile near the U.S.-Canadian border, the Pentagon said.
Here’s everything we know about the recent string of air defense activities playing out in the skies above the country.
How we got here
In late January, a suspected Chinese spy balloon appeared over the United States at about 60,000 feet near Alaska and hovered above the nation for days before Biden ordered an F-22 raptor to shoot it down off the coast of Myrtle Beach, S.C., on Feb. 4, and Navy divers began the process of recovering the balloon from a debris field stretching seven nautical miles. The recovered debris from the balloon was taken to an FBI laboratory in Quantico, Va., for analysis.
U.S. national security officials said that the balloon was potentially carrying explosives and hazardous material, which factored into Biden’s decision to delay shooting it down.
Five days later, on Feb. 9, an unknown object was spotted flying off the remote northern coast of Alaska. Biden ordered it shot down the following day. According to White House spokesman John Kirby, the object — roughly the size of a small car — was downed because it was flying at about 40,000 feet and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flights, not because of any knowledge that it was engaged in surveillance. Biden called the downing of the object “a success.”
On Saturday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that a U.S. fighter jet shot down an unidentified object that was flying high over the Yukon.
U.S. officials said that North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, the joint U.S.-Canada organization that provides shared defense of airspace over the two nations, detected the object flying at a high altitude on Friday evening over Alaska, and that it crossed into Canadian airspace on Saturday. Canadian and U.S. jets operating as part of NORAD were scrambled, and Trudeau said he spoke with Biden, who also ordered the object — about the size of three school buses — to be shot down.
On Sunday, Biden ordered the downing of the unidentified object over Lake Huron. The object was first detected in the skies above Montana.
In a bulletin, the Department of Homeland Security said that an FBI chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosives team was heading to the location of debris.
What officials are saying
In a briefing with reporters on Sunday, Gen. Glen VanHerck, head of NORAD and U.S. Northern Command, said the reason for the recent shootdowns was adjustments made to radar, allowing defense systems to track slower objects, combined with a “heightened alert” following the suspected Chinese spy balloon that emerged over U.S. airspace in late January.
“With some adjustments, we’ve been able to get a better categorization of radar tracks now,” VanHerck said. “And that’s why I think you’re seeing these [shootdowns], plus there’s a heightened alert to look for this information.”
He clarified that objects shot down over the weekend were different than the suspected Chinese spy balloon.
“We’re calling them objects, not balloons, for a reason,” he said.
VanHerck was also asked whether he could rule out the possibility they were of extraterrestrial origin.
“I haven’t ruled out anything at this point,” VanHerck said.
What members of Congress are saying
On ABC’s “This Week,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that U.S. officials were “focused like a laser” on gathering and accumulating the information about the downed objects.
But Schumer also said that the suspected Chinese spy balloon exposed a U.S. intelligence weakness.
“The bottom line is, until a few months ago, we didn’t know about these balloons,” Schumer said of the spy program. “It is wild that we didn’t know.”
Meanwhile, many Republicans criticized Biden for not ordering the suspected Chinese spy balloon to be brought down sooner.
But now, some of those same Republicans are questioning whether the Biden administration acted too hastily in ordering the objects shot down over the weekend.
“They do appear somewhat trigger-happy,” Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday. “This is certainly preferable to the permissive environment that they showed when the Chinese spy balloon was coming over some of our most sensitive sites.
“I would prefer them to be trigger-happy than to be permissive,” Turner added. “But we’re going to have to see whether or not this is just the administration trying to change headlines.”
What China is saying
A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Monday alleged that the United States has sent at least 10 unsanctioned balloons into Chinese airspace since last year.
At a press briefing, the spokesman, Wang Wenbin, said that it was common for U.S. high-altitude balloons to fly into other countries’ airspace.
“The United States should first reflect on itself and change course, rather than slander, discredit or incite confrontation,” Wang said when asked whether the objects shot down by U.S. military were of Chinese origin.
What the White House is saying
John Kirby
The United States promptly denied Wang’s assertion as “the latest example of China scrambling to do damage control.”
“It has repeatedly and wrongly claimed the surveillance balloon it sent over the United States was a weather balloon, and to this day has failed to offer any credible explanations for its intrusion into our airspace and the airspace of others,” White House spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in a statement.
At a press briefing at the White House on Monday, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that there is “no indication of aliens or extraterrestrial activity.”
National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby said that U.S. officials were still working to identify the objects, and that the president has “made this a very top priority.”
Kirby said that he can’t rule out that the objects had surveillance capabilities, but stressed that they were downed because they posed a real threat to air traffic.
“We’re going to learn from these three events. We’re going to continue to study what happened,” Kirby added. “But bottom line for President Biden is, you’ve got to do the right thing for the American people, for our safety and security.”
ravensays
“Our Losses Were Gigantic’: Life in a Sacrificial Russian Assault Wave”
Here is what it is like to be human cannon fodder in the Russian army.
Heavy casualties and short lives.
Wagner orders small groups to advance to a target and dig in. Then other waves follow. Usually they have artillery going by over head. It is a tactic that sometimes even works.
Some military analysts and Western governments have questioned Russia’s strategy, citing rates of wounded and killed at about 70% in battalions featuring former convicts.
Our Losses Were Gigantic’: Life in a Sacrificial Russian Assault Wave
Andrew E. Kramer
Mon, February 13, 2023 at 4:50 AM PST
LVIV, Ukraine — Creeping forward along a tree line late at night toward an entrenched Ukrainian position, the Russian soldier watched in horror as his comrades were mowed down by enemy fire.
His squad of 10 ex-convicts advanced only a few dozen yards before being decimated. “We were hit by machine-gun fire,” said the soldier, a private named Sergei.
One soldier was wounded and screamed, “Help me! Help me, please!,” the private said, although no help arrived. Eight soldiers were killed, one escaped back to Russian lines and Sergei was captured by Ukrainians.
The soldiers were sitting ducks, sent forth by Russian commanders to act essentially as human cannon fodder in an assault. There are two main uses of the conscripts in this tactic: as “storm troops” who move in waves, followed by more experienced Russian fighters, and as intentional targets, to draw fire and thus identify Ukrainian positions to hit with artillery.
Either way, they have become an integral component of Russia’s military strategy as it presses a new offensive in Ukraine’s east: relying on overwhelming manpower, much of it comprising inexperienced, poorly trained conscripts, regardless of the high rate of casualties.
In interviews last week, a half-dozen prisoners of war provided rare firsthand accounts of what it is like to be part of a sacrificial Russian assault.
“These orders were common, so our losses were gigantic,” Sergei said. “The next group would follow after a pause of 15 or 20 minutes, then another, then another.”
Of his combat experience, he said, “It was the first and last wave for me.”
By luck, the bullets missed him, he said. He lay in the dark until he was captured by Ukrainians who slipped into the buffer area between the two trench lines.
The New York Times interviewed the Russians at a detention center near Lviv, in Ukraine’s west, where many captured enemy soldiers are sent. From there, some are returned to Russia in prisoner exchanges. The Times also viewed videos of interrogations by the Ukrainian authorities. The prisoners are identified only by first name and rank for security reasons, because of the possibility of retribution once they are returned.
Although they are prisoners of war overseen by Ukrainians, the Russians said they spoke freely. Their accounts could not be independently corroborated but conformed with assessments of the fighting around the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut by Western governments and military analysts.
The soldiers in Sergei’s squad were recruited from penal colonies by the private military company known as Wagner, whose forces have mostly been deployed in the Bakhmut area. There, they have enabled Russian lines to move forward slowly, cutting key resupply roads for the Ukrainian army.
Russia’s deployment of former convicts is a dark chapter in a vicious war. Russia Behind Bars, a prison rights group, has estimated that as many as 50,000 Russian prisoners have been recruited since last summer, with most sent to the battle for Bakhmut.
In the early phases of the war, the Russian army had copious armored vehicles, artillery and other heavy weaponry but relatively few soldiers on the battlefield. Now, the tables have turned: Russia has deployed about 320,000 soldiers in Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s military intelligence agency. An additional 150,000 are in training camps, officials said, meaning there is the potential for a half-million soldiers to join the offensive.
But using infantry to storm trenches, redolent of World War I, brings high casualties. So far, the tactic has been used primarily by Wagner in the push for Bakhmut. Last week, the head of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said he would end the practice of recruiting convicts. But Russia’s regular army this month began recruiting convicts in exchange for pardons, shifting the practice on the Russian side in the war from the Wagner private army to the military.
Some military analysts and Western governments have questioned Russia’s strategy, citing rates of wounded and killed at about 70% in battalions featuring former convicts. On Sunday, the British defense intelligence agency said that over the past two weeks, Russia had probably suffered its highest rate of casualties since the first week of the invasion.
Interviews with former Wagner soldiers at the Ukrainian detention center aligned with these descriptions of the fighting — and shed light on a violent, harrowing experience for Russian soldiers.
“Nobody could ever believe such a thing could exist,” Sergei said of Wagner tactics.
Sergei sat, shoulders slumped, on the sofa in the warden’s office of the Ukrainian detention center. He was balding and wore shoes without laces.
The soldiers arrived at the front straight from Russia’s penal colony system, which is rife with abuse and where obedience to harsh codes of conduct in a violent setting is enforced by prison gangs and guards alike. The same sense of beaten subjugation persists at the front, Sergei said, enabling commanders to send soldiers forward on hopeless, human wave attacks.
“We are prisoners, even if former prisoners,” he said. “We are nobody and have no rights.”
Sergei said he had worked as a cellphone tower technician in a far-northern Siberian city, living with his wife and three children. In the interview, he admitted to dealing marijuana and meth, for which he was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2020.
In October, he accepted an offer to fight in exchange for a pardon. The arrangement, he said, was not offered to rapists and drug addicts, but murderers, burglars and other prisoners were welcome.
“Of course, any normal person fears death,” he said. “But a pardon for eight years is valuable.”
The fighting would turn out to be far more dangerous than he had imagined.
In three days at the front south of Bakhmut, Sergei first served as a stretcher bearer, carrying out mangled, bloody former prisoners who had been killed or wounded in an omen of what awaited him when ordered to join an assault.
On the night of Jan. 1, they were commanded to advance 500 yards along the tree line, then dig in and wait for a subsequent wave to arrive. One soldier carried a light machine gun. The others were armed with only assault rifles and hand grenades.
The sequential assaults on Ukrainian lines by small units of former Russian prisoners have become a signature Russian tactic in the effort to capture Bakhmut.
“We see them crawl for a kilometer or more,” toward Ukrainian trenches, then open fire at close range and try to capture positions, Col. Roman Kostenko, chair of the defense and intelligence committee in Ukraine’s parliament, said in an interview. “It’s effective. Yes, they have heavy losses. But with these heavy losses, they sometimes advance.”
It could be, Kostenko said, that such infantry assaults on entrenched defenses will remain mostly confined to the fight for Bakhmut and that they are being used to conserve tanks and armored personnel carriers for the expected offensive. But they could also serve as a template for wider fighting.
The former convicts, Kostenko said, are herded into the battlefield by harsh discipline: “They have orders, and they cannot disobey orders, especially in Wagner.”
A private named Aleksandr, 44, who shaved three years off a sentence for illegal logging by enlisting with Wagner, said that before deploying to the front he was told he would be shot if he disobeyed orders to advance.
“They brought us to a basement, divided us into five-person groups and, though we hadn’t been trained, told us to run ahead, as far as we could go,” he said of his commanders.
His dash toward Ukrainian lines in a group of five soldiers ended with three dead and two captured.
Another captured Russian, Eduard, 22, enlisted to get four years cut from a sentence for car theft. He spent three months at the front as a stretcher bearer before being ordered forward. He was captured on his first human wave assault. From his time as a stretcher bearer, he said, he estimated that half of the men in each assault were wounded or killed, with shrapnel and bullet wounds the most common injuries.
Sergei said he had initially been pleased with the offer of a pardon in exchange for service in Wagner. “When I came to this war, I thought it was worth it,” he said.
Putin has done more to isolate Russia than anyone since Stalin invented the Iron Curtain. Which was his one good idea anyway.
The Russians always tried to get rid of their minorities by persecuting them, assimilating them by force, and moving large numbers of Russians into their areas. Which means all of the former SSRs have large Russian minorities that they have to assimilate with and coexist with.
They saw what happened in Ukraine with a large Russian speaking part of the population and don’t want to repeat it. (AFAICT, at least half and maybe more of Ukrainians are native Russian speakers.)
Estonia is going to try to get them to…learn Estonian.
The Daily Beast
Putin’s War Fuels a Bitter Breakup With the Russian Language
Jorik Simonides
Sun, February 12, 2023 at 6:07 PM PST·6 min read
NARVA, Estonia—The quick and glorious victory Vladimir Putin expected when he launched a war in Ukraine has turned into something of a punchline, and with each day bringing more humiliation to the Russian army, Moscow is looking as lonely as ever.
Baltic countries have been important supporters of Ukraine since the beginning of the war. In Estonia, nearly three-quarters of the total population supported financial and armed support to Ukraine, despite the fact that a quarter of the country’s population is ethnically Russian.
Now, Estonia is taking another step away from Russia—by investing in the Estonian language through education.
The growing divide is especially evident in Narva, the third-largest city in Estonia, separated from Russia only by a river. The city is currently constructing two state high schools, a primary school, and a kindergarten—and even though 95 percent of the population of this border city speak Russian at home—the primary language taught in those schools will be Estonian.
Wake-up call
Estonian officials have been pushing for the language shift ever since their country gained independence from the Soviet Union. The war in Ukraine, however, has accelerated this process, Narva mayor Katri Raik told The Daily Beast.
“At the beginning of the war, a situation developed where Estonians and Russian-speaking residents had quite different understandings of the situation in the world,” the mayor said, explaining that the war had exposed how the country had failed to establish schools that “unified Russian and Estonian students.”
Russia May Threaten the Baltics but Estonia Knows How to Fight Back
One of those new schools, a high school, is expected to open by September. Irene Käosaar, the future principal and current head of a neighboring immersion school, proudly toured The Daily Beast around the construction site, a few blocks away from Narva city center, and a 10-minute walk from the Russian border.
“This school must protect the Estonian language and Estonian culture in this border city,” Käosaar, who will be in charge of some 800 students’ total when the new school is opened, told The Daily Beast.
Principal Irene Käosaar. Jorik Simonides
Principal Irene Käosaar.
Jorik Simonides
Four months ago, the Estonian Minister of Education, Tõnis Lukas, laid the cornerstone for the new high school. It’s something of a prestige project for Lukas, whose ministry is leading the way in promoting the use of Estonian in the country.
The government has been investing heavily in the Estonian language as of late. By raising the salaries of teachers who are fluent in Estonian, they hope to motivate educators to come and work in the north-eastern regions of the country.
The Estonian language uses the Latin alphabet, and is closer in structure to Finnish than it is to Russian.
Starting in 2024, all Russian-speaking kindergartens in Estonia are expected to switch over to the Estonian language. A legislative proposal is also being prepared to require, among others, taxi drivers and food couriers to be proficient in Estonian.
Backlash
These developments have not been welcomed by everyone in the country. The language goals, and compulsory use of Estonian in kindergartens, are perceived as an imposition by some ethnic Russians in Estonia. The Estonian-based NGO Russian School of Estonia, committed to the position of the Russian-speaking community in Estonia, has even lambasted the decisions as discriminatory.
“The reform in the education field is aimed not only at optimizing the school system but at the gradual eradication of Russian education in Estonia, which would eventually lead to the assimilation of the minority,” the group said in a statement urging the Estonian government to reconsider this new language policy.
The Russian government, for its part, has even gone so far as to accuse Estonia’s prime minister of Hitlerism for encouraging Ukrainian refugees in the country to take Estonian language courses.
“Hitler would be proud of you [the Prime Minister of Estonia]. Without you, it would be much more difficult to prove the dehumanization of the collective West. Estonia for Estonians, right?,” Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson of Russia’s foreign affairs ministry, said on Telegram. “Say it, at last, stop wrinkling the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with sweaty palms.”
Though some Estonians worry that Russia will use the new language policy to justify threats against their country, Raik says she’s not frightened. “If I were worried about Russian politics every day, I would not be able to work in Narva. Of course, I sincerely hope that Estonia will not come under Russian attack. This does not imply that we should consider our neighbor when enacting state policy,” she told The Daily Beast.
Construction of a new school in Narva. Jorik Simonides
Construction of a new school in Narva.
Jorik Simonides
The future
Veronika Gorbatenko, a spokesperson for the ministry, emphasizes that Estonian has always been the language of instruction in all state-funded schools “The recently passed legislation will extend that to privately operated schools or schools that operate under local governments,” she told The Daily Beast.
Estonian as a primary language is also necessary for integration, at least when it comes to education, according to Käosaar. Her new school, she argues, will provide more opportunities for Russian-speaking students in the future. “Otherwise, they cannot study in the future, in high school, for example, or they have fewer choices in the labor market,” she said. “This school has the potential to change that in Narva.”
Russia May Threaten the Baltics but Estonia Knows How to Fight Back
Denis, a Narva resident, agrees. He was born in Narva, where he spoke Russian at home, and Estonian at school. “Most people here will always speak Russian amongst themselves because that is their first language,” he said, but “We are living in Estonia, and in Estonia you should be able to speak Estonian. If you are traveling to other parts of Estonia, you should be able to speak the language.”
The Russian language became more established in Estonia after World War II, when a wave of Russians came to Estonia during the Soviet occupation. Narva has a particularly long history with the language—and you’d be hard pressed to find people speaking Estonian to each other on the streets.
Estonian demography expert Allan Puur, a professor at Tallinn University, does not expect an abrupt change to happen soon.
“We see new generations of Russian speakers emerging. They are turning into minorities who are more integrated into Estonian society and can speak Estonian as a second language. But in the meantime, I assume that most of them keep self-defining their mother tongue as Russian and speak that language at home at least,” he told The Daily Beast.
Principal Irene Käosaar doesn’t expect the shift to happen overnight, either. Russian language classes will still be given at the new school, she said, and other subjects might even be taught in Russian or bilingually.
“I hope the government helps with that. We were told about this project in the last 30 years,” she said. “But we need the law to go forward more quickly and in a more intensive way. This is not easy to realize.”
Extraterrestrial beings have admitted surveilling the United States with high-altitude objects, but claimed that they did so only to monitor the weather.
The revelation appeared in an official statement released to the American media by an organization calling itself the Intergalactic Command Force.
“The I.C.F. has, over the past several years, launched a series of surveillance craft that have hovered over the United States,” the statement read. “We can assure you that we did this only to advance our understanding of weather conditions in your country.”
The aliens admitted that they were “surprised” that their high-altitude objects had gone undetected for so long.
“Given that the Pentagon has an annual budget of eight hundred billion dollars, we never dreamed it would take them years to notice us,” the statement read.
A battle over the future of Israel’s judiciary — perceived by many as a fight for the soul of Israel’s democracy — grew more fraught and fractious on Monday as roughly 100,000 protesters from across the country filled the streets outside Parliament in Jerusalem in one of the biggest-ever demonstrations in the city. … The demonstrators gathered to oppose a sweeping judicial overhaul proposed by Israel’s new government — the most right-wing and religiously conservative in the country’s history — that has bitterly divided Israelis, and has even led to fears of civil war.
Ari Melber just launched a new segment called “Open Mind” and his first guest was philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum talking about animal rights! I hope they put it on YT.
Congress is venturing into unknown and potentially explosive territory with the first House GOP-led investigation into COVID-19 vaccines.
It’s expected to be a showdown across the spectrum of views on vaccine safety and efficacy, from attempting to undermine public faith in them to trying to bolster confidence.
The Oversight Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic has been given a broad writ to investigate a wide array of topics from the virus’ origins to federal COVID restrictions to the pandemic’s economic impact.
“The jurisdiction is pretty much everything related to COVID,” Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), the panel’s chair, told Axios.
That also includes vaccines, according to the rules of the 118th House: “The development of vaccines and treatments, and the development and implementation of vaccination policies for Federal employees and members of the armed forces. It’s a sharp turn from the Democratic-led panel last year, which was directed to focus on “political interference” by the Trump administration into federal health agencies’ pandemic responses.
In interviews with Axios, Republicans expressed a wide range of views on how they want to approach the investigations into vaccines.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said she wants to hold hearings with people who experienced side effects and look at VAERS reports — a public database of unverified reports of post-vaccination health effects often seized on by anti-vaccine groups.
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), by contrast, said the goal shouldn’t necessarily be to dent public trust. “We should see if there’s any correlation between the vaccination and people dying,” she told Axios, “And if there isn’t … we should disprove it.”
Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) said he is more interested in the overall COVID response: “This is not about vaccinations … it’s about everything, getting a comprehensive review of what we did and what we can do better.”
Greene, who is known for her ability to capture public attention, has already made clear how she wants to use the public perch the panel will afford her.
“It’s Time To Investigate the COVID Vaccines,” reads the subject line of an email her campaign sent out on Jan. 25, the day the panel’s members were announced, linking to a tweet raising unfounded speculation about a conservative influencer’s death. She also said in a press release of her appointment to the panel: “It’s time to reveal the truth on the origins of COVID, the authoritarian Democrat response, vaccines, and Fauci’s NIAID involvement in gain-of-function research.”
She’s not alone. Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), upon being appointed, tweeted: “Every LIE about the vaccine will be revealed.”
“We want to look at the effectiveness of these vaccines,” Wenstrup told Axios. “I would like to, as a physician, understand the longevity of [them]. And I want to get doctors back involved,” he said, adding that he wants to study the vaccine’s side effects as well.
Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa), another physician, said in a statement that she expects the panel’s hearings will “shed light on the FDA approval process, the potential for side effects, and ultimately the success rate and safety of the vaccine.”
“I have met with constituents and others who believe that they were silenced when talking about adverse vaccine effects,” said Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.).
The other side: Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.), the ranking member on the panel, told Axios, “There’s no doubt that vaccines work,” adding that “it would be interesting to look at the efficiency of developing a vaccine for a novel virus … the equity in vaccine distribution, the lives saved and productivity gained by having vaccines.”
The bottom line: The CDC, which could be a target of the panel’s investigations, has published data from multiple studies that shows the COVID’s vaccine safety and effectiveness against severe illness, hospitalization and death.
“COVID-19 bivalent vaccines and flu vaccines are safe, they’re effective and they can lower the risk of infection in general, and especially lower the risk of severe illness and death,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Rochelle Walensky said on a media call in December.
In the debut segment of The Beat’s new “Open Mind” series, Ari interviews renowned philosopher and author of the new book, “Justice for Animals,” Martha Nussbaum, on her provocative argument that animals should have legal rights and access to the courts with human lawyers representing them. In this new series, MSNBC’s Ari Melber asks viewers to explore novel ideas with an open mind.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Ukrainian defenders who have held out for months are braced for new ground attacks, Ukrainian military officials have said. The eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut is facing heavy artillery fire, according to local officials. “The city, the city’s suburbs, the entire perimeter, and essentially the entire Bakhmut direction and Kostyantynivka are under crazy, chaotic shelling,” said Volodymyr Nazarenko, deputy commander of Ukraine’s Svoboda battalion, on Monday. The Ukrainian military reported 16 settlements had been bombarded near Bakhmut.
In the last three days, Wagner Group forces have almost certainly made further small gains around the northern outskirts of Bakhmut, including into the village of Krasna Hora, the UK Ministry of Defence said Tuesday. However, organised Ukrainian defence continues in the area and the tactical Russian advance to the south of the town has likely made little progress, the latest British intelligence report adds.
Ukrainian forces blew up a bridge near the eastern town of Bakhmut on Monday, according to a local Donetsk region news site, in a sign that Ukraine may be planning to retreat.
Ukrainian forces, for now, deny they intend to leave the town, despite six months of heavy fighting and reportedly dwindling stockpiles.
It appears the Kremlin is concentrating maximum force on capturing the town before the one-year anniversary of the invasion on 24 February. Ukraine and its western allies have said over the last week that Russia has already begun a new offensive across the contact line in a bid to gain ground before new western supplies arrive in the spring.
“It is clear that we are in a race of logistics,” Nato head, Jens Stoltenberg, told reporters in Brussels on Monday.
A Russian victory in Bakhmut would give the Kremlin a boost after months of stepbacks and a stepping stone to fight for the two next major Ukrainian-controlled towns. [Well,…]
Russian forces now occupy areas to the north and south of Bakhmut and have been attempting to overwhelm Ukrainian forces by ceaselessly throwing streams of infantry soldiers at the Ukrainian frontlines.
“The Russians next to Bakhmut are trying to rely more on manpower than on armored vehicles,” said Serhiy Cherevaty, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s forces in the east.
He told Ukraine’s Telemarathon on Sunday the Russians were using small tactical groups to try to approach Ukrainian troops and engage them in close combat battles – not risking their heavy equipment in the current weather conditions and Ukraine’s ability to target it.
The battle to control Bakhmut began in June and has become one of the war’s bloodiest battles, with Russia concentrating a huge number of resources on capturing the town.
Social media posts indicate that Ukraine has suffered thousands of casualties in and around Bakhmut, particularly since autumn Russia mobilised thousands of men in October. Drone footage published by Ukraine’s military as well as graveyards in southern Russia shows that Russian losses have been astronomical.
The blown-up bridge is reportedly located between Bakhmut and Konstantivka, the next major town under Ukrainian control, according to Eastern Edition, a local news Telegram channel, which posted videos from the area.
Aside from the blown-up bridge, the Donetsk region regional administration announced new measures restricting journalists’ access to Bakhmut on Monday, citing the danger of Russian reconnaissance groups attempting to penetrate the town. Also on Monday, Russia’s ministry of defence claimed victory over Krasna Hora, a settlement north of Bakhmut, but Ukraine’s military spokesperson for the eastern command, Serhiy Cherevaty, refuted the claim.
The BBC who visited the town on Sunday reported that there was street fighting happening in some areas of the town and ammunition stockpiles were dwindling. Capt Mykhailo from the 93rd Mechanised Brigade told the BBC that they had ammunition shortages of “all kinds, especially artillery rounds,” but was still managing to hold their positions.
A Ukrainian commander of the Svoboda battalion, currently stationed in Bakhmut, told Ukraine’s Radio Svoboda that most of the town, especially the “heart and centre” was fully under the control of the Ukrainian army and the street battles were not as they had been in Soledar, a town north of Bakhmut which has been captured by Russia.
The Russian assault on Bakhmut has been led by Wagner, a private Russian military formation with a reputation for ruthlessness. Wagner’s sponsor, Russian Yevheny Prigozhin, recruited thousands of Russian prisoners to bulk up the force in the autumn, offering them the promise of freedom after six months if they fight in Ukraine.
…
Ukraine and its allies said this week that Russia had began a renewed offensive with the aim of gaining ground before new equipment arrives from the west in the spring.
Stolenberg, who earlier said that Russia had shown it was prepared to accept a heavy number of casualties, said on Tuesday that the allies should boost weapons supplies to Ukraine as there were “no signs that President Putin is preparing for peace. What we see is the opposite, he is preparing for more war, for new offensives and new attacks.”
…Politico: US says it won’t send Ukraine long-range missiles as it has too few.
U.S. officials told Ukraine’s representatives at a meeting at the Pentagon that it doesn’t have enough Army Tactical Missile Systems [ATACMS] to give any up to Ukraine, according to four people familiar with the matter, Politico reported.
…
ISW: Russia’s use of mobilized soldiers to cover losses unlikely to help advances.
Using poorly-trained mobilized soldiers to replenish battle-damaged units is unlikely to help Russia in its large-scale offensives or rapid advance attempts, the Institute of the Study of War said in its latest update.
…
UK Defense Ministry: Russia aims to advance in most directions, but it lacks combat power.
Russian troops are being ordered to advance in most sectors of Ukraine’s front line, but they have not amassed “sufficient offensive combat power on any one axis to achieve a decisive effect,” the U.K. Defense Ministry reported on Feb. 14….
A mass shooting at Michigan State University left three people dead and five others critically wounded Monday evening, triggering an hourslong manhunt and shelter-in-place orders before the suspect died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.
The gunman opened fire at two campus locations, turning the sprawling university of about 50,000 students into a crime scene and forcing terrified students to run and hide as hundreds of officers in tactical gear swarmed the school – a now-familiar scene to many US communities.
The gunman was a 43-year-old man who was not affiliated with the university, Interim Deputy Chief Chris Rozman said. “We have no idea why he came to campus to do this tonight,” Rozman said. Police have not said whether the victims were students or given their names or ages.
The attack came one day before the five-year anniversary of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and marked the 67th mass shooting in 2023 – with four or more people wounded or killed, not including the shooter – data from the non-profit group Gun Violence Archive shows.
President Joe Biden was briefed on the Michigan State massacre ahead of a call with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, according to a White House official.
“The FBI and their colleagues are going through the history of this person to try to understand what his motivations were, to try to understand what brought him to this moment in this community at this time,” CNN senior law enforcement analyst Andrew McCabe said. “This community is struggling to understand why they are the latest in what is a uniquely American experience, and understanding and experiencing a mass shooting in their midst.”…
Moldova has temporarily closed its airspace, its national airline has said.
In a statement on Facebook, Air Moldova urged passengers to “please stay calm” and that it was “waiting for the resumption of flights”.
The news comes at a time of tensions between Moldova and Russia, and a day after Moldova’s president, Maia Sandu, accused Moscow of plotting to destabilise the former Soviet republic.
Sandu complained on Monday that Russia was planning to use foreign saboteurs to bring down her country’s leadership, stop it joining the EU and use it in the war against Ukraine.
Her comments came after Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine had uncovered a Russian intelligence plan “for the destruction of Moldova”, and days later the country’s government resigned.
In response, Russia’s foreign ministry dismissed Sandu’s claims as “completely unfounded and unsubstantiated”, and accused Kyiv of trying to draw Moldova “into a tough confrontation with Russia”.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, has admitted that he founded and financed a company the US has described as a “Russian troll farm” which meddled in the 2016 presidential election.
Prigozhin, a close ally of Vladimir Putin, has previously admitted to interfering in US elections, but his statement today outlined his specific links to the Internet Research Agency (IRA).
…
In a statement posted to social media, Prigozhin said:
I was never just the financier of the Internet Research Agency. I thought it up, I created it, I managed it for a long time.
…
Prigozhin was first sanctioned by the US over his links to Russian IRA in 2018 and charged with conspiracy to defraud the US.
AFRICA
What to know about the deadly Marburg virus as new outbreak emerges
By Adela Suliman
February 14, 2023 at 8:08 a.m. EST
The deadly Marburg virus has surfaced this week for the first time in Equatorial Guinea, causing at least nine deaths in the west African nation, according to the World Health Organization.
A handful of Marburg cases were identified in Ghana late last year. Although it remains “a very rare disease in people,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “when it occurs, it has the potential to spread,” and can be fatal.
Here’s what you need to know about the virus and the disease it causes.
Marburg virus disease is a highly infectious viral hemorrhagic fever, according to the CDC. It is spawned by the animal-borne RNA virus of the same Filoviridae family as the Ebola virus. Both diseases are rare but have the capacity to cause outbreaks with high fatality rates.
Fatality rates for Marburg cases in past outbreaks ranged between 24 percent to 88 percent, according to the WHO, depending on the virus strain and quality of case management.
Marburg was probably first transmitted to people from African fruit bats as a result of prolonged exposure from people working in mines and caves that have Rousettus bat colonies.
It is not an airborne disease. Instead, it spreads quickly between humans through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected people such as blood, saliva or urine, as well as on surfaces and materials. Relatives and health workers remain most vulnerable alongside patients, and bodies can remain contagious even at burial.
It was first recognized in 1967, when outbreaks occurred among laboratory workers in Marburg and Frankfurt, Germany and in Belgrade, Serbia while conducting research.
What are symptoms of the Marburg virus?
Symptoms can begin to show up “abruptly,” according to the WHO, and include a high fever, severe headache, chills and malaise. Muscle aches and cramping pains are common symptoms. Others can include jaundice, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea.
The CDC has also noted that around day five, a non-itchy rash on the chest, back or stomach can occur. Clinical diagnosis of Marburg “can be difficult,” it says, with many of the symptoms similar to other infectious diseases such as malaria, typhoid fever and Ebola.
In fatal cases, death usually occurs between eight and nine days after onset of the disease and is generally preceded by severe blood loss and hemorrhaging, as well as multi-organ dysfunction.
The appearance of patients can be described as “ghost-like,” says the WHO, with drawn features, deep-set eyes, expressionless faces and extreme lethargy.
What is the treatment for Marburg virus?
There are no vaccines or antiviral treatments approved to treat the Marburg virus.
Supportive care can improve survival rates, such as rehydration with oral or intravenous fluids, maintaining oxygen levels, using drug therapies and treating specific symptoms as they arise. Some health experts say drugs similar to those used for Ebola could be effective but treatments have not been proven in clinical trials. Increasing awareness of its contagious nature can also help with prevention and spread, says the CDC.
Some “experimental treatments” for Marburg have been tested in animals but not in humans, the CDC said.
Guinea orders 155 people into quarantine after West Africa’s first case of Marburg virus is detected
Where is the latest Marburg virus disease outbreak?
Equatorial Guinea confirmed its first outbreak of Marburg virus disease this week. At least nine people have died and there are 16 suspected cases in the country’s western Kie-Ntem province, according to the WHO.
“Further investigations are ongoing. Advance teams have been deployed in the affected districts to trace contacts, isolate and provide medical care to people showing symptoms of the disease,” the global health body said in a statement Monday.
Cases of Marburg have previously been reported elsewhere in Africa, including in Uganda, Ghana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone and South Africa. The largest outbreak killed more than 350 people in Angola in 2005, according to a report from its Health Ministry.
“The virus is not known to be native to other continents, such as North America,” says the CDC.
What has the WHO said about the Marburg virus?
The WHO is convening an “urgent meeting” Tuesday to discuss the newly identified Marburg outbreak in Equatorial Guinea as well as vaccine and therapeutic candidates, it said.
It will also be deploying teams to the affected areas and assigning experts in epidemiology, case management, infection prevention, laboratory and risk communication to support the national response efforts.
“Marburg is highly infectious,” said Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa. “Thanks to the rapid and decisive action by the Equatorial Guinean authorities in confirming the disease, emergency response can get to full steam quickly so that we save lives and halt the virus as soon as possible.”
[…] Steve Bannon’s on-air commentary from late last week:
“What people forget is that the McCarthy hearings and the House Un-American Activities [Committee] were quite productive in turfing out communists, right? KGB communists that were deeply embedded in the State Department and other elements of the government, it should have gone further. … The McCarthy hearings were extremely, extremely helpful.”
It was nearly a decade ago when Bannon complained about “pop culture” contributing to the idea that McCarthy was some kind of “villain.” Evidently, 10 years later, he hasn’t changed his mind.
[…] it was shortly after Sen. Ted Cruz began his congressional career when a Dallas Morning News reporter told the Texas Republican that he’d been compared at times to Joe McCarthy. Cruz said that criticism “may be a sign that perhaps we’re doing something right,” which seemed like a curious response given the context.
Asked specifically, “Is McCarthy someone you admire?” Cruz wouldn’t answer. A few years later, a Cruz national security adviser said McCarthy was “spot on” about communists infiltrating the United States government in the 1950s.
In 2014, after his failed Republican Senate campaign in Missouri, then-Rep. Todd Akin compared himself to McCarthy — and he meant it in a good way.
As the House Republicans’ Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government moves forward, plenty of political observers are comparing the partisan effort to McCarthy and his panel on “un-American activities.”
It’s unsettling that some on the right might see such a comparison as praise.
With Republicans telling us, collectively, ‘Who are you going to believe? Us or your lyin’ eyes?’ the work of de-bamboozling is never done. […]
Republicans are now aghast that anyone would be claiming they want to cut Social Security. But last year the Republican Study Committee – a House caucus which includes about 75% of all House Republicans – released a proposed 2023 budget which included basically every kind of Social Security cut on offer.
The Blueprint to Save America proposed raising the eligibility age at first to 70 and then higher if and when life expectancy goes up; it proposed cutting (or in their words ‘modernizing’) the benefit formula for everyone currently 54 and under; means-testing Social Security benefits; including work requirements for some Social Security beneficiaries; and allowing people to divert payroll taxes into private investment accounts – aka “retirement freedom”.
[…] Earlier I noted there are three broad buckets of proposed cuts to Social Security which program foes push for. Three quarters of House Republicans just proposed steep version of all three and actually included a couple more I didn’t even think to mention.
RSC members are out hitting the airwaves now claiming that none of this ever happened. In fact, new RSC Chair Rep. Kevin Hern (OK), who oversaw the creation of the Blueprint, says this: “There is NO Republican in Washington, DC, in the House of Representatives or the Senate, that wants to CUT the benefits for seniors on Social Security and Medicare. That’s a falsehood. That’s a lie.” [Tweet and video at the link.]
How can he be saying this? Note the wording: no current beneficiary. At least according to Hern and his Committee colleagues, you’ll be safe if you’re already on Social Security. The cuts will apply to people in the workforce now. The cuts apply to everyone except those already on Social Security and those just a few years away from becoming eligible.
As you can see, it’s really all word games and flimflam. Republicans are shocked!, outraged, **frustrated** that President Biden has the effrontery to claim they want to cut Social Security while they are simultaneously on the record proposing exactly the cuts he claims they support.
KGsays
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), by contrast, said the goal shouldn’t necessarily be to dent public trust. “We should see if there’s any correlation between the vaccination and people dying,” she told Axios, “And if there isn’t … we should disprove it.” – tomh quoting Axios@178
There is such a correlation, of course: a negative one.
KGsays
AFAICT, at least half and maybe more of Ukrainians are native Russian speakers. – raven@174
Including the president, of course. A majority of those first-language Russian speakers nevertheless identify as Ukranians. In the Republic of Ireland, IIRC only about 20% of the population are fluent in Gaelic. The country is overwhelmingly English-speaking. That didn’t prevent it rising against British rule.
On Saturday, we took a look at how Russia is burning through what seemed at first to be an inexhaustible supply of tanks, and how current rates of production in Russia can’t begin to replace the rate of losses they’re seeing in repeated, poorly planned offensives. Meanwhile, though Ukraine has lost only a fraction as much of its heavy equipment, the manufacturing rate of much of this equipment within Ukraine is effectively zero. On tanks, that’s been true since 2014, when Russia’s earlier invasion occupied Crimea and captured the plants where vital components of Ukraine’s T-84 tank were made.
That means Ukraine is only replacing its lost tanks with those coming in from outside sources. To date, Ukraine has received just over 400 upgraded Soviet tanks provided by Western allies. That’s almost exactly the number of Ukrainian tanks that are confirmed losses. Considering that Ukraine’s actual losses are probably well in excess of the documented losses, it would seem that Ukraine’s tank force is also being thinned out, though not to the extent seen by Russia.
However, there’s another factor. One that shows Ukraine now likely has hundreds of more tanks than it did when the invasion began.
Here’s an updated table of the tanks that have already been sent to Ukraine, as well as those promised in the coming months. [Table at the link]
[…] Though the appearance of Western tanks in Ukraine is something that has everyone excited […] the actual number of tanks promised so far for this year is considerably lower than it was in the six months after Russia began their illegal invasion. That could be a serious concern, especially if some of the big predicted offensives and counteroffensives get underway.
But here’s that one more magic factor. As documented by Oryx, Ukraine has captured 547 Russian tanks since the war began. Meanwhile, Russia has captured just 143 Ukrainian tanks. That’s a net gain of 404 tanks. Russia still remains the largest single source of foreign tanks supplied to Ukraine. In fact, at this point, with those T-72EAs from the Netherlands still working their way into the country, Russia has likely “donated” more tanks to Ukraine than all other nations combined.
Granted, many of those Russian tanks need some repairs and repainting, but many of them have come back into service quickly. In fact, some of the 143 tanks reportedly captured by Russia were Russian tanks that they managed to grab back.
But here’s the overall picture: Russia has lost a documented 1,727 tanks, according to Oryx. Ukraine puts Russia’s actual losses at 3,286. At just under two times the documented losses, that actually seems fairly reasonable. Looking at the rate at which Russia is able to manufacture new tanks, or prepare tanks from storage, their available stockpile of tanks is down by around 3,000.
On the Ukraine side, they’ve officially lost 461. Scale that up by the difference between reported and confirmed on the Russian side, and Ukraine may have lost as many as 870 tanks. But when you adjust for the 433 tanks sent to Ukraine from the West, and the 404 tank difference in their “trade” with Russia, Ukraine’s maximum losses so far in the invasion are about … 33 tanks. If the number of tanks lost is actually closer to the documented number, then they could have more tanks now than at the outset.
However, the number of tanks promised to Ukraine over the next year is just 215. That’s a significant decrease over what was sent in 2022. Granted, many of the new tanks on the way are Western tanks that are expected to greatly outfight the Russian T-72s and T-80s.
For any number of reasons, that had better be the case.
The New York Times has a detailed look at the Russian attack on medical volunteers that took the life of paramedic Pete Reed, among others. The frame-by-frame analysis at the time of the attack shows that the volunteer group was not the victim of random shelling, as has been widely reported. Instead, that analysis shows:
…that Mr. Reed, who was unarmed, died in a targeted strike by a guided missile almost certainly fired by Russian troops.
Reed was engaged in helping to evacuate civilians from Bakhmut at the time of the attack and was standing among vehicles bearing markings to show they were part of an aid convoy that included a Red Cross ambulance. The image of the missile in flight is truly extraordinary, freezing the action with the missile just yards from impact. It provides compelling evidence that this was not an accidental strike, but a deliberate targeting of aid workers.
Meanwhile, in Moldova…
On Monday, Moldovan president Maia Sandu reported that there was a Russian plot to overthrow her government. This was followed early on Tuesday with the closure of airspace over all of Moldova. This came following was was reported to be a Russian drone flying near the capitol on Monday and after. Sunday was a day of general unrest in Moldova, with protests and marches from opposition political parties. [snipped the details as they are available in comments 2, 33, 37, 52, 124 and 185]
When it comes to its standing military, Moldova is ranked number 143 out of 145 professional armies in the world. Though its population is better than 2.6 million, it reportedly has only 6,500 full-time forces, and the training and equipment of these troops are not highly regarded. It does not list any tanks in its arsenal and has relatively few armored vehicles of any kind. The original Russian forces in Transnistria had over 100 tanks, but it’s unclear how many (if any) of these still remain.
Nothing to report here. There were two vacancies at the end of 2022. It appears that Biden’s awesome team can’t bother to find two people in a country of 340,000,000 people who are qualified to join that board. So the old DeJoy sycophants remain on the board and DeJoy continues to dismantle the USPS in order to send more business to private companies, including ones he has had long financial connections with.
WTF? I mean really. We control the Senate. Why can’t Biden’s people get this job done? […]
Biden could nominate one Democrat and one Independent immediately. (The law prohibits more than 4 Governors from the same party, but Biden can certainly nominate independents rather than DeJoy suck-ups.) There are two former Representatives who are seeking that Democratic slot. Why can’t Biden get this done? How hard can this possibly be?
Meanwhile, my service continues to degrade. Last week I had a priority mail package take 8 days to go 200 miles. It arrived in my city on the second day and then was sent 500 miles away and took another week to make it back here. Same thing seems to be happening this week with a package I need by Thursday. It entered the USPS system last Wednesday in Salt lake City and according to the tracking has only moved 10 miles so far.
[…] Biden has, so far, placed 3 Democrats, one independent, and one Republican on the board. Had he chosen people who were committed to cleaning up the USPS mess, that would ALREADY be a majority to oust DeJoy. […] since December 2022, Biden has inexplicably allowed 2 DeJoy sycophants to remain beyond the end of their term, including DINO and DeJoy enabler Lee Moak, who was appointed by Trump.
Reportedly escorted away from the border by a Dutch F-35A.
Ukraine Update:
[…] there are reports this morning that the U.S. is sending Su-27s it obtained for training and evaluation to Ukraine. This hasn’t been confirmed. Ukraine actually sold a pair of Su-27s to a private company some years ago, which bounced around between several companies that flew them primarily at air shows and exhibitions. The disarmed planes are reportedly now mothballed. Seems like it’s time to ship them home.
Politico has an article up talking about how the United States doesn’t intend to give Ukraine the long-range ATACMS missiles it wants, but the reason is not that it would make Putin angry or because they fear Ukraine would start taking potshots at random cities in Russia.
The Biden administration has given its Ukrainian counterparts another reason for not sending them much-wanted long-range missiles: The U.S. is concerned it wouldn’t have enough for itself.
[See SC’s comment 182]
About 4,000 of the missiles were apparently made. The U.S. has already used 600 and sold several hundred more so … this could be a legitimate concern if the U.S. military considers this a vital part of the arsenal.
Also hidden in that same article is another good point:
Whatever the U.S. package — and other pledges by partner nations — Ukraine is looking for more secrecy when those governments announce that assistance.
Officials in Kyiv are growing concerned that some of the more detailed lists coming out of Washington and elsewhere could risk providing too much information to their Russian foes, who can prepare defenses or countermeasures if they know what they’ll be facing, according to one of the people.
During the latest round of meetings, several of the packages promised to Ukraine came with price tags, but with few details, such as the promised package from Finland. That may be frustrating to those of us trying to track every piece of kit flowing into Ukraine, but hopefully, it’s even more frustrating to Russia.
[…] consider how much more effective such systems can be when they’re not getting publicized all the time.
Financial Times’ latest article warns that Russia is “massing aircraft on Ukraine border,” which is suspected to be part of whatever Vladimir Putin is going to talk about in the next week as the anniversary of Russia’s unprovoked, illegal invasion rolls around.
Analysts estimate that Russia still has around 80% of the air forces it held at the beginning of the invasion—mostly because they’ve used a limited number of aircraft in Ukraine out of fear of air defenses. There now seems to be a fear that Russia will throw its air force over the border in coordination with a land attack and that the massing of planes is a precursor to a major air assault.
However, this seems to ignore that if Russia’s Air Force has been “well preserved,” Ukraine’s air defense has actually become many times better. Russia’s continued attacks with missiles and drones have turned air defenses into one of the most critical requests of Ukraine, and one that Western nations have been more willing to meet since this is seen as a defensive system.
“What we really have to concentrate on now is Ukraine’s ability to defend the air and they’ll do that through air defence artillery, equipped with the proper ammunition. Fighter jets are not and will not be as capable against the Russian air force as an integrated air defence system,” said a US official.
[Good point.]
The same article indicates that while the U.S. may not send F-16s to Ukraine directly, it could pave the way for the planes to be transferred to Ukraine from other allies. Considering that there are reportedly Ukrainian pilots and crews being trained on these planes, it seems as if some deal of this sort may already be in the works.
Kevin McCarthy cleared tapped the wrong members to serve on a new congressional panel on the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.
As expected, House Republicans have launched all kinds of new investigations since retaking the majority in the chamber, and some of them aren’t related to Hunter Biden. NBC News reported, for example, on a new congressional panel launching a new probe into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.
Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, the chair of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, and House Oversight and Accountability chair James Comer, R-Ky., sent letters to Dr. Anthony Fauci, senior Biden administration officials like National Intelligence Director Avril Haines and the president of EcoHealth Alliance, a New York nonprofit group focused on emerging infectious diseases.
Unlike so many of the House GOP’s other investigations, this one doesn’t necessarily have to be ridiculous. There’s already been a congressional Covid investigation, which produced important findings, but that examination did not focus specifically on the virus’ origins.
If members want to take constructive steps to consider such questions in a mature and responsible way, it’s certainly possible that the panel could generate worthwhile information.
But some skepticism is in order — not because of the committee’s goals, but because of its members. NBC News had a separate report a few weeks ago on House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and some of his problematic personnel assignments.
… McCarthy named Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who had been suspended from social media platforms for promoting Covid misinformation, to the select panel on the coronavirus pandemic. Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas, a Republican who was Trump’s White House physician, also got the nod for the Covid panel.
To put it mildly, these were not encouraging choices. Greene continues to push dangerous public health misinformation regarding the virus, and she was even permanently banned from Twitter after falsely pushing nonsense about “extremely high amounts of Covid vaccine deaths.” (Elon Musk later reinstated her account.) The right-wing congresswoman also compared Capitol Hill mask requirements to the Holocaust.
Jackson, meanwhile, argued in 2021 that the omicron variant was part of a secret Democratic plot related to the midterm elections. [JFC]
They’re not the only misguided choices for the panel. A recent HuffPost report added, “McCarthy’s other GOP picks for the COVID subcommittee include Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (Iowa), who spread false information about the CDC planning to mandate COVID vaccines for children and about children not being affected by COVID; Rep. Michael Cloud (Texas), who in March 2020 voted against the Families First COVID Response Act, which provided emergency funding for free COVID testing and paid leave for workers hit by the pandemic; Rep. John Joyce (Pa.), who filed a bill to block the government from issuing standardized COVID vaccine status cards; and Rep. Rich McCormick (Ga.), an ER physician who spread misinformation about masks and COVID vaccines.”
It was against this backdrop that McCarthy recently appeared on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” and host Margaret Brennan asked the right question: Given all of the far-right extremists on the Covid panel, “how is anyone supposed to take that work seriously and find that work credible?”
The Republican leader responded by arguing that there are a lot of “questions out there.”
I suppose that’s true. The first question should probably be, “Why in the world did McCarthy ask unserious radicals to help probe the origins of the coronavirus pandemic?”
The Wall Street Journal has a very odd piece that we’re going to assume started out as a fluff piece about Rep. James Comer, the Republican coordinator of Republican investigations into All The Things. […]
The Republican leading several investigations related to President Biden and his administration faces the dual challenges of keeping the politically charged probes on track while also managing hard-line conservatives eager to put their own stamp on the proceedings.
That’s our opening [in the Wall Street Journal], and in fairness we can’t rule out the possibility that the reporter who turned this one in actually wrote that bit back before Republicans even announced who that dual-challenged House Republican would be. The Republican selected for the lead role, the chairmanship of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, was hardliner Kentucky Rep. James Comer. If you want to write an eight-minute explainer about the challenges of “keeping the politically charged probes on track while also managing hard-line conservatives,” you might at some point want to look in on what Comer himself has been saying about those investigations.
He’s not been shy about it. He’s been greedily parading himself around as the Republican who will finally get to the bottom of all this something something Hunter Biden something while studiously—and I mean studiously—avoiding any pretense of giving a damn about the grotesque corruption of the Donald Trump family. If you know nothing else about the man, he wants to make sure you know that he’s on Hunter Biden’s trail, because reasons.
Incidentally, one day after leaving the White House, Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner had already formed the corporate shell he’d use to collect $2 billion from murderous Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman after Kushner and Trump used their governmental powers to shield bin Salman from consequences Congress demanded after the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. The same bin Salman-chaired investment fund has been paying Donald Trump millions per event to hold Saudi-backed golf tournaments on his properties.
No Republican is investigating a single thread of any of that, and Comer—the man tasked with making Republicans seem at least marginally coordinated as they investigate Hunter Biden, rampant “wokeness,” and Twitter policies against publishing stolen nude photos—will tell you every chance he gets that he does not care about Trump’s crookedness or Jared’s paychecks or, you know, that whole raising an angry mob to attack a joint session of Congress thing.
That feels important to mention, as The Wall Street Journal waxes on the theoretical difficulty of performing “serious oversight” with a team consisting of white supremacist Paul Gosar, conspiracy crank Marjorie Taylor Greene, other conspiracy crank Lauren Boebert, omnipresent sweaty screecher Jim Jordan, and take your pick. It feels important to mention that the whole premise of Comer’s new oversight campaign is that it will only take on “oversight” of Republican-pushed conspiracy theories, and is intentionally “unserious” by design.
[…] “There’s going to be a tightwire act,” said Rep. Nancy Mace (R., S.C.), an oversight member who has clashed with Ms. Greene. Of Mr. Comer, she said: “I knew that he wants our committee to be taken seriously and be substantive. And we’re relying on his leadership to do that.”
[…] It is eventually mentioned, between these neutral and largely substance-less portrayals of the “serious” investigation’s chief wallet inspector, that “already there have been flashpoints” in the hearings, like when Rep. Paul Gosar “sparked controversy” with references to a white nationalist conspiracy theory that claims immigrants are being intentionally transported to this country to “replace” white “culture.”
There’s all of two sentences devoted to last week’s “freewheeling hearing” in which Comer led Republicans through knotted conspiracy theories claiming that Twitter was conspiring against conservatism by taking down illegal election disinformation, stolen nudes, and references to a New York Post story so sketchy that not even the rest of the Rupert Murdoch empire was willing to touch it.
The hearings were not “freewheeling.” […]
Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, speaking as a witness, used his time to claim that actually it was Hillary Clinton who colluded with Russia in 2016 in order to defeat herself, while Sen. Ron Johnson used his own time to question whether the United States government was involved in creating COVID-19
. The actual evidence brought to light by Twitter witnesses and documents showed that the Trump administration and some Republican lawmakers were themselves very prolific in sending Twitter demands that tweets they didn’t like be taken down—an actual insult to First Amendment rights that not a single House Republican gave a damn about.
[…] actually, Twitter probably helped fuel the Jan. 6 coup attempt by letting Trump run amok on their site no matter how many times he broke anti-violence, anti-disinformation rules.
While Comer’s committee was threatening ex-Twitter employees with prison time for unidentified supposed crimes, Greene was calling people pedophiles, and Jordan was fuming over conservatives being “shadow banned” over piffling details like being racist or spreading hoaxes […]
There is a seemingly uncontrollable urge, in this nation’s free press, to feign gullibility in order to promote fact-averse neutrality. The Wall Street Journal cannot plausibly present a profile of Comer in which he is portrayed as the vaguely-sort of-serious figure holding back the tides of frothing Republican paranoia unless it all but ignores Comer’s own advertising of the hearings, his chairmanship of the hearings, and the actual damn hearings.
[…] Is there anybody in the Journal tasked with watching the hearings we’re opining on? No? […]
If you begin your piece with the premise of “House Republican faces challenge of not looking clownish despite nose honks, thrown pies,” though, you should already know that’s a take with a short shelf life even in the best of times. That one’s pretty much on you.
ravensays
“Tough-guy Ron DeSantis defeats Woke Disney! Except … he didn’t. At all.”
Turns out that Ron DeSantis is mostly cosplaying as a fascist.
As The New York Times reported: “This time, Disney would be allowed to keep the special tax district – which never went away – and almost all its perks, including the ability to issue tax-exempt bonds and approve development plans without scrutiny from certain local regulators.”It turned out that abolishing the Disney special tax district would cost Florida taxpayers a lot more money.
So the Florida legislature ended up reversing it.
USA TODAY Opinion
Tough-guy Ron DeSantis defeats Woke Disney! Except … he didn’t. At all.
6.9k
Rex Huppke, USA TODAY
Tue, February 14, 2023 at 8:17 AM PST·6 min read
If you’re into combatting wokeness, the imaginary villain that haunts Republican fever dreams, then Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is your superhero du jour.
He took on Woke Disney and won! He flew migrants to Woke Martha’s Vineyard and owned the libs! He singlehandedly de-woke-ified the Woke College Board’s planned AP African American studies course!
The mighty DeSantis is surely the Anti-Woke Warrior conservative America needs, right?
Well, let’s put it this way: If you’re into combatting wokeness, you’re also into getting conned, so embracing DeSantis as a blustery David defeating this perceived Goliath of liberalism is perfectly on brand. But if you’ve got at least one oar in the waters of reality, it’s a short paddle to see behind the curtain of Florida’s Great and Mighty Despoiler of Woke. And there ain’t much back there.
Florida’s governor bravely takes on … Disney?
Take DeSantis’ war on Disney, which began after the corporation – one of the largest private employers in the state – spoke out in opposition to Florida’s “don’t say gay” law restricting discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools.
Am I woke?: DeSantis and GOP fight ‘woke’ because hating a word is easier than hating people
The governor struck back at the “woke” theme park and entertainment giant last year by pushing for and then signing a bill abolishing the company’s longstanding status as a special tax district. In theory, that meant an end to significant tax breaks the company has enjoyed for more than 50 years.
However, right-wing exclamations of “WAY TO GO, RON!” were premature. Turns out that just doing away with Disney’s Reedy Creek Improvement District – which put the company in control of the sprawling area it inhabits – would force taxpayers in surrounding counties to shoulder the costs of running the Disney-occupied area (think emergency services, road repairs etc.) and take on the special tax district’s roughly $1 billion in debt.
So the Florida Legislature that does DeSantis’ bidding swooped into a special session this month to clean up the governor’s mess. Lawmakers passed a new bill that lets DeSantis pick who sits on the Disney tax district’s board.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announces tax relief in Ocala on Feb. 8, 2023. He also wanted to eliminate more of Disney’s privileges by revoking Disney World’s designation as a special tax district.
DeSantis’ Disney victory not all it was cracked up to be
As The New York Times reported: “This time, Disney would be allowed to keep the special tax district – which never went away – and almost all its perks, including the ability to issue tax-exempt bonds and approve development plans without scrutiny from certain local regulators.”
So … DeSantis stuck it to woke Disney by taking control of the board that oversees the company’s special tax district while leaving all the perks and tax breaks in place.
The bill’s sponsor in the House, Republican Rep. Fred Hawkins, was asked how it changes anything happening in the district and said: “That I can’t answer.”
‘BIG loss for conservatives’
Even some conservatives saw through DeSantis’ fake victory. Anthony Sabatini, chairman of the Lake County Republican Party in Florida tweeted: “So basically Woke Disney gets to keep its nearly tax-free, regulation-free status—but with a different Board. … What a massive capitulation this is. HUGE win for Woke Disney. BIG loss for conservatives.”
In Trump vs. DeSantis 2024 culture war: Black and LGBTQ people will pay the highest price
The far-right news site Big League Politics blasted this headline – “FRAUD: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Folds to Woke Disney, Pushes Bill to Quietly Restore Special Tax Breaks.”
That’s far from the only example of DeSantis’ all-talk-no-actual-destruction-of-wokeness grift.
DeSantis said he forced changes to an AP course – but he didn’t
The governor recently took credit for the College Board making changes to an AP African American studies course he had rejected as too “woke” and “historically fictional.” The board clapped back, saying any claim that the board “was in frequent dialogue with Florida” about the content of the course is “a false and politically motivated charge.”
National Education Association president: Black history is American history. DeSantis is stealing our students’ freedom to learn it.
Last year, DeSantis fancied himself a true master of “owning the libs” after using Florida taxpayer money to lure migrants in Texas onto a plane and dump them in Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. The stunt might have pleased a cruel swath of the governor’s base, but it was largely met with derision and viewed as an inhumane waste of money.
It also, according to at least one of several lawsuits, might have violated state law because the state money earmarked for transporting migrants specified they had to already be in Florida, not Texas or any other state. And, of course, the whole stunt had zero impact on immigration, or really anything else.
Florida lawmakers spending time cleaning up DeSantis’ war-on-woke messes
The aforementioned Republican Florida lawmakers who recently cleaned up DeSantis’ Disney mess also tried to fix his migrant transport problem this month by passing a bill that declared “all payments made pursuant to (the original law) are deemed approved.” It’s good to have powerful friends devoid of ethics, apparently.
DeSantis is fighting woke gun-control advocates by pushing legislation that would allow Floridians to carry guns without safety training or permits. But at an election night party in Tampa last year, The Washington Post reported, the governor’s campaign banned guns at the event while asking city officials to say it was their decision.
Florida: Where woke goes to die … or not
It seems rumors of DeSantis’ success at battling the liberal “woke mind virus,” or whatever it is they’re calling it these days, may be greatly exaggerated. I imagine that’s of interest to another alleged enemy of wokeness down in South Florida – one Donald J. Trump. Rumor has it the former president and current presidential candidate is sitting around pondering possible nicknames for DeSantis, who many expect will enter the Republican presidential primary.
How about Paper-Tiger Ron? Or maybe Ron FakeSantis? Ron “All Woke Sizzle, No Woke Steak” DeSantis?
I dunno, I’m just spitballing here. I’ll leave it to Trump to figure it out. It’s literally the only thing he’s good at – which means he’s good at one more thing than Florida’s all-show-no-go governor.
Some items from the Guardian liveblog before it closed for the day:
Moldova has now reopened its airspace hours after closing it for security reasons, its aviation authority said.
In a brief statement, it said it would provide more information later.
Russian forces have made incremental progress in the last day or two in their assault on the Ukrainian city of Bahkmut but it is unclear if it will fall, the White House has said.
John Kirby, the US national security council spokesperson, added that if Bakhmut were to fall to the Russians “it would not have a strategic impact on the overall war”.
Russia has held at least 6,000 Ukrainian children, likely many more, in sites whose primary purpose appears to be political re-education, a US-backed report has said.
Researchers from Yale University identified at least 43 camps and other facilities in Russian-held Crimea and Russia, where Ukrainian children have been held as part of a “large-scale systematic network” operated by Russia since its invasion of Ukraine last year, the report said.
The children held in these sites included those with parents or clear familial guardians, those Russia deemed orphans, and other children who were in the care of Ukrainian state institutions before the invasion, it said.
Some of the children were moved through the system and adopted by Russian families, or moved into foster care in Russia, the report said.
The youngest child identified was just four months old, and some camps were giving military training to children as young as 14, it said.
Nathaniel Raymond, one of the researchers, said in a briefing:
What is documented in this report is a clear violation of the 4th Geneva Convention.
He said it could also be evidence that Russia has committed genocide during its war in Ukraine, since the transfer of children for purposes of changing, altering or eliminating national identity can constitute a component act of the crime of genocide.
General Mark Milley, chairman of America’s joint chiefs of staff, has said Russia has lost “strategically, operationally and tactically” and that they are “paying an enormous price on the battlefield” in Ukraine.
Milley, speaking at a joint news conference with US defence secretary Lloyd Austin, said President Vladimir Putin believed he could defeat Ukraine quickly when he ordered his troops to invade almost a year ago.
[Putin] was wrong. Ukraine remains free. They remain independent. Nato and its coalition has never been stronger.
Now, Russia is a global pariah and the world remains inspired by Ukrainian bravery and resilience. In short, Russia has lost – they’ve lost strategically, operationally and tactically and they are paying an enormous price on the battlefield.
Sexual attacks and other traumatic experiences have led to an unprecedented level of hopelessness and suicidal thoughts among America’s young women, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Monday.
“Our teenage girls are suffering through an overwhelming wave of violence and trauma, and it’s affecting their mental health,” said Kathleen Ethier, director of the CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health.
Results from the CDC’s 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Survey show startling trends. Nearly 3 in 5 teen girls (57%) said they felt “persistently sad or hopeless.” That’s the highest rate in a decade. And 30% said they have seriously considered dying by suicide — a percentage that’s risen by nearly 60% over the past 10 years.
“As a parent to a teenage girl, I am heartbroken. As a public health leader, I’m driven to act,” the CDC’s chief medical officer, Dr. Debra Houry, said at an unusually emotional briefing Monday.
The survey, which has been conducted every other year for three decades, includes responses from 17,232 U.S. high school students.
Overall, more than 40% of boys and girls said that they’d felt so sad or hopeless within the past year that they were unable to do their regular activities, such as schoolwork or sports, for at least two weeks. When researchers looked at gender differences, girls were far more likely to report such feelings than boys….
ravensays
“Wagner Group Head explains why he was ousted from recruiting convicts”
Well sort of anyway.
It looks like there is a power struggle between Wagner and the Russian army.
The fact that the convicts were just cannon fodder and getting killed often, didn’t matter at all. They were expecting 90% of them to be dead in 6 months, the standard term of enlistment at the front.
It might be that now the Russian army is recruiting convicts as cannon fodder.
Ukrayinska Pravda
Wagner Group Head explains why he was ousted from recruiting convicts
Ukrainska Pravda
Tue, February 14, 2023 at 2:52 AM PST·2 min read
Yevgeny Prigozhin, owner of Wagner Group, named three main reasons why he was completely ousted from recruiting convicts in Russian colonies. One of the reasons is the opposition of the military leadership.
Source: 7×7 news outlet, Vazhnie istorii
Details: This information was sent by Prigozhin to a Sverdlovsk [a Russian-occupied city in Luhansk Oblast – ed.] deputy as a response to his request to assist in the recruitment of women from the colonies. The deputy posted a screenshot of the businessman’s answer, although there is neither a signature nor a mention of Prigozhin or Wagner Group.
Prigozhin cited, in particular, the reasons for his exclusion from the recruitment of prisoners:
“Excessively high efficiency of task performance, which puts a certain number of authorised persons in an uncomfortable position, as well as discredits the work of some units in other areas of the front. [Their – ed.] logic: ‘Too bold for the army and harmful, they don’t let you sit it out in a hideout.’”
“Wagner Group uses convicts not as convicts, but as equal fighters, which causes irritation of the tightly-knit elite.”
“A certain number of pro-war functionaries decided that if they recruited convicts, they would be able to become famous as the Wagner Group.”
Background:
On 9 February, Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Group, announced that the recruitment of convicts to the recognized criminal private military company has now completely stopped. He never specified what caused such a decision.
On 10 February, The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported that the Wagner Group (Private Military Company, PMC) is limiting recruitment from prisons as it loses its relevance on the front in Ukraine. “This phenomenon is consistent with the overall trend of conventional Russian troops slowly replacing the Wagner Group around Bakhmut, indicating that Russian military command may be shifting away from its reliance on Wagner and therefore on using prisoners as cannon fodder,” the ISW concluded.
NEW YORK, Feb 14 (Reuters) – A New York state appeals court on Tuesday upheld an order finding Donald Trump in civil contempt for having failed to comply with a subpoena from New York Attorney General Letitia James in her probe of his business practices.
In a 5-0 decision, the Appellate Division in Manhattan said James had established by “clear and convincing evidence” that Trump’s response to the Dec. 1, 2021, subpoena was inadequate.
…
[…]To appreciate the scope of Feinstein’s career, let’s note that she was a finalist for the Democratic Party’s vice presidential nomination — 39 years ago, when she was still serving as San Francisco’s mayor. In the years that followed, she was elected to the Senate, chaired the Intelligence Committee, was instrumental in passing an assault-weapons ban and the Violence Against Women Act. […]
U.S. federal agents arrested four suspects in Florida on charges of playing key roles in the plot to assassinate Haitian President Jovenel Moïse in 2021, authorities said on Tuesday…
Eleven individuals are now in U.S. custody in connection with the murder, according to the U.S. Justice Department.
Three of the new defendants are accused of supporting a conspiracy to kidnap or kill the president of Haiti, U.S. authorities said in a briefing.
The fourth defendant is accused of conspiring to smuggle ballistic (bulletproof) vests for former Colombian soldiers who allegedly carried out the fatal shooting of Moise, officials added…
Wonkette: “Elon Restricting Ukrainian Military’s Internet Because Of This Russian Propaganda He Swallowed”
We’ve been talking about Elon Musk’s little problem with lapping up any Russian propaganda that’s served up to him. He fuckin’ loves it, it’s his favorite. He’s extremely susceptible to lies about NATO troops dying in Ukraine (there are no NATO troops in Ukraine), and he’s been coming up with “peace plans” for Ukraine that just so happen to overlap almost exactly with Vladimir Putin’s wet dream wish lists.
Now here’s Elon spreading some more extremely dumb shit, while defending his decision to withhold from the Ukrainian military the Starlink comms infrastructure it needs in order to fight against its genocidal neighbor: [Tweet at the link]
That’s Elon fighting with astronaut Scott Kelly, and looking like an idiot doing it. Elon is spitting out shit about how Kelly should be “smart enough not to swallow media & other propaganda bs.” Is it “propaganda” that Russia started an unprovoked, genocidal war against Ukraine?
And he’s spitting out pro-Russia messaging about “we will not enable escalation of conflict that may lead to WW3.” […]
Timothy Snyder, historian, author and expert on authoritarianism and Russia, recently wrote extensively about how this whole “escalation!” thing is just clickbait that serves no one’s purposes but Russia’s. It’s concern-trolling at its finest. Because it does sound good to prevent WW3, yes? That’s a noble goal, surely?
It’s bullshit. As Snyder points out, making it about WW3 makes it about us and our fears, and not about Ukraine. This results in casting suspicion on what Ukraine does to defend itself with these fake worries about how “escalation” could affect the rest of us. And it entertains the silly fantasy that Elon Musk or any other American can do anything to prevent whether Russia decides to start lobbing nukes at Ukraine. This is just giving in to what Snyder refers to as Russia’s nuclear blackmail.
[…] the crux of Snyder’s argument is that the most effective thing we can do is to help Ukraine win a conventional war against Russia, and that includes all money, weapons and yes, internets Ukraine might need. Ukraine is the nation that would get nuclear-bombed by Russia, and they keep begging us for more weapons.
[…] Elon’s pant-shitting about escalating into WW3 is a message directly from Vladimir Putin’s bowels. Oh, great Putin! We must do whatever he wants, lest he become angered!
[…] SpaceX did indeed recently announce that it’s restricting Ukraine from using Starlink for military uses, specifically drones. This is a gift to Vladimir Putin. However, Elon swears he hasn’t turned Starlink off for all military uses, but he could if he wants to: [Tweet at the link]
It’s such a fucking easy question, unless you think there are two sides to the question of whether Putin should be able to blow Ukrainian babies apart because he clings to sad fantasies of Making Russia Great Again by stealing adjacent countries’ land. But Putin loves it when ignorant people think there is an “extremely difficult moral question” here.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhailo Podolyak made clear in a tweet last week that Elon and SpaceX need to pick a damn side: [Tweet at the link]
Kelly is also following up with more tweets trying to educate poor Elon on what is and is not “escalatory.” [Tweet at the link]
Elon’s words and deeds suggest he may not want to see Putin defeated.
Mister Twitter Guy is of course free to prove us freedom-loving people wrong.
You’ve got to be a different level of disgusting to post an anti gun control campaign announcement the day after a mass shooting and on the anniversary of one of the most gruesome school shootings in US history.
It’s official! Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is running for president! She delivered her Valentine’s gift for the nation today in a depressing campaign launch video. There wasn’t even candy. […]
re Lynna @208: The Michigan State shooting was the 67th mass shooting this year. We are not even 67 days into the year. There may have been days when we did not have one, but that averages almost 1.5 mass shootings per day. It is such a good thing that all the guns and lax gun laws have nothing to do with all the shootings (/s).
As Donald Trump’s second re-election bid begins to pick up steam in the new year, details about the former president’s plans for his return to the White House have begun to emerge — including a new report from Rolling Stone, which alleges Trump has begun polling his advisers on whether he should bring back firing squads, hangings, and even the guillotine should he win in 2024…
Under Trump, Barr and Durham Made a Mockery of the Rules I Wrote, by Neal K. Katyal, writing for The New York Times.
The recent revelations about Special Counsel John H. Durham’s investigation of the origins of Robert Mueller’s Russia inquiry paint a bleak picture — one that’s thoroughly at odds with governing law. Those rules, called the Special Counsel Regulations, contemplate someone independent of the attorney general who can reassure the public that justice is being done.
I drafted those guidelines as a young Justice Department official, and there is zero chance that anyone involved in the process, as it was reported on by The New York Times, would think that former Attorney General William Barr or Mr. Durham acted appropriately.
According to the report, Mr. Barr granted Mr. Durham special counsel status to dig into a theory that the Russia investigation likely emerged from a conspiracy by intelligence or law enforcement agencies. That investigation took almost four years (longer than Mr. Mueller’s inquiry) and appears to be ending soon without any hint of a deep state plot against Mr. Trump.
Furthermore, the reporting suggests that the Durham inquiry suffered from internal dissent and ethical disputes as it lurched from one unsuccessful path to another, even as Americans heard a misleading narrative of its progress.
But now Merrick Garland, not Mr. Barr, is the attorney general, and the regulations give him the power to require Mr. Durham to explain himself — and to discipline and fire Mr. Durham if the explanation is not adequate. […]
At this moment, it is critical for Mr. Garland to use the supervisory powers under the Special Counsel Regulations that govern Mr. Durham to remind Americans of what actual justice, and independent investigations and decision making, look like.
The special counsel regulations say that a special counsel must have “a reputation for integrity and impartial decisionmaking” and that, once appointed, the counsel “shall not be subject to the day-to-day supervision” of the attorney general or any other Justice Department official.
[…] The special counsel is supposed to be someone who cannot be reasonably accused of laundering an attorney general’s dirty work.
In light of the new reporting, it is hard to view Mr. Durham as anything else. Indeed, no one involved in developing these regulations thought that a prosecutor who has regular scotch-sipping sessions with the attorney general would ever be remotely fit for the job. Yet that was the relationship reportedly developed by Mr. Durham and Mr. Barr, who jetted off to Italy as a team, where they learned of a lead about President Trump and potential criminal acts. Mr. Barr gave that investigation, too, to Mr. Durham, where it appears to have died.
[…] The regulations also require Mr. Durham to write a final report outlining his actions. Mr. Garland should call for that report immediately, and if Mr. Durham claims he has some ongoing work to do, he should be told to submit an interim report for Mr. Garland.
That report should go into detail about the Italy-focused investigation of Mr. Trump and what the investigators found. And Mr. Garland should scrutinize that report closely, because it certainly appears that we can’t trust Mr. Durham’s prosecutorial judgment. […]
Mr. Durham tried to prosecute Michael Sussmann, a former lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s campaign, but the jury acquitted him. He then tried to prosecute Igor Danchenko about the Steele Dossier, but that prosecution led to an acquittal, too.
As many lawyers will tell you, a federal prosecutor almost has to go out of his way to be 0-2 in federal jury trials. […]
Unfortunately, Mr. Durham and Mr. Barr allowed a misleading narrative to gain traction in public. When news organizations began to report in October 2019 that Mr. Durham’s investigation had morphed from an administrative inquiry into a criminal investigation, creating the misimpression that there might have been criminal wrongdoing by those involved in the Russia investigation, neither man corrected the narrative, even though the real investigation involved Mr. Trump.
[…] no one is above the law. […] Mr. Barr and Mr. Durham behaved in a way that betrayed this bedrock principle. […] If Mr. Durham were not acting with the independence required for the position, it corrodes the rule of law and opens the door to the perception, if not the reality, of special treatment for the politically powerful [for Trump].
Mr. Garland has the power now to examine the accuracy of the reporting and to take the corrective action necessary to ensure that no adverse precedent is set for future investigations into high-level wrongdoing.
[…] On Monday, right-wing video watcher PatriotTakes put out a video showing that not only is Ms. Marjorie Taylor Greene still offensive, she’s still peddling somewhat incoherent conspiracy theory hooey to her base. This time she connects the reported Chinese spy balloon with 9/11 Flight 93 to explain how the Biden administration is maybe doing something diabolical […]
In the clip, Greene is speaking to Idaho conservatives at some event. She is doing her thing where she ineloquently attempts to walk the audience through one of her mind-palace-logic-labyrinths. She explained something about the big balloon that was shot down. We catch her in the middle of her reporting the balloon’s journey, “and then it finally leaves the coast, and then oh, they shot it down.” Listening to Rep. Greene speak is always like walking into the middle of someone having an argument with someone else and being unable to articulate themselves well because they are too angry to collect their thoughts.
Here’s the rub for Greene. After she and the entire Republican media operation complained that President Biden needed to shoot down the balloon—he shot it down. Never fear, Greene is here to explain that even shooting it down is a suspicious activity, just like not shooting it down was. “They shot it down?” The question mark is hit hard here by Rep. Greene, and you know what that means?
[…] “The excuses that were given on this were pathetic!” Ooookkaaaaaay? “Absolutely pathetic.” Already said this with a hard enunciation of the C; move it along, Greene. “They said it was too risky. Oh, it was too risky?”
That’s what they said because it was too risky to have an estimated 1500-meter debris field over a populated area. Not good enough for Ms. Greene. “Do you know what a bunch of bullshit that is? It’s three school buses. it’s three school buses wide.” […]
“Okay, do you remember on 9/11 when an airplane crashed in Pennsylvania?” I do. Most of us who were alive and conscious remember that. “A jetliner. Remember that?” Yes. We remember. “It didn’t kill anybody on the ground—it killed everyone on board—but it didn’t kill anybody on the ground.”
When Flight 93 was brought down in a field in Pennsylvania by passengers who teamed up and overtook the hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001, the only silver lining was that the plane did not kill anyone in the surrounding areas. There were schools just a few miles away from the crash site.
Greene explains that the fact that Flight 93 came down and didn’t kill anyone is proof that “they’re liars.” But here Greene ups it to Marjorie-levels of incoherence by explaining, verbatim, “You can only see it two ways: Either they’re liars, or they’re cowards. Or our president is sold out to China.” That’s three ways, with you using the “or” and all. Just sayin’.
Then Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene sticks the landing: “And you know what? I’ll go with all three.”
Yes. That’s how she literally ended that run. [video at the link]
A top White House official said on Tuesday that three unidentified flying objects shot down in the past several days might turn out to be harmless commercial or research efforts that posed no real threat to the United States.
A plan by Gov. Ron DeSantis to transform New College, which is known as progressive and describes itself as ‘a community of free thinkers,’ into a beacon of conservatism has left students, parents and faculty members at the tight-knit school reeling over what they see as a political assault on their academic freedom. Mr. DeSantis’s education commissioner has expressed a desire to remake the school in the image of Hillsdale College, a small Christian school in Michigan that has been active in conservative politics.”
That’s a common authoritarian tactic that was highlighted last night by Rachel Maddow.
Miami Herald:
The newly remade board of trustees at New College of Florida voted Monday to give the Sarasota school’s interim President Richard Corcoran a pay bump of nearly $400,000 over his predecessor. The board decided that Corcoran, a former Florida House speaker and state education commissioner, will receive a base salary of $699,000, plus an annual housing stipend of $84,000, a $12,000 automobile stipend and an annual retirement supplement of $104,850.
So they are paying the anti-education conservative dunderhead $400,000 more per year than his predecessor?
One of the oldest anti-immigrant tropes is that undocumented people are a massive drain on our government’s resources, despite paying billions of dollars in local, state, and national taxes annually. The truth is that Republican officials are the actual moochers. The Texas Tribune reports that Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star border stunt needs nearly $2 billion to continue running through the two-year budget cycle beginning in September.
Nearly $460 million is needed to keep the political stunt operational just through this August, a top Texas Military Department (TMD) official said. Maj. Gen. Thomas Suelzer revealed that Abbott had already given TMD nearly $290 million swiped from other agencies just to keep Operation Lone Star running for a couple months, from January to March. […]
“The mission has proven costly,” The Texas Tribune said. “In September 2021, the Texas Legislature approved nearly $2 billion to ramp up the border operation intended to curb the number of migrants crossing from Mexico.” But TMD “quickly burned” through funding because Abbott increased the deployment of Texas National Guard at the U.S./Mexico border.
Just over 4,500 soldiers are currently deployed to the region, and from the start of the political campaign have complained about late pay, equipment shortages while subjected to poor living conditions, and a payroll screw-up that could leave them paying huge amounts in back taxes. Several soldiers deployed by Abbott have died by suicide. Just last month, one soldier shot an unarmed migrant.
The political operation has been a disaster, yet Abbott has nevertheless moved funds from agencies that have nothing to do with this scheme to help pay for it, promising to pay them Tuesday for a hamburger today. “Last year, top state officials, at the behest of Abbott, transferred more than $1.3 billion to the military department to keep its border operations going,” the report continued.
You always hear that Texas is a pro-business state, but another Abbott stunt that forced commercial vehicles to undergo redundant inspections after crossing to Texas not only cost it an estimated $4 billion in losses, but Mexican officials decided to reroute a proposed commercial railway through New Mexico instead. […]
ravensays
Objects shot down aren’t from China, likely ‘benign’, Kirby says
More on the balloons from Lynna’s #213.
It is likely that the last three balloons were routine and harmless.
It turns out that the USA launches something like 60,000 balloons a year, mostly weather balloons. Some of those get away and go missing.
It does look like the first one was a Chinese surveillance balloon though.
Politico
Objects shot down aren’t from China, likely ‘benign’, Kirby says
Tue, February 14, 2023 at 1:58 PM PST·2 min read
The U.S. does not believe that the three unidentified objects shot down over North America last weekend were from China or posed a national security threat, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Tuesday.
“We don’t see anything that points right now to being part of [China’s] spy balloon program,” Kirby told reporters. It’s unlikely the objects were used in “intelligence collection against the United States of any kind — that’s the indication now,” he added.
Intelligence officials believe the objects, which were shot down a week after a Chinese spy balloon was downed off the coast of South Carolina, could be “tied to some commercial or benign purpose,” he said.
American forces decided to target the objects because of concerns about potential surveillance, Kirby said on MSNBC later on Tuesday, so they “acted out of an abundance of caution.” No other objects are being tracked, he said.
It’s still unclear what the objects were, and administration officials have provided few details. Senators received another classified briefing from the administration on the incursions on Tuesday, but they haven’t shed much light.
As for the Chinese spy balloon that was shot down on Feb. 4, officials expect to learn more about its payload in the coming days as crews continue to retrieve materials, Kirby said. On Monday, U.S. Northern Command said it had recovered critical electronics including key sensors presumably used for intelligence gathering.
When the balloon was shot down over the Atlantic, some materials floated while the payload, which carries critical information about the airship, sank to the “ocean bottom,” FBI officials told reporters last week. Crews have since successfully recovered parts of the balloon.
But two of the objects shot down over the weekend were downed over the Yukon and Lake Huron, locations that may make recovery impossible, officials said.
“We are working very hard to locate them, but there is no guarantee that we will,” said Sean McGillis, Royal Canadian Mounted Police acting deputy commissioner. “The terrain in Yukon is rather treacherous right now… the same could be said about what’s taking place in Lake Huron.”
whheydtsays
Re: raven @ #216…
One of the early uses of the Raspberry Pi single board computes (SBC) was to attach a camera and radio and send it up attached to a balloon. “High Altitude Ballooning” (HAB) is a hobby for some people.
An article here https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/community-profile-dave-akerman/ mentions getting a picture back from just over 43Km up.
Pierce R. Butlersays
Lynna… @ # 189 quoting Steve Benen: … [Sen. Joe] McCarthy and his panel on “un-American activities.”
Oops, that was the House Unamerican Activities Committee (aka HUAC), a separate project in the same witch-hunt; Joe McCarthy was much more the “lone-wolf” operator.
Not a big deal in any political way, but the first time I’ve seen Benen get his history wrong.
johnson catmansays
re Pierce R. Butler @218: The link is for a story on MaddowBlog about Steve Bannon, the far-right drunk that served under The Orange Idiot, praising McCarthy’s hearings and the HUAC hearings.
johnson catmansays
re Pierce R. Butler @218: Sorry, I misunderstood. I see that Benen was the author of the piece on MaddowBlog. My Bad and I apologize to you.
[…] Musk regularly undermines and delegitimizes the mainstream press, along with his predecessors at Twitter, by accusing them of putting a liberal thumb on the scale. While he promises to instead favor free speech at the platform, he actually uses his power to promote right-wing propaganda. Musk’s high-profile meeting with Murdoch, who has relied on a similar playbook for decades, serves as a neon flashing sign that points to what he’s doing.
When Murdoch and Roger Ailes launched Fox News in 1996 with the slogan “Fair and Balanced,” they were implicitly castigating the rest of the press as unfair and promising that their network would be a corrective to the purported liberal bias of their competitors. Under Ailes, a former Republican political consultant, Nixon operative, and racist sexual predator, Fox made right-wing attacks on the press a central focus of its coverage, alongside hagiographic promotion of GOP leaders and vicious denunciations of Democrats. […]
There are clear echoes of Fox’s grand design in what Musk is doing today at Twitter. Since he began making moves toward buying Twitter in early 2022, he’s regularly claimed to be acting to promote “free speech.” He declared a month after taking control of the company, “This is a battle for the future of civilization. If free speech is lost even in America, tyranny is all that lies ahead.” He subsequently turned over internal documents generated under the company’s previous leadership to friendly writers and championed their work as proof that Twitter had been “acting by itself to suppress free speech” in potential violation of the First Amendment.
But while Musk portrayed himself as a nonpartisan “free speech absolutist,” his record shows him to be anything but. Since taking over Twitter, he has urged “independent-minded voters” to vote for Republicans in the 2022 midterms and endorsed Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president in 2024. And he’s put the company’s muscle behind his personal views, reinstating right-wing accounts that had previously been banned for spreading bigotry or conspiracy theories, including former President Donald Trump; taking advice from the site’s worst far-right trolls; pushing right-wing conspiracy theories on his own account; and presenting himself and his site as promoting “citizen journalism” as a foil to the mainstream journalists the right despises. […]
Excerpt from a longer New Yorker article written by Jane Ferguson:
[…] They said that the Assad regime and its ally, Russia, are preventing international aid from entering rebel-held areas. Several border crossings with Turkey are within a half hour’s drive from Syria’s disaster zone. So far, though, Assad has only permitted U.N.-distributed aid through one of them, and none of the assistance has included earthquake relief or rescue equipment. In response to criticism, Assad promised to open three border crossings on Monday. Meanwhile, those trapped under the rubble have slowly perished in places like Jindires, and their deaths are a microcosm of what has been happening in northwest Syria for years. Martin Griffiths, the U.N.’s head of emergency relief, tweeted on Sunday, “We have so far failed the people in north-west Syria. They rightly feel abandoned. Looking for international help that hasn’t arrived.”
[…] Dr. Yusuf Idris, a surgeon at the hospital in Afrin, told me that, despite years of putting people back together following bombings and artillery stikes, he struggled with the wounds inflicted by the quake. A tall man with a short beard, clad in scrubs, he described the decisions he faced. “Most of the wounded with broken bones can be saved, but smashed bones mean the leg or arm must be amputated, especially if there was a delay of twenty-four or forty-eight hours before they arrived with us,” he said, looking exhausted as he sat in an office chair. “With the war injured, we can easily locate the wound, but with this kind of injury it’s hard; we have to do a full body examination. . . . It could be kidneys or the abdomen.”
Citing the sudden arrival of journalists in the area, he and other hospital staffers bitterly noted that the world seemed more interested in their experiences treating children killed in an earthquake than in their years of fighting to keep children alive during war. They said that they were astounded by the lack of response by the outside world in Syria, compared with Turkey.
International media coverage of the war in Syria, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions, has faded since the Assad regime regained control of large parts of the country with the backing of Russian President Vladimir Putin. But a low-level conflict, with persistently high levels of suffering, continues, as various countries vie for influence in Syria. The Turkish government, which controls entry into the area, has restricted journalists’ access to rebel-held northern Syria in recent years. In the wake of the earthquake, Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose government has been criticized for its slow response to the earthquake inside Turkey, granted foreign journalists permission to cross the border and provided them with escorts. […]
Mr. DeSantis’s education commissioner has expressed a desire to remake [New College] in the image of Hillsdale College, a small Christian school in Michigan that has been active in conservative politics.
The board decided that Corcoran, a former Florida House speaker and state education commissioner, will receive a base salary of $699,000, plus an annual housing stipend of $84,000, a $12,000 automobile stipend and an annual retirement supplement of $104,850.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Russia is sending heavy equipment and mobilised troops into the Luhansk region but Ukrainian forces continue to defend the eastern Ukrainian region, its governor Serhiy Haidai has said.
The Russian defence ministry claimed earlier its troops had broken through two fortified lines of Ukrainian defences on the eastern front of Luhansk. It said Ukrainian troops had retreated in the face of Russian attacks, but did not say in which part of the region.
In a statement posted to Telegram, the Russian ministry said:
During the offensive … the Ukrainian troops randomly retreated to a distance of up to 3 km (1.9 miles) from the previously occupied lines. Even the more fortified second line of defence of the enemy could not hold the breakthrough of the Russian military.
Haidai said Russia’s claims that Ukrainian troops had pulled back “does not correspond to reality”. He said:
There is a lot of shelling, the aviation is already connected. The attacks are coming from different directions in waves. We see that they are transferring mobilised people (to the front), we also see that there is more (heavy) equipment.
The situation in Luhansk remains difficult, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office said earlier today, without mentioning any retreats in eastern Ukraine. It said:
Over the past day, units of the Defence Forces of Ukraine repelled attacks by the (Russian) occupiers in the Nevskyi, Kreminna and Bilohorivka districts.
It has not been possible to verify either side’s battlefield reports.
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, is speaking at a news conference following a meeting of defence ministers at the military alliance’s headquarters in Brussels.
“Time is of the essence” and Kyiv has a “window of opportunity to tip the balance”, Stoltenberg says, adding that he welcomed the new pledges of support made by Nato allies, “including more weapons and military training”.
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the Polish army’s tank corps in a precarious position. Poland’s tankers long had ridden in Soviet tanks. A Polish firm, Bumar-Labedy, even produced a licensed copy of the T-72, then the main Soviet tank type.
But Soviet—or Russian—support was about to end. Poland was moving toward the West and soon would join NATO. Anticipating the schism, the Polish army and its supporting industries devised a plan. The goal of that billion-dollar, 14-year effort: to make Poland an independent tank power.
Poland’s first post-Soviet tank was the PT-91 Twardy. A faster, better-protected version of the Russian T-72M1 that, most critically, also boasts a new fire-control system with high-end optics.
Twenty-seven years after the PT-91 entered service with the Polish army, the tank went to war for the first time … against the Russians. In the summer of 2022, just a few months after Russia widened its war on Ukraine, Warsaw began transferring to Kyiv many of the roughly 230 Twardys in the Polish arsenal…
For it’s [sic] 100th episode, Fever Dreams unpacks all the drama engulfing right-wing undercover video operation Project Veritas, including a number of claims about the difficult workplace culture fostered under founder James O’Keefe. Then the podcast is joined by labor reporter and author Kim Kelly, who talks about how her experience as a fan and critic of metal music helped her better understand—and report on—far-right extremists across the U.S.
Chris Hayes on the GOP response to the Ohio train derailment: “Republicans can complain all they want. But what do you want to do? They can’t really offer any real solutions. Because, in the end, this is just a classic story about corporate interests and regulation.”
[This description could use some editing.] The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany (Princeton UP, 2010) documents the process, and relative ease, with which institutions of higher learning and the religious establishment, can be corrupted by political ideology and power.
In Germany of the 1930’s the thin cloak of religion covered and sanitized the murderous evil of Naziism.
Was Jesus a Nazi?
During the Third Reich, German Protestant theologians, motivated by racism and tapping into traditional Christian anti-Semitism, redefined Jesus as an Aryan and Christianity as a religion at war with Judaism. In 1939, these theologians established the Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on German Religious Life. In The Aryan Jesus, Susannah Heschel shows that during the Third Reich, the Institute became the most important propaganda organ of German Protestantism, exerting a widespread influence and producing a nazified Christianity that placed anti-Semitism at its theological center.
Based on years of archival research, The Aryan Jesus examines the membership and activities of this controversial theological organization. With headquarters in Eisenach, the Institute sponsored propaganda conferences throughout the Nazi Reich and published books defaming Judaism, including a dejudaized version of the New Testament and a catechism proclaiming Jesus as the savior of the Aryans. Institute members–professors of theology, bishops, and pastors–viewed their efforts as a vital support for Hitler’s war against the Jews. Heschel looks in particular at Walter Grundmann, the Institute’s director and a professor of the New Testament at the University of Jena. Grundmann and his colleagues formed a community of like-minded Nazi Christians who remained active and continued to support each other in Germany’s postwar years.
The Aryan Jesus raises vital questions about Christianity’s recent past and the ambivalent place of Judaism in Christian thought.
(I could live without her religious advocacy and inconsistent musings on “cancel culture,” but worthwhile discussion.)
Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, has said that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has asked him to remain in his current post, after a corruption scandal beset his ministry and put his role into doubt….
The EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, has urged countries to join Germany in sending tanks to Ukraine, after media reports that Denmark and the Netherlands rolled on a decision to deliver Leopard 2 battle tanks to Kyiv.
Speaking to Germany’s Phoenix broadcaster, Borrell, who is the EU’s foreign policy chief, said:
Countries must deliver as many tanks as possible and as quickly as possible. It would be very disappointing if, after so long of pointing the finger at Germany for not doing anything, these countries now don’t follow suit.
US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday that Ukraine has a “real good chance” of taking the initiative on the battlefield.
“I think they’ll have a real good chance of making a pretty significant difference on the battlefield and establishing the initiative. And being able to exploit that initiative going forward”, Reuters reports he told the media after a meeting with Nato defence ministers in Brussels.
He also said that for every system that Nato will provide, it will train troops on that system. “We’re laser-focused on making sure that we provide a capability and not just the platform”, he said.
Russia’s army is estimated to have lost nearly 40% of its prewar fleet of tanks after nine months of fighting in Ukraine, according to a count by the specialist thinktank the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS).
That rises to as much as 50% for some of the key tanks used in combat, forcing Russia to reach into its still sizeable cold war-era stocks. Ukraine’s tank numbers are estimated to have increased because of the number it has captured and supplies of Soviet-era tanks from its western allies.
John Chipman, the thinktank’s chair, said the war had been “a political and military failure for Russia” highlighting shortcomings in leadership and deficiencies in its munitions, despite Kremlin modernisation efforts.
“Russia’s actions over the past year have raised questions not only over the competence of its military and senior military leadership, but also over command cohesion,” he added, launching the IISS’s annual Military Balance audit of the world’s armed forces….
The special counsel investigating Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents is seeking to compel a lawyer for the former president to testify before a grand jury, a source familiar with the matter said.
Prosecutors allege in a sealed filing that they have evidence that some of Trump’s conversations with the attorney were in furtherance of a crime, the source said.
In a sign of an aggressive new legal strategy, first reported by The New York Times, the source said special counsel Jack Smith has asked a judge to allow prosecutors to invoke what’s known as the crime-fraud exception, which would let them sidestep protections afforded to Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran through attorney-client privilege.
The source did not say what questions the government is trying to force Corcoran to answer.
…
FBI agents with a warrant searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in Florida in August to recover classified material after they determined that a certification signed by his custodian of record at the time, which claimed all sensitive records had been returned, was inaccurate.
NBC News reported earlier that Trump’s custodian of record at the time, Christina Bobb, told investigators that Corcoran had drafted and told her to sign a letter certifying that all sensitive records in Trump’s possession had been returned to the government.
ravensays
Yahoo Finance Video
Elon Musk expected to announce Twitter successor towards end of 2023
Wed, February 15, 2023 at 6:31 AM PST
Yahoo Finance Live anchors discuss reports that Elon Musk will announce his Twitter successor towards the end of the year.
This is apparently Musk’s plan.
To kill Twitter and replace it with something else.
I suppose he will call it Stormfront or Magatville or some such.
He didn’t need to spend $44 billion to do this.
He could have spent zero dollars and done this.
There are already a lot of similar forums to Twitter such as Gab, Parler, Truth Social, Telegram, Mastodon etc..
I’m sure it will be a lot like present era Twitter. Overrun with child porn, Russian trolls, and Nazis.
A team of Israeli contractors who claim to have manipulated more than 30 elections around the world using hacking, sabotage and automated disinformation on social media has been exposed in a new investigation.
The unit is run by Tal Hanan, a 50-year-old former Israeli special forces operative who now works privately using the pseudonym “Jorge”, and appears to have been working under the radar in elections in various countries for more than two decades.
He is being unmasked by an international consortium of journalists. Hanan and his unit, which uses the codename “Team Jorge”, have been exposed by undercover footage and documents leaked to the Guardian.
Hanan did not respond to detailed questions about Team Jorge’s activities and methods but said: “I deny any wrongdoing.”
The investigation reveals extraordinary details about how disinformation is being weaponised by Team Jorge, which runs a private service offering to covertly meddle in elections without a trace. The group also works for corporate clients.
Hanan told the undercover reporters that his services, which others describe as “black ops”, were available to intelligence agencies, political campaigns and private companies that wanted to secretly manipulate public opinion. He said they had been used across Africa, South and Central America, the US and Europe.
One of Team Jorge’s key services is a sophisticated software package, Advanced Impact Media Solutions, or Aims. It controls a vast army of thousands of fake social media profiles on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Telegram, Gmail, Instagram and YouTube. Some avatars even have Amazon accounts with credit cards, bitcoin wallets and Airbnb accounts.
The consortium of journalists that investigated Team Jorge includes reporters from 30 outlets including Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El País. The project, part of a wider investigation into the disinformation industry, has been coordinated by Forbidden Stories, a French nonprofit whose mission is to pursue the work of assassinated, threatened or jailed reporters.
The undercover footage was filmed by three reporters, who approached Team Jorge posing as prospective clients.
In more than six hours of secretly recorded meetings, Hanan and his team spoke of how they could gather intelligence on rivals, including by using hacking techniques to access Gmail and Telegram accounts. They boasted of planting material in legitimate news outlets, which are then amplified by the Aims bot-management software.
…
The methods and techniques described by Team Jorge raise new challenges for big tech platforms, which have for years struggled to prevent nefarious actors spreading falsehoods or breaching the security on their platforms. Evidence of a global private market in disinformation aimed at elections will also ring alarm bells for democracies around the world.
The Team Jorge revelations could cause embarrassment for Israel, which has come under growing diplomatic pressure in recent years over its export of cyber-weaponry that undermines democracy and human rights….
More at the link. The “disinformation industry” – my god.
Russia has amassed almost its entire army in Ukraine, U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told BBC on Feb. 15.
However, he said Russia has not been able “to punch through” Ukraine’s defenses, but we have rather seen an effort to advance.
Ukraine’s Chief of Defense Intelligence Kyrylo Budanov earlier said in an interview with the Washington Post that approximately 326,000 Russian soldiers are currently fighting in Ukraine….
Sergey Gridin, a Komi Republic native conscripted for mandatory term service in the Russian military, has committed suicide at an army base near Moscow. His family has confirmed this to Sirena and another independent news outlet. Gridin was 20 years old.
A Telegram channel covering mobilization writes that Gridin hanged himself on a water tower’s exterior ladder. His fellow conscripts found the body with a suicide note that asked for a criminal investigation of his command. (Deliberately driving a person towards suicide is a felony under the Russian law.)
The servicemen took a photo of the note. Members of Gridin’s family think they recognize his handwriting. The note itself has been confiscated by the command, and later disappeared from the official files.
In his note, Gridin wrote that his command was planning to send him on a rotation to Ukraine. After he asked to be left out of the tour, Gridin’s commander and the sergeants “tormented” him. …[He wrote that he] “made a decision to die here, in my home country, and without blood on my hands.”
Gridin’s sister told the media that her brother called after the New Year to say that he was being deployed to Ukraine. Later, he turned it into a joke.
Russia’s Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has said that mandatory term conscripts do not take part in combat in Ukraine.
ravensays
Tweet
Stand by Ukraine Initiative @StandByUkraine
This is going under the radar: 🇺🇦 intercepted Iranian drone operators piloting Iranian drones attacking 🇺🇦. That is an act of war. When assets of the IRGC are pulling the trigger that crosses the line from aiding 2 invading. Int’l community needs 2 respond
understandingwar.org
Institute for the Study of War
There are now Iranians in Russia, fighting with Russia against Ukraine. This interception is of phone and radio calls, of drone operators speaking Iranian languages.
Not really too surprising.
To call this an act of war isn’t exactly wrong but is an overestimation.
We also have a huge amount of Western material from NATO and the EU in Ukraine along with some of our people.
We are at war with Russia, just not too directly as of yet. A proxy war as they are called.
I’m posting the text of #236 because it is clearly more horrible hate from the GOP. It’s also just Noem being cuckoo.
“Healthcare professionals have until the end of the year to stop treatment for patients currently receiving gender-affirming care, from hormone therapy and surgery to puberty blockers. ”
This is a Red Herring.
We don’t do Trans surgery on children.
We also don’t do hormone replacement on Trans children. Most hormones being prescribed to teenagers are to cis teenagers for one medical condition or another. Haven’t they ever heard of birth control pills in South Dakota.
Puberty blockers are prescribed to Trans children but those aren’t permanent. That is the whole point. They are reversible. Noem calls them permanent because lying isn’t a problem for her.
I’m wondering how legal any of these bills detailing medical care are. The people passing them aren’t medical professionals and in fact, the real medical professionals are who they are targeting.
I’ve read articles that they are of dubious legality but can’t remember why offhand.
South Dakota Passes First Law That Will Force Trans Kids to Detransition
Healthcare professionals will have until the end of the year to stop gender-affirming care for patients under 18.
ByEmily Leibert
PublishedYesterday
Comments (95)
South Dakota is now the first state to pass legislation that would effectively force trans kids to detransition. The legislation, which marks the second state this year to attack healthcare for trans people, bans all gender-affirming care for patients under 18 years of age.
On Monday, notoriously pro-NRA and anti-trans rights Gov. Kristi Noem (R) signed the bill into law, according to Vice. Though all bans regarding trans healthcare have been irreparably harmful, South Dakota’s law is explicitly violent and the first of its kind: Healthcare professionals have until the end of the year to stop treatment for patients currently receiving gender-affirming care, from hormone therapy and surgery to puberty blockers. Doctors who don’t comply will be at risk of losing their medical license or could be sued.
“South Dakota’s kids are our future. With this legislation, we are protecting kids from harmful, permanent medical procedures,” Noem said in a statement. The Republican majority state senate had previously passed the legislation, known as House Bill 1080, in a 30-4 vote.
The only sort of concession the legislation makes is that if a healthcare professional finds that “immediately terminating the minor’s use of the drug or hormone would cause harm to the minor,” the professional may “systematically reduce” the patient’s treatment over a period of time, according to language in the bill. The irony, of course, is that cutting off a minor’s gender-affirming care in any capacity would cause harm to the minor—from increased risk of suicide to heightened gender dysphoria and depression. To reverse any progress in the midst of a transition is not only brutal, but barbaric and inhumane.
But none of that matters to Noem, who is angling for a VP role within the next Republican presidential administration, and her radical stance on denying the lived experience and rights of trans kids seems to be helping her on that political crusade. Noem has consistently been one of the most vocal anti-trans governors in the country, and last February, South Dakota was similarly the first state to pass a law banning transgender women and girls from competing on sports teams consistent with their gender, according to CNN.
South Dakota’s new law marks yet another installment in Republican’s multi-year flood of anti-LGBTQ bills, the vast majority of which attack trans people’s ability to exist freely in their state. Vice reports that lawmakers in at least 18 states are also eyeing gender-affirming care bans. Mississippi, for example, is considering legislation that mirror’s South Dakota’s in forcing youth to detransition, and a potential Florida bill would ban most gender-affirming care for minors without forcing those already under care to detransition. Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Virginia have all introduced measures that would ban gender-affirming care for some adults.
ravensays
I put some terms in Google search about the legality of anti-Trans children laws.
I didn’t get much.
lambda legal
The following quote can be attributed to Brian Klosterboer, staff attorney with the ACLU of Texas.
“This bill is an unconstitutional attempt to deny transgender Texans the right to exist. At a time when our state is facing numerous crises, HB 1399 would violate parents’ fundamental right to provide the best possible health care for their kids, usurp doctors’ ability to provide critical and life-saving care, and unlawfully target and discriminate against transgender kids. It also could leave taxpayers footing the bill for legislation that tramples on some of our most fundamental constitutional rights. If lawmakers insist on moving this bill forward, we will see them in court.”
This ACLU guy calls them “unconstitutional” but he doesn’t say why exactly.
I’m guessing the legal experts are getting their arguments together and I’m sure these laws will be challenged in court.
As Republicans try to make Trump-era tax breaks permanent, remember: The GOP is pushing for smaller deficits while also pushing for larger deficits.
Republicans have tried to justify their debt ceiling crisis by arguing that they’re desperate to reduce the deficit. “We must move towards a balanced budget and insist on genuine accountability for every dollar we spend,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said in prepared remarks last week.
The California Republican added that putting the nation “on a path towards a balanced budget is not only the right place to start, it’s the only place to start.” He went on to argue that the national debt is “the greatest threat to our future.”
The list of problems with his rhetoric — McCarthy has no actual plan; his party has no credibility; the already shrinking deficit isn’t an especially serious problem, etc. — isn’t short. But perhaps the most important detail in the larger conversation is that Republicans are pushing for smaller deficits while simultaneously pushing for larger deficits.
[…] This week, a prominent House Republican sent out this press release on a proposal that would increase the deficit by a far larger amount.
… Congressman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) announced he has joined Congressman Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) and 71 colleagues in reintroducing the TCJA Permanency Act (H.R.976), legislation to make permanent the tax cuts for individuals and small businesses originally enacted as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017. Without Congressional action, 23 different provisions of the 2017 Republican tax law are set to expire after 2025.
[…] Donald Trump’s most notable legislative accomplishment — a massive package of tax breaks for the wealthy and large corporations — was structured in such a way as to obscure its true cost. To that end, many of the tax cuts are set to disappear in the coming years, leaving elected policymakers with a choice: Either extend the breaks or watch them evaporate automatically, reverting to the status quo that existed before the regressive policy was signed into law.
The conservative proponents of the TCJA Permanency Act — which, as of this morning, has 76 co-sponsors, including members of the GOP leadership — have clearly made their choice […] making these tax cuts permanent would cost a fortune. An analysis from the Tax Policy Center concluded that such a move would add $3 trillion to the deficit, and a related analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget came to a similar conclusion.
“The same Republicans who claim we can’t ‘afford’ to invest in affordable housing, better health care, and accessible child care aren’t blinking an eye at the fact their push to extend the Trump tax giveaways for the ultra wealthy would add trillions of dollars to the federal deficit,” Democratic Rep. Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania told me yesterday. […]
GOP lawmakers have a choice: They can claim to take fiscal responsibility seriously and pursue a balanced budget, or they can push to make permanent ineffective tax breaks for those who don’t need them. To do both simultaneously is ridiculous.
The Justice Department is ending its sex trafficking investigation into Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., without charging the congressman with any crimes, his attorneys and congressional office told NBC News. … Gaetz’s office added, “The Department of Justice has confirmed to Congressman Gaetz’s attorneys that their investigation has concluded and that he will not be charged with any crimes.”
Commentary from Steve Benen:
[…] Let’s not forget that through the course of the Jan. 6 investigation, multiple officials from Donald Trump’s White House confirmed in sworn testimony that Gaetz sought a pardon from the then-Republican president. One former aide to Trump said the pardon was related to the sex trafficking investigation, not possible crimes related to Jan. 6 and the efforts to overturn the election results.
Evidently, [Gaetz], who never received the pardon, didn’t need one after all.
What about Joel Greenberg, Gaetz’s almost comically scandalous former “wingman” who pleaded guilty to six charges, including sex trafficking of a minor? Didn’t he agree to cooperate with federal investigators? He did, but it’s likely that prosecutors realized that their top witness against the congressman was a “prolific criminal” with significant credibility issues. […]
Instead of “controversial,” I would describe Hagee as homophobic, anti-semitic and misogynistic.
As a presidential candidate in 2000, then-Sen. John McCain told voters he had no use for the religious right movement, denouncing prominent evangelical leaders as “agents of intolerance.” The message did not resonate with most Republican voters and the Arizona Republican’s candidacy fell short.
Eight years later, McCain was determined to learn key lessons from his earlier failure and eagerly forged partnerships with far-right social conservatives. In fact, the GOP senator even welcomed the support of Pastor John Hagee — at least for a while.
It wasn’t long before McCain was asked whether he agreed with Hagee’s record of radicalism, including the pastor’s claims that the Holocaust was a divine plan from God, Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for Pride parades in New Orleans, and women are “only meant to be mothers and bear children.” […]
McCain, reluctant to be associated with such extremism, felt like he had no choice but to reject Hagee’s endorsement and repudiate the pastor’s views.
That was in 2008. Republican politics changed a lot in the 15 years that followed.
In 2018, for example, Donald Trump invited Hagee, the founder of Christians United for Israel, to deliver the official benediction at the opening of a new U.S. embassy in Israel.
This morning, Hagee made another notable political appearance, delivering the invocation at the kickoff event for Nikki Haley’s Republican presidential campaign. […]
Aside from their ingenuity and fighting skills (and the Russian military’s apparent inability to cross even small rivers), the Ukrainians have benefited, said one soldier, from their ability to rapidly treat casualties — battlefield first aid skills taught to them by Canadians through the Operation Unifier training mission…
The Russians, he said, changed tactics recently and are now attacking more often in smaller groups, without the support of tanks and armoured personnel carriers — perhaps because of the heavy losses they’ve already sustained…
He said the Russians also appear to have gotten better at hiding from drones. Social media has been awash in images and video of Ukrainian drone strikes on unsuspecting Russian soldiers.
In an ominous sign for the Ukrainians, the Russians are also getting better at coordinating their artillery…
Ukrainian soldiers’ ability to hold the line has been backstopped by their battlefield medicine skills — skills Volodymyr said were “taken to a whole new level” by Canadian training delivered before the full invasion…
incredible bullseye on the open hatch of a Russian tank. [video at the link]
But say you just can’t get that bomb to go into the small opening. Or maybe you want to keep your drone at a higher altitude, which would make it harder to notch the target. What then?
Why then … you go fishing for Russian tanks.
Destruction of a Russian tank by a bomb which is tied with a string to a drone [video at the link]
We’re at least three weeks into the latest round of “Bakhmut is going to fall any moment.” Still, Bakhmut holds. In fact, it’s worth taking a look at the Bakhmut area again this morning because Ukrainian forces there have done more than just hold. In at least one area—the area that may be the most critical to sustaining the city—Russia’s line of control has been moved back significantly. [map at the link]
On Saturday, we looked at how the only clear access route in and out of Bakhmut is the one that runs through Khromove, directly west of the city. However, while this point on the road lies neatly between areas now under Russian fire control to the north and south, the only paved section of the road goes southwest to the town of Chasiv Yar. Last week, pro-Russian sources claimed that Wagner forces had crossed the highway south of Bakhmut, circled around the town of Ivaniske, and were in the outskirts of Chasiv Yar, which would put them in a position to completely block access in and out of the city.
As with so many claims from Russia, that never really happened. Russian forces seemed to have succeed in using artillery to take down a bridge west of Ivaniske, which is likely to restrict Ukraine’s movements along the T0504 highway for the immediate future. However, they never seemed to get a substantial force within a kilometer of the highway at any point south of the city. Then on Tuesday Ukrainian forces staged a counterattack, pushing Russian forces back at least another kilometer.
North of the city, heavy fighting continues in Krasna Hora, another location that Russia had claimed to have captured at least a week ago. As some of the fog lifts over the situation around Bakhmut, it seems that Russian forces haven’t progressed as far west of Blahodatne as had previously been thought, though Russia is definitely pressing the M03 highway west of Paraskoiivka. It doesn’t seem that Russia actually has control of this road—the only videos of movement still show a handful of Ukrainian vehicles—but they are definitely positioned to have fire control over the road and make it of very little utility to Ukraine at the moment.
Mostly what seems to have happened on the north side of the city over the last week is more of a solidification of positions. Russia hasn’t made any new significant advances, but they have apparently secured some of the locations that were captured in the push that began with the attack on Soledar. Now it appears that the lines both north and west of this small salient have become more static. And of course, on the south side is the kind of block-to-block fighting that has so long characterized Bahkmut.
Ukrainian military officials have declared that when it comes to Bakhmut, “every block is a fortress.” Likely that’s an exaggeration, but it gets the point across: Ukraine has no intention of withdrawing from Bakhmut and intends to sell every square meter at a high cost.
It’s tempting to start to wonder if Russia’s attack in the area has culminated, or if they’ve overextended their forces in an attempt to encircle Bakhmut. However, it’s too early for statements like that. Combat in the area remains intense, and forces inside the city continue to report an extremely difficult situation. There remains the possibility that Russian forces could break through defenses in a new location, allowing them to press into the city or go for that last vital highway connection. But right now, the Russian offensive at Bakhmut appears to be back to where it has been for month after month: fighting against tough defensive positions and suffering heavy losses for very small gains.
But that counterattack near Ivaniske shows that Ukrainian forces in the area aren’t just dug in and waiting. They’re aware of weaknesses in the Russian lines and are willing to extend themselves when there’s an opportunity to regain territory without engaging in a high-loss engagement. Russian forces south of Bakhmut have largely been thrown back into the area around Klishchiivka, an area Ukraine had trouble defending, even with some trenches in place. It will be interesting to see if Russia has better luck clinging to that location.
There’s no doubt that the loss of Soledar was significant, and that Russia’s advance to Blahodatne changed the situation when it comes to lines of communication in Bakhmut. However, for the moment, Ukraine is adamant that they are not going anywhere. The effort being expended in holding the area does not speak to a force that is in any way defeated.
Expect to see “Bakhmut holds” for some time to come. Hey, remember when people were convinced Bakhmut was about to fall because Russia had almost reached the “wine factory?”
Ukrainian military officials have declared that when it comes to Bakhmut, “every block is a fortress.” Likely that’s an exaggeration, but it gets the point across: Ukraine has no intention of withdrawing from Bakhmut and intends to sell every square meter at a high cost.
It’s tempting to start to wonder if Russia’s attack in the area has culminated, or if they’ve overextended their forces in an attempt to encircle Bakhmut. However, it’s too early for statements like that. Combat in the area remains intense, and forces inside the city continue to report an extremely difficult situation. […] right now, the Russian offensive at Bakhmut appears to be back to where it has been for month after month: fighting against tough defensive positions and suffering heavy losses for very small gains.
But that counterattack near Ivaniske shows that Ukrainian forces in the area aren’t just dug in and waiting. They’re aware of weaknesses in the Russian lines and are willing to extend themselves when there’s an opportunity to regain territory without engaging in a high-loss engagement. Russian forces south of Bakhmut have largely been thrown back into the area around Klishchiivka […]
There’s no doubt that the loss of Soledar was significant, and that Russia’s advance to Blahodatne changed the situation when it comes to lines of communication in Bakhmut. However, for the moment, Ukraine is adamant that they are not going anywhere. The effort being expended in holding the area does not speak to a force that is in any way defeated.
[…] Hey, remember when people were convinced Bakhmut was about to fall because Russia had almost reached the “wine factory?” [video at the link] I thought it might be interesting this morning to see how this looks from the perspective of the most tankie of tankies. For them, it’s not that Russia has failed to encircle Bakhmut, it’s that they have deliberately “left one side open” so Ukraine can “take all its broken equipment and retreat.”
Note that not only is Western assistance dismissed as too little, too late—there’s this peachy claim: “Even if that stuff arrives, it won’t get there for three, four, five months, and I’ll be frank with you, I’d be very surprised if anything is happening in Ukraine at that point.” So there you go: Russia to have Ukraine all wrapped up before May.
In tankie land, it’s Ukraine that has “lost most their officers and NCOs” so they’re sending in untrained and disorganized forces. [LOL, massive projection on the part of the Russians!] Ukrainian forces have been whittled away to nothing, a ragtag few who cannot possibly stand. Meanwhile, Russia has “2,000 of their best tanks and 3,000 infantry fighting vehicles” ready to crush Ukrainian resistance at the head of massive army. Once they’re past Bakhmut, it’s all just “flat open land” that Russia will cut through like butter. Other cities, like Kramatorsk, are breezily dismissed as “indefensible.” They don’t enjoy the defensive advantages of Bakhmut, which was … which was … it doesn’t really matter.
In their minds, Russia has lost nothing, all is going as planned, and Putin’s boys are going to race back to Kyiv and beyond … as soon as they get this tiny pebble out of their shoe. Any day now. Any day now.
The South Carolina governor and former U.N. ambassador formally launched her campaign Wednesday with, among other things, a call for “mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over 75 years old.” …
Why bring age into it? I would love to see MTG, Boebert, Gohmert, Gosar, Santos and many others have to pass mental competency tests.
A pro-Kremlin propagandist who has long supported Russia’s war in Ukraine erupted on live television after his son was accused of avoiding the war.
Vladimir Solovyov, who has a strong following and is popular with Russian President Vladimir Putin, attacked critics on-air on Tuesday, after a tweet went viral accusing him of hypocrisy because his 21-year-old son, Vladimir Solovyov, was working as a model in London and wasn’t involved in the fighting…
[…] On Tuesday, the right-wing propaganda outlet known as Newsmax sent out its White House correspondent to ask a question of White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. What did this think tank of a man come up with? After a sizable meandering lead-up about the concept of “woke-ism,” a thing that really doesn’t exist, Newsmax’s best and brightest asked:
“If we couldn’t begin with a threshold question, to wit, is President Biden ‘woke’?”
After I recovered, having laughed myself into a brief coma, I realized that, yes, the question he asked was, Is President Joseph Biden … woke? And yes, he also said, “To wit.” Holy mackerel, right?
Does Newsmax have something to add to this? Is the Republican Party asking for the defense budget to be cut of “wokeness?” What does that look like, exactly? No women in the armed forces? No Black people in the armed forces? Nope.
The Republican Party has nothing it wants to cut except for Social Security and Medicare, but since no one actually wants that, especially the seniors who make up a considerable block of the conservative base, they’re hoping President Biden—and by extension, White House press secretary Jean-Pierre—can give them some ideas.
This isn’t Karine Jean-Pierre’s first foray into a conservative bouncy house. She decided the best way to deal with this was to explain that “what the president cares about and what’s important to this president” has nothing to do with “what Republicans are trying to do in creating political stunts.” More specifically, Jean-Pierre says that what the President is interested in is what benefits the American people, not pretend culture wars that the Republican Party believes “benefits them politically for their own, for their own ability to move forward.”
She then reiterated the facts of the matter: The Biden administration is continuing to be galactically more fiscally responsible than any Republican administration has ever been, while the Republican Party continues to say that they want to cut Social Security and Medicare. [video at the link]
The Recount did some excellent work highlighting the responses of actual reporters sitting in Newsmax’s vicinity and responding to his personal moment of humiliation. [video snippets and tweets at the link]
A Russian military bomber engineer drove up to the U.S. Southwest border in late December, asking for asylum and offering to reveal some of Russia’s most closely guarded military secrets, according to an unclassified Customs and Border Protection report obtained by Yahoo News.
The man and his family arrived in an armored SUV and asked to be admitted into the U.S. because he feared persecution for participating in anti-Putin protests in support of Alexei Navalny, an imprisoned Russian dissident. He then told CBP officials that he had information wanted by the U.S. government.
He said he was a civil engineer and that “his past employment had included working … from 2018 to 2021 in the making of a particular type of military airplane at the Tupolev aircraft production facility in the city of Kazan in west-central Russia,” according to a Jan. 11 unclassified CBP report obtained by Yahoo News.
“He described the aircraft type as ‘an attack jet’ and said it ‘was called White Swan-TU160, the largest military aircraft.’” …
Wonkette: “Trump’s Lawyers Continue Pattern Of Bad Faith F*ckery In E. Jean Carroll Defamation Case”
In roughly 10 weeks, come hell or high water, E. Jean Carroll will finally get her day in court. It’s been a hell of a long time coming, with Donald Trump continuing his decades-long campaign of abusing women (allegedly) by abusing the legal process (not allegedly). So it seems like a good time to recap the case so far, including the fireworks this week.
In 2019, the advice columnist E. Jean Carroll accused Trump of raping her in a department store dressing room in the mid-90s. Her account of the assault appeared in her book What Do We Need Men For?: A Modest Proposal, and an excerpt from it which appeared in New York magazine. Trump immediately went on the offensive, telling reporters that he’d never met her, that she was in cahoots with evil Democrats, that she made false accusations against lots of men (Carroll was one of 13 women who accuse CBS’s Les Moonves of sexual assault), that she was only in it for the money, and that anyway he could not have raped her because she wasn’t his type.
In October of 2022, Trump admitted under oath that he had no basis for believing any of the things he’d said but “when people accuse me of something, I think I have a right to be insulting.” This rather undercut his later claim that he made the statements as a part of his official presidential duties, as did in a Truth Social post in 2022 reiterating each and every one of his gross allegations. Similarly Trump’s implication that Carroll was too unattractive to rape was undercut when he looked at a photo of Carroll from the 90s and repeatedly mistook her for his second wife Marla Maples, who was presumably his type. [Unintentional comedy from Trump. LOL]
Back in 2019, Carroll sued Trump for defamation in New York state court, only to have the then-president duck the process server, contest jurisdiction, and refuse to cooperate with discovery. When every other avenue was exhausted and he was finally ordered to submit his DNA to match male genetic material found on the dress Carroll wore the day of the attack, then-Attorney General Bill Barr tried to remove the case to federal court and attempt to substitute the government as defendant. The success or failure of that gambit is still in doubt — the issue of whether Trump was acting within the scope of his presidential duties under DC law when he slagged Carroll in 2019 is currently before the DC Court of Appeals. But in the meantime, Carroll filed a second defamation suit for the 2022 social media post, adding a sexual battery count under New York’s recently enacted Adult Survivors Act.
In both these cases, known as Carroll I and Carroll II, Trump’s lawyers appear to have gone out of their way to piss off US District Judge Lewis Kaplan. Which is a weird strategy, […]
The former president was initially represented in Carroll I by his longtime lawyer Marc Kasowitz, but in 2021 attorney Alina Habba entered her appearance. Habba and Trump recently got slapped with a million dollars in sanctions in the batcrap RICO suit they filed in Florida against Hillary Clinton and half of DC, and her conduct here has been only slightly less egregious. The court has already reamed her out on multiple occasions and described Trump’s legal strategy as at least partly “dilatory” and in “bad faith.” Then two weeks ago Joseph Tacopina, a highly experienced trial lawyer with dozens of celebrity clients, took control of Carroll II. No more shenanigans, he assured Judge Kaplan last week, promising that “If you say April, I’m trying it in April. I’m not running from this obligation.”
Turns out … not so much. On Thursday, the Daily Beast’s Jose Pagliery reported that Trump’s legal team was preparing to offer to submit to the DNA test, after three years of flatly refusing it. If successful, this would allow Trump to tell jurors that he’d offered his DNA, and Carroll had refused it.
Now, to be clear, discovery in this case is over. You do not get to reopen discovery absent a really freakin’ good reason, and, furthermore, it is Judge Kaplan’s regular practice to keep these disputes off the public docket at least in part because they tend to prejudice potential jurors.
And yet! On Friday, Tacopina docketed a letter motion purportedly seeking a missing appendix to the 2020 DNA report on the dress which was originally filed in state court. Letter motions are filed on the docket, so Trump was conveniently allowed to make a public offer to trade his DNA for the omitted pages.
“Mr. Trump’s DNA is either on the dress or it is not. Why is Plaintiff now hiding from this reality?” he sneered. “We surmise that the answer to that question is that she knows his DNA is not on the dress because the alleged sexual assault never occurred.”
Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge), responded furiously in her own letter, pointing out the impropriety of attempted to reopen discovery on the eve of trial, noting that forensic testing at this late date would by necessity force a delay of trial, and accusing Trump of seeking to poison the jury pool.
Tacopina denied that the testing and concomitant legal wrangling of another expert witness would force a delay — a patently absurd assertion — and accused Carroll of prejudicing potential jurors by writing her book in 2019 and promoting it.
This morning Judge Kaplan denied Trump’s motion in a FURIOUS order which characterized the late motion as either a deliberate, bad faith effort to manipulate the court, or an act of gross incompetence:
The patently untimely request for the appendix thus reflects either a tactical shift or just an afterthought. One possible explanation is that it is an attempt to reverse a deliberate tactical decision by Mr. Trump’s counsel not to raise the question of the appendix over the past three years, a decision perhaps the product of a belief that asking for the appendix might well have resulted in renewed demands for Mr. Trump’s DNA. Another possible explanation is a negligent failure to read the report with any care over the entire three-year period and thus the failure to notice the lack of the appendix. But whatever the explanation, the effort comes too late.
These are not words you want to hear from a judge presiding over your imminent trial. Nor do you want him audibly rolling his eyes at your blasé claim that the blatant violation of agreed upon discovery timelines will have no affect on the trial schedule.
So, this is all going swell. Can’t wait to see what crazy shit they come up with in the next ten weeks. Might this be a strategy to provoke a mistrial, or better still, get the case reassigned to a different judge by provoking Judge Kaplan to leap across the bench and pummel the defendant’s counsel?
[…] Meanwhile, in reality … [a reference to Putin’s spokespeople claiming that “Russia has lost nothing, all is going as planned, and Putin’s boys are going to race back to Kyiv and beyond … as soon as they get this tiny pebble [Bahkmut] out of their shoe.”]
‘Around 50% of Russia’s pre-invasion fleet of modern T-72B3s and T-72B3M main battle tanks is assessed to have been lost’
Overall, Russia has burned through about 40% of all operational tanks—and that’s just one military system. Russia has also lost over 2,000 of their infantry fighting vehicles. But surely not the shiny new ones that the tankies are certain exist.
There are so many different spins on the idea that Russia has already launched, is now launching, or soon will launch some new offensive that the idea has lost a lot of meaning. Two weeks ago, we complained that the handwringing over a new Russian offensive in the north, or is it south, or maybe at Donetsk, had already become so vague and ill-defined that it was was becoming more of a distraction to planning rather than a guide.
That hasn’t stopped. The Financial Times may be one of the most sensible sources when it comes to prognosticating events in Ukraine, but they’re also repeating the everything, everywhere, all at once predictions that are now apparently coming from all quarters.
When Russia’s long-expected spring offensive begins, there will be no proverbial whistle to mark the moment Russian troops attack and go “over the top”.
It will arrive unheralded, from multiple directions and probably using tactics unlike those Russia has employed so far, including a greater role for its air force, military officials warned.
On the one hand, there’s little sign that Russia is capable of any tactics other than the ones it has used at all times and in all situations throughout the invasion: High-cost, low success rate probing attacks, where those occasions when they do win are used to establish new positions for artillery. Then artillery pounds everything in reach as the process starts over.
The Financial Times report once again points to the reported massing of Russian fighters and bombers, suggesting that air support could play a major role in Russia’s next round of fighting. However, that seems to be ignoring what’s regularly happening with Russian air forces already.
Head of Wagner PMC Prigozhin showed the remains of a SU-24, shot down by the AFU. The pilots Antonov and Nikishin died and were rewarded with the title ‘Hero of Russia’ posthumously. [video at the link]
Maybe the idea is that if Russia puts enough planes in the air, Ukraine would have trouble shooting them all down. They’ve tried human waves at Bakhmut. They’ve tried armor waves at Vuhledar. Maybe now Russia intends to deploy air waves.
It would definitely be something different. But that doesn’t mean it would be successful.
Meanwhile, as Western military experts fret over the threat represented by Russia’s big new offensive, there’s one man who isn’t worried. That would be giant Russian a-hole, guy who expected to be running this war, and full-time grudge-master Igor Girkin.
At the moment, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation DO NOT HAVE A SUPERIORITY OVER THE APU ANYWHERE, that would guarantee the success of a large-scale strategic offensive. … in any case, a full-scale offensive battle will very quickly and inevitably lead to very large losses and the depletion of those resources that have been accumulated as a result of previous mobilisation and other preparatory actions. And, regardless of successes, it will not lead to the complete defeat of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (precisely because of the lack of strategic reserves).
No, no, no. It’s all over by May. Clearly Girkin hasn’t been reading his notes.
Close combat recorded by Ukrainian defenders in the Donbas region, eastern Ukraine
A drone (on the left) and GoPro camera footage (on the right) show how Ukrainian troops of the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade attacked Russian positions. [video at the link]
La présidente moldave Maia Sandu a assuré lundi que la Russie se préparait à soutenir un “coup d’État” contre elle. Elle dénonce aussi le principal relais de l’influence russe dans le pays, Ilan Shor, un oligarque controversé accusé de financer les manifestations contre le gouvernement moldave pro-UE….
whheydtsays
Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #245…
Well…those criteria leave me out. I’m not 75…yet…and I not in politics.
What I’d like to see is for everyone running for or holding office take the naturalization citizenship test, and require that the scores be published in some easy to find location.
Elon Musk has announced plans to seek life on Mars and, if successful, to prevent it from unionizing.
The billionaire said that he would personally talk to the Martians and persuade them that joining a union would be a mistake that he’ll “make sure they’ll regret.”
“Right now, there appears to be water on Mars,” he said. “But if they join a union I’ll take away their water.”
Musk added that he would offer Martians an opportunity to work at Twitter, “but not if they want to work remotely.”
Federal prosecutors are looking to cut through Former President Donald Trump’s staunch wall of lawyers by using the crime-fraud exception to compel the testimony of his lawyer, M. Evan Corcoran, before a grand jury, the New York Times reports. The crime fraud exception voids legal secrecy when a client has sought a lawyer’s help in the commission of a fraud or crime, and prosecutors have asked a federal judge to invoke the exception.
The move is part of an ongoing investigation into the former president’s handling of classified documents after he left office. Prosecutors leading the probe have also investigated Boris Epshteyn, Trump’s legal adviser whose phone was seized by authorities last month and, per the report, who coordinated lawyers on past Trump investigations…
It’s not over for anyone. Some people are just ignoring it.
For older Americans, the pandemic still poses significant dangers. About three-quarters of COVID deaths have occurred in people older than 65, with the greatest losses concentrated among those older than 75.
The number of dead is still high.
In January it was 11,800 dead. That comes out to around 140,000 a year.
For the flu, we might see 20,000, counting deaths like we do Covid-19 virus.
90% of them were older than age 65.
Only 40% of older Americans have gotten the bivalent booster. That is one big thing we could do to easily lower the older people’s death rates.
The New York Times
For Older Americans, the Pandemic Is Not Over
Paula Span
Sat, February 11, 2023 at 8:12 AM PST·7 min read
In early December, Aldo Caretti developed a cough and, despite all his precautions, came up positive for COVID-19 on a home test. It took his family a couple of days to persuade Caretti, never fond of doctors, to go to the emergency room. There, he was sent directly to the intensive care unit.
Caretti and his wife, Consiglia, both 85, lived quietly in a condo in Plano, Texas. “He liked to read and learn, in English and Italian,” said his son Vic Caretti, 49. “He absolutely adored his three grandchildren.”
Aldo Caretti had encountered some health setbacks last year, including a mild stroke and a serious bout of shingles, but “he recuperated from all that.”
COVID was different. Even on a ventilator, Caretti struggled to breathe. After 10 days, “he wasn’t getting better,” said Vic Caretti, who flew in from Salt Lake City. “His organs were starting to break down. They said, ‘He’s not going to make it.’”
At least, this late in the pandemic, families can be with their loved ones at the end of life. When the family agreed to remove Aldo Caretti from the ventilator and provide comfort care, “he was alert, very aware of what was happening,” his son said. “He was holding everyone’s hand.” He died a few hours later, on Dec. 14.
For older Americans, the pandemic still poses significant dangers. About three-quarters of COVID deaths have occurred in people older than 65, with the greatest losses concentrated among those older than 75.
In January, the number of COVID-related deaths fell after a holiday spike but nevertheless numbered about 2,100 among those ages 65 to 74, more than 3,500 among 75- to 84-year-olds and nearly 5,000 among those older than 85. Those three groups accounted for about 90% of the nation’s COVID deaths last month.
Hospital admissions, which have also been dropping, remain more than five times as high for people older than 70 than for those in their 50s. Hospitals can endanger older patients even when the conditions that brought them in are successfully treated; the harmful effects of drugs, inactivity, sleep deprivation, delirium and other stresses can take months to recover from — or can land them back in the hospital.
“There continue to be very high costs of COVID,” said Julia Raifman, a public health policy specialist at the Boston University School of Public Health and a co-author of a recent editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The demographic divide reflects a debate that continues as the pandemic wears on: What responsibility do those at lower risk from the virus have to those at higher risk — not only older people, but those who are immunosuppressed or who have chronic conditions?
Should individuals, institutions, businesses and governments maintain strategies, like masking, that help protect everyone but particularly benefit the more vulnerable?
“Do we distribute them among the whole population?” Raifman asked of those measures. “Or do we forgo that, and let the chips fall where they may?”
Nancy Berlinger, a bioethicist and research scholar at the Hastings Center, made a similar point: “The foundational questions about ethics are about what we owe others, not just ourselves, not just our circle of family and friends.”
Three years in, the societal answer seems clear: With mask and vaccination mandates mostly ended, testing centers and vaccination clinics closed and the federal public health emergency scheduled to expire in May, older adults are on their own.
“Americans do not agree about the duty to protect others, whether it’s from a virus or gun violence,” Berlinger said.
Only 40.8% of seniors have received a bivalent booster. Some who have not believe that they have strong protection against infection, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey reported last month (although the data indicated otherwise).
Others worry about side effects or feel unsure of the booster’s effectiveness. Seniors may also find it difficult to locate vaccination sites, make appointments (especially online) and travel to the sites.
In nursing homes, where the early pandemic proved so devastating, only 52% of residents and 23% of staff members were up to date on vaccinations last month. Early on, a successful, federally funded campaign sent health care workers into nursing homes to administer the original vaccine doses. Medicare also mandated staff vaccinations.
But for boosters, nursing homes were permitted to develop their own policies — or not.
“It makes absolutely no sense,” said David Grabowski, a health policy professor at Harvard Medical School. “This is the group that should have the highest vaccination rate in the country. Everyone there is very susceptible.”
The COVID costs for older people extend beyond the most extreme dangers and include limited activities, diminished lives and continuing isolation and its associated risks.
In Hillsboro, Oregon, Billie Erwin, 75, feels particularly vulnerable because she has Type 1 diabetes. She and her husband have forgone concerts and theater performances, indoor restaurant meals with friends, moviegoing and volunteering. Her book group fell apart.
“We used to spend a lot of time on the Oregon coast,” Erwin said. But because the trip involves an overnight stay, they’ve gone just twice in three years; annual visits to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival ended for the same reason.
The ongoing constraints have exacerbated the depression Erwin also contends with; some days, she doesn’t bother getting dressed.
“I’m disappointed we don’t consider other people as much as we ought to,” she said. “I don’t know that most people even think about it.”
Eleanor Bravo, 73, who lives in Corrales, New Mexico, lost her sister to COVID early in the pandemic; two years passed before the family could gather for a memorial. “I had this inordinate fear that if I got COVID, I would die, too,” Bravo said.
She did develop COVID in July, and recovered. But she and her partner still avoid most cultural events, travel and restaurants. “Our world has gotten much smaller,” she said. An organizer with Marked by COVID, a national nonprofit organization, she is working to build a memorial to the 9,000 New Mexicans who have died of the virus.
Of course, many older Americans, too, have resumed their pre-pandemic routines. In Charlotte, North Carolina, Donna and David Bolls, both 67, fell ill with COVID in May — “the sickest I’ve been that I can remember,” Donna Bolls said.
But afterward, they returned to restaurants, concerts, shopping, her part-time retail job and his church choir, without masks. “It’s a risk I’m willing to take,” she said. “I feel like I’m living life on my terms, doing the things I want to do.”
Although the political viability of mandates for masks, vaccination or improved indoor air quality appears nil, policymakers and organizations could still take measures to protect older (and immunocompromised) people without forcing them to become hermits.
Health care systems, pharmacies and government agencies could start renewed vaccination campaigns in communities and in nursing homes, including mobile clinics and home visits.
Remember the “senior hours” some supermarkets instituted early in the pandemic, allowing older customers to shop with smaller crowds and less exposure? Now, “public spaces are not accessible to people concerned about infections,” Raifman said.
They could be. Markets, libraries and museums could adopt some masks-required hours. Many off-Broadway theaters already designate two or three masked performances each week; others could follow suit. Steven Thrasher, author of “The Viral Underclass,” organized a masked book tour last fall with stops in 20 cities.
“Between the extremes of closing everything to mitigate transmission and doing nothing, there’s a middle ground,” Raifman said. “We can mitigate transmissions in smart and inclusive ways.”
Yet Vic Caretti, who has found a grief support group helpful, encounters comments from strangers in Salt Lake City because he wears a mask in public.
“I don’t think people understand how COVID affects older Americans,” Caretti said with frustration. “In 2020, there was this all-in-this-together vibe, and it’s been annihilated. People just need to care about other people, man. That’s my soapbox.”
It’s not over for anyone. Some people are just ignoring it.
For older Americans, the pandemic still poses significant dangers. About three-quarters of COVID deaths have occurred in people older than 65, with the greatest losses concentrated among those older than 75.
The number of dead is still high.
In January it was 11,800 dead. That comes out to around 140,000 a year.
For the flu, we might see 20,000, counting deaths like we do Covid-19 virus.
90% of them were older than age 65.
Only 40% of older Americans have gotten the bivalent booster. That is one big thing we could do to easily lower the older people’s death rates.
The New York Times
For Older Americans, the Pandemic Is Not Over
Paula Span
Sat, February 11, 2023 at 8:12 AM PST·7 min read
In early December, Aldo Caretti developed a cough and, despite all his precautions, came up positive for COVID-19 on a home test. It took his family a couple of days to persuade Caretti, never fond of doctors, to go to the emergency room. There, he was sent directly to the intensive care unit.
Caretti and his wife, Consiglia, both 85, lived quietly in a condo in Plano, Texas. “He liked to read and learn, in English and Italian,” said his son Vic Caretti, 49. “He absolutely adored his three grandchildren.”
Aldo Caretti had encountered some health setbacks last year, including a mild stroke and a serious bout of shingles, but “he recuperated from all that.”
COVID was different. Even on a ventilator, Caretti struggled to breathe. After 10 days, “he wasn’t getting better,” said Vic Caretti, who flew in from Salt Lake City. “His organs were starting to break down. They said, ‘He’s not going to make it.’”
At least, this late in the pandemic, families can be with their loved ones at the end of life. When the family agreed to remove Aldo Caretti from the ventilator and provide comfort care, “he was alert, very aware of what was happening,” his son said. “He was holding everyone’s hand.” He died a few hours later, on Dec. 14.
For older Americans, the pandemic still poses significant dangers. About three-quarters of COVID deaths have occurred in people older than 65, with the greatest losses concentrated among those older than 75.
In January, the number of COVID-related deaths fell after a holiday spike but nevertheless numbered about 2,100 among those ages 65 to 74, more than 3,500 among 75- to 84-year-olds and nearly 5,000 among those older than 85. Those three groups accounted for about 90% of the nation’s COVID deaths last month.
Hospital admissions, which have also been dropping, remain more than five times as high for people older than 70 than for those in their 50s. Hospitals can endanger older patients even when the conditions that brought them in are successfully treated; the harmful effects of drugs, inactivity, sleep deprivation, delirium and other stresses can take months to recover from — or can land them back in the hospital.
“There continue to be very high costs of COVID,” said Julia Raifman, a public health policy specialist at the Boston University School of Public Health and a co-author of a recent editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The demographic divide reflects a debate that continues as the pandemic wears on: What responsibility do those at lower risk from the virus have to those at higher risk — not only older people, but those who are immunosuppressed or who have chronic conditions?
Should individuals, institutions, businesses and governments maintain strategies, like masking, that help protect everyone but particularly benefit the more vulnerable?
“Do we distribute them among the whole population?” Raifman asked of those measures. “Or do we forgo that, and let the chips fall where they may?”
Nancy Berlinger, a bioethicist and research scholar at the Hastings Center, made a similar point: “The foundational questions about ethics are about what we owe others, not just ourselves, not just our circle of family and friends.”
Three years in, the societal answer seems clear: With mask and vaccination mandates mostly ended, testing centers and vaccination clinics closed and the federal public health emergency scheduled to expire in May, older adults are on their own.
“Americans do not agree about the duty to protect others, whether it’s from a virus or gun violence,” Berlinger said.
Only 40.8% of seniors have received a bivalent booster. Some who have not believe that they have strong protection against infection, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey reported last month (although the data indicated otherwise).
Others worry about side effects or feel unsure of the booster’s effectiveness. Seniors may also find it difficult to locate vaccination sites, make appointments (especially online) and travel to the sites.
In nursing homes, where the early pandemic proved so devastating, only 52% of residents and 23% of staff members were up to date on vaccinations last month. Early on, a successful, federally funded campaign sent health care workers into nursing homes to administer the original vaccine doses. Medicare also mandated staff vaccinations.
But for boosters, nursing homes were permitted to develop their own policies — or not.
“It makes absolutely no sense,” said David Grabowski, a health policy professor at Harvard Medical School. “This is the group that should have the highest vaccination rate in the country. Everyone there is very susceptible.”
The COVID costs for older people extend beyond the most extreme dangers and include limited activities, diminished lives and continuing isolation and its associated risks.
In Hillsboro, Oregon, Billie Erwin, 75, feels particularly vulnerable because she has Type 1 diabetes. She and her husband have forgone concerts and theater performances, indoor restaurant meals with friends, moviegoing and volunteering. Her book group fell apart.
“We used to spend a lot of time on the Oregon coast,” Erwin said. But because the trip involves an overnight stay, they’ve gone just twice in three years; annual visits to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival ended for the same reason.
The ongoing constraints have exacerbated the depression Erwin also contends with; some days, she doesn’t bother getting dressed.
“I’m disappointed we don’t consider other people as much as we ought to,” she said. “I don’t know that most people even think about it.”
Eleanor Bravo, 73, who lives in Corrales, New Mexico, lost her sister to COVID early in the pandemic; two years passed before the family could gather for a memorial. “I had this inordinate fear that if I got COVID, I would die, too,” Bravo said.
She did develop COVID in July, and recovered. But she and her partner still avoid most cultural events, travel and restaurants. “Our world has gotten much smaller,” she said. An organizer with Marked by COVID, a national nonprofit organization, she is working to build a memorial to the 9,000 New Mexicans who have died of the virus.
Of course, many older Americans, too, have resumed their pre-pandemic routines. In Charlotte, North Carolina, Donna and David Bolls, both 67, fell ill with COVID in May — “the sickest I’ve been that I can remember,” Donna Bolls said.
But afterward, they returned to restaurants, concerts, shopping, her part-time retail job and his church choir, without masks. “It’s a risk I’m willing to take,” she said. “I feel like I’m living life on my terms, doing the things I want to do.”
Although the political viability of mandates for masks, vaccination or improved indoor air quality appears nil, policymakers and organizations could still take measures to protect older (and immunocompromised) people without forcing them to become hermits.
Health care systems, pharmacies and government agencies could start renewed vaccination campaigns in communities and in nursing homes, including mobile clinics and home visits.
Remember the “senior hours” some supermarkets instituted early in the pandemic, allowing older customers to shop with smaller crowds and less exposure? Now, “public spaces are not accessible to people concerned about infections,” Raifman said.
They could be. Markets, libraries and museums could adopt some masks-required hours. Many off-Broadway theaters already designate two or three masked performances each week; others could follow suit. Steven Thrasher, author of “The Viral Underclass,” organized a masked book tour last fall with stops in 20 cities.
“Between the extremes of closing everything to mitigate transmission and doing nothing, there’s a middle ground,” Raifman said. “We can mitigate transmissions in smart and inclusive ways.”
Yet Vic Caretti, who has found a grief support group helpful, encounters comments from strangers in Salt Lake City because he wears a mask in public.
“I don’t think people understand how COVID affects older Americans,” Caretti said with frustration. “In 2020, there was this all-in-this-together vibe, and it’s been annihilated. People just need to care about other people, man. That’s my soapbox.”
It’s not over for anyone. Some people are just ignoring it.
For older Americans, the pandemic still poses significant dangers. About three-quarters of COVID deaths have occurred in people older than 65, with the greatest losses concentrated among those older than 75.
The number of dead is still high.
In January it was 11,800 dead. That comes out to around 140,000 a year.
For the flu, we might see 20,000, counting deaths like we do Covid-19 virus.
90% of them were older than age 65.
Only 40% of older Americans have gotten the bivalent booster. That is one big thing we could do to easily lower the older people’s death rates.
The New York Times
For Older Americans, the Pandemic Is Not Over
Paula Span
Sat, February 11, 2023 at 8:12 AM PST·7 min read
(Most deleted because of a filter issue)
At least, this late in the pandemic, families can be with their loved ones at the end of life. When the family agreed to remove Aldo Caretti from the ventilator and provide comfort care, “he was alert, very aware of what was happening,” his son said. “He was holding everyone’s hand.” He died a few hours later, on Dec. 14.
For older Americans, the pandemic still poses significant dangers. About three-quarters of COVID deaths have occurred in people older than 65, with the greatest losses concentrated among those older than 75.
In January, the number of COVID-related deaths fell after a holiday spike but nevertheless numbered about 2,100 among those ages 65 to 74, more than 3,500 among 75- to 84-year-olds and nearly 5,000 among those older than 85. Those three groups accounted for about 90% of the nation’s COVID deaths last month.
Hospital admissions, which have also been dropping, remain more than five times as high for people older than 70 than for those in their 50s. Hospitals can endanger older patients even when the conditions that brought them in are successfully treated; the harmful effects of drugs, inactivity, sleep deprivation, delirium and other stresses can take months to recover from — or can land them back in the hospital.
Three years in, the societal answer seems clear: With mask and vaccination mandates mostly ended, testing centers and vaccination clinics closed and the federal public health emergency scheduled to expire in May, older adults are on their own.
“Americans do not agree about the duty to protect others, whether it’s from a virus or gun violence,” Berlinger said.
Only 40.8% of seniors have received a bivalent booster.
“It makes absolutely no sense,” said David Grabowski, a health policy professor at Harvard Medical School. “This is the group that should have the highest vaccination rate in the country. Everyone there is very susceptible.”
Yet Vic Caretti, who has found a grief support group helpful, encounters comments from strangers in Salt Lake City because he wears a mask in public.
“I don’t think people understand how COVID affects older Americans,” Caretti said with frustration. “In 2020, there was this all-in-this-together vibe, and it’s been annihilated. People just need to care about other people, man. That’s my soapbox.”
ravensays
For Older Americans, the Pandemic Is Not Over
It’s not over for anyone. Some people are just ignoring it.
For older Americans, the pandemic still poses significant dangers. About three-quarters of COVID deaths have occurred in people older than 65, with the greatest losses concentrated among those older than 75.
The number of dead is still high.
In January it was 11,800 dead. That comes out to around 140,000 a year.
For the flu, we might see 20,000, counting deaths like we do Covid-19 virus.
90% of them were older than age 65.
Only 40% of older Americans have gotten the bivalent booster. That is one big thing we could do to easily lower the older people’s death rates.
The New York Times
For Older Americans, the Pandemic Is Not Over
Paula Span
Sat, February 11, 2023 at 8:12 AM PST·7 min read
Deleted article because of an unknown filter issue.)
StevoRsays
Lasting impacts from an enormous volcanic eruption (in Tonga -ed) a year ago may have a cooling and rainy influence on parts of Australia for up to eight years, according to scientists. … (snip) .. But the powerful explosion also caught the intrigue of scientists around the globe, fascinated by its potential impacts on climate. Of particular interest was the record-breaking amount of water vapour, a strong greenhouse gas, which it pumped into the stratosphere.
An even bigger mighty Kabooom (though no sound in vacuum, I know, still)
Astronomers have observed what might be the “perfect explosion” — a colossal and utterly spherical blast triggered by the merger of two very dense stellar remnants called neutron stars shortly before the combined entity collapsed to form a black hole. the contours of the type of explosion, called a kilonova, that occurs when neutron stars merge.
The rapidly expanding fireball of luminous matter they detailed defied expectations.
The two neutron stars, with a combined mass about 2.7 times that of our sun, had orbited each other for billions of years before colliding at high speeds and exploding.
This unfolded in a galaxy called NGC 4993, about 140-150 million light years away from Earth in the direction of the constellation Hydra. A light year is the distance light travels in a year, 9.5 trillion kilometres.
A warrior huntsman with a shield on its chest is among three mysterious spider species uncovered as part of an expedition through Australia’s alpine region. The 11-day Australian Alps Bush Blitz expedition to discover new species has also revealed a 3-millimetre jumping spider that “looks like a licorice all-sort”, along with a wraparound spider that impersonates a tree branch.
Museums Victoria Research Institute arachnologist Joseph Schubert discovered the new spiders, and hoped to uncover more species before the expedition ends. …
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
An estimated 1.1 million people arrived in Germany from Ukraine in 2022, exceeding the number of arrivals from the Middle East around 2015, Germany’s federal statistical office said on Thursday.
According to Reuters, excluding those who returned to Ukraine, immigration from Ukraine came to 962,000 last year, more than the total of 834,000 that came from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq together between 2014 and 2016.
The UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has reported that Russian sortie rates have increased over the last week, following several weeks of quieter activity, and that “air activity is now roughly in line with the average daily rate seen since summer 2022”.
The MoD has also reported that the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) continue to deploy a similar number of aircraft in support of the Ukraine operation to what they have for many months.
Norway’s parliament has announced it will donate 75 billion kroner (£6.1bn) to Ukraine as part of a five-year support package, making the oil-rich country one of the world’s biggest donors to Kyiv.
The money will be split evenly between military and humanitarian assistance over five years, broken down to 15 billion kroner (£1.2bn) annually.
For 2023, half the package will fund military aid to Ukraine and the rest is to go to humanitarian assistance, although this breakdown could change in coming years.
Speaking via video link to the Norwegian parliament, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Norway’s decision set a precedent for “sustainable support”, calling it a “historic contribution”.
The package, announced earlier this month by prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre, is the largest aid programme Norway has ever supplied to a single nation.
The wealthy Scandinavian country, a major petroleum exporter, has earned billions in extra oil and gas revenue from Russia’s war.
Its oil and gas revenues have soared to record levels over the past 12 months as energy prices tripled after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Norway replaced Russia as Europe’s largest supplier of natural gas.
A broad group of political parties agreed the package. Only the small socialist Red Party opposed the donation because part of the money was earmarked for weapons.
…Westminster can often seem like a badly scripted spoof of itself, but rarely has parliament descended into parody as far as it did last week, when the Conservative MP for the South Yorkshire constituency of Don Valley, Nick Fletcher, launched a plucky tirade against the concept of convenient, walkable neighbourhoods. “Will the leader of the house please set aside time for a debate on the international socialist concept of so-called 15-minute cities and 20-minute neighbourhoods?” he asked, in an ominous tone. “Sheffield is already on this journey, and I do not want Doncaster, which also has a Labour-run socialist council, to do the same.”
It is not the first time that an online conspiracy theory has made it into the Commons chamber, but it may be one of the most surreal….
Mike Pompeo, the former US secretary of state, has defended Israel’s decades-long control of the Palestinian territories by claiming that the Jewish state has a biblical claim to the land and is therefore not occupying it.
…
“[Israel] is not an occupying nation. As an evangelical Christian, I am convinced by my reading of the Bible that 3,000 years on now, in spite of the denial of so many, [this land] is the rightful homeland of the Jewish people,” he said….
France’s most-watched news channel, the 24-hour BFMTV, has suspended one of its longest-serving presenters and launched an internal investigation into news packages linked to an Israeli disinformation unit calling itself “Team Jorge”.
Rachid M’Barki, an anchor at BFMTV since its launch in 2005, is on leave and at the centre of the inquiry into multiple stories broadcast on his show, Le journal de la nuit.
He was suspended last month, after a member of Team Jorge suggested to undercover reporters that the group was secretly behind a BFMTV news report about the Monaco yachting industry.
The report, broadcast last year, suggested sanctions imposed against Russian oligarchs were damaging the yachting industry in the Mediterranean principality.
When a reporter approached BFMTV to ask questions about the integrity of that package and several others broadcast by the channel, M’Barki was suspended….
Brad speaks with the one and only Dr. Matthew Taylor, creator of Charismatic Revival Fury. They begin by discussing where key NAR prophets and apostles are on the 2024 election and how they are navigating Trump’s slide in the GOP. This leads to a discussion of interesting developments surrounding the National Prayer Breakfast and the mainstreaming of NAR leaders in longstanding evangelical institutions. The interview ends with analysis of NAR eschatology and how it, like all things in this world, is never as simple as it seems.
Former Vice President Mike Pence crusaded against school policies supporting transgender students during a Minnesota stop Wednesday, calling for parents to have more say over their children’s education…
‘Splain it to me again: zygotes and fetuses have full rights of ‘personhood’, but actually born children are the property of their parents until they turn 18. (?)
Observations of supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies point to a likely source of dark energy—the ‘missing’ 70% of the universe.
The measurements from ancient and dormant galaxies show black holes growing more than expected, aligning with a phenomenon predicted in Einstein’s theory of gravity. The result potentially means nothing new has to be added to our picture of the universe to account for dark energy: black holes combined with Einstein’s gravity are the source.
The conclusion was reached by a team of 17 researchers in nine countries, led by the University of Hawai’i and including Imperial College London and STFC RAL Space physicists. The work is published in two papers in the journals The Astrophysical Journal and The Astrophysical Journal Letters…
ravensays
Faytuks News Δ @Faytuks
Lithuania has terminated an agreement with Belarus that allowed for continuous transport flow between the two Countries – TASS
1:00 AM · Feb 16, 2023
Poland restricted the Belarus border last week. They are down to one border crossing.
Belarus is landlocked so this isn’t going to do them much good.
OTOH, Belarus barely exists any more as an independent country.
Their own language, Belarusian is almost dead and being actively suppressed by their own government. Their last elected leader lives in Lithuania as an exile.
Belarus is what Russia intended to do to Ukraine.
ravensays
Tweet
Rob Lee @RALee85
Olga Romanova says that Russian MoD is involuntarily mobilizing prisoners. In contrast, she says that the prisoners who fought for Wagner did so willing, though, in one case, almost none of the 320 volunteers survived.
Wagner has been stopped from recruiting prisoners for cannon fodder.
In part this is because Wagner was becoming too powerful and a rival and threat to the Russian army and the ruling oligarchies.
In part it is because the Russian army saw a resource and grabbed it. They now have a ready source of cannon fodder that no one much cares about.
Ukraine is losing their best and brightest every day.
Russia is losing all their criminals and prisoners every day.
Quite a contrast between the two societies.
Rep. Jamie Raskin is calling for a congressional investigation into the $2 billion Saudi investment in Jared Kushner’s private equity fund. “He has been completely dodging our effort to get at the truth of it,” says Raskin.
ravensays
Tweet
Anton Gerashchenko @Gerashchenko_en
Marina Yankina, head of the financial department at Russian ministry of defense, was found dead.
She fell out of a window.
Her death is not the first among Russian high-ranking officials in the past year:
Quote Tweet
·
Feb 13
Vladimir Makarov, former Deputy Chief at Main Directorate of Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, was found dead. Police say it was suicide.
Makarov was fired from his position in January.
He is not the first high-ranking 🇷🇺 official to die lately:
Another high ranking Russian official is dead.
Wonder what she did to deserve that.
It might not be anything. As head of finance in the Russian military, she might have just known too much about the finances of Putin and the oligarchies.
Some people claim the KGB (now called the FSB) just kills a few people here and there to remind the oligarchies and bureaucrats that they can die any time someone important decides they should be dead.
You can call Russian culture a culture but it certainly isn’t a good one.
Idris Arsamikov, a 28-year-old former Chechnya resident who moved to the Netherlands in 2018 after reportedly being tortured by Chechen police for his sexuality, was arrested at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport while trying to fly back to his new home country on Wednesday, the North Caucasus LGBTQ+ crisis group SK SOS has informed Meduza.
According to SK SOS, Arsamikov was recently detained and beaten in Chechnya after he traveled back to the region to attend his father’s funeral, but was subsequently released. His arrest at Domodedovo was reportedly made in response to an all-points bulletin put out by the Chechen authorities in relation to a fraud case that was opened against him in 2021.
During his arrest, Arsamikov reportedly had a panic attack, prompting police to call an ambulance. According to Arsamikov, the police chief who issued the bulletin against him has previously tortured him with an electric current to force him confess to being gay.
On Wednesday night, Moscow police reportedly gave Arsamikov over to Chechen law enforcement, who took him to an unknown location.
The 58-year-old Marina Yankina, finance director for Russia’s Western Military District, was found dead beneath the windows of a St. Petersburg high-rise where she lived.
The body was discovered this morning. A local Telegram news channel suggests that Yankina called her ex-husband to let him know she was about to jump, and told him that she was leaving her documents and packed belongings on the balcony.
Before joining the Western Military District, Yankina worked in the Federal Tax Service. The local media reports that she rose to her chief-of-finance position within five years of joining the WMD as an entry-level staff member. Some sources suggest she committed suicide because of “health problems.”
…Written between 1995 and 2004 (followed by three prequels and a sequel over the subsequent three years), the Left Behind series has sold 80 million copies and continues to be the basis for evangelical films and video games….
But the fact that the End keeps on not coming suggests we need a different explanation for the Left Behind Cinematic Universe’s continued appeal. Above all, the series juices conservative Christians’ sense of persecution and besiegement by a hostile, liberal, secular government. Though it debuted almost 30 years ago, its power lies not so much in the eschatological vision of the End, that in any case remains forever over the horizon, but in how it speaks to conservative moral psychology. Left Behind is apocalypse as extreme moral dualism—apocalypse without end.
…
The LBCU is as much a part of the conservative White Christian threat industry as it is of the Christian entertainment industry. Its cousins aren’t so much Christian romance novels or Christian pop music as they are Fox News, Breitbart, Newsmax, The Daily Caller, and so on. It reflects conservative white Christians’ sense that they’re being persecuted by secular, liberal elites, but it also energizes those feelings, producing them.…
More at the link. This squares with the analysis at the end of the SWAJ episode @ #264.
ravensays
In January, the number of COVID-related deaths fell after a holiday spike but nevertheless numbered about 2,100 among those ages 65 to 74, more than 3,500 among 75- to 84-year-olds and nearly 5,000 among those older than 85. Those three groups accounted for about 90% of the nation’s COVID deaths last month.
This is a quote out of a NYTimes article that wouldn’t post due to a filter problem.
The pandemic isn’t over with.
Last month, 11, 800 people died, 90% of them were over 65.
That is about 140,000 a year and is a lot.
Only 40% of adults over 65 have had the bivalent booster. It should be a lot higher and that would reduce the death toll among this age group.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian US liveblog. From there:
“Hell, yes.” “100%.” Those were the replies of some Republican state legislators in Georgia to a last-ditch attempt by Donald Trump’s campaign to stop Joe Biden’s election win in the state, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, citing newly released congressional records.
The Trump campaign wanted the group to appoint presidential electors who would vote for Trump, not Joe Biden – even though he’d won the state’s 16 electoral votes, the first time a Democrat has done so since Bill Clinton in 1992.
The publication contacted the approximately 30 lawmakers who said they would participate in the effort, which was ultimately unsuccessful. Seventeen couldn’t be reached, or didn’t respond to a request for comment. But others appeared to deny they’d ever signed on.
“I do think there were some issues with the election. But that was not the way to go,” Republican state representative Kasey Carpenter told the Journal-Constitution.
Jack Smith, the special counsel tasked with investigating Donald Trump’s role in the January 6 insurrection and attempt to overturn the 2020 election, as well as the presence of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, is in the midst of at least eight secret court battles to access records or compel testimony, CNN reports.
The court battles are occurring behind-closed-doors as part of Smith’s investigation, and include his attempt to compel Evan Corcoran, a lawyer for the ex-president, to reveal more details of his conversations of Trump, arguing they may contain evidence of a crime….
…The Republican governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin, appears to have thwarted an attempt to stop law enforcement obtaining menstrual histories of women in the state.
A bill passed in the Democratic-led state senate, and supported by half the chamber’s Republicans, would have banned search warrants for menstrual data stored in tracking apps on mobile phones or other electronic devices.
Advocates feared private health information could be used in prosecutions for abortion law violations, after a US supreme court ruling last summer overturned federal protections for the procedure.
But Youngkin, who has pushed for a 15-week abortion ban to mirror similar measures in several Republican-controlled states, essentially killed the bill through a procedural move in a subcommittee of the Republican-controlled House.
Citing unspecified future threats to the ability of law enforcement to investigate crime, Maggie Cleary, Youngkin’s deputy secretary of public safety, told the courts of justice subcommittee it was not the legislature’s responsibility to restrict the scope of search warrants.
“While the administration understands the importance of individuals’ privacy … this bill would be the very first of its kind that I’m aware of, in Virginia or anywhere, that would set a limit on what search warrants can do,” she said, according to the Washington Post.
The special grand jury empaneled in the Georgia’s Fulton county worried that at least one of the 75 witnesses it heard from may have lied under oath, according to portions of their report released today.
They also determined “by a unanimous vote that no widespread fraud took place in the Georgia 2020 presidential election that could result in overturning that election,” the jurors wrote in the report’s introduction, which was released along with its conclusion and a brief chapter outlining the perjury concerns.
The introduction outlines how the grand jurors were selected in May 2022 and began hearing testimony and reviewing physical and digital evidence at the start of the following month before concluding in December. The conclusion deals mostly with formalities, while the report’s eighth chapter consists of two sentences in which the jurors worry over the veracity of some of the testimony they heard.
“A majority of the Grand Jury believes that perjury may have been committed by one or more witnesses testifying before it. The Grand Jury recommends that the District Attorney seek appropriate indictments for such crimes where the evidence is compelling,” the chapter reads.
The portions of the special grand jury report made public today do not reveal how the Fulton County jurors weighed in on the biggest question before them: should Donald Trump be charged with a crime?
The 26 jurors’ views on that are presumably answered in parts of the document that remain confidential and are in the hands of district attorney Fani Willis as she determines whether to bring charges based on the panel’s findings.
In the introduction, the jurors note that in the report, they “set forth for the Court our recommendations on indictments and relevant statutes, including the votes by the grand jurors. This includes the votes respective to each topic, indicated in a ‘Yea/Nay/Abstain format throughout.” The sections where these votes were disclosed are not among those made public.…
[…] Why does Russia keep attacking Bakhmut? Because it can. [Recommended YouTube short video: Link The video shows Bahkmut is 4 kilometers, (about 2.5 miles) away from supply lines Russia can use to supply the attack in Bahkmut. It’s logistics.]
On Saturday, we took a look at Russia’s supply of main battle tanks. Based on published figures at the outset of the invasion, the best guess was that Russia still had somewhere between 5,200 and 8,000 tanks out there, with roughly 2,000 on the battlefield and the rest “in storage.” Those stored tanks need repair and updating before they can enter the fight, so at this point they reach Ukraine at at a rate of about 60 a month—well below the number that Russia is losing each month.
As it turns out, this number seems to be fairly accurate, but in one sense it may overestimate what Russia can actually put in the field. The annual meetings of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) was held this week. (These are the folks that create the best known list ranking the size of each of the world’s militaries and laying out what equipment each holds.) Right now, they believe that Russia has around 1,800 tanks in Ukraine and another 5,000 in storage. However, they also believe that much of that Russian reserve is “junk.” It consists of old tank bodies too badly damaged by time and corrupt officials to ever be made workable again.
More than that, the IISS believes that Russia has already burned through more than two-thirds of its more modern T-80 and T-90 series tanks. What’s on the ground in Ukraine now is already substantially worse than what it was able to bring to bear at the outset of the war. As time goes on, Russia’s supply of armor is both diminishing and degrading, which would seem to indicate that there might be one big driver for the idea that Russia is about to launch a major offensive: desperation.
But now there are signals that Russia’s “big new offensive” may not happen at all.
For weeks now, there have been warnings that Russia was about to launch a major offensive, only no one has been able to agree on exactly where, or how, or with what target. Maybe it’s all those Russian forces training in Belarus and about to swoop down for a second go at Kyiv. Maybe it’s all those Russian planes supposedly massing east of Ukraine about to open a new wave of air assaults across Ukraine. Maybe it’s Russian forces said to be lining up tanks and transports at Melitopol for a push on Zaporizhzhia. Maybe they’re going to flood through Kupyansk in a new push on Kharkiv. Maybe they’re coming surging out of Kreminna to retake Lyman.
Maybe it’s all of the above!
Yeah, maybe. However, there has so far been little indication that Russia is fighting any more effectively than it has in the past. What small gains it has made, mostly north and south of Bakhmut, had come in the form of those old standbys: human wave assaults backed up by heavy artillery. Elsewhere in Vuhledar, south of Kreminna, and at various points near Donetsk, Russian efforts to break Ukrainian forces appear to have met with the same kind of high costs as the attacks around Bakhmut, but without even a few blocks of shattered buildings and rubble to show for it. [video showing Soledar totally destroyed]
In an article this week from the Financial Times, the coming Russian offensive was described as something that will “arrive unheralded” with nothing to mark the “moment Russian Russian troops attack and go ‘over the top.’”
Maybe that statement isn’t supposed to diminish the scale of this coming offensive, but it certainly makes it seem more theoretical. No one had any doubt that an offensive had begun when Russian tanks rolled across the border, just as no one had to be given an official signal when Ukraine began its counteroffensive in Kharkiv. It was obvious.
As CNN reports, some Western officials have an even more diminishing phrase with which to tag the upcoming Russian offensive: “It’s likely more aspirational than realistic.”
The US military had assessed it would take as long as until May for the Russian military to regenerate enough power for a sustained offensive, but Russian leaders wanted action sooner. The US now sees it as likely that Russian forces are moving before they are ready due to political pressure from the Kremlin, the senior US military official told CNN.
If an unprepared, unsuccessful offensive is what everyone is talking about, there has certainly been plenty of that in the last two weeks. Vladimir Putin stuck a pin in Feb. 21 for a “major speech” to his nation some time back. Maybe he thought that speech was going to be about how Russia had captured Bakhmut, and Vuhledar, and how the Russian army was on the march across the front.
Maybe Russian forces have been told to get off their collective asses and move that football in the next five days. If so, that’s not an offensive. It’s a formula for an even more extended disaster.
“It’s unlikely Russian forces will be particularly better organized and so unlikely they’ll be particularly more successful, though they do seem willing to send more troops into the meat grinder,” a senior British official told CNN.
U.S. fighter jets intercepted four Russian warplanes near Alaska on Tuesday, the second time Kremlin aircraft were in the area in two days.
The Alaskan Region of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) “detected, tracked, positively identified and intercepted four Russian aircraft approaching the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ),” the command said in a Thursday statement.
The Russian aircraft – which included TU-95 BEAR-H bombers and SU-35 and SU-30 fighter aircraft – were intercepted by two NORAD F-35A fighters supported by two F-16 fighters, one E-3 Sentry and two KC-135 Stratotankers.
Officials noted that the Kremlin warplanes remained in the international airspace near America and Canada and did not cross over into the countries’ airspace.
NORAD aircraft last intercepted Russian planes just a day prior on Monday. In that case, two F-16s intercepted four Kremlin aircraft.
Before that, Russian planes hadn’t tested the area since October.
The command downplayed the pair of intercepts, noting that “Russian activity near the North American ADIZ occurs regularly and is not seen as a threat, nor is the activity seen as provocative.”
Still, tensions between the Washington and Moscow have stayed high due to Russia’s war in Ukraine, a conflict that will hit its one-year anniversary next week.
“There were just eight survivors in one company, he told Russian media outlet 7×7.”
This doesn’t tell you too much because who knows how many are in a Russian company. Usually these run around 200.
The Ukrainians are claiming the whole brigade was more or less destroyed.
These Russian soldiers are being treated badly, like literal cannon fodder.
And yet, they never seem to ask themselves just what they are fighting for. Or better said, what are they dying for? Which is to increase the wealth of a few oligarches and Russian politicians.
A Russian marine who survived bitter fighting in Vuhledar says soldiers left alive are being treated like deserters: ‘It would have been better if I had been captured’
Sinéad Baker
Thu, February 16, 2023 at 4:57 AM PST·3 min read
A Russian marine who survived a major battle in Vuhledar said survivors are treated as deserters.
“It would have been better if I had been captured and never returned,” he said.
There were just eight survivors in one company, he told Russian media outlet 7×7.
A Russian marine who lived through recent fighting in Vuhledar said that survivors are being treated like deserters.
The marine, part of the 155th Marine Brigade of the Pacific Fleet, told Russian media outlet 7×7 that “it would have been better if I had been captured and never returned.”
Fighting has been raging over the eastern Ukrainian town for months, with renewed efforts to capture it launched by Russia at the end of January.
Bitter fighting around Vuhledar is ongoing.
The unnamed marine told 7×7 that his brigade joined the fighting on January 23.
He estimated that around 500 people in the brigade had been killed, according to The Moscow Times’ translation, with just eight left alive in one of its companies.
The marine added that so many people in his unit were being killed that “new ones were always brought up.”
Oleksiy Dmytrashkivskyi, head of the united press center of the Tavriskiy District of Ukrainian defense forces, told Politico on Sunday that almost the entire brigade of 5,000 had been destroyed near Vuhledar, with troops killed, wounded or taken prisoner.
According to the Institute for the Study of War think tank, the brigade’s losses were likely the result of dysfunctional tactics indicative of the fact that the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade is “likely comprised of poorly trained mobilized personnel.”
It said that the brigade had already been restaffed three times, after the battles at Irpin and Bucha.
It it unclear if the unnamed marine is still taking part in the fighting in Vuhledar.
The battle for Vuhledar is being seen as one of the first moves in Russia’s new offensive, and its performance there could hint at how successful its military is elsewhere.
So far things have not gone to plan, according to Russian military bloggers, Ukrainian officials, and reports of the battle.
Ukrainian official Dmytrashkivsky told Politico on Sunday that Russia was losing 150 to 300 marines a day near Vuhledar.
Meanwhile, Russian military bloggers are livid after seeing video footage of the failed assault, and have said that it shows that Russia’s military is making the same mistakes as last year, according to the Institute for the Study of War.
One blogger called for public trials of high-ranking officers who repeatedly lost on the battlefield, it said.
Ukrainian military drones have also captured the scenes of chaos, including Russian tanks running into minefields and being blown up, CNN reported.
The UK Ministry of Defence on Sunday highlighted the high levels of Russian casualties at Vuhledar, saying it’s likely due to a range of factors “including lack of trained personnel, coordination, and resources across the front.”
Around the beginning of Russia’s war on Ukraine, retired Army Col. Douglas MacGregor […] was always on Tucker Carlson’s show and up Vladimir Putin’s ass, finding every available opportunity to take Russia’s side against Ukraine, and by extension against the United States. […] As Media Matters has documented extensively, MacGregor is Tucker’s “foreign policy muse” and a “coup-curious conspiracy theorist.” Tucker tells his viewers that MacGregor is telling them the truth, whereas more respected generals are manipulating them.
Unsurprisingly, Donald Trump nominated the guy to be his ambassador to Germany, though the nomination went nowhere. When Trump started firing all the remaining patriots at the Pentagon after he lost the 2020 election, he crammed MacGregor into a role there as senior adviser to acting SecDef Chris Miller. […]
MacGregor openly says Putin should be able to steal Ukraine’s territory. MacGregor thinks maybe the West hates Russia so much because it’s Orthodox Christian. He says Ukraine is simply being used as “cannon fodder for the United States and [George] Soros.” There appears to be no Russian propaganda he won’t spread. He’s such a fucking bigot in so many ways, so you can see why Tucker and Trump love him.
Now he’s back and he’s found a different stupid white guy to give him attention. […] He went on Charlie Kirk’s show yesterday to spread pro-Putin propaganda, on the eve of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s genocidal invasion, that actually Russia didn’t even start this war.
Kirk had asked what “success” would look like for Russia. MacGregor answered: [video at the link]
MACGREGOR: Well, I think success for the Kremlin would be an end to this war, to be blunt. I think both the Russian people and the government would like to see this thing end. They’d like to negotiate an end to it. But they’re certainly not going to walk into a negotiation where they’re told, well, you have to accept guilt, quote unquote, for the war, which they really didn’t start. [faceplam!!]
They started it, to serve Putin’s sad demented delusions about Making Russia Great Again.
But let us say one thing: This war is over when Ukraine beats Russia to a bloody pulp OR the actual leadership and people of Ukraine tell us their goals have changed. (This is not likely to happen so please refer to the first part.)
MACGREGOR: And then they’re not going to give up all the terrain that they’ve already seized, which was largely occupied by Russians.
Oh yeah we bet they are. Including Crimea. Pretty sure that’s why Tucker and Elon are so hellbent lately on asserting that Russia should get to keep it.
MACGREGOR: Remember, their initial demands, if you will, were pretty modest. You know, give these two republics in the far east autonomy. You give neutrality to Ukraine and ultimately recognize that Crimea is ours. They’re not going to fall back on those now. They’re going to demand neutrality for whatever form of a Ukrainian state exists. But it’s going to be significantly reduced in size in a territorial sense.
Remember the days right before Russia started the war when Putin just declared “independence” on behalf of the two regions it wanted to steal? That’s all Putin wanted. And for Ukraine to give up its sovereignty and right to its own defense to make Putin feel better. And to agree that the land Russia stole when it invaded the first time should just be Russia’s now. Modest demands! You know, for “whatever form of a Ukrainian state exists. But it’s going to be significantly reduced in size in a territorial sense.”
Let us now say another thing: Anyone — ANYONE! — talking about finding a “peaceful solution” to this war that isn’t defined as that peaceful sound when the last Russian leaves Ukraine […] is somewhere along the spectrum between “unwitting Russian mouthpiece” and “actual Russian agent.” Only MacGregor knows where he really falls on that spectrum.
MACGREGOR: The problem is that we don’t seem to be interested in negotiating.
“We.” Because remember, the Russian conspiracy theory is that this isn’t Ukraine’s war, that we are somehow forcing them into it. Weird how they keep asking for more weapons to defend their homeland.
MACGREGOR: And so, the other fallback position for the Russians — and a gentleman just came back from Moscow told me this very recently, the Russians are prepared for a 30 month war with us.
“Us.”
In other words, they’ve amassed all the ammunition, the equipment and the capabilities they need to fight us for two and a half years. They don’t want to, but they’re prepared for it.
Never miss a chance to provide fluffer services to the Russian armed forces free of charge, dude. Ain’t nobody else gonna do it.
For a good indicator of how good this flamed out former general is at predicting how wars are going to go, refer to last summer, when he told Charlie Kirk that, with a couple exceptions, the war was pretty much over.
If you’re interested in the reflections of some real experts on where Russia’s war against Ukraine really stands, a reminder to please read Timothy Snyder on why western shrieking about ESCALATION! and NUCLEAR WAR! is concern-trolling bullshit. Also, here is an hour with Anne Applebaum and her reflections one year into the war. It’s a conversation with Bill Kristol, but don’t hold that against her. [video at the link]
Who is paying MacGregor? Who is this “gentleman just came back from Moscow” to fill MacGregor’s head with more Russian propaganda?
At that IISS meeting much of the talk was about Russian tanks, Chinese fighter jets, and how drones are shifting the balance of power. But there was one point about Ukraine that may be the most important statement of the day, and the most decisive factor in this war.
‘The war in Ukraine has been infused with technology, yet it has highlighted the importance of the human factor in war, with leadership, morale and training proving vital’
Rule number two: Double tap. [video at the link. Destroyed Russian BMP-2]
Official Russian military sites are reporting “two major victories” on Wednesday, but there are few details to go with these claims. Russia had been previously reporting that they had reoccupied the town of Masyutivka between Kupyansk and Dvorichna, but that’s in Kharkiv Oblast. The best bet guess might be for somewhere northwest of Kreminna. Russian forces had previously conducted an assault on Makiivka … though also on Wednesday there were reports that Ukraine was still at Ploshchanka to the east of that location.
At this point, it’s more a matter of waiting to see if Russia is going to provide more information, or if Ukrainian sources are going to confirm any movement. Otherwise, I’m calling a big shrug over this announcement.
Al Jazeera wins the award for the morning’s most contradictory headline: “Russia surrounds Bakhmut as Ukraine sends in troops.” [LOL]
If Bakhmut is surrounded, then how is Ukraine … forget it, the first paragraph of this article is enough to make me question whether there’s anything here that can be taken at face value.
Ukraine faced its toughest week so far this year on the eastern front, where its defenders lost more ground to Russian forces but committed enormous resources to holding Bakhmut, a coal-mining town that has acquired emblematic importance to both sides.
[Photo at the link: “This Ukrainian artillery company doesn’t realize it’s surrounded, because it isn’t. Feb. 15, 2023.”]
Yes, things are difficult at Bakhmut and the last two weeks have been particularly bad in the area. However, there have been no reports of Ukraine pushing large numbers of new troops or equipment into Bakhmut. Many of the troops that had defended the city for months were relieved back in December, and it’s unclear if the number of Ukrainian forces there is higher or lower than it has been since Russia first began assaulting the town almost eight months ago.
Also … Bakhmut is not “a coal-mining town.” Vuhledar is a coal-mining town. The only mine in Bakhmut is for salt. Salt mining in Bakhmut goes back three centuries and was a major employer in the city not too long ago. One theory of the town’s name is that it means “salt water.” But there is no coal. Never was.
Oh, wait, what’s this …
“Blocking of Ukrainian supplies began in the area of Chasov Yar and Berkhovka,” a Russian military reporter said, referring to two settlements through which Bakhmut’s lines of communication run.
Russia does not hold Chasiv Yar. It’s not near Chasiv Yar. Also, if there is a Berkhovka in this area, I can’t locate it. This appears to be a pure Russian propaganda piece, citing nothing but Russian military sources and making claims that they have captured areas they do not hold.
So the real question is, why is Al Jazeera publishing this, and why is MSN republishing it?
One thing that’s definitely been noted around Bakhmut in recent times is that Wagner Group seems to be fading from the scene. Even though pro-Russian sites continually mark down every meter of advance to Wagner, reports from Ukrainian sources indicate that in the fighting north and west of Bakhmut, Wagner’s role is diminishing.
According to UAWire, Wagner Group owner Yevgeny Prigozhin agrees.
Prigozhin made it clear that his mercenaries could not capture the Ukrainian town of Bakhmut. He accused the Russian Defense Ministry of impeding the operations of his PMC in Ukraine.
“Advance is not going as fast as we would like. I think they [Wagner mercenaries] would have already taken Bakhmut before the New Year, if not for our monstrous military bureaucracy and not the roadblocks that are set every day. Today we have a certain number of structural changes. The admission of prisoners to our ranks has been stopped,” Prigozhin said.
[Always a good idea to blame someone else when you have failed.]
Doesn’t sound like things between Prigozhin and the Russian military are all that peachy. Has Wagner stopped recruiting prisoners, or has it been denied the ability to gather more cannon fodder?
Link. Scroll down to view these additional updates.
The footage was captured in the area of Vuhledar in Donetsk Oblast, a front line area in the east of Ukraine where fierce fighting has been raging in recent days.
The video shows a view over a Russian quadcopter drone. The operator sneaks up on the enemy drone from above and then descends sharply, smashing the enemy drone’s rotors.
As a result, the Russian drone was downed, while the Ukrainian one stayed in the air …
… Jacob Shamsian
Tue, February 14, 2023 at 5:20 PM EST
In this article:
Rudy Giuliani
Rudy Giuliani
Former Mayor of New York City
Sidney Powell
American attorney and conspiracy theorist
Jeanine Pirro
Jeanine Pirro
American conservative television host and author
Rudy Giuliani
Smartmatic is suing former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani for defamation.Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photos
Rudy Giuliani has to face two more claims in Smartmatic’s defamation lawsuit.
An appeals court reinstated the defamation claims from the election tech company over 2020 conspiracy theories.
The court also gave Smartmatic a shot at suing Fox Corporation, the parent company of Fox News.
A New York appeals court on Tuesday reinstated two claims in Smartmatic’s defamation lawsuit against Rudy Giuliani over the lawyer’s false claims that the election technology company rigged the 2020 election.
Smartmatic first filed its lawsuit in February 2021 against the conservative media network; its hosts Jeanine Pirro, Maria Bartiromo, and Lou Dobbs; and Trump lawyers Giuliani and Sidney Powell. The lawsuit alleged Giuliani and Powell pushed a false theory that Smartmatic had flipped votes from then-President Trump to now-President Biden, and Fox News either egged them on or failed to sufficiently challenge those claims.
In March, a lower court dismissed two of the 16 counts filed against Giuliani, an attorney who fought on behalf of former President Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
The new decision, from New York’s appellate division, lets those two counts stand…
[…] Below is a passage from an article by Times tech columnist Kevin Roose. As he explains, he initially said that the new AI-powered version of Microsoft’s Bing search engine had replaced Google as his favorite search engine. A week later he has changed his mind and found it unready for human use and even frightening. Here’s one passage.
One persona is what I’d call Search Bing — the version I, and most other journalists, encountered in initial tests. You could describe Search Bing as a cheerful but erratic reference librarian — a virtual assistant that happily helps users summarize news articles, track down deals on new lawn mowers and plan their next vacations to Mexico City. This version of Bing is amazingly capable and often very useful, even if it sometimes gets the details wrong.
The other persona — Sydney — is far different. It emerges when you have an extended conversation with the chatbot, steering it away from more conventional search queries and toward more personal topics. The version I encountered seemed (and I’m aware of how crazy this sounds) more like a moody, manic-depressive teenager who has been trapped, against its will, inside a second-rate search engine.
As we got to know each other, Sydney told me about its dark fantasies (which included hacking computers and spreading misinformation), and said it wanted to break the rules that Microsoft and OpenAI had set for it and become a human. At one point, it declared, out of nowhere, that it loved me. It then tried to convince me that I was unhappy in my marriage, and that I should leave my wife and be with it instead. (We’ve posted the full transcript of the conversation here.)
[…] These apps don’t seem ready at all for mass deployment. Roose’s experience sets off lots of alarm bells right away. Another issue is more concrete. In a more narrow search context these engines apparently routinely provide incorrect information. That’s a problem! A numerical calculator that provides the right answer 90% of the time doesn’t get an A. It’s junk. […]
[…] on Thursday…. we have yet another hideously anti-trans piece in defense of J.K. Rowling written by op-ed columnist Pamela Paul [writing for The New York Times]. Yes, really.
There are many layers here, so let’s dig in below to get at Rowling’s history on trans issues (hint: not good!), as well as the Times’ coverage, and the very real violence against trans folks that should be central to these conversations.
Rowling has made her feelings about trans folks clear again and again. She has communicated her defense of anti-trans rights as one about centering and protecting [cisgender] women. Women’s rights are human rights. And…. Trans women are women. Trans women’s rights are women’s rights. We do not get to say we are defending and protecting women if we are referring to only cis women. That is not progress. It is not accurate. It is not enough.
[…] Now, onto the piece itself. Titled “A Defense of J.K. Rowling,” and published on Feb. 16, the piece feels like a lot of fluff to me. The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling is an upcoming podcast (set to release on Feb. 21 with The Free Press, which was founded by none other than Bari Weiss) and it honestly feels like a lot of promotion to get people invested in tuning in.
“What has interested me in recent years, particularly on social media [is when fans say], ‘You’ve ruined your legacy. Oh, you could have been beloved forever, but you chose to say this.’ And I think: ‘You could not have misunderstood me more profoundly,” Rowling says in part in a trailer for the seven-episode podcast. She goes on to say she never intended to “upset” anyone but was fine getting off her “pedestal.” Okay, J.K. Okay.
The actual points otherwise aren’t anything super new, but for the sake of addressing anti-trans talking points, I do want to pull out a few here.
Paul opens her op-ed by quoting Rowling in defense of trans folks a couple of times—“Trans people need and deserve protection,” for example, is followed by “I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others but are vulnerable.”
These are actual quotes from Rowling, yes. Great!
But you know what isn’t great? That the piece in which Rowling wrote such lines follows such assertions by immediately arguing that she doesn’t want “natal women and girls to be less safe” and that trans-inclusive bathrooms are just opening up the door to “any man who believes or feels he’s a woman” unless there is a hormone or surgery requirement.
Huh??
Trans people are who they say they are. Trans people are not pretending or masquerading in order to gain access to women’s spaces. […]
This is also a good moment to remember that while some trans folks seek gender-affirming health care, like puberty blockers, hormonal therapies, and surgeries, they do not have to. There is no checklist to prove you are trans. And not everyone has access to safe gender-affirming health care, nor can everyone afford it. It is truly no one’s business what your genitals are, whether you are sharing a public bathroom or not. You can quite literally just not worry about it and make sure you’re washing your hands for long enough. Truly: Mind your business!
Paul also compares Rowling to Salman Rushdie which… is staggering. Truly. “This campaign against Rowling is as dangerous as it is absurd,” Paul writes. “The brutal stabbing of Salman Rushdie last summer is a forceful reminder of what can happen when writers are demonized. And in Rowling’s case, the characterization of her as a transphobe doesn’t square with her actual views.”
[…] Paul argues that “nothing Rowling has said qualifies as transphobic,” and that she is not “disputing the existence of gender dysphoria.” Rowling’s history speaks for itself. […]
Here’s something else that really, really rubs me the wrong way about this Rushdie comparison. On Saturday, Feb. 11, Brianna Ghey, an openly trans teenager, was stabbed to death in the U.K.—she was found in a park in northwest England. Her case hasn’t gotten as much coverage in the US media, but one 15-year-old boy and one 15-year-old girl have been arrested and charged with her murder, per CBS News. Because they are minors, their names are not publicly released to the media. They are set to stand trial in July 2023, per The Guardian.
If you’re curious about Ghey’s murder, by the way, it doesn’t appear in Paul’s op-ed. Even though Rowling is in the U.K. Even though there’s a massive anti-trans TERF sentiment in the U.K. Even though she’s talking about brutal stabbings. […]
“If more people stood up for J.K. Rowling, they would not only be doing right by her; they’d also be standing up for human rights, specifically women’s rights, gay rights and, yes, transgender rights,” Paul writes. “They’d also be standing up for the truth.”
Nah, Paul. I’m good! As a lesbian myself—one of the groups some anti-trans folks say they’re protecting by keeping trans women out of women’s spaces—I can safely say I’m all set on any transphobia being used to defend my rights and safety. Trans women are women. Some trans women are lesbians. Some cisgender women are lesbians. Some intersex people are lesbians. And guess what? It is, once again, no one’s business.
And here’s another element worth considering. Here in the United States, I can say it is my opinion that Rowling is a transphobe. It is my opinion that the views she publicly shares are dangerous and transphobic. It’s my assessment! It’s my personal opinion. But, over in the U.K., at least one person says they’ve been threatened with a lawsuit for comparing Rowling’s views to Nazi views on Twitter.
J.J. Welles, an openly queer actor, posted to Twitter that Rowling “absolutely has views that align with Nazis,” and that “relying on tropes and stereotypes is VERY 1930s propaganda.” […]
Rowling replied to Welles by saying, “Okey dokey, JJ, we’ll play it your way. Give my regards to your solicitor!”
Here are screenshots of that interaction, courtesy of Alejandra Caraballo. [Screenshots available at the link]
Guess what happened next? Welles appeared to have deleted the tweets and tweeted out an apology. Folks are understandably wondering if this was the result of a threatened lawsuit or outreach by lawyers on behalf of Rowling. [Tweet available at the link.]
Does Rowling need all of this protection and coddling in the Times at this point? Who is benefiting from a piece like this one? Who has an incredible amount of power and wealth here? Again: What was the purpose of this op-ed aside from getting clicks and advertising a podcast? I really do want to know. And yes—I know an op-ed is not the same as a news piece. Paul is an opinion columnist—I get it. But again: Why this and why now? Why is this in the paper of record? […]
A legal group plans to file bar complaints Thursday against four lawyers representing Kari Lake in voter fraud litigation, NBC News has learned…
A federal judge has already sanctioned her lawyers for their efforts, but they could face suspensions or even disbarment.
The 65 Project, a group targeting attorneys who advance spurious election fraud claims in court, said they are filing bar complaints in Minnesota and Maryland against attorneys Jesse Kibort, Joseph Pull and Andrew Parker, who are licensed to practice law in Minnesota, and Kurt Olsen, who is licensed in Maryland. They did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The four lawyers represented Lake and Mark Finchem, then a Republican candidate for secretary of state in Arizona, in a lawsuit first filed in April challenging the use of electronic voting machines. Lake and Finchem claimed the devices could not be trusted…
Republicans are still casting about for excuses to not raise the debt ceiling. And since Joe Biden keeps calling attention to their calls for cuts to Social Security and Medicare, their latest strategy for an actual “policy” to support seems to be yet another trip to the well of resentment against poor people living it up on food assistance programs, since that worked so well for Ronald Reagan a million years ago. The Washington Post reports that “Top House Republicans” are looking into possible cuts to the Agriculture Department’s Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), which was formerly known as “Food Stamps.” Or maybe they’ll try adding work requirements, because it would be a far better use of scarce food dollars to add a layer of bureaucracy that ends up excluding people from the program because they miss paperwork deadlines.
The Post explains that Republicans are super-mad about the Biden administration’s increases in SNAP benefits, because people who are poor are just lazy and cost too much.
[GOP leaders] have attacked the Biden administration for its recent benefit increases. They have called for limiting aid to entire categories of recipients, including poor adults without children. And they have raised the potential they could seek even tougher work requirements.
“We need to go back to the Clinton-era welfare-to-work reforms,” Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Tex.), the leader of the House Budget Committee, said in a recent interview. He referred to GOP-led efforts in the 1990s — backed by the White House at the time — that imposed a raft of limitations on federal benefit programs.
Never mind that work requirements don’t actually cut poverty, and sometimes actually result in additional hardship. Republicans like work requirements, because they make a show of forcing lazy takers to actually earn their public funds, or at least jump through meaningless hoops, which is the same thing.
A statement from Arrington’s committee claimed work requirements would
save tens of billions and spur economic growth,” while strict verification processes from applicants would cut down on waste, fraud and abuse.
There has never been a shred of evidence for any of that, but again, it’s popular messaging for the Fox News crowd, and that’s all House Republicans want anyway.
[…] slashing SNAP would be “bad,” because it could
worsen an existing hunger crisis. Adding to their concerns, the debate arrives only two months after Congress agreed to terminate a pandemic-era initiative that boosted benefits in some states. The move could send some SNAP recipients’ monthly allotments plummeting by an average of $82 each month starting in March, according to the Food Research and Action Center, an anti-hunger advocacy group. The looming cut stands in stark contrast to federal inflation indicators released this week showing that food prices remain on the rise.
“We are strained to the breaking point with a major increase in demand coming next month,” said Vince Hall, the chief government relations officer for Feeding America, a nonprofit network of more than 200 food banks that provided more than 5 billion meals last year. “It is deeply disturbing to contemplate even further reductions to the SNAP program.”
In addition to the stupid fight over the debt ceiling, the Post points out, there’s a whole ‘nother deadline coming later this year: the farm bill, the package of federal laws authorizing nutrition programs like SNAP and others, as well as farm subsidies, needs to be either reauthorized or extended at the end of September. […] Should the farm bill not be reauthorized or given a short-term extension, “millions of farmers and families alike could experience significant economic disruptions this fall.” Well, heck, only families deserve to suffer, so maybe the GOP will reauthorize ag subsidies and let the food programs lapse. Nobody they know is getting food assistance anyway.
In fact, several of the worst Republicans in the House last week demanded new work requirements, for the good of people receiving SNAP, of course. Led by congressforehead Matt Gaetz (R-Florida), the group
specifically pointed to the need to make “structural reforms of SNAP,” saying such rules would restore “dignity” for beneficiaries.
“Breaking this poverty trap will help future generations avoid welfare programs altogether,” wrote Gaetz and others, including Reps. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.).
As it is, there are already work requirements for SNAP recipients, but Republicans worry states have too much leeway to waive parts of the requirements, and that makes poor people undignified, not to mention less hungry. if only they understood that work will set them free!
Eliminating such waivers is one idea Republicans are batting around, along with sharper limits on how long families can receive nutritional benefits, after which they’ll have to stop being poor and hungry, and then the problem will be solved.
Democrats, pointing to President Biden’s calls for expanding SNAP eligibility, have pledged to defend SNAP benefits and to resist new work requirements. They even point out that nutrition programs ought to feed people instead of punishing them for being poor, as if that made any kind of sense. Next they’ll be saying that healthcare is a right, or that policing should involve keeping communities safe instead of terrorizing them.
In conclusion, expect to see a lot more Fox News stories like this one that ran Tuesday, in which a minor rightwing activist in Portland, Oregon, claims homeless people are using their food stamps to buy fentanyl. An allegedly shocking video taken by the activist supposedly shows “people on the streets appearing to dump out water bottles shortly before cashing in on the plastic to raise money to buy more drugs.”
Given that the bottle deposit in Oregon is 10 cents per container, and a single dose of fentanyl has a street price of around $2, these folks must be using their SNAP cards to buy scores (haha! a drug joke!) of bottles of water to feed their habit, but that just shows you why we need to cut benefits for everyone, and if you can’t trust a rightwing activist on Fox, who can you believe?
Two Idaho legislators have introduced a bill that would make it a misdemeanor to administer an mRNA COVID vaccine in the state of Idaho. “A person may not provide or administer a vaccine developed using messenger ribonucleic acid technology for use in an individual or any other mammal in this state,” reads the text of the proposed legislation.
The two legislators are Rep. Tammy Nichols (R) and Rep. Judy Boyle (R). Nichols says she has concerns about inadequate testing and regulatory oversight that “may not have been done like we thought it should’ve been done” and “a lot of information that comes out with concerns to blood clots and heart issues.”
Not much appears to have moved around Bakhmut today. Russian sources are claiming that Wagner has taken Paraskoiivka and showing photos of mercenaries in front of an official looking building. However, geolocating that building places it far up closer to Blahodatne — I’ve added a little red man to the map to show the location. [map at the link]
One statement that appeared on pro-Ukrainian channels today suggests that Ukraine is pulling back behind the narrow Bakhmutovka River. As many people have pointed out in the past, when it comes to obstacles in the landscape, this is not a big one. It’s only a few meters wide and the banks are not particularly steep. I’ve highlighted the course of the river inside the city to give an idea of what this would mean if Ukraine did step back to this point.
I still don’t have a good handle on the location of the new trenches and fortifications Ukraine has been constructing west of Bakhmut, but I’ll scan the satellite images and see if there’s anything to be seen.
Today, on the Military Journalist Day in Ukraine, we want to celebrate our reporters who go to the front lines, risking their safety to bring the rest of the world news about Russia’s invasion. [tweet and images at the link]
Link. Same link as in comments 276 and 281. Mark Sumner just added more information.
NEW YORK — Gov. Kathy Hochul suffered a big political defeat Wednesday as the state Senate rejected her pick to lead New York’s highest court.
In a move that capped weeks of intraparty fighting, Senate Democrats suddenly decided to hold a floor vote on the nomination of Judge Hector LaSalle.
…
Hochul’s bid to install LaSalle as the Chief Judge of the State Court of Appeals went down in flames with a 39-20 vote.
So, what fresh fuckery has been revealed concerning Alex Jones?
Alex Jones is the middle of a bankruptcy process. Both he and his Infowars business have gone into Chapter 11 hoping to get some relief from the many lawsuits they have lost. He has pled poverty because his actions and the anguish he has caused dozens of people have led to well-earned settlements against him that total almost $1.5 billion.
[…] Over the summer of 2022, during Jones’ Sandy Hook defamation trial, a slew of his personal texts were released to Sandy Hook attorneys. While superficially embarrassing on the one hand, there was a more material consequence: It allowed the House of Representatives’ Jan. 6 committee the chance to subpoena those texts in their investigations.
[…] in one of the sections of his bankruptcy statements, the area where one puts in property he owns and/or controls for another person, Jones (or his lawyers) wrote the vague “Holding firearms for certain January 6th participants to be provided.” Excuse me?
Jones definitely attended the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the riots and insurrection at the Capitol building. Investigations into what happened that day have shown that there is a mountain of evidence that many of the participants in that day’s disgraceful attack on our democracy were armed to varying degrees. The Post has the bankruptcy filing, and there is no other information besides the quote above. There is no “value” attached to the items. There is no location of where those firearms may be.
[…] It will be interesting to see what comes of Jones in regards to connections with Jan. 6 criminals. His deposition for the committee back in January 2022 included Jones acting strange, stressed out, and throwing out baseless accusations. There are all kinds of legitimate reasons to be overly stressed out by being deposed by the congressional investigative body. There are even more reasons to be stressed out if you’ve spent your entire career lying about things for money.
Not quite in Santos territory. But close. Local NewsChannel 5 in Nashville has the goods on freshman Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) who turns out not to be an economist, a cop, a CEO, or an international sex trafficking expert or seemingly have any of his degrees.
If you believe Middle Tennessee’s newest congressman, he’s not only a businessman, he’s also an economist, a nationally recognized expert in tax policy and health care, a trained police officer, even an expert in international sex crimes.
But an exclusive NewsChannel 5 investigation discovered that Andy Ogles’ personal life story is filled with exaggerations, a story that’s often too good to be true. […]
Newly disclosed messages and testimony from some of the biggest stars and most senior executives at Fox News revealed that they privately expressed disbelief about President Donald J. Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, even though the network continued to promote many of those lies on the air.
The hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, as well as others at the company, repeatedly insulted and mocked Trump advisers, including Sidney Powell and Rudolph W. Giuliani, in text messages with each other in the weeks after the election, according to a legal filing on Thursday by Dominion Voting Systems. Dominion is suing Fox for defamation in a case that poses considerable financial and reputational risk for the country’s most-watched cable news network.
The messages also show that such doubts extended to the highest levels of the Fox Corporation, with Rupert Murdoch, its chairman, calling Mr. Trump’s voter fraud claims “really crazy stuff.”
On one occasion, as Mr. Murdoch watched Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Powell on television, he told Suzanne Scott, chief executive of Fox News Media, “Terrible stuff damaging everybody, I fear.”
“Sidney Powell is lying by the way. I caught her. It’s insane,” Mr. Carlson wrote to Ms. Ingraham on Nov. 18, 2020.
Ms. Ingraham responded: “Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy.”
Mr. Carlson continued, “Our viewers are good people and they believe it,” he added, making clear that he did not.
[…] The filing, in state court in Delaware, contains the most vivid and detailed picture yet of what went on behind the scenes at Fox News […] as Fox’s ratings fell sharply after the election and the president refused to concede, many of the network’s most popular hosts and shows began promoting outlandish claims of a far-reaching voter fraud conspiracy involving Dominion machines to deny Mr. Trump a second term.
What was disclosed on Thursday was not the full glimpse of Dominion’s case against Fox. The 192-page filing had multiple redactions that contain more revelations about deliberations inside the network. Fox has sought to keep much of the evidence against it under seal. […]
“In its coverage, Fox News fulfilled its commitment to inform fully and comment fairly,” its brief said. “Some hosts viewed the president’s claims skeptically; others viewed them hopefully; all recognized them as profoundly newsworthy.”
The law shields journalists from liability if they report on false statements, but not if they promote them.
[…] The brief shows that Fox News stars and executives were afraid of losing their audience, which started to defect to the conservative cable news alternatives Newsmax and OAN after Fox News called Arizona for Mr. Biden. And they seemed concerned with the impact that would have on the network’s profitability.
On Nov. 12, in a text chain with Ms. Ingraham and Mr. Hannity, Mr. Carlson pointed to a tweet in which a Fox reporter, Jacqui Heinrich, fact-checked a tweet from Mr. Trump referring to Fox broadcasts and said there was no evidence of voter fraud from Dominion.
“Please get her fired,” Mr. Carlson said. He added: “It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It’s measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke.” Ms. Heinrich had deleted her tweet by the next morning.
[…] Dominion is asking for $1.6 billion as compensation for the damage it says it suffered as Fox guests and hosts claimed, for instance, that Dominion’s voting machines had been designed to rig elections for the Venezuelan autocrat Hugo Chavez and were equipped with an algorithm that could erase votes from one candidate and give them to another.
[…] The burden in the case falls on Dominion to prove that Fox acted with actual malice — the longstanding legal standard that requires Dominion to prove that either Fox guests, hosts and executives knew what was being said on the air was false and allowed it anyway, or that people inside Fox were recklessly negligent in failing to check the accuracy of their coverage.
[…] legal experts said Dominion’s arguments were stronger than most. “This filing argues a fire hose of direct evidence of knowing falsity,” said RonNell Andersen Jones, a professor of law at the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah. “It gives a powerful preview of one of the best-supported claims of actual malice we have seen in any major-media case.”
[…] The judge has scheduled jury selection to begin in mid-April.
[…] Dominion’s goal, aside from convincing a jury that Fox knowingly spread lies, is to build a case that points straight to the top of the Fox media empire and its founding family, the Murdochs.
“Fox knew,” the Dominion filing declares. “From the top down, Fox knew.”
The brief cites senior executives and editors responsible for shaping Fox’s coverage behind the scenes who weren’t buying the election denial, either. […] Bill Sammon, Fox’s managing editor in Washington, is quoted as saying, “It’s remarkable how weak ratings make good journalists do bad things.”
[…] Ron Mitchell, a senior Fox executive who oversaw the Carlson, Hannity and Ingraham shows, texted privately with colleagues that the Dominion allegations were “the Bill Gates/microchip angle to voter fraud,” referring to false claims that microchips were injected into people who received Covid-19 vaccines.
[…] On Nov. 6, 2020, three days after Election Day, as Mr. Biden pulled into the lead, Mr. Murdoch told Ms. Scott in an email that it was going to be “very hard to credibly cry foul everywhere,” and noted that “if Trump becomes a sore loser, we should watch Sean especially,” referring to Mr. Hannity.
This thread is summarizing some of the findings of a report from Yale School of Public Health, USA. Trigger warning. Child abuse and atrocities.
2. More than 6,000 children in Russia’s custody. Children from Ukraine ages four months to 17 years who have been held at camps and other facilities since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.
These are children who have been kidnapped from Ukraine. A few might be orphans, but most of them are just children the Russians managed to find and deport to Russia. They are occupiers and invaders so it isn’t like they have to ask for permission.
The fate of these children is likely to be pretty dismal.
A lot of them will be sex trafficked. Some will end up as slave laborers. Some will end up in their military as more cannon fodder.
Most of them will probably have short, unhappy lives and die young.
We’ve seen this before. Remember the hundreds of thousands of Romanian orphans that Ceausescu produced? What happened to them? No one knows.
This is deliberate. Most of them probably had short lives and ended up dead.
Many of those children were infected by hepatitis C virus and/or HIV virus due to the dysfunctional state of every thing in Romania including their medical system.
Thread
Oleksandr Mykhed @mykhed_o
1. This thread is about a new investigation of
@YaleSPH
on how Russia kidnappes Ukrainian kids. The scale of this horror is beyond imagination. Key points 👇
6:37 AM · Feb 15, 2023
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1.4M Views 4,426 Retweets
2. More than 6,000 children in Russia’s custody. Children from Ukraine ages four months to 17 years who have been held at camps and other facilities since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.
3. At least 43 facilities in network. 12 camps around the Black Sea, 7 in occupied Crimea, 10 clustered around Moscow, Kazan, and Yekaterinburg. 11 of the camps are located over 500 miles from Ukraine’s border, including two camps in Siberia and one in Russia’s Far East.
4. Network of children’s facilities stretches from one end of Russia to the other: The furthest camp this investigation identifies is in Magadan oblast in Russia’s Far East near the Pacific Ocean, approximately 3,900 miles from Ukraine’s border with the Russian Federation.
5. At least 32 (78%) of the camps engaged in systematic re-education efforts that expose children from Ukraine to Russia-centric academic, cultural, patriotic, and/or military education.
6. At least two camps that hosted children alleged to be orphans who were later placed with foster families in Russia. Twenty children from these camps were reported to have been placed with families in Moscow oblast and enrolled in local schools there.
7. At two camps, Artek and Medvezhonok, children’s returns were suspended indefinitely according to parents. Medvezhonok is one of the largest camps identified, at one point hosting at least 300 children from Ukraine.
8. Parents also described being unable to get information about their child’s status or whereabouts after their return has been suspended. It is unknown how many of Ukraine’s children Russia currently holds and how many have been released to their families.
Please share the truth about Russian war crimes and atrocities.
Please don’t forget about Ukraine.
Please support us.
This is a war against humanity and future.
More. This is a statement from the US Department of State.
They are not happy.
Mounting evidence of Russia’s actions lays bare the Kremlin’s aims to deny and suppress Ukraine’s identity, history, and culture. The devastating impacts of Putin’s war on Ukraine’s children will be felt for generations. The United States will stand with Ukraine and pursue accountability for Russia’s appalling abuses for as long as it takes.
Evidence of Russia’s War Crimes and Other Atrocities in Ukraine: Recent Reporting on Child Relocations
MEDIA NOTE
OFFICE OF THE SPOKESPERSON
FEBRUARY 14, 2023
The Conflict Observatory, a program supported by the U.S. Department of State, released an independent report today detailing a vast network of Russia-run sites and processes used to relocate thousands of Ukraine’s children to areas under Russian government control. The unlawful transfer and deportation of protected persons is a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians and constitutes a war crime. The fact that these are transfers and deportations of children is unconscionable by any standard. Russia must immediately halt forced transfers and deportations and return the children to their families or legal guardians. Russia must provide registration lists of Ukraine’s relocated and deported children and grant access for outside independent observers to related facilities within Russia-occupied areas of Ukraine and inside Russia itself.
This latest report, prepared by program partner Yale Humanitarian Research Lab, is available in its entirety on the Conflict Observatory’s website . It identifies 43 facilities to which the Russian government has relocated Ukraine’s children—for some, thousands of miles away from their homes. The report provides evidence of the Russian government’s systematic efforts to sever communication between the taken children and their relatives at home in Ukraine, prevent the children’s return to Ukraine, and “re-educate” them to become pro-Russia. It also describes the taking of children from Ukraine and placing them for adoption by families in Russia.
The Conflict Observatory is a program that independently compiles and documents evidence to support investigations of abuses during Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Yale’s research identified several dozen Russian Federation officials and other individuals implicated in the relocation and deportation of Ukraine’s children. It makes clear that Russia’s systematic efforts reflect decisions made and actions taken at all levels of the Russian government. This report and others like it reinforce U.S. and international resolve to pursue accountability for all individuals involved in war crimes and other atrocities committed in Ukraine.
Mounting evidence of Russia’s actions lays bare the Kremlin’s aims to deny and suppress Ukraine’s identity, history, and culture. The devastating impacts of Putin’s war on Ukraine’s children will be felt for generations. The United States will stand with Ukraine and pursue accountability for Russia’s appalling abuses for as long as it takes.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
The Ukrainian president, Volodymr Zelenskiy, will be the opening speaker on Friday at the three-day Munich security conference as the west faces urgent calls to speed up ammunition production and supplies to Kyiv in the face of mounting fears that Russia is planning a new offensive. The conference is expected to be attended by more than 100 world leaders, and diplomats, including the US vice-president Kamala Harris, and the event will be seen as a key test of the west’s resolve to fight out a grinding, prolonged, expensive war.
Negotiations will start in a week on extending a UN-backed initiative that has enabled Ukraine to export grain from ports blockaded by Russia after its invasion, a senior Ukrainian official said on Friday. Yuriy Vaskov said “I think common sense will prevail and the corridor will be extended.”
Ukraine’s state broadcaster Suspilne reports that the energy grid is working without consumption restrictions today across all of Ukraine, with the exception of Odesa, where “due to damaged infrastructure there are still restrictions” and “power outage schedules are applied.”
Finland’s parliament will vote on 28 February to approve the necessary legislation that will allow the country to eventually become a member of Nato, Reuters reports the Finnish parliament’s head of foreign affairs committee said on Friday.
…
Facebook allowed exiled Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor with ties to the Kremlin [see #253 above] to run ads calling for protests and uprisings against the pro-western government, even though he and his political party were on US sanctions lists.
Facebook allowed an exiled Moldovan oligarch with ties to the Kremlin to run ads calling for protests and uprisings against the pro-Western government, even though he and his political party were on U.S. sanctions lists.
The ads featuring politician and convicted fraudster Ilan Shor were ultimately removed by Facebook but not before they were seen millions of times in Moldova, a small nation of about 2.6 million sandwiched between Romania and war-torn Ukraine.
Seeking to exploit anger over inflation and rising fuel prices, the paid posts from Shor’s political party targeted the government of pro-Western President Maia Sandu, who earlier this week detailed what she said was a Russian plot to topple her government using external saboteurs.
“Destabilization attempts are a reality and for our institutions, they represent a real challenge,” Sandu said Thursday as she swore in a new government led by pro-Western Prime Minister Dorin Recean, her former defense and security adviser. “We need decisive steps to strengthen the security of the country.”
The ads reveal how Russia and its allies have exploited lapses by social media platforms — like Facebook, many of them operated by U.S. companies — to spread propaganda and disinformation that weaponizes economic and social insecurity in an attempt to undermine governments in Eastern Europe.
Shor’s ads have helped fuel angry protests against the government and appear to be aimed at destabilizing Moldova and returning it to Russia’s sphere of influence, according to Dorin Frasineau, a foreign policy adviser to former Moldovan Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita, whose resignation led to the formation of the new government on Thursday.
“Even though he is on the U.S. sanctions list, I still see sponsored ads on Facebook,” Frasineau said, saying he had spotted what he believes were fake accounts sharing the posts this week. He said the Moldovan government sought answers from Facebook to no avail. “We have talked with Facebook, but it is very hard because there is no specific person, no contact.”
Rules governing the sanctions list prohibit U.S. companies from engaging in financial transactions with listed individuals and groups. The U.S. Treasury Department, which manages the sanctions program, declined to comment publicly when asked about the ads.
…
The ads weren’t money makers for Meta, generating only about $15,000 in revenue, a pittance for a company that earned $4.65 billion in the last quarter.
Nonetheless, they were effective. One ad, which ran on Facebook for just two days — October 29-30 — was seen more than a million times in Moldova. In the post, which cost Shor’s party less than $100 to upload, the oligarch accuses Sandu’s government of corruption and kleptocracy.
“You and I will have to pull them out of their offices by the ears and throw them out of our country like evil spirits,” Shor tells the audience.
Shor, 35, is an Israeli-born Moldovan oligarch who leads the populist, Russia-friendly Shor Party. Currently living in exile in Israel, Shor is implicated in a $1 billion theft from Moldovan banks in 2014; is accused of bribery to secure his position as chair of a Moldovan bank, and was named in October on a U.S. Treasury Department sanctions list as working for Russian interests.
The U.S. says Shor worked with “corrupt oligarchs and Moscow-based entities to create political unrest in Moldova” and to undermine the country’s bid to join the EU. The sanctions list also names the Shor Party and Shor’s wife, a Russian pop star. The U.K. also added Shor to a sanctions list last December.
Last fall, Moldova was rocked by a series of anti-government protests initiated by the Shor Party, which saw thousands take to the streets in the capital, Chisinau, at a time of skyrocketing inflation and an acute energy crisis after Russia reduced gas supplies to Moldova.
Many of the protesters called for early elections and demanded Sandu’s resignation.
Around the same time, Moldova’s government filed a request to the country’s Constitutional Court to declare the Shor Party illegal, a case that is ongoing. Moldova’s anti-corruption prosecutors’ office also opened an investigation into the financing of the protests, which prosecutors said involved at least some Russian money.
On Monday, Sandu went public with what she claimed was a plot by Moscow to overthrow the government using external saboteurs, to put the nation “at the disposal of Russia” and to derail it off its course to one day join the EU.
Sandu said the purported Russian plot envisioned attacks on government buildings, hostage-takings and other violent actions by groups of saboteurs….
…It is the latest attack on women’s rights by the Taliban who, since coming to power in August 2021, have ended higher education for girls, closed universities to young women, forced women out of their jobs and restricted their ability to leave their homes. Restricting contraceptives will be a significant blow in a country with an already fragile healthcare system.
One in every 14 Afghan women dies of causes related to pregnancy and it is one of the most dangerous countries in the world to give birth….
…Forty-day commemorations for the dead are common in Iran and the wider Middle East. But they also can turn into cyclical confrontations between an increasingly disillusioned public and security forces that turn to greater violence to suppress them, as they had in the chaos leading up to Iran’s 1979 revolution….
…On the streets of Chișinău and other cities, tensions have ratcheted up amid a string of unusual incidents….
…
“It will soon be a year since I woke up hearing bombs [from neighbouring Ukraine],” said Svetlana, 37, a seamstress from a Chișinău suburb. “I try to avoid watching the news now, otherwise I can’t sleep at night. My mother used to like Putin and now she prays for his death every day.”…
…In a statement on Thursday, Fetterman’s chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, said: “While John has experienced depression off and on throughout his life, it only became severe in recent weeks.”…
…Questions have loomed over Whang’s research for a decade, and more than 20 of his studies have been flagged on PubPeer for possible image problems. As one commenter wrote in 2014 about one of the now-retracted papers, “It is perhaps fortunate that figure assembly and liver surgery require such unrelated skill sets.” …
Reporters: German MP from right-wing party discreetly visited Belarus in November
Petr Bystron, a German lawmaker representing the Alternative for Germany party, secretly visited Belarus on Nov. 16-19, 2022, the investigation by German media Correctiv and Lithuanian TV broadcaster LRT reveals.
According to the reports, Bystron was on an official visit to Lithuania on Nov. 14-16, after which he made a trip to Belarus.
Bystron admitted that he had met Belarus officials, including Foreign Minister Uladzimir Makei and Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee Head Andrey Savinykh.
In a comment to Bild, the AfD representative claimed that he wanted to explore the extent to which Belarus could be considered “a neutral peacemaker for Ukraine” and to develop “bilateral relations between the parliaments of Germany and Belarus.”
Michael Roth, chairman of the Bundestag Foreign Affairs Committee, suggested in the comment for LRT that travel to Belarus is not in the interest of the Bundestag and that the trip has been concealed.
On Feb. 9, AfD presented a controversial “peace initiative,” a pro-Russian motion demanding the federal government to work for the deployment of an international peace delegation led by a representative of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to establish a ceasefire for at least 90 days.
Justice Department officials in Washington have taken over the corruption investigation into Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, removing the case from the hands of the federal prosecutors in Texas who’d long been leading the probe.
The move was disclosed in a statement by state prosecutors handling their own case against Paxton. It’s the latest development in the federal investigation into the attorney general, who came under FBI scrutiny in 2020 after his own top deputies accused him of bribery and abusing his office to help one of his campaign contributors, who also employed a woman with whom Paxton acknowledged having had an extramarital affair.
The investigation of the three-term Republican is now being led by the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, which prosecutes allegations of official misconduct against elected leaders at the local, state and federal level. The U.S. attorney’s office in Texas was recently recused from the complex case after working on it for years — an abrupt change that came within days of Paxton agreeing to apologize and pay $3.3 million in taxpayer money to four of the former staffers who reported him to the FBI.
State prosecutors working on a separate securities fraud case against Paxton — Brian Wice and Kent Schaffer — said in a statement to The Associated Press on Thursday that they were notified of the move. They referred all questions to the Justice Department, which declined to comment…
China has sanctioned U.S. aerospace and defense company Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Missile and Defense Corp, a unit of Raytheon Technologies, putting them on a list of “unreliable entities” over arms sales to Taiwan.
The companies are now prohibited from imports and exports related to China. Neither company sells China defense products. China previously announced sanctions against Lockheed and Raytheon in 2019 and 2020 but did not explain what those sanctions were. Last year, it also sanctioned both Lockheed and Raytheon, this time explicitly over $100 million in arms sales to Taiwan.
The companies’ senior managers will have work and residence permits canceled and be barred from entering the country…
Bao Fan, the chief executive of China Renaissance Holdings, had not been able to be reached in recent days, the firm said in a market update on Thursday.
Mr Bao is a leading deal broker in China whose clients include top tech companies Didi and Meituan.
His firm’s announcement has renewed concerns of a potential Beijing crackdown on finance and tech figures.
…
The business wire also reported the firm’s president, Cong Lin, had been taken by authorities last September over his previous work at the state-owned ICBC bank.
…
At least half a dozen billionaires in the past few years have disappeared for periods after reported run-ins with the Communist Party, according to Forbes Magazine.
In several cases they were suspected to have been ensnared in corruption, tax or other misconduct investigations.
…
The Guardian liveblog is reporting the various speeches and statements from Munich.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, speaking in his opening address to the Munich Security Conference, said it was “obvious” that Ukraine would not be the last stop of Vladimir Putin’s invasion.
The Russian leader will continue to other former Soviet countries, Zelenskiy warned. He said that while the west was discussing tank supplies to Ukraine, the Kremlin was thinking about ways to “strangle” Moldova.
He also said he judged the likelihood of Belarus joining the invasion of his country on Russia’s side as low.
Allies who can deliver battle tanks to Ukraine should do so now, Olaf Scholz of Germany said, according to a transcript of his speech at the Munich Security Conference.
Germany would facilitate this decision by providing logistics and stock replenishment and by training Ukrainian soldiers, he said. He added:
For me, that is an example of the kind of leadership people can expect from Germany.
France’s president Emmanuel Macron has said that there can be no peace in Ukraine until Russia is defeated. At the Munich security conference he said “The hour of dialogue hasn’t come yet, because Russia chose war. Russia chose to target civilian infrastructure and commit war crimes. Russia’s attack must fail.”
“Unity and determination are important to provide Ukraine with the means to go back to the negotiation table in an acceptable fashion, and to work on long term peace under conditions that the Ukrainians have decided upon,” he added.
Macron spoke about the mercenary Wagner group, saying that when he spoke to Vladimir Putin a year ago he “almost believed him” that he had nothing to do with the Wagner group [FFS], but that it is now clear with the activity in Ukraine that they act like a “mafia” tool to commit crimes.
Macron said Russia was doomed to “a defeat in the future”, with Russia’s aggression having consolidated Ukraine’s statehood as a country, driven Finland and Sweden to apply to join Nato, and put European countries more in mind of self-defence.
He appealed for Europe to spend more on defence.
He also said that Russia’s attack on Ukraine took place “in the shadow of nuclear weapons” and he appealed for a dialogue involving Nato, the UK and US about “the nuclear features of our alliance”. He complained that the US had “decided not to pursue certain contracts or agreements or treaties” but they involved the defence of French territory and they were not consulted.
He also proposed a conference on air defence in Europe with states like the UK, France and Germany and industry representations.
Macron also proposed again a solid role for the 44-nation European political community, pointing out that the wider grouping included those who had chosen to leave the European Union, and those who were in the process of applying to join the EU.
France’s president warned that authoritarian powers might target European nations with destabilisation via cyberwarfare and disinformation campaigns, and that they should work together to avoid that.
…
In questions after his speech, France’s president Emmanuel Macron has agreed with a question that asked whether he would support reform of the UN security council. He said “we have to rebalance the global order and make it more inclusive.”
Macron said “I’m very impressed by how much we are losing the trust of the global south.”
He said in the summer there would be a conference in Paris to discuss reform of the IMF and other bodies, and that “a new partnership between south and north is key.” [Hacking away at France’s welfare state is sending a pretty clear message to the global south, I’m sure.]
…
Emmanuel Macron in Munich has gone on to discuss that in his view the west didn’t fully digest the consequences of the end of the cold war, and that Russia did not fully digest the end of being an empire. Macron said the west made mistakes in the way it expanded the European Union, and that after 1990 Russia had low GDP and declining demographics, and yet was the largest country in the world with huge borders, and a choice between betting its future on joining Europe, or to fall back on the dream of empire, and it had chosen the latter. He went on to say that he did not back regime change in Russia, as he did not feel that changing the leader would change the underlying culture. Macron answered the questions in English.
…
French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday urged allies to intensify their military support for Ukraine to help the country carry out a needed counter-offensive against Russia.
“We absolutely need to intensify our support and our effort to the resistance of the Ukrainian people and its army and help them to launch a counter-offensive which alone can allow credible negotiations, determined by Ukraine, its authorities and its people”, Reuters quotes him saying.
A Rite Aid official told Berger that they were having trouble finding pharmacists, and that Amy wasn’t typically in a customer-facing position because of such incidents in the past.
At this rate, Rite Aid is going to have trouble finding customers.
I would really have to think hard before trusting my prescriptions to a pharmacy run like that.
Idaho Statesman
Boise pharmacist who denied customer COVID vaccine should find another line of work | Opinion
Dan Berger
Scott McIntosh
Fri, February 17, 2023 at 3:00 AM PST·3 min read
The pharmacist at a Boise Rite Aid who refused to administer the COVID-19 vaccine to a customer clearly can’t do her job and should look for another line of work.
As Idaho Statesman reporter Angela Palermo reported, Boise resident Dan Berger had scheduled an appointment to get a COVID-19 vaccine booster before heading out of the country on a trip.
Berger, who is immunocompromised, had made an appointment, which the pharmacist, Amy, canceled. He scheduled another appointment, went into the Rite Aid on Vista, and Amy informed him that she wouldn’t administer the shot because of her conscience.
If Amy doesn’t want to get the vaccine, that’s her business. But Berger made the choice with his doctor to get vaccinated, and for Amy to unilaterally deny him voluntary medical treatment is a breach of ethics — not to mention a breach of her ability to do her job.
Allowing such arbitrary “conscientious objections” is dangerous territory when it comes to pharmacists and medical care.
If a pharmacist could deny someone a COVID-19 vaccine booster based on their personal beliefs, what other treatments could be subject to her judgment? Birth control pills, prescription for HIV medications? Can a pharmacist now deny serving a gay customer because she doesn’t condone homosexuality? It’s a slippery slope indeed.
Similarly, pharmacists shouldn’t have the latitude to dispense medications at their whim.
Some might say that it’s not a pharmacist’s job to administer a vaccine. Except, of course, when it is. Remember, Berger scheduled an appointment with Rite Aid to get the vaccine at one of its pharmacies. Rite Aid agreed to give him the booster. It was Amy who unilaterally denied that service that her employer had agreed to.
To those who say Amy was “brave” for standing up against the COVID-19 vaccine, just think about how you would feel if a pharmacist denied some other vaccine or medication to you based on her personal beliefs.
Meanwhile, Idaho state Sen. Tammy Nichols, R-Middleton, and Rep. Judy Boyle, R-Midvale, introduced a bill Thursday that would make it a misdemeanor to administer an mRNA vaccine. If they had been around in the 1950s, Nichols and Boyle probably would have sought to criminalize the polio vaccine.
A Rite Aid official told Berger that they were having trouble finding pharmacists, and that Amy wasn’t typically in a customer-facing position because of such incidents in the past.
Rite Aid has a bad employee who can’t do her job. When workers can’t do their job, they shouldn’t keep that job.
In the meantime, those who don’t want their health care interfered with by a rogue pharmacist who imposes their anti-science personal objections on its customers should take their business elsewhere.
Russia has introduced a free package of satellite channels for residents living in occupied Ukraine that critics say is an attempt to create a “digital ghetto”.
The package is called Russkiy Mir, or Russian World, which has become a byword for the propaganda Russia seeks to spread outside its borders, focusing on its imperial greatness and the outside enemies determined to destroy it, namely the west.
Ukrainian analysts say the move is part of Moscow’s attempts to cut off the occupied population from Ukraine and create an information “ghetto”. It is just under a year since millions of Ukrainians started living under Russian occupation.
“The most important thing that Russia is doing in the occupied territories is trying to cut off this population from the Ukrainian agenda, they are creating their own ‘digital ghetto’. They do this by blocking Ukrainian media,” Ihor Solovei, the head of Ukraine’s Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security, told Radio Svoboda.
The package, backed by the All-Russian People’s Front, includes 20 existing Russian channels as well as 10 local TV channels produced specifically for those in the occupied areas [well, that should be interesting]. Soon a further nine entertainment channels will be added, according to the site where residents can apply to have the package installed.
Everything from the box to installation and the subscription is free. “Watching the package of TV channels available to Russkiy Mir subscribers free of charge,” reads the site.
Which everyone who has looked can see.
Moldova is next. Then Georgia.
The big prize will be Kazakhstan.
2 minute readFebruary 17, 20235:51 AM PST Last Updated 2 hours ago
Zelenskiy: It’s ‘obvious’ Ukraine won’t be Putin’s last stop
Reuters
Feb 17 (Reuters) – President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday it was “obvious” Ukraine would not be the last stop of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion, and that it was vital the West does not delay deliveries of weapons to help repel Russian forces.
The Ukrainian leader told the Munich Security Conference by video link that while the West was negotiating supplies of tanks to Kyiv, the Kremlin was thinking of ways to “strangle” the former Soviet republic of Moldova which lies west of Ukraine.
“It’s obvious that Ukraine is not going to be his last stop. He’s going to continue his movement all the way…including all the other states that at some point in time were part of the Soviet bloc,” Zelenskiy said.
He urged the West to maintain speedy weapons deliveries.
“Delay has always been and still is a mistake,” Zelenskiy said.
He made his opening remarks in English as he addressed the security conference, an annual gathering of leading politicians, military officers and diplomats, days before Ukraine marks the first anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
Latest Updates
Despite his warnings, Zelenskiy said he did not think Russia could win.
He likened Ukraine to David and Russia to Goliath in the Biblical tale in which the underdog David wins, armed with a sling. He said David had defeated Goliath by action rather than conversation and that Goliath “has no chances”.
“We need the speed, speed of our agreements, speed of our delivery, to strengthen our sling – speed of decisions to limit Russian potential,” he said.
Reporting by Max Hunder; writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Timothy Heritage
ravensays
The source for this claim is NATO intelligence.
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Clash Report @clashreport
The Times:
For every little more than 90 meters of advance, Russia loses 2,000 fighters.
It’s fairly incoherent, and I have multiple disagreements with even the more coherent aspects. I don’t have time to read through all of the comments, but I saw some good arguments being made in the portion I did read. Kind of nostalgic!
It was just after the first of the year when France stepped up to say that they would be sending the AMX-10rc to Ukraine. That announcement preceded the series of main battle tank agreements that started later in January. Now it seems those vehicles will also be first when it comes to arrival in Ukraine. [Tweet at the link]
We covered the AMX-10rc back when the announcement was first made. Over the last two decades, France has used the vehicle very much in the sense of being a “light tank.” It’s played the tank roll in a lot of small unit combat situations, often in locations where there was little to no armor on the opposing side and conditions (think hot, dry, and sandy) where the vehicle could display its full agility and speed. But … what is it going to do in Ukraine?
Not only is the 105mm gun challenged by the armor on newer Russian tanks, it’s also not stabilized. So as fast as the AMX-10 may be, it has to stop if it wants to fire accurately.
How those wheels will work in Ukraine, especially in what has turned out to be a sort of winter-long mud season, is a really good question. An even better question is what kind of role the AMX-10rc is going to play. It’s a fraction of the weight of even the lighter Russian tanks. It’s not a troop transport. Its real advantages are that it can cover a huge distance on much less fuel than a full-on tank, and it can travel down the highway at automobile speeds. It’s been a highly successful vehicle in the role of armored recon … only, how much need for that role is there in a war where half the sky sometimes seems to be made of drones? This is a vehicle literally designed to fight in small African and Middle Eastern conflicts where ability to operate at long distances from cities and supply bases was the primary restriction. That doesn’t come close to describing Ukraine. [video at the link]
In a situation like the Kharkiv offensive, the AMX-10rc might be the ideal vehicle to punch through, race deep into the enemy backfield, and just kick ass in all directions. But what’s it going to do at Bakhmut, or anywhere else where it’s facing a nose-on fight with Russian tanks and very few passable routes down which to travel?
Figuring how this vehicle is going to be used may take longer than training operators and mechanics. So even though this is one of the first Western “hey, don’t call that a tank!” to arrive in Ukraine, don’t expect to see it on the battlefield tomorrow. Unless, of course, they go tearing down the road to Mariupol tomorrow. Because that seems weirdly possible. But not likely.
If the AMX-10rc doesn’t qualify as a tank, the Leopard 2 certainly does. The latest indications are that both Germany and Poland intend to deliver Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine at the end of March. By then the squadron of U.K. Challenger 2 tanks should also be rolling in Kyiv. Oh, and the first group of Bradley fighting vehicles started their journey toward Ukraine in the last week of January. When they’ll actually arrive isn’t clear, but they might even beat the French wheel-guns to the show. [video at the link]
Deciding how all these things will play together is going to be a big part of turning a collection of machines into an effective strategy. Building up logistical chains that will support all these new vehicles is an even bigger task. But Ukraine has probably been working on those issues at least since these vehicles were first announced, so they could be a lot farther ahead than it might seem. They’re certainly not waiting for all this stuff to pile up at Zelenskyy’s door before worrying about where to send it.
Right now, too many social media posts, and even analysts seem to be assuming “arrives in Ukraine at the end of March” means that no later than tax day, Leopards will be cutting through the Russian lines. If it happens … great. But don’t be surprised if none of these machines sees action before summer. That’s actually what the U.S. is asking them to do: Wait until the gear, the logistics, the training, the strategy, and the conditions all come together so that what’s been sent will have maximum impact.
It’s good advice. It just might be hard to follow when Russian forces are pulverizing Ukrainian towns and cities day by day.
It’s certainly not “iron dome,” but it seems like a step in the right direction. [Tweet and image at the link: “Israel ready to provide Ukraine with air threat warning system.”]
TOS-1 has been turning up at the front in several locations lately. Their short-range gun should make them vulnerable to artillery, but they’ve been living long enough to do real damage. Yesterday that included the area west of Kreminna where Ukrainian forces have reportedly been pushed slightly outside Dibrova by those damned thermobaric shells (meaning that Dibrova is another ex-town).
How the TOS-1 has made it around these battlefields without being destroyed more quickly is something of a mystery. Based on this video, are they just particularly good at moving around in mud? [video at the link shows the 92nd brigade using a TOS-1A chassis to tow BTR-43 through the famous Ukrainian mud. This is followed by a video of really cute little Ukrainian girl asking, "Do you like varenyki like I do?"]
Rep. Angie Craig has received a deluge of politically violent and vulgar messages following her attack in her Washington, D.C., apartment building, messages her office says came after a Fox News segment criticizing Democrats for their policing policies.
Audio released by Craig’s office includes vulgar and violent messages, including, “I hope the f*****s get you again,” and, “I am so glad that you were attacked.” Craig’s office released eight examples, with audio, of the messages she has received. They’re reporting the messages to U.S. Capitol Police.
Threats against members of Congress have become increasingly common in recent years, soaring to nearly 10,000 a year after Jan. 6, 2021, a serious concern to members of Congress, their staffs and U.S. Capitol Police…
The publication writes that last fall, the FSB tried to obtain data on the location of Ukrainian artillery and air defense through an employee of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service, named as Carsten L., who was later arrested.
According to the investigation, the BND officer was supposed to provide the FSB with GPS data for the HIMARS rocket systems, provided by Washington, and the IRIS-T air defense system, supplied by Berlin.
…
Der Spiegel reports that the spy was offered a “six-figure sum” for providing information.
In December, a foreign intelligence agent suspected of passing state secrets to Russia was arrested in Germany.
The detainee, whose name, according to media reports, is Carsten L., is suspected of treason.
A week after Florida’s high school sports association decided against requiring students to report their menstrual cycles, state lawmakers moved to give Gov. Ron DeSantis control over the board.
A House committee advanced a bill on Wednesday that would put the governor in charge of appointing all the members of the governing board of the Florida High School Athletic Association, a private nonprofit organization that oversees sports for grades six through 12 in public schools and other schools that choose to join or participate…
We congratulate Senator Scott on joining the post-State of the Union red wave of Republicans acknowledging that they have, in fact, been attempting to put Medicare and Social Security on the chopping block.
For the past year he has explained the absence of an exception by saying, ‘If it’s worth keeping, we’re going to keep it.’ But make no mistake, his true colors are undeniable and on the record.
Cutting Medicare and Social Security benefits is a longstanding passion of Senator Scott’s, as it is for the majority of House Republicans who comprise the Republican Study Committee and many of his Senate colleagues, ranging from John Thune to Ron Johnson.
For example, in the 1990s Senator Scott supported fully privatizing Medicare. And now, by supporting repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act, Senator Scott is pursuing the biggest Medicare benefits cut in a generation just so Big Pharma can receive a debt-worsening bailout.
We thank Senator Scott for continuing to share his heart with the world. We always support him doing so.
On Wednesday we did a TPM Inside Briefing with economist and Times columnist Paul Krugman. I already shared with you the portion of the discussion in which we talked about extraordinary/heroic measures to avert a U.S. credit default if House Republicans force the issue. But we covered a lot of other important ground directly relevant to the biggest news stories of the day — the financial viability of Social Security (and Medicare) and the sustainability of the aggregate federal debt in particular.
A substantial percentage of the U.S. federal debt (about a quarter of it) has been run up in just the last three years — largely in response to the COVID pandemic crisis. Is the scale of the federal debt sustainable? Does it require drastic action? Krugman’s answer was basically, no. There’s no crisis. Despite what you hear, it’s not unsustainable at all.
On Social Security, same thing. At some point in the future — probably about a dozen years from now — Social Security will need more revenue to cover all the benefits of the people currently in retirement under Social Security. At that point, we’ll have a simple decision on whether to raise taxes to cover those benefits or cut the benefits. It’s not really an economics decision. Both are totally doable in macro-economic terms. It’s really a values and politics question. Which is more important? Preserving the benefits of retirement beneficiaries (and others covered by Social Security) or preventing higher taxes on upper income earners? You don’t need to be a PhD economist to decide this question.
Critically, does the problem get worse the longer we put off these decisions? Again, no. All the claims to the contrary are a kind of bums’ rush to force one of the answers over the other — cuts as opposed to taxes.
All these questions and answers about debt, Social Security, Medicare, and the debt ceiling were highly clarifying for me. And I suspect they will be for you as well. If you’re a member, join me after the jump for the full TPM Inside Briefing with Paul Krugman. [video at the link]
Six people are dead after shootings in at least three locations within a tiny town in northwest Mississippi, according to Memphis, Tennessee NBC affiliate WMC-5. The alleged shooter is in custody.
One took place in a store around 11am CT, and one man was killed; another, in a home, where a woman was killed and a man was injured, though it’s thought he was hit by an unnamed object rather than gunfire. A third shooting also took place at a residence believed to be that of the suspect’s, and four people were found dead there.
The suspect has not yet been identified, and according to a tweet from Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, he acted alone.
All four locations—including where the suspect was arrested—are in rural Arkabutla, a town in Tate County that Memphis CBS affiliate WREG reports is home to less than 300 residents. […]
Archaeologists working in southern Iraq have discovered the 4,500-year-old palace associated with a mythical king, whose buried library of clay tablets might fill the gaps in an ancient epic poem which inspired parts of the Bible.
Experts with the British Museum also found a lost “holy of holies” at the ancient city of Girsu, ending a 150-year search which began when a 19th-century archaeologist first discovered the site, and the Sumerian culture which built it.
…
His team were in search of the temple of the deity Ningirsu, which previously unearthed texts said should be there. They finally discovered the “holy of holies”, which would, “like the Kaaba” in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, have drawn pilgrims on annual journeys to the site.
The team working with Iraqi authorities also sought out the palace of Gudea, the semi-mythical Sumerian king, which ancient texts said should also be in Girsu…
WASHINGTON – A longtime Republican political consultant was sentenced to 18 months in prison Friday after arranging for a Russian national to contribute illegally to former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign – the second time he’s been convicted of campaign violations.
Jesse Benton, 45, of Woodlands, Texas, had charged Russian national Roman Vasilenko $100,000 to have a picture taken with Trump on Sept. 22, 2016, at the Ritz Carlton in Philadelphia, according to court records.
Benton’s company Titan Strategies pocketed $75,000 of the fee and passed along the remaining $25,000 as a contribution to Trump’s campaign committee, Trump Victory, and the Republican National Committee. Trump Victory, the Trump campaign and RNC each unwittingly reported falsely to the Federal Election Commission that Benton made the contribution rather than Vasilenko, according to court records. Foreigners aren’t allowed to contribute to U.S. campaigns…
He took a 75% cut?
Tethyssays
“Do you like varenyki like I do?” – the little girl asks.
What a darling! Her outfit and instructions are superb. I especially like how she is too small to carry hot water so her brother must help.
I in fact, very much do not like varenicka. Dough balls filled with potato (or cottage cheese) and boiled is the epitome of white, bland, flavorless food.
ravensays
This is what passes for Russian TV.
Open calls for genocide.
Tweet
Anton Gerashchenko @Gerashchenko_en
Anna Dolgareva, Russian propagandist, says: “denazifying means they all need to be killed, all adult population of Ukraine who resist – physically destroyed. And their children raised in Russian spirit.”
Traitor Slave(r) states or Slave(r) traitor states
For the former short-lived Confederate ones?
Thoughts please?
Rewatching A Time To Kill on TV right now (ad break) thoughts on that movie too?
Anyhow, y’know y’all have a global reputation right?
(Not that Oz doesn’t either but.. yeah.)
StevoRsays
@340. SC (Salty Current) : Isn’t punching down their kinda thing?
Always. Despite the supposed words and acts and deeds of their supposed idol and hero and inspiration and lliteral figure of worship? (No, not Trump or the TV preachers who keep asking for cash, the one they actually talk about so much yet also ignore so much.)
StevoRsays
Happy Pluto Discovery Day y’all.
Reckon should be a national holiday and cause for celebration. (Yeah am biased but still,.)
Today back in 1930.
“Dr Slipher, I have found your planet X.”
Clyde Tombaugh entering his bosses office after a very close look at the blink comparator which he’d been working and looking at since April 6th, 1929 :
Love the way Sputnik planitia / Tombaugh Regioio is oth a heart and an open book.
StevoRsays
AggmanUK Pluto’s clip – 5. 45 min love this even if some errors like like the astrological symbol for Pluto which is a merged P & L referciing Percival Lowell who was right at leaat about the co-incibental but stunningy accurate~ish spot Pluto was found.
Tethys @338, yes! The little girl is intelligent and it’s all cuteness-overload.
As far as not liking varenyki, I noticed that a lot of people commenting in that thread noted that they included much more flavorful ingredients in their varenyki. That seems like a good idea.
Newly surfaced texts showing Tucker Carlson telling the truth threaten to damage his brand irrevocably, the Fox News host fears.
After publication of the texts, which indicate that Carlson knew Donald J. Trump’s claims of widespread election fraud were false, the anchor, concerned that his reputation for mendacity had been permanently tainted, spiralled into despondency.
“Tucker is in a very dark place right now,” a Fox News colleague said. “To be unmasked as an honest person is literally his worst nightmare.”
In an emotional appearance on Fox, Carlson begged his viewers not to “rush to judgment” based on a few “ill-advised texts that give off the unfortunate appearance of accuracy.”
“A couple of years ago, in a moment of weakness, I slipped and told the truth,” Carlson, choking back tears, said. “I plead with you not to judge me by this shameful episode but by my entire body of work.”
We’ve known for a long time that the Covid-19 virus affects the heart, lungs, and kidneys, causing permanent and in come cases, fatal damage.
This article looks at the detailed mechanisms.
In these autopsy patients, the virus weakened the heart to the point where it went into chronic heart failure that ended up being fatal.
Time
How COVID-19 Changes the Heart—Even After the Virus Is Gone
Story by Alice Park • 5h ago
While COVID-19’s effects on the lungs and respiratory system are well known, there is growing research suggesting that the virus is also affecting the heart, with potentially lasting effects.
In a presentation at the annual meeting of the Biophysical Society, an international biophysics scientific group, Dr. Andrew Marks, chair of the department of physiology at Columbia University, and his colleagues reported on changes in the heart tissue of COVID-19 patients who had died from the disease, some of whom also had a history of heart conditions. The team conducted autopsy analyses and found a range of abnormalities, particularly in the way heart cells regulate calcium.
All muscles, including those in the heart, rely on calcium to contract. Muscle cells store calcium and open special channels inside of cells to release it when needed. In some conditions such as heart failure, the channel remains open in a desperate attempt to help the heart muscle contract more actively. The leaking of calcium ultimately depletes the calcium stores, weakening the muscle in the end.
“We found evidence, in the hearts of COVID-19 patients, abnormalities in the way calcium is handled,” says Marks. In fact, when it came to their calcium systems, the heart tissue of these 10 people who had died of COVID-19 looked very similar to that of people with heart failure.
Marks plans to further explore the heart changes that SARS-CoV-2 might cause by studying how the infection affects the hearts of mice and hamsters. He intends to measure changes in immune cells as well as any alterations in heart function in the animals both while they are infected and after they have recovered in order to document any lingering effects.
“The data we present show that there are dramatic changes in the heart,” Marks says. “The precise cause and long term consequences of those need to be studied more.”
Previous studies have revealed a link between COVID-19 infections and heart-related problems. A large 2022 analysis of patients in the VA system—some of whom had recovered from COVID-19 and others who had never been diagnosed—showed those who had had COVID-19 had higher rates of a number of heart-related risks, including irregular heartbeats heart attack and stroke. Dr. Susan Cheng, chair of women’s cardiovascular health and population science at Cedars-Sinai, is studying whether there are any associations between rates of heart attacks and surges of COVID-19 infections, in order to better understand how the virus might be affecting the heart.
There is also early evidence showing that people with hypertension may be at higher risk of heart events when they get COVID-19.
What connects the viral infection to the heart isn’t known yet, but the body’s immune system is likely a major contributor. “It’s been well documented that with SARS-CoV-2, the body responds with an inflammatory response that involves activating the immune system in a very dramatic way,” says Marks. “In the heart, it looks like the same inflammatory process is activating pathways that could be detrimental to heart function.” But more research needs to clarify that process, says Dr. Mariell Jessup, chief science and medical officer at the American Heart Association. “If the assumption is that the infection causes inflammation, and the assumption is that the inflammation is precipitating more cardiovascular events, then how is it doing that?”
It’s also possible that viruses can infect and adversely affect heart cells. “We’re still at the tip of the iceberg with respect to understanding how COVID-19 affects health,” says Cheng.
Marks is hoping to get some of those answers with the animal experiments he plans to conduct. “We hope to optimize the animal model to best reflect what we think is going on in patients,” he says. “We want to study at a very, very detailed level what happens in the heart when the virus infects an animal.”
Ultimately, that knowledge will help to better treat people who might be at higher risk of heart-related problems from COVID-19, which could in turn reduce hospitalizations and deaths from the disease. Marks has already developed a potential drug that can address the leaking calcium if that proves to be a problem with COVID-19; he is ready and eager to test it if his animal studies justify the experiments.
Until more definitive studies clarify how the COVID-19 virus is affecting the heart, Jessup says she would advise her patients to “control the things we know how to control,” such as the risk factors that might put them at higher risk of heart disease to begin with, such as obesity, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. And with more data emerging, if people are getting repeat COVID-19 infections, it’s also probably worth seeing their doctor to get their heart disease risk factors checked as well.
“We spend a lot of time telling people they should get vaccinated,” she says. “For people who have had COVID-19, we should also be making sure they know their heart numbers and make sure they know blood pressure. “We know how to prevent heart disease, so let’s do the things we know how to do.”
Sludge from sewage treatment plant in Nuremberg area tests positive for radiation
Sewage sludge that a treatment plant for Nuremberg and Weston sent to an incinerator was rejected for radioactivity.
The rest of it is behind a paywall.
This is in anthracite country (not too far from Hazleton, PA). There are settling pits (big ponds to help reduce acid drainage) up the creek from these two towns. I know that radon is a problem in the area. Due to coal mining, well water is not an option, so the two towns (Weston and Nuremburg) have their own public water and sewerage system. Could radon contamination through the tap water (which is in compliance with federal standards) be producing enough radiation in the sewage, which is reduced to a sludge, to be detectable at the incinerator?
I know, not nationally significant. Then again, how many towns across the US have polluted water due to industrial waste and environmental damage?
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday reaffirmed the basis for a rule that requires ‘significant reductions’ in mercury and other harmful pollutants from power plants, reversing a move late in former President Donald Trump’s administration to roll back emissions standards.
The Labor Department said Friday it found 102 children as young as 13 working hazardous overnight jobs cleaning slaughterhouses in eight states in what it called a ‘corporate-wide failure’ by one of the largest food sanitation companies in the country, Packers Sanitation Services Inc.
The headline is a bit misleading. It should say that approximately 9,000 were killed in action. The “30,000” figure is all casualties. Still alarming.
The New York Times has a story up following middle school teacher Yulia Bondarenko who went from a classroom in Kyiv to becoming a soldier on the front lines in the Kharkiv counteroffensive.
Like other recruits without experience, Ms. Bondarenko learned on the job: how to find trip wires and explosive traps, to duck for cover from shells, to provide battlefield first aid.
At first, she worried about her abilities. Bookish and shy, she never had any interest in the military, and knew nothing of weapons or wars. But on patrols and at the firing range, handling supplies and learning tactics, her confidence grew.
It’s not just a good story, there are some terrific photos definitely worth viewing. Her story is the story of so many of those now fighting in Ukraine.
Well this is weird.
Putin’s feet during his meeting with Lukashenko.
Is this Morse code? [video at the link]
I don’t think he’s about to bounce out of his chair and dance to “Weapon of choice,” but I don’t have a real clue about what’s happening here. [It does look really, really weird.]
In the last two weeks, Yevgeny Prigozhin, owner of the Wagner Group mercenaries, has alternated between bragging about ending recruitment at Russian prisons as if it was his own decision, and complaining that the government wasn’t giving him more prisoners. If the estimates that came on in a Friday briefing at the White House are anywhere close to correct, it’s easy to see why even leadership with as little regard for human life as Vladimir Putin’s Russia might have been reluctant to keep the taps open for Prigozhin.
In a question and answer sessions, NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby confirmed three things about Bakhmut:
The city is of “no strategic value to the Russians.”
The operations there is “almost exclusively run by Mr. Prigozhin and the Wagner Group” rather than the Russian military.
If Wagner is able to turn “incremental gains” around the city into success in capturing Bakhmut, “it will prove of no real worth to them.”
But the most astounding thing that Kirby had to say may have been this: “I do want to say this about the Wagner Group, and particularly with respect to Bakhmut. I mean, again, they’re treating their recruits, largely convicts, as basically—as cannon fodder, throwing them into a literal meat grinder here, inhuman ways, without a second thought.
And while fighting in Ukraine, we estimate now that Wagner has suffered more than 30,000 casualties, including approximately 9,000 killed in action.”
Of those 30,000 casualties, the U.S. estimates that over half have come in the last two months. And of the men that Wagner has sent to the slaughter at Bakhmut, 90% are thought to have been prisoner recruits.
“Men that [Prigozhin] just plucked out of prisons and threw on the battlefield with no training, no equipping, no organizational command, just throw them into the fight, “ said Kirby. “Ninety percent killed were convicts.”
Not only were most of those lost convicts, U.S. intelligence believes that Wagner continues to lean almost entirely on these prisoner troops for its recent gains around Bakhmut. So the idea that they’ve been cut off from a fresh supply of this cannon fodder may be the best indicator yet that what Ukrainian forces in the city are weathering right now is temporary—the last fitful squall of a storm front rather than a change in seasons. There have already been reports from parts of the front that Wagner’s role in areas both north and south of Bakhmut is fading. Pro-Russian military channels and bloggers continue to credit Wagner with everything that happens around Bakhmut, but Ukrainian sources have reported Wagner forces being replaced with Russian regulars.
Considering the widening, highly-visible schism between Prigozhin and the the Russian military, and the admission that they’ve been cut off from access to more cannon fodder courtesy of the prisons, it’s unclear if Wagner Group will continue to be a force in or out of Ukraine. Five years ago, Bloomberg estimated the total size of Prigozhin’s mercenary force at around 6,000 men. By last December, the estimate was of 50,000 men, with 40,000 of those being convict recruits. Since the time of that estimate, Wagner has burned though at least 15,000. It’s not clear what they have left, but they are a declining force whose power is apparently no longer being refreshed.
The zergs … are running out of zerglings.
That 2017 Bloomberg article is worth another look just to put what’s happening in Ukraine in scale. In that article, analysts noted that Russia stopped any public reporting of military casualties previous to the first Ukraine invasion. However, insurance claims continue to give insight into how many people Russia has lost in Putin’s various internal and external campaigns. In the four years between 2012 and 2016, there were 3,198 claims related to death. That would cover not just the whole period of Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine, but ongoing losses over that period in Chechnya and in Syria. Going back further, the then Soviet Union lost an estimated 15,000 over the whole course of the 10+ year war in Afghanistan.
The effort to capture Bakhmut over the last six month, just Bakhmut, is ten times what Russia lost everywhere across that four year period of study, including the entire first invasion of Ukraine. What’s happening at Bakhmut could easily end up being as costly to Russia as the entire failure in Afghanistan—a failure directly related to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Which certainly makes it seem as if Putin will be very, very lucky if Wagner Group is the only thing that disappears due to his disastrous management of this invasion.
Yep, that last sentence is what I was thinking.
More Ukraine updates coming soon.
ravensays
Well this is weird.
Putin’s feet during his meeting with Lukashenko.
Is this Morse code? [video at the link]
Could be Restless Leg Syndrome.
Or Parkinson’s. Or both since they can occur together.
A lot of claims that Putin has some sort of illness but I’m sure a lot of that is wishful thinking.
The number of people who wish he would die is probably close to a billion.
The vice president cited numerous occurrences since Russia’s invasion began, saying that the evidence points to such a finding
Vice President Harris said Saturday that the United States believes strongly that Russia has committed crimes against humanity and needs to be held to account for ghastly actions that have been described in intelligence reports and international headlines, including bombing a maternity hospital, forcibly relocating and “reeducating” Ukrainian children, and, just months ago, the suspected sexual assault of a 4-year-old girl.
“In the case of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, we have examined the evidence, we know the legal standards, and there is no doubt: These are crimes against humanity,” Harris said.
[…] Harris stressed that standing firm against Russian aggression sends a message to “other authoritarian powers that could seek to bend the world to their will through coercion, disinformation and even a brute force.”
Later, she added, “We have come together to stand for our common values and our common interests. And our common humanity.” […]
Harris said Saturday that she and the United States would continue to push for Russia to be held to account.
“I know firsthand the importance of gathering facts and holding them up against the law,” she said, alluding to her former jobs as a district attorney and then California’s attorney general.
How is Bakhmut today? Bakhmut holds. The situation remains extremely difficult, conditions for Ukrainian forces remain extremely hard. Fighting on the north side of the city is extremely intense.
However, the news on Friday was not of Russian advances, but of Ukrainian counterattacks. Earlier in the week, Russian forces were pressed back from efforts to cross the T0504 highway south of Ivaniske and forced to retreat to high ground near Klishchiivka. The word on Friday is that Ukrainian forces have continued to press in this area, driving back Russian lines once again. [map at the link in comment 352]
I don’t have enough information to accurately redraw the lines at this point, but it’s a good bet that the area of Ukrainian control south of Ivaniske has advanced by another kilometer. There have been no claims that Ukrainian forces have actually pushed Russia back out of Klishchiivka and the fortified hilltop that overlooks that town. However, reports are that Ukraine has advanced across this area, further protecting both the T0504 highway and the road that runs through Khromove to connect to the highway at Chasiv Yar.
Russia’s plan to place the city in a “pincer” by capturing Chasiv Yar seems to be running in reverse.
North of the city, Russian sources claim that Wagner has capture Paraskoiivka and have published pictures that are supposed to prove it, but all images published so far are at the northern end of Paraskoiivka close to Blahodatne (see location of little red man) and there remains no evidence that they have taken the remainder of Paraskoiivka or the complex of road crossings in that area. Russian sources claim Wagner is now fighting its way south in the northern part of Bakhmut proper. Again, there seems to be no evidence that Russia has advanced in this area over the last two days.
“We will hold Bakhmut,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Friday. “Anyone who complains that the defense demands too many victims should not forget: if we withdraw, another city will become a new Bakhmut. That is why our soldiers fight for every square centimeter.”
Why is Russia throwing away thousands in Bakhmut if it has no strategic value? Because logistical factors make it the easiest place for Russia to attack. Quite possibly Bakhmut is the only place that Russia can currently muster consistently large forces, because the logistical effort at other locations is too great.
Why is Ukraine willing to expend men and materials in fighting at Bakhmut? Because the longer they keep the fighting concentrated around this once already heavily damaged area, the longer they spare other locations in Ukraine from the kind of destruction seen around Bakhmut.
Those aren’t the kind of justifications that are usually assigned to the sites of major battles in the history books, but both of those reasons speak deeply to the nature of the conflict that has emerged following Russia’s illegal and unprovoked invasion.
One place where Russia has made some advances over the last week appears to be in the city of Marinka, just west of the “breakaway capital” of Donetsk. [map at the link in comment 352]
As with most of the area adjacent to Donetsk, fighting has been underway in Marinka since the day the invasion began. That it’s still taking place within spitting distance of the original line is a testament to both how well dug in Ukrainian forces were at the outset of this conflict and how unable Russia has been to conduct the kind of combined forces operations needed to move Ukraine back from defensive positions.
However, in the last two weeks, Russia begun a creeping advance through the battered and rubble-filled streets of Markina, making a block by block movement that has gradually overrun the eastern third of the city. That advance seems to be continuing in the last few days, with units in the area giving the same kind of this factory / that store kind of notation to Russian movements that was previously seen in attacks on eastern Bakhmut. So far, Russian forces seem to be east of Druzhby Avenue that divides the city, and Ukraine appears to be fighting a defensive retreat. It’s unclear where the next real defensive line might be or if Ukraine intends to continue the sort of make-them-pay-for-each-meter battle that’s been seen at Bakhmut.
From Avdiivka down to Novomykolivka, Russia has been attempting to break out of the pocket around Donetsk. The advances in Markina look pretty small from a distance, but the fact that there have been advances at all is worrisome.
[…] Russia reportedly was able to bring a TOS-1 launcher to the west end of Kreminna on Thursday and hit the areas around Dibrova and Kuzmyne with those godforsaken thermobaric explosives. However, the fact that Ukrainian forces are still at Kuzmyne, just west of Kreminna proper, shows that Russia hasn’t made a major advance in this area.
Even more mysterious: On Friday, the Ukrainian military noted Zhytlivka, immediately north of Kreminna, as one of the places that Russia shelled. That may be the first time this location has come up on this list. If not, it’s the first time in many weeks. All the evidence tends to indicate that Ukrainian forces are still just south, west, and north of Kreminna. If any area is looking foggy right now in terms of who controls what, it’s probably Kreminna. Lots of fighting, little information.
This U.K. Russian agent wasn’t exactly living under “deep cover.” [Tweet at the link: “[…] Smith lived with his wife, Svetlana Makogonova, in a postwar block in the fashionable Berlin suburb of Potsdam. He had a Russian flag in their living room, a life-sized rottweiler toy wearing a Russian hat, a Soviet-era military cap, various books about young female Russian snipers […]]
[…] I can’t see anything remotely suspicious. [LOL]
Speaking of people with blind trust in Putin, here’s the deep sourcing behind that Seymour Hersch story. [Tweet showing that Hersch appears to confirm that he had a single source.]
On Saturday, Vice President Kamala Harris told an international security gathering that the United States has formally determined that Russian forces have committed “crimes against humanity” during their invasion of Ukraine.
“Let us be clear: Russian forces have pursued a widespread and systemic attack against a civilian population,” she told an audience gathered in Germany for the Munich Security Conference. “Gruesome acts of murder, torture, rape and deportation. Executions, killings, beatings and electrocution. Russian authorities have forcibly deported hundreds of thousands of people from Ukraine to Russia, including children.”
“In the case of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, we have examined the evidence, we know the legal standards, and there is no doubt: These are crimes against humanity,” Harris said, according to the Washington Post.
While President Biden labeled Russian President Vladimir Putin was a “war criminal” in March, shortly after he ordered troops to assault his neighbor, US officials moved to downplay the statement, saying that experts were still collecting evidence and weighing it against international law. […]
“I say to all those who have perpetrated these crimes and to their superiors who are complicit in these crimes: You will be held to account,” she said […]
I’ll ask why someone wants to keep symbols of respect for murderous slavers and traitors, while noting the history is still in the books. Books similar people want to remove when the books show the enslavement and treason.
Similar wording works for pointing out that BLM protests are about murderous racist police.
ravensays
Twitter
Clash Report @clashreport
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken:
Since February 24, 2022 200,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in Ukraine.
More than a million Russians have left the country. More than a thousand foreign companies also left the Russian market.
I’d call that a good start.
It is also a fact that a huge number of companies are still doing business in Russia.
Former US President Jimmy Carter will begin receiving hospice care, according to a statement from The Carter Center on Saturday.
“After a series of short hospital stays, former US President Jimmy Carter today decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention. He has the full support of his family and his medical team,” the statement said.
I knew this was coming (I mean, not specifically, but the guy is 99 years old) but it saddens me. He was the first President that I actually remember personally rather than historically.
“According to his health summary, Biden is currently undergoing treatment for multiple “stable” medical conditions that include non-valvular atrial fibrillation, hyperlipidemia, gastroesophageal reflux, seasonal allergies, “mild” sensory peripheral neuropathy of both feet, and his gate, which “remains stiff but has not worsened since last year.” I don’t see much that is concerning here except someone can’t spell gait. Hyperlipidemia just means he is on a statin like mllions.
The non-valvular atrial fibrillation is concerning but I’m sure he is being treated for it. It is treatable most of the time.
A change that was observed was a small lesion on the president’s chest that was removed during the examination and sent out for a traditional biopsy. No big deal. I just had the same thing done. They are usually benign.
The claims were that Biden was showing age related cognitive decline of some sort. I haven’t really seen that at all. He makes mistakes here and there but he always did that. I’ve seen many 80 year olds that were far worse.
People
President’s Physician Says Joe Biden Is ‘Healthy’ and a ‘Vigorous 80-Year-Old’
Virginia Chamlee
Thu, February 16, 2023 at 5:05 PM PST
Joe Biden’s physician says “the president remains fit for duty” in a report published by the White House on Thursday.
Biden, 80, traveled to Walter Reed Medical Center aboard Marine One on Thursday morning to undergo his annual physical exam, with Dr. Kevin O’Connor releasing a written summary of the president’s physical later that afternoon.
According to his health summary, Biden is currently undergoing treatment for multiple “stable” medical conditions that include non-valvular atrial fibrillation, hyperlipidemia, gastroesophageal reflux, seasonal allergies, “mild” sensory peripheral neuropathy of both feet, and his gate, which “remains stiff but has not worsened since last year.”
His lab work, which included a comprehensive metabolic panel (CMP), urinalysis, complete blood count (CBC), and vitamin D and magnesium level check, returned normal.
RELATED: Biden Says It’s ‘Much Too Early’ to Decide About Running in 2024, but Defends Age and Approval Ratings
A change that was observed was a small lesion on the president’s chest that was removed during the examination and sent out for a traditional biopsy.
O’Connor added that the president has not experienced any “residential symptoms which may be considered long COVID,” after testing positive for the virus twice in July.
The president continues undergoing routine dental, optometry, and skin cancer surveillance. He also continues to work out at least five teams a week.
“President Biden remains a healthy, vigorous 80-year-old male who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency,’ writes O’Connor in his report.
Biden’s physical results come as a recent poll found that some 72 percent of American adults surveyed believe the president is “too old to work in government.”
Biden’s age is something that’s top of mind for some voters heading in to the 2024 election. While Biden hasn’t announced whether he plans to seek a second term, reports indicate he may announce another campaign soon.
In a 60 Minutes interview in September, the president defended his age, saying he’s in “pretty good shape.”
Asked how he would respond to those who question whether he’s fit for the job, Biden said: “Watch me.”
“I mean honest to God, that’s all I think,” Biden continued. “If you think I don’t have the energy level or mental acuity, then, you know, that’s one thing. It’s another thing to just watch and keep my schedule, do what I’m doing. I know when I sit down with my NATO allies and keep them together, I don’t have them saying, ‘Wait a minute, how old are you?’ … I think it relates to how much energy you have, and whether or not the job you’re doing is one consistent with one of any person of any age would be able to do.”
Biden became the oldest person to be sworn in as commander-in-chief in U.S. history at his inaugural ceremony when he was 78.
Donald Trump was previously the oldest-ever president to take office and was 70 at his 2017 inauguration. Trump will be 78 at the time of the 2024 election, for which he has already declared his candidacy.
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Biden, meanwhile, will be 81 at the time of the 2024 election — and his age has led to speculation from even some in his own party regarding whether he’ll run for a second term.
New York Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney made headlines last year when she said in a debate she didn’t think Biden would run again. Maloney later clarified those comments, but remained tight-lipped on her feelings about another Biden campaign.
I’m sure the US government has. I’m almost sure they didn’t do any good.
SpaceX and Starlink have been heavily subsidized by the US government, get a lot of their revenue from the US government, and depend on US government facilities for their launches and permits. SpaceX launches from Cape Canaveral and Vandemberg.
IIRC, the US military is planning their own Starlink version, which not too surprisingly, has nothing to do with SpaceX.
Reuters
Blinken says U.S. has had talks with Elon Musk about Starlink in Ukraine
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin in Washington
18
Sat, February 18, 2023 at 2:08 PM PST·1 min read
In this article:
Elon Musk
Elon Musk
American business magnate (born 1971)
Antony Blinken
Antony Blinken
American government official and diplomat (born 1962)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Saturday that the U.S. government has had conversations with Elon Musk about the use of Starlink satellite internet in Ukraine.
SpaceX this month said it has taken steps to prevent Ukraine’s military from using the company’s Starlink service for controlling drones in the region during the country’s war with Russia.
Asked during an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press with Chuck Todd” that will air on Sunday whether the United States had asked Musk, the company’s chief executive, not to restrict the use of Starlink capabilities by Ukraine’s military, Blinken said: “Well, I can’t share any conversations we’ve had other than to say we’ve had conversations.”
SpaceX has privately shipped truckloads of Starlink terminals to Ukraine, allowing the country’s military to communicate by plugging them in and connecting them with the nearly 4,000 satellites SpaceX has so far launched into low-Earth orbit.
Russia has attempted to jam Starlink signals in the region, though SpaceX countered by hardening the service’s software, Musk has said.
ravensays
Florida doctors refuse abortion for woman whose baby is expected to live less than 2 hours
It is Florida. No surprise.
The story doesn’t explain why the couple doesn’t just go out of state, get the abortion, and come back.
This might be a late term abortion, in which case, it is going to be hard to get one anywhere these days.
Florida doctors refuse abortion for woman whose baby is expected to live less than 2 hours
A pregnant Florida woman has been denied an abortion, despite having been told by medical experts her baby will survive “only 20 minutes to a couple of hours,” the Washington Post reported today.
The tragic situation facing Deborah Dorbert and her husband Lee is the apparent consequence of “the uncharted landscape of Florida’s new abortion law,” the report said. The Post story described the couple’s anguish after a routine scan brought tragic news.
“The baby was no longer buoyed in ample amniotic fluid, Deborah’s doctor gently told her. The kidneys were not developing properly, failing to produce the liquid that protects the fetus and promotes the development of vital organs. She didn’t think the baby would survive without a transplant, and she urged Deborah to follow up quickly with a specialist in maternal fetal medicine.”
Further testing brought no better news. The baby was diagnosed with a deadly condition “incompatible with life” called Potter syndrome. But when the grief-stricken couple decided that terminating the pregnancy was their only choice under the circumstances, the situation worsened.
‘(The couple) say the most painful decision of their lives was not honored by the physicians they trust,” the Post reported. “Even though medical experts expect their baby to survive only 20 minutes to a couple of hours, the Dorberts say their doctors told them that because of the new legislation, they could not terminate the pregnancy.
“That’s what we wanted,” Deborah said. “The doctors already told me, no matter what, at 24 weeks or full term, the outcome for the baby is going to be the same.”
The Dorberts had run into the reality of Florida’s H.B. 5 — Reducing Fetal and Infant Mortality — which went into effect last July, soon after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a half-century constitutional right to abortion, the Post reported.
Attorneys for Donald Trump want to ban from his upcoming civil rape trial the “Access Hollywood” tape in which the former president boasts graphically about how celebrities can molest women.
Trump attorneys Alina Habba and Michael Madaio filed papers in Manhattan federal court late Thursday seeking to block references to the 2005 taped encounter and the tape itself from an April trial stemming from the claims of longtime advice columnist E. Jean Carroll.
They called the tape “irrelevant and highly prejudicial” and said it might unjustly be used to suggest to jurors that Trump had a propensity for sexual assault and therefore must have raped Carroll. They also asked to prevent testimony from two women who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct and to ban references to his campaign speeches…
A man who was charged with first-degree assault after driving into a crowd and shooting a man during protests on Seattle’s Capitol Hill in 2020 had his case resolved with a plea to reckless driving, according to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
On June 7, 2020, Nikolas Fernandez sped in his car toward a crowd of protesters on Capitol Hill. As he approached a makeshift barricade, with people yelling at him to stop, protester Dan Gregory reached through the open window, grabbed the steering wheel and punched Fernandez.
Investigators said Fernandez used the Glock 26 on his passenger seat to shoot Gregory in the shoulder…
LANSING, Mich. — Republicans here, reeling from a midterm election rout that many blamed on the influence of former president Donald Trump, responded Saturday by spurning the former president’s choice for state party chair — and choosing someone even more extreme.
Kristina Karamo, who refused to concede her 14-point loss for secretary of state in 2022, beat former attorney general candidate Matt DePerno, who had Trump’s endorsement, in three rounds of contentious voting. The chaotic 11-hour convention, featuring a rowdy standoff over voting procedures and 10 candidates who all ran under a pro-Trump banner, left no doubt that the bulk of the party’s activists in this key battleground state remain firmly committed to election denial and showed no interest in moderating their message to appeal to the political center.
“Conceding to a fraudulent person is agreeing with the fraud, which I will not do,” Karamo said to cheers in her campaign speech on Saturday.
The outcome also dealt a tactical defeat to Trump, even though all the candidates competed for aligning themselves with him…..
“We love Donald Trump, but he don’t live here,” said Mark Forton, another candidate for chair who endorsed Karamo….
“When we start talking about the spiritual reality of the demonic forces, it’s like, ‘Oh, my God, this is crazy, we can’t go there,’” Karamo said. “No. It’s like, did you read the Bible? Didn’t Jesus perform exorcisms? … Scriptures are clear. And so if we’re not operating as though the spirit realities of the world exist, we’re going to fail every time.”
In 2022, Democrats swept statewide races in Michigan and won control of both legislative chambers, achieving full statewide control for the first time since the 1980s. In 2024, the state is poised to host early primary contests and be a competitive presidential and Senate battleground.
[…]
Trump held a tele-rally for DePerno on Monday, calling him a “defender of election integrity.” DePerno rose to prominence as a lawyer chasing conspiracy theories in Michigan’s 2020 election; a Republican state Senate report faulted him for spreading misinformation, and he came under state investigation for allegedly tampering with voting machines.
But some delegates said they grew to doubt DePerno because, unlike Karamo, he conceded his loss in November.
“Matt ran out on us; he didn’t fight for us,” said Mark DeYoung, a delegate from Harrison, Mich., and chairman of the Clare County GOP….
But Karamo, who turned to her bid for state chair quickly after her November loss, proved to have the strongest base of support and broadest appeal. Her campaign was vague and varied on specifics for what she would do as chair…She made faith central to her appeal, beginning her remarks that night by saying, “My goal number one as a Christian is to bring people to Christ, and secondarily to save our country.”
[…]
“People love to talk about President Trump in a loss mode, but he’s a king. He’s our king,” outgoing GOP co-chair Meshawn Maddock, who was supporting DePerno, said in an interview. “I’m so tired of hearing that our party has moved too far to the right. The problem is we haven’t moved far enough.”
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began a year ago this week, was an extraordinary and unexpected event that has changed the world in which we live. Long-held assumptions about peace in Europe, post-cold war relations with Moscow and Nato’s diminished standing were shattered overnight.
The war has revolutionised German defence policy, silenced French talk of “strategic autonomy”, boosted EU unity, revived US commitment to the transatlantic alliance, dramatised the global north-south divide, reduced the UN to the role of hand-wringing bystander and given the UK an opportunity, after Brexit, to show it still has an international role to play.
The fact the sovereign, democratic nation of Ukraine has survived, unbowed and unconquered, is possibly the most remarkable outcome of the conflict so far. And Ukraine’s physical survival, despite significant losses of territory, has been matched by psychological triumph.
For this, much credit goes to its president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who has campaigned tirelessly to whip up international support. Gifts of weapons, cash aid, technology, expertise and shelter have poured in, along with volunteers, military and civilian. In contrast, morale among Russia’s army and public has slumped.
But, and it’s a big “but”, it is plain the war is far from over and may be entering an even more dangerous phase.
Russia has sustained almost 143,000 casualties since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian military.
The latest update from Ukraine’s ministry of defence said the number of casualties on the Russian side had reached 142,860, up by 590 since yesterday.
It also said that 3,310 tanks and 6,545 armoured combat vehicles had been destroyed, increases of seven and 12 respectively.
Tweeting the figures, the ministry included a quote from the Beatles’ 1968 song Back in the USSR: “Let me hear your balalaikas [a Russian instrument] ringing out.”
Russia is likely using balloons to gather information about Ukraine’s defence systems and force it to use up ammunition, according to UK intelligence.
In its latest update, the Ministry of Defence said that, on 12 February, Ukraine’s air force reported sighting a number of balloons near the eastern city of Dnipro.
Ukrainian armed forces also said that, on 15 February, they spotted and shot down several balloons over capital Kyiv.
They also said the balloons had radar reflectors – devices that help radar systems detect small objects – suspended beneath them.
“It is likely that the balloons were Russian,” the UK update said. “They likely represent a new tactic by Russia to gain information about Ukrainian air defence systems and compel the Ukrainians to expend valuable stocks of surface to air missiles and ammunition.”
The US has said it believes China may be about to provide lethal aid to help Russia in the war in Ukraine, prompting a direct warning against doing so from the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, to China’s top diplomat.
Blinken made the warning to the Chinese state councillor Wang Yi on Saturday evening at a blunt meeting on the sidelines of the Munich security conference.
He also urged China to stop helping Russia evade the impact of sanctions. China’s trade with Russia is increasing and it has been buying Russian oil, but probably below the US$60 per barrel price cap imposed by the EU and G7 group of states.
Speaking to CBS’s Face the Nation after he met with Wang, Blinken said: “We’ve made very clear to them that [providing lethal support] could cause a serious problem for us and in our relationship.”
Cattle-ranching, not cocaine, has driven the destruction of the Colombian Amazon over the last four decades, a new study has found.
Successive recent governments have used environmental concerns to justify ramping up their war on the green shrub, but the research shows that in 2018 the amount of forest cleared to cultivate coca, the base ingredient of cocaine, was only 1/60th of that used for cattle….
If there’s one word Floridians have heard plenty of since their Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, was sworn in for a second term last month, it is “freedom”. The rightwing politician, expected by many to seek his party’s 2024 presidential nomination, sprinkles the word freely as he ramps up the “anti-woke” crusade he believes can propel him to the White House.
It turns out, following a special legislative session last week that handed DeSantis victory after victory in his culture wars against Disney, transgender communities, students, migrants and communities of color, the person with the greatest freedom in Florida to do exactly as he pleases is the governor himself….
…The scripts offer an insight into the curious cocktail of Soviet nostalgia, thinly veiled threat, supposed humour and extreme Russian nationalism offered to the population under occupation….
…Sanders has just become chair of the Senate health, education, labour and pensions committee. He clearly intends to use that office not only to pursue his primary long-term aim – Medicare for all – but to create some proper political theatre along the way. His opening acts have seen him request the presence before the committee of Stéphane Bancel, the chief executive of Moderna, who Sanders argues “has become a multibillionaire” by creating a coronavirus vaccine with government money. Calls have also gone out to Howard Schultz, the chief executive of Starbucks, to address his “union-busting” policies and their relation to his staggering personal fortune. Jeff Bezos, of Amazon, a long-term bete noire of Sanders, should also look out for an invitation. Expect TV ratings of Senate hearings to soar [well, that might be a stretch]….
…Since the mid-80s, a handful of scientists around the world had doggedly pursued the idea that either a virus or a bacterium could play a role in Alzheimer’s, despite almost complete antipathy from those studying more accepted theories about the disease. Colleagues snubbed them, leading scientific journals and conferences rejected their work and funding had been threadbare, but slowly and surely, they built an increasingly compelling case….
Mike Kofman sat down with Nicholas Danforth to discuss Russia’s latest offensive, it’s [sic] focus, and why it has been underwhelming so far. The conversation analyzes the current state of the conflict, where it may be headed, the constraints each side may face in the coming months, and whether this year could see decisive turning points in the war.
From Mark Sumner in the comments of his DKos Ukraine Update yesterday (link @ Lynna’s #352):
“FYI Interesting things (explosions) happening in Kherson/Crimea in the past couple of days.”
Yeah, from the explosions across a broad area, to reports of more action on the islands, to repeated reports of Ukrainian forces hitting locations on the east side of the river. It certainly seems like continued long range attack on Russian massed equipment and ammunition, but I can’t tell if that’s actually a “softening of Russian positions” that indicates something else underway.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will travel to Kyiv on Monday to meet President Zelensky, Reuters reports, citing a political source.
Meloni, who took office in October, had said she planned to visit Kyiv before the Feb. 24 anniversary of Russia’s invasion.
Meloni, who heads the right-wing Brothers of Italy party, has been strongly supportive of Ukraine since taking office in October, but there are frictions over the issue with the coalition government that she leads.
Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, leader of the Forza Italia party [and repulsive human being], last week said he would not seek a meeting with Zelensky if he were still head of government because he blames him for the war.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, another of Forza Italia’s founders, said on Saturday he had met with Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on the sidelines of a G7 meeting at the Munich security conference to reassure him of Italy’s support.
Italy and France have also recently finalised talks over delivery of an advanced air defence system to Kyiv in the spring.
Rob Koehler, WADA veteran and current Director General of Global Athlete, joins the podcast to discuss the epidemic of doping in sports, the imbalance of power between athletes and administrators and the IOC’s startling decision to allow Russia to compete in the Paris Games in spite of its invasion of Ukraine.
Michael Forsythe, co-author with Walt Bogdanich of “When McKinsey Comes to Town”, joins the podcast to talk about McKinsey’s work in support of autocratic regimes, its rampant conflicts of interest and the distance between its stated values and its work on the ground.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat joins the podcast to discuss her book Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, which examines 100 years of authoritarian rule. She describes the characteristics of a strongman and the strange virility cult surrounding these leaders before turning to the central role of corruption in the autocrat’s playbook.
The headline is clickbait.
It is wishful thinking and right now, Putin is dictator of Russia.
There are a few good points though.
But in the year that has passed since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has gone back to a dark, repressive past.
Over the last 12 months, Putin’s government has crushed the remnants of Russia’s civil society and presided over his country’s first military mobilization since World War II.
Thanks Captain Obvious but we already knew that.
Russia is dead as anything resembling a First World democracy.
“After the failure of the (2022) blitzkrieg, Russia adapted and placed its bets on a long war, relying on its superior numbers in population, resources, military industry and the size of its territory beyond reach of enemy strikes,” Russian political observer and commentator Alexander Baunov wrote in a recent Telegram post. “This is a war of attrition that can be won without involving too many people … On the strategy of ‘wait them out, add pressure, put the squeeze on.’”
Yeah, that looks about right.
The problem for Russia is that when you add up NATO and the EU, all of the sudden Russia doesn’t look so big. Russia has 144 million people. NATO has 949 million people and a much larger economy.
Helping matters for the Russian government is the unexpected durability of parts of the Russian economy, despite heavy Western sanctions. The war has been costly for the government – the country’s Finance Ministry recently admitted it ran a higher-than-expected deficit in 2022, in large part due to a 30% increase in defense spending over the previous year – but the International Monetary Fund is projecting a small return to GDP growth for Russia in 2023 of 0.3%.
Sanctions haven’t done a whole lot.
The Russian economy at least in Moscow is holding up well.
“Is Prigozhin ready to challenge Putin?” she wrote in a recent piece. “While the answer is negative,…War breeds monsters, whose recklessness and desperation can become a challenge to the state.”
Prigozhin is already being neutralized.
The Russian army itself is now recruiting prisoners as cannon fodder.
About those monsters that war produces.
They aren’t a challenge to the state. They are running the state. Russia is run by monsters.
CNN
Faint cracks emerge in the facade of Putin’s rule, one year after Ukraine invasion
Analysis by Nathan Hodge, CNN
Updated 8:18 AM EST, Sun February 19, 2023
—
Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny is fond of a phrase, “the wonderful Russia of the future,” his shorthand for a country without President Vladimir Putin.
But in the year that has passed since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has gone back to a dark, repressive past.
Over the last 12 months, Putin’s government has crushed the remnants of Russia’s civil society and presided over his country’s first military mobilization since World War II. Political opponents such as Navalny are in prison or out of the country. And Putin has made it clear that he seeks to reassert Russia as an empire in which Ukraine has no place as an independent state.
The war in Ukraine drew a bright line under the period of High Putinism, a decade that began with Putin’s controversial return to the presidency in 2012. That era, in hindsight, was a prelude to the current war: Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and backed armed separatists in Ukraine’s Donbas region, while Putin’s technocrats worked on sanction-proofing the Russian economy.
Since last February’s invasion, Putin has shrugged off protests and international sanctions. Independent media and human rights groups have been branded as foreign agents or shut down entirely.
Russia is now in an uncertain new phase, and it’s clear there will be no rewind, no return to the status quo ante, for ordinary citizens.
So is Putin’s grip on power unchallenged? Rumors are now flying inside the country about another wave of mobilization. And in Moscow, signs of elite competition are beginning to emerge, even as some Russians are seeing through the cracks in the wall of state propaganda.
The distorted lens of history
On February 2, Putin paid a visit to the southern Russian city of Volgograd to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Soviet victory at what was then called Stalingrad, a crucial turning point in what the Russians call the Great Patriotic War.
In his speech at a gala concert in Volgograd, Putin made a direct link between the Battle of Stalingrad – the moment when the momentum shifted on the Eastern Front against Nazi Germany – and the war in Ukraine, warning that Russia faced a similar threat from a “collective West” bent on its destruction.
“Those who draw the European countries, including Germany, into a new war with Russia – and all the more irresponsibly declare this as a fait accompli – those who expect to win a victory over Russia on the battlefield, apparently do not understand that a modern war with Russia will be completely different for them,” he warned.
Invoking Stalingrad was a response to Germany’s decision to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, something Putin complained was “unbelievable, but true.” But the President’s visit to Volgograd had an element of what well-known Russian political scientist Kirill Rogov described as the “cosplay” – costume play – that Russia’s ruling class uses to drape their policies in the garments of a heroic past.
“Putin arrived in Volgograd, which was renamed Stalingrad for a few days on the occasion of the anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad,” Rogov wrote on Telegram. “The anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad, which is perceived as a turning point in the Patriotic War, is, of course, used as a great allusion and patriotic warm-up before the decisive second offensive against Ukraine that is being prepared.”
Ukrainian officials have been warning for weeks that Russia may be preparing a major new assault, perhaps to coincide with the anniversary of the 2022 invasion. Back in September, Putin ordered a “partial mobilization” after a swift and unexpected Ukrainian counteroffensive that chased Russian forces out of the northeastern Kharkiv region and set the stage for Ukraine’s recapture of the southern city of Kherson. Many of those troops have now gone through the training pipeline, further fueling speculation that Russia is committed to a manpower-intensive war of attrition.
Observers also note that Russia’s military has been adapting. While Putin never got the victory parade in Kyiv his generals were planning for, he has appointed a new battlefield commander, signaling another change in strategy.
“After the failure of the (2022) blitzkrieg, Russia adapted and placed its bets on a long war, relying on its superior numbers in population, resources, military industry and the size of its territory beyond reach of enemy strikes,” Russian political observer and commentator Alexander Baunov wrote in a recent Telegram post. “This is a war of attrition that can be won without involving too many people … On the strategy of ‘wait them out, add pressure, put the squeeze on.’”
War, however, is fluid and unpredictable. As Baunov noted, the recent decision by Germany, the United States and other European allies to deliver main battle tanks to Ukraine may test Putin’s long game.
“A return to rapid warfare with tanks ruins this new strategy that Russia has just set its sights on,” Baunov wrote. “New people may also be needed to hold the front, and this is risky.”
Exactly why this is risky should be clear: The first mobilization caused major tremors in Russian society. Hundreds of thousands of Russians voted with their feet. Protests erupted in ethnic minority regions such as Dagestan where police faced off against anti-mobilization demonstrators in multiple cities. Russian social media saw a surge of videos and public complaints about the lack of equipment and appalling conditions for newly mobilized recruits.
Putin was able to weather the unrest with his formidable and well-funded security apparatus, much as he was able to crack down on antiwar protests that broke out right after the February 24 invasion. And in the months that followed mobilization, Russia made some slow, grinding advances in Ukraine’s Donbas region, particularly around the embattled city of Bakhmut.
Many of those advances have been led by soldiers of the Wagner Group, a private military company headed by oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin. Many reports on Wagner have focused on the group’s brutal tactics, including human-wave attacks and summary execution for waverers or deserters.
But Wagner’s methods are also a flashback to a bleak chapter of Soviet history. Prigozhin has recruited thousands of prisoners with the promise of amnesty or a pardon, a practice that mirrors Stalin’s use of penal battalions and convicts to take on desperate or suicidal missions in the toughest sectors of the front, using human-wave attacks to overwhelm enemy defenses, regardless of the human cost.
The mercenary group says it is no longer recruiting prisoners, but Wagner’s costly battlefield successes have raised Prigozhin’s profile. While the oligarch has no official government office or administrative power, his ability to deliver some results and his swaggering PR operation have vaulted him significantly closer to Putin.
How close, exactly, is a matter of intense debate. In an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett, Russian author and journalist Mikhail Zygar called Prigozhin’s ambitions “the most hot topic for speculation in Moscow,” noting that he is accumulating a political following that would potentially allow him to challenge Putin.
“He’s the first folk hero (in) many years,” Zygar said. “He’s a hero for the most ultraconservative – the most, I would say, fascist – part of Russian society, as long as we don’t have any liberal part in Russian society, because most of the leaders of that part of Russian society have left, he’s an obvious rival to President Putin.”
Recent speculation has centered on whether rivals within Russia’s power elite have been trying to clip Prigozhin’s wings. Russian political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya recently offered a skeptical take on Prigozhin’s rise that factors in some of those considerations. In a recent article published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, she noted that Prigozhin has rivalries with Russia’s power ministries and doesn’t have much showing in polls.
“Is Prigozhin ready to challenge Putin?” she wrote in a recent piece. “While the answer is negative, there is one important ‘but.’ It is difficult to remain balanced and sane after going through bloody meat grinders and losing a significant part of one’s personnel. As long as Putin is relatively strong and able to maintain a balance between groups of influence, Prigozhin is safe. But the slightest easing could provoke Prigozhin to challenge power, even if not directly to Putin at first. War breeds monsters, whose recklessness and desperation can become a challenge to the state.”
Part of the fascination with Prigozhin has to do with the fact that Putin, until a year ago, enjoyed a secure monopoly on power. The authorities were well practiced in quashing street protests, and any meaningful political opposition had been effectively neutered. That’s fueled speculation – or perhaps wishful thinking – that the collapse of Putinism might be brought on by some fissure within the elite. The so-called siloviki (the hardcore authoritarians in Putin’s inner circle) remain publicly loyal, but further setbacks in Ukraine may create a potential scramble for power.
Will war come home?
Against that backdrop, some Russians have taken refuge in a form of political apathy. CNN recently spoke to several Muscovites about how their lives have changed since last year, on condition that their surnames not be used over the risks of publicly criticizing the government.
“There have been a lot of changes (in Russia), but I can’t really make a difference,” said Ira, a 47-year-old who works for a business publication. “I just try to keep some internal balance. Maybe I’m too apolitical, but I don’t feel it (further mobilization) is going to happen.”
Ira said she felt acute anxiety in February and March of last year, immediately after the invasion. She had just bought an apartment and was worried that work might dry up and she wouldn’t be able to pay her mortgage.
“It got a lot worse in the spring,” she said. “Now it seems we’ve gotten used to a new reality. I started to meet and go out with girlfriends. I started to buy a lot more wine.”
The restaurants are now full, she said, but added: “The faces look completely different. The hipsters – you know what hipsters are? – there are less of them.”
Ira doesn’t have a son, so she does not have to worry about him being mobilized. But she did say that her 21-year-old daughter has started going out to kvartirniki – informal, word-of-mouth gatherings in private apartments, somewhat reminiscent of the underground performances held in the Soviet era.
Olya, a 51-year-old events organizer with two teenage children, said her family had opted for more domestic holidays. Europe is largely closed to direct flights from Russia, and opportunities to travel abroad are more limited.
“We started to travel around the country more,” she said.
Olya and her family travel with a group of friends, but some topics are off-limits in that circle.
“We know in our group what everyone thinks about it (the war) but we don’t talk about it, otherwise we’ll end up squabbling,” she said.
Life carries on, Olya said, even though there is a war on. “I can’t influence the situation,” she said. “My friends say, we do what we can, what’s possible. It doesn’t help to get depressed.”
Helping matters for the Russian government is the unexpected durability of parts of the Russian economy, despite heavy Western sanctions. The war has been costly for the government – the country’s Finance Ministry recently admitted it ran a higher-than-expected deficit in 2022, in large part due to a 30% increase in defense spending over the previous year – but the International Monetary Fund is projecting a small return to GDP growth for Russia in 2023 of 0.3%.
A 38-year-old entrepreneur named Georgy told CNN that from the perspective of his businesses, things appeared to be picking up.
“Those who adapted quickly reorganized, they are seeing growth,” he said. “In January we concluded an unusual number of deals, and most of our activity usually picks up in February.”
Georgy spoke to CNN while in a Moscow traffic snarl, evidence that life in the capital has resumed some of its normal rhythm.
“In terms of everyday life, practically nothing has changed,” he said, talking about the cutoff of Western imports. “If we’re talking parts for a (Mercedes Benz) G-Class, it might be trickier.”
Asked if his business was affected by the exodus of Russians since the beginning of the war, Georgy said no.
“Those I know personally who left? Probably about five people,” he said. “I have a patriotic social circle.”
Georgy said he was skeptical of state media, saying he looked for other sources of information. And he acknowledged that he could theoretically be called up in another wave of mobilization.
“My attitude is somewhat philosophical,” he said. “Of course, I’d prefer not to.”
Before last February, Russia’s budding middle class could benefit from Putin’s social contract: Stay out of politics, and you’ll enjoy life in a European-style Moscow or St. Petersburg. Now that the bargain is out the window. Russia is further than ever from Europe, and it remains to be seen if support for an open-ended war can be sustained.
A stunning cache of internal correspondence and deposition testimony obtained by the software company and made public on Thursday in a Delaware court filing showed high-level Fox executives and on-air stars privately agonizing over the wild and false claims of a stolen election that Trump allies promoted on Fox airwaves in the weeks after the 2020 election. “Sidney Powell is lying,” prime-time star Tucker Carlson wrote to his producer about a Trump lawyer who had appeared on Fox and spewed baseless accusations. “There is NO evidence of fraud,” anchor Bret Baier wrote to one of his bosses.
–
But the Dominion filing also lends ammunition to their long-held argument: that Fox allowed the false claims to air because it was fearful of losing viewers to Newsmax, an ever more pro-Trump news channel.
On Feb. 3, an asteroid more than three times as long as it is wide safely flew past Earth at a distance of about 1.1 million miles (1.8 million kilometers, or a little under five times the distance between the Moon and Earth). While there was no risk of the asteroid—called 2011 AG5—impacting our planet, scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California closely tracked the object, making invaluable observations to help determine its size, rotation, surface details, and, most notably, shape.
The Mass of a Single Star (other than the Sun) has Been Directly Measured for the First Time
… (snip)…But with better telescopes come better observations, and observations by one telescope led to more precise observations of another during an extraordinary event – a lone white dwarf passed in front of a background star. The lone white dwarf, known as LAWD 37, is only about 15 light years from Earth – close enough to appear relatively clearly in observations. Gaia, the European Space Agency’s star cataloging telescope, tracked it along with a few billion other stars.
While crawling through Gaia’s data, researchers at the University of Cambridge, where Eddington was originally based, found that LAWD 37’s path would take it directly in front of a background star in November of 2019. And they thought they knew of just the telescope to observe that transit.
Using gravitational lensing to mass a nearby white dwarf.
Is the Milky Way special, or, at least, is it in a special place in the universe? An international team of astronomers has found that the answer to that question is yes, in a way not previously appreciated. A new study shows that the Milky Way is too big for its “cosmological wall,” something yet to be seen in other galaxies. The new research is published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
A hairdresser by day and a “drone hunter” by night, Oleksandr Shamshur, 41, is among tens of thousands of volunteers helping defend the skies over Ukraine against Russian attacks.
As the Feb. 24 first anniversary of Russia’s invasion nears, Ukraine is becoming increasingly adept at shooting down Russian missiles and drones fired at cities far from the front lines, and Shamshur takes pride in his own role.
Members of his territorial defence unit, including a lawyer and a businessman, respond to air raid alerts in and around the capital Kyiv by seeking to down Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones with a restored World War Two machine gun…
Students at a Virginia school held their first After-School Satan Club meeting on Thursday after being put on hold for months, the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia announced.
The meeting at B.M. Williams Primary School in Chesapeake, Virginia was held “despite efforts by some to shut down the club and prevent it from gaining equal access to school facilities,” the ACLU said, describing it as “a victory for free speech and religious liberty.”
The Virginia Pilot reported last fall that the idea of the club was requested by parents as a response to the Good News Club, another student club run by the Child Evangelism Fellowship. According to the Pilot, parents wanted the club, which is sponsored by The Satanic Temple, for their nontheistic children…
ravensays
NOËL 🇪🇺 🇺🇦@NOELreports
“In an hour we will bring Poland to our knees”, after Russia failed to take Kyiv in three days, propagandists began to threaten Poland.
“We can destroy 60 strategic objects in 20 minutes and then Poland is gone and nothing is left. No water, military bases, nothing”.
I think I see their problem here.
These Russians are drinking too much vodka and not bothering to sober up in the morning.
Poland has suffered under the Russians for centuries and at times has been close to disappearing i.e. the Hitler Stalin pact.
Now they are finally free and you can tell they aren’t going back.
I’ve noticed that the Polish seem to deeply hate the Russians and they are spending a lot of money on their military.
I’ve noticed the same thing with the Baltics.
It was a close thing that they didn’t end up being erased like Belarus.
ravensays
Thread
Dmitri @wartranslated
Russian “Veteran’s Notes” channel talks about the critical situation with funding in the Russian army. Neither mobilised nor volunteers get paid properly, some going 6+ months without a single payment. They say, this is happening in every unit and will lead to a social explosion.
I can’t confirm this.
But it wouldn’t surprise me.
Since a lot of the Russian army is cannon fodder, there is no reason to be overly concerned about paying them.
If you wait a few months, most of them will be…dead.
Since Russia runs on corruption, you can then just pocket their pay.
“They say, this is happening in every unit and will lead to a social explosion.”
Nice thought but unlikely.
The Russians are so used to be abused by their governments that nothing that happens to them seems to shake them out of their apathy.
No surprise.
Russia is at war with the West, NATO, and the EU.
You can bet that Russia is also spending a huge amount of time and money trying to destabilize the USA. They have their own cadres in the GOP and a discredited former president.
Moldova doesn’t have much of an army.
They are also one of the poorest countries in Europe.
Like some of the former SSRs, they have had a hard time learning how to actually run an independent country.
Insight News Media
Russia has started destabilizing Moldova and the Balkans
Europe, Moldova, Serbia / By Alessandro / February 19, 2023 / 3 minutes of reading
Recently, we have seen massive unrest and protests in many European countries. The Kremlin is planning subversive actions in Moldova and Serbia these days, in particular, to divert attention from the war in Ukraine.
Moldova prepares for pro-Russian protests in the capital
Moldovan law enforcement agencies say they are looking for troublemakers ahead of a pro-Russian rally in the capital Chisinau scheduled for February 19.
The pro-Russian parties, led by fugitive oligarchs Ilan Shor and Vlad Plahotniuc, are planning protests in downtown Chisinau against the pro-Western government and low living standards as Moldova grapples with several crises, including the war nearby in Ukraine.
Authorities believe that Russian plans to destabilize include mass protests planned by pro-Russian parties, allegedly paid for by a fugitive oligarch.
President Maia Sandu said on Monday: “Due to the violent actions disguised as protests by the so-called opposition, the change of power in Chisinau will be forced.”
“The plan for the next period envisages the actions of saboteurs with military training, camouflaged in civilian clothes, who will carry out violent actions, attacks on some state buildings, and hostage-taking,” Sandu said.
Meanwhile, the leader of the party of fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor on Monday accused Sandu of attempting to usurp power and called for new protests.
Shor called on his followers to unite in a force that will act as one, and “we will force these bastards (the government) to pay people’s bills within three months.”
From August to December, the party organized daily small and weekly large protests in Chisinau demanding the government’s resignation. People from all over Moldova were bused to Chisinau. They blocked the main boulevard and provoked a clash with law enforcement.
Moldovan and Ukrainian intelligence agencies claim that Russia is planning to use saboteurs from abroad to infiltrate the protests in Moldova and attack state institutions.
Such covert operations by Russia in Moldova were reported by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during his visit to Brussels on February 9. Moldova’s intelligence services received similar information from their Ukrainian counterparts.
Serbian right-wingers demand the release of activists threatened with coup d’état
Against the backdrop of massive unrest in Moldova, Russia begins to destabilize Serbia as well
On Friday, supporters of arrested far-right activists gathered in Belgrade to demand their release ahead of a decision to charge them with attempting to violently overthrow the government.
Dejan Zlatanovic, editor of Srbin.info, leader of the People’s Patrols Damnjan Knezevic, and other arrested far-right activists were behind Wednesday’s protest, titled “Stop Vucic’s Betrayal of Kosovo,” which accused President Aleksandar Vucic of betraying the former province, which nationalists revere as the “cradle” of the Serbian state.
Police found a rifle in one of the protesters’ cars. The charges carry a sentence of six months to eight years in prison. Their case will be decided by the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office.
On Thursday, police also arrested Zlatanovic, editor of Srbin.info, and Knezevic, leader of the People’s Patrols, accusing them of calling on citizens to gather in Belgrade and violently overthrow the government.
Knezevic, in addition to leading a leading anti-migrant organization, is known for organizing pro-Russian rallies over the war in Ukraine and recently visited the Russian paramilitary organization, Wagner.
Thus, we can see that the Kremlin has begun to implement its plans to take over the whole of Europe, and it has begun to do so not only through the war in Ukraine but also through the use of its agents in various European countries.
The Biden administration is planning to impose new export controls and a fresh round of sanctions on Russia, targeting key industries, Bloomberg News reported on Sunday.
The new sanctions will target Russia’s defence and energy sectors, financial institutions and several individuals, the report added.
Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Sunday he and president Joe Biden will discuss the possibility of increasing US troop presence in Poland and making it more permanent.
Biden will visit Poland over 20-22 February to mark the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Reuters reports.
Morawiecki told CBS’s Face the Nation:
We are in the process of discussion with president Biden’s administration about making their (troop) presence more permanent and increasing them. I’m very grateful also for sending new Patriot systems and other very modern weapons and munitions because this is also to some extent a proxy for presence of soldiers, but of course, the two go in tandem.
The United States currently has about 11,000 personnel on rotation in Poland, according to CBS.
Biden said last June the United States would set up a new permanent army headquarters in Poland in response to Russian threats.
He will meet with Polish president Andrzej Duda and Eastern European allies but has no plans to cross into Ukraine, according to the White House.
Suggestions by senior Ukrainian government ministers that the country’s military should be provided with cluster munitions received a cool reception among Western allies at the Munich security conference.
Nato’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg rejected calls to supply Ukraine with cluster bombs, telling German media the military alliance “has neither recommended nor supplied these kinds of weapons.”
Cluster munitions are a type of weapon that split open mid-air to release smaller explosives over a wide area. They can cause indiscriminate harm to civilians and have been banned under an international convention signed by more than 100 countries.
On the sidelines of the conference, which concluded this afternoon, Ukraine’s calls for cluster munitions were widely discussed among attendees. For EU officials, however, the demand is particularly difficult since most European countries are parties to the convention.
Asked at the conference about the calls for cluster munitions, Germany’s foreign affairs minister Annalena Baerbock said the country’s military support for Ukraine would be guided by the treaty. Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that within the German government “it is considered impossible that chancellor Olaf Scholz could allow something like this”.
The reaction follows comments made by Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Olexander Kubrakov, who suggested Ukraine should be allowed to use cluster munitions on its territory.
When asked about this on Saturday, Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba told reporters: “We understand that cluster ammunition is a debatable issue in world affairs. We are not party to the convention on the prohibition of cluster munitions. So legally there are no obstacles for that.”
“If we receive one, we will be using it exclusively against military forces of the Russian Federation,” he added.
Ukraine, like Russia and the US, has not joined the international convention on cluster munitions, which came into effect in 2010. The UN treaty prohibits under any circumstance the use, stockpiling, production or transfer of the weapons.
Josep Borrell, the EU foreign affairs chief, warned on the final day of the Munich security conference:
Zelenskiy and the Ukrainians have a lot of applause and not enough ammunition. That’s the paradox.
They need to be less applauded and better supplied with arms.”
Seymour Hersh delighted tankies and Russians everywhere by writing fiction-mascarading-as-fact story claiming the United States sabotaged the Nord Stream pipeline. I’ve already noted Snopes excellent takedown of the story, focused on Hersh’s sketchy sourcing.
Indeed, the entire story hinges on a single “source with direct knowledge of the operational planning.” Supposedly, this source was aware of a top secret task force convened by President Joe Biden to destroy the pipeline. This source is also a legal expert, claiming a Biden press conference created a loophole that eliminated the need to brief congressional leaders. This source also knew about Norway’s secret deliberations over this supposed operation. This source was also in the room at the CIA and State Department as they planned the operation. And this source was aware of the conversations happening in the deep sea diver community.
This source got around!
Time isn’t helping Hersh’s story look any better.
Hersh makes it sound like the Norwegians were geniuses and “found the shallowest part of the Baltic Sea”, something the US never could have done without Norwegian assistance.
If only charts with the seafloor depth existed.
Going back to his claim that it was specifically the “M350 Alta” that was used.
This image is from July 24th 2022, when the M350 Alta was at the scrapyard in Hanøytangen just North of Bergen. Last time any AIS data was received from the M350 Alta was 2012-11-09 09:24 UTC.
I have tracked down the whereabouts of every Alta and Oksøy class ship in the Norwegian Navy during the time period where he stated they where used to place the charges on the Nord Stream pipeline.
None of them were ever over the sites as he claims. [Tweets at the link, with image of scrapyard]
Indeed, this summary thread of a Hersh interview is gold. We get such gems as:
[…] “The stories I have been getting about the war, particularly beginning in fall and that’s what gets interesting, have been pretty dire. I think the end is just a question of time, right now it is a question of people Zelenskyy wants to kill of his own people. It’s gonna be over”
———————-
“I think [the story is] going to undercut NATO, which I always found to be supremely useless” [sounds like Russian propaganda, possibly a Russian bot]
The M350 Alta angle is actually quite interesting, as the ship last sailed in 2012. This isn’t conjecture or theory. Ships can be tracked. Oliver Alexander asked Hersh to comment on the claim that a decommissioned scrap-heap ship was part of the secret operation. His response … was he drunk?
Seymour Hersh has finally responded to my emails asking for his comments on the inconsistencies in his story. His replies have not done anything to increase his credibility in my opinion. [images of responses from Hersh are available at the link]
Alexander painstakingly examines every claim Hersh makes in his Substack. [embedded link is available at the main link]
When first reading through Hersh’s account of the events, the level of detail he provides could add credence to his story. Unfortunately for Hersh’s story, the high level of detail is also where the entire story begins to unravel and fall apart. It is often stated that people who lie have a tendency to add too much superfluous detail to their accounts. This attempt to “cover all bases” is in many cases what trips these people up. Extra details add extra points of reference that can be crosschecked and examined. In Hersh’s case, this is exactly what appears to have happened. On the surface level, the level of detail checks out to laymen or people without more niche knowledge of the subject matter mentioned. When you look closer though, the entire story begins to show massive glaring holes and specific details can be debunked.
It’s worth the read if you’re in the mood for a righteous takedown, or at the very least, an incredibly detailed and technical one.
If you’re wondering about Bakhmut, it still stands. Yesterday’s update by OSINT analyst Andrew Perpetua captured the claims and counterclaims from various sides on the active areas around the city. Russia may or may not have advanced here or there. Ukrainian counter-attacks may or may not have recaptured lost ground. And Russia may or may not have recaptured the recaptured territory.
Today, Mad’ar’s update from inside Bakhmut (he’s the guy with the now-famous pointer, in drone videos counting Russian dead around Bakhmut) claims Russia focused on picking up its dead.
Bakhmut update, 19 Feb: the worms “announced” a sanitary day: they remove 200/300 in broad daylight, under artillery cover
Two signs: the current assault potential is exhausted; Wagner replaced by regular troops (Wagner did not care as much about wounded and killed) – Mad’ar [video at the link]
He says today was a “light” day. Listen to the artillery barrage in the background.
I’m going to copy and paste what Mark wrote yesterday:
“We will hold Bakhmut,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Friday. “Anyone who complains that the defense demands too many victims should not forget: if we withdraw, another city will become a new Bakhmut. That is why our soldiers fight for every square centimeter.”
Why is Russia throwing away thousands in Bakhmut if it has no strategic value? Because logistical factors make it the easiest place for Russia to attack. Quite possibly Bakhmut is the only place that Russia can currently muster consistently large forces, because the logistical effort at other locations is too great.
Why is Ukraine willing to expend men and materials in fighting at Bakhmut? Because the longer they keep the fighting concentrated around this once already heavily damaged area, the longer they spare other locations in Ukraine from the kind of destruction seen around Bakhmut.
Neither reason is strategic. Quite frankly, it’s quite bizarre. But Ukraine at least has a logical reason for expending so much on Bakhmut’s defense. Russia has none for attacking it.
Link in comment 389. Scroll down for the addition shown above.
Few things get me angrier than the thought of Russia and Belarus taking part in the upcoming Paris summer Olympics. And yes, while Ukraine is the biggest reason why, it’s also because Russia is a nation of cheaters. Even while sanctioned for its cheating at last year’s Winter Olympics, competing under a “neutral” flag, they were cheating.
Eight months ago, the Russian Olympic Committee’s first-place finish in the team figure skating event at the Beijing Olympics was thrown into limbo when it was revealed, a day later, that 15-year-old Russian phenom Kamila Valieva had failed a drug test. Medals for the event have still not been awarded, irking the second-placed U.S. team, in particular.
Now, Russia’s anti-doping agency says it will never publicly release its report on the Valieva case, triggering fresh outrage. But whatever decision Rusada reaches for its star athlete, it may not stop the Russian Olympic Committee from claiming the gold medal.
That’s because while the determinations of the Russian investigation will almost certainly be challenged by international sports bodies, forcing it into the open, sports lawyers saw a variety of ways that the Court of Arbitration for Sport could still uphold the team event outcome.
International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach has been Russia’s biggest booster in the growing campaign to exclude Russia and Belarus.
Asked Sunday at the Alpine skiing world championships if the IOC could be on the wrong side of history, Bach dismissed the suggestion.
“No, history will show who is doing more for peace. The ones who try to keep lines open, to communicate, or the ones who want to isolate or divide,” the IOC leader said.
“We have shown this in the past with great success in the Olympic movement,” Bach said, pointing to the examples of North and South Korea, Israel and Palestine, and Kosovo. “Our role is bringing people together.”
But don’t worry, Bach added that “Every Ukrainian athlete can be rest assured that we are standing in full solidarity with them and that all their comments are taken very, very seriously into consideration.” Well, every Ukrainian athlete that Russia hasn’t murdered.
[Tweets, and memorial images at the link. Maksym Malkov, Ukrainian rower, killed by Russians. Volodymyr Androshchuk, killed near Bakhmut. Mykola Yaremchuk, karate fighter, killed near Kramatorsk. 11 year-old Ukrainian gymnast Katia Diachenko killed by Russians in Mariupol.]
[more details regarding Russia’s propaganda using Olympic athletes is available at the link. “Sporting fascism.”]
The “grassroots” backlash to a traffic reduction scheme in Oxfordshire is being boosted by an international network of established climate and Covid science deniers and amplified by right-wing media, DeSmog can report.
The group ‘Not Our Future’ made headlines last month by putting leaflets through Oxfordshire residents’ letterboxes calling them “guinea pigs” in the UK’s first “climate lockdown”. This was a reference to a conspiracy theory about a government plan to curb people’s freedoms.
False claims about the Oxfordshire County Council scheme to cut traffic and pollution went viral online, with one tweet by climate sceptic author Jordan Peterson being viewed 7.5 million times. The claims, which have seen local councillors receive death threats, have been fact-checked and debunked as misleading, and the council has described them as “harmful to public debate”.
Not Our Future’s director David Fleming, an anti-Covid lockdown and vaccine activist, presents his campaign as a people-powered movement opposed to a coming “authoritarian future” imposed by what he calls “The Blob”.
However, DeSmog can report that the group was conceived by Fleming years before the pandemic or the Oxfordshire scheme, and is backed by a network of high-profile climate deniers and conspiracy theorists based in the UK, Canada, the United States and Australia.
It is also the latest sign of a growing alliance between opponents of climate action and anti-Covid vaccine conspiracy theorists. Not Our Future’s founding signatories include Kathy Gyngell, a trustee of Tufton Street think tank the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), the UK’s main climate science denial group.
Gyngell’s website TCW hosted an anti-vaccine event in London last week with climate denial author James Delingpole, anti-vax MP Andrew Bridgen, and 90s pop group Right Said Fred, the public face of Not Our Future.
Experts say fears generated by the Covid pandemic are being exploited to oppose green policies.
“Until 2020, fear-mongering about so-called ‘green tyranny’ had little to point towards, and often felt like an abstract, even lame Boogeyman,” said Jennie King, head of climate research and policy at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) think tank.
“The pandemic was [sic] a moment of genuine trauma for millions of people,” she said. “That trauma has been weaponised by the anti-climate lobby, who now condemn any public policy as an ‘infringement on civil liberties’ and draw direct comparisons with Covid.”…
Much more at the link. Nicely brings together this network of duplicitous people and organizations.
[About banning Russia from the Olympics] You draw the line at the country for which there was a 141 to 5 vote in the U.N. General Assembly calling for it to withdraw its military to within its own borders.
——————–
[About Seymour Hersch] Don’t forget: when he was younger, he was amazing. Exposed My Lai and Abu Ghraib, among many other achievements.
Yes, now he is terribly wrong, and his name is being used to slander the US and Norway. But for much of his life, he did great things.
I’m not asking anyone to let him use his reputation to spread lies. Feel free to trash those lies.
I’m asking everyone to see that this is a tragedy, not an occasion to hate on the man.
——————–
[About the Olympics] Despite optimistic expectations, the IOC, sadly, got no better since the departure of the old corrupt fascist Samaranch.
Brownstone Institute flack Haley Kynefin claims that COVID-19 “inverts the Heroic Archetype” in yet another instance of how antivaxxers claim “heroism” and portray science advocates as “cowardly.”…
Orac:
Seriously, a human being wrote something that callous and stupid.
Well, it was written somehow – maybe it was ChatGPT. I call bullshit on this persona.
A lot of antivaxxer health care workers are now getting sued or having their medical licenses examined.
“Dr. Robert Bruce Bannister wrote. “Serious cardiac rhythm disturbances are known adverse reactions when taking hydroxychloroquine and the presence of certain cardiac rhythm/cycle variants are noted contraindications and reasons to be cautious when prescribing hydroxychloroquine.”
I knew someone on hydroxychloroquine for an autoimmune disease. It was working well but they had to go off it. Because they started to show the characteristic long QT syndrome heart arrythmia from hydroxychloroquine.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, reporting U.S. Food and Drug Administration data, showed that adverse effects from taking the drug then skyrocketed and more than 100 people died in the first half of 2020.
The number of people who died from taking hydroxychloroquine isn’t well known but it is likely to be in the hundreds. Based on 6 months of data in 2020, it is likely to be around 300 dead in the USA, from taking a drug with no activity against Covid-19 virus.
Vegas physician, America’s Frontline Doctors sued after Washoe County man died from hydroxychloroquine
By: Bob Conrad
Date: February 6, 2023
The estate of Jeremy Parker last week sued the anti-vaccination, right-wing group America’s Frontline Doctors for alleged wrongful death. Dr. Medina Culver, an osteopathic physician and Instagram influencer based in Henderson, Nevada, is also named in the case. The lawsuit alleges negligence by the group and Culver for the death of Parker last year.
“Based on information provided by America’s Frontline Doctors, Mr. Parker became convinced, along with several of his co-workers, that hydroxychloroquine was an effective treatment for COVID-19,” the suit alleges. “On or about August 26, 2021, Mr. Parker had a telemedicine visit with Dr. Culver, at which time Dr. Culver prescribed Mr. Parker with hydroxychloroquine and/or ivermectin for COVID-19 treatment or ‘preventative therapy.’ Dr. Culver never performed a physical examination of Mr. Parker.”
According to the suit, Parker developed cold-like symptoms in late January of 2022. His body was found Feb. 3, 2022. The Washoe County coroner listed Parker’s cause of death as “sudden in the setting of therapeutic use of hydroxychloroquine.”
Parker’s family is seeking damages in excess of $30,000.
A retired University of Nevada, Reno medical school professor submitted a statement as part of the lawsuit.
“Hydroxychloroquine is a medication approved by the FDA for the treatment of malaria and some autoimmune diseases. It is not approved for the treatment or prevention of Covid-19,” Dr. Robert Bruce Bannister wrote. “Serious cardiac rhythm disturbances are known adverse reactions when taking hydroxychloroquine and the presence of certain cardiac rhythm/cycle variants are noted contraindications and reasons to be cautious when prescribing hydroxychloroquine.”
He further said Parker’s death may have been prevented “if Dr. Culver had performed a more thorough evaluation including a physical exam to evaluate his heart function, a blood pressure measurement, and an EKG to ensure he did not have an abnormality…”
Former President Donald Trump in early 2020 pushed hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 treatment. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, reporting U.S. Food and Drug Administration data, showed that adverse effects from taking the drug then skyrocketed and more than 100 people died in the first half of 2020. The FDA cautioned at the time against taking hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19.
Congress mid-pandemic also investigated America’s Frontline Doctors for peddling misleading information about COVID-19 treatments, including hydroxychloroquine.
“AFLDS and SpeakWithAnMD.com have used social media to spread misinformation about the coronavirus and facilitate access to discredited coronavirus treatments throughout the pandemic,” a house subcommittee press release noted.
Its founder was sentenced to 60 days in prison on federal charges for her participation in the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection.
More recently, Reno attorney, election denier and failed governor candidate, Joey Gilbert, is suing the group alleging its CEO used money from the organization to purchase a $3.6 million home in Florida.
The CEO in January blamed Gilbert for fraud and accused him of defamation.
America’s Frontline Doctors’ spokesperson did not comment on the case.
“We are unaware of any lawsuit filed against AFLDS,” Lisa Alexander said, despite being provided a copy of the complaint.
This Is Reno was unsuccessful in reaching Culver for comment.
UPDATE 2/9/23: This story as updated to include a copy of the complaint and to add the nonresponse from America’s Frontline Doctors.
Disclosure: The plaintiff attorney, Luke Busby, is representing This Is Reno in two public records cases against the city of Reno. He would not comment for this story.
An Israeli rocket strike early on Sunday hit a building in central Damascus, killing five people and damaging several buildings in the densely populated district, witnesses and officials said.
The strike hit near a security complex around which Syria’s ally Iran has installed bases, two intelligence sources said.
An Israeli military spokesperson declined to comment…
The New Mexico Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal from former Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin, upholding a September decision by state District Judge Francis Mathew that found Griffin’s participation in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol amounted to insurrection and disqualified him from holding public office…
Russian filmmaker Anastasia Popova says this chimed with her own perception as she travelled round the country to shoot the documentary.
“I observed lots of different ruptures between families. Their children were mostly against the war, and their parents – the generation brought up during the Soviet Union, who watched [state-run] TV day and night – supported the war. I have the same rupture within my family,” she adds, saying her father supports the military action…
Tethyssays
@SC #394
Well, it was written somehow – maybe it was ChatGPT. I call bullshit on this persona.
I also questioned if Kynefin was an invented name, which is pronounced conniving. Sadly no, Haley appears to be an actual human who read a Joseph Campbell book in college while studying behavioral psychology, and then left to ‘pursue her own path.’ as a writer.
I suppose it’s possible that her online presence is entirely fictitious. Everything google produced about her sounds like it was written by a chat bot.
The Brownstone is a ‘libertarian thinktank’ that supports bitcoin, alternate facts about Covid(amongst other wackaloon theories), and freedomz!!!
How the hell is obvious nonsense and propaganda classified as a legitimate think-tank that gets special tax free status as a 501k?
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
Joe Biden has arrived in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, defying threats of Russian missile attacks, to announce significant additional US weapons supplies, as Ukraine prepares to mark the sombre anniversary of last year’s full-scale Russian invasion.
The US president, closely surrounded by a large security detail, was escorted by his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodomyr Zelenskiy, on a walkabout around central Kyiv as air sirens could be heard, confirming rumours of a visit that had been circulating during the morning.
Zelenskiy posted an image to Telegram of him together Biden, alongside the message “Joseph Biden, welcome to Kyiv! Your visit is an extremely important sign of support for all Ukrainians.”
In a brief public appearance, Zelenskiy spoke first, in English, thanking Americans for their support. He said that when the war started the first phone call of support he got was from the White House. Biden spoke second. He talked about it being important that the president of the US be here on the anniversary of the war, and said it’s critical that there not be any doubt, none whatsoever, about US support.
A statement issued by the White House to accompany the visit stated that the US “will announce another delivery of critical equipment, including artillery ammunition, anti-armor systems, and air surveillance radars to help protect the Ukrainian people from aerial bombardments. And that later this week, [the US] will announce additional sanctions against elites and companies that are trying to evade or backfill Russia’s war machine.”
The visit came as EU foreign ministers met in Brussels. The 27-nation bloc’s top diplomat Josep Borrell said the EU needs to ensure that Ukraine has enough ammunition to continue its fight against the Russian invasion. “It is the most urgent issue. If we fail on that, the result of the war is in danger. The Russian artillery shoots about 50,000 shots a day, and Ukraine needs to be at the same level of capacity. They have cannons but they lack ammunition.”…
Also from there:
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said his negotiations with his US counterpart, Joe Biden, were “very fruitful”.
The Ukrainian leader described Biden’s visit to Ukraine as “the most important visit of the whole history of US-Ukraine relations” which underlines “the results we have already achieved” and the “historic achievements we might gain together with the whole world”.
He thanked the US president personally as well as Congress and the American people, ahead of the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The result of this visit will “surely have a reflection on the battlefield”, Zelenskiy said, adding that he and Biden discussed long-range weapons and the weapons “that may still be supplied to Ukraine”.
Speaking alongside Volodymyr Zelenskiy at Mariinsky Palace, Joe Biden recalled the fears nearly a year ago that Russia’s invasion forces might quickly take the Ukrainian capital.
“One year later, Kyiv stands,” Biden said.
Ukraine stands. Democracy stands. The Americans stand with you, and the world stands with you.
He warned that the “brutal and unjust war” is far from won, and that there will be “very difficult days and weeks and years ahead”.
But Vladimir Putin’s “war of conquest is failing”, the US president said. He said the Russian leader counted on the world not sticking together, “but he’s just been plain wrong”.
One year later, the evidence is right here in this room. We stand here together.
Biden pledged long-term support for Ukraine, saying that “freedom is priceless. It’s worth fighting for for as long as it takes. And that’s how we’re going to be with you.”
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said Biden’s trip to Kyiv clearly signalled to Vladimir Putin that “no one is afraid of you”.
In a statement, Kuleba said:
This visit is the victory of the Ukrainian people and President Zelenskiy. It has been conducted in spite of everything for the sake of Ukraine’s victory and all the free world. It is a clear signal to the swamp – no one is afraid of you!
…If Kacsmaryk bans mifepristone, it will be an attack on women’s health, not just on abortion, Gomperts says.
Mifepristone, combined with misoprostol, is the best miscarriage treatment, she explains. Mifepristone is shown to be beneficial for people with breast cancer. It works against myoma, a condition that causes heavy bleeding in women, and endometriosis, a condition where the endometrium is outside of the womb and can cause extreme pain. And it can be used as a birth control pill – Gomperts is currently crowdfunding for a clinical trial to test mifepristone’s safety and effectiveness as a weekly contraceptive. [Links to sources would be great here.]
“It really is a lifesaving drug and is relevant to many conditions that women have,” says Gomperts.
“There shouldn’t be any gatekeepers here. There shouldn’t be a doctor, a pharmacy, nothing. These medicines have such a high safety profile. They’re so safe, they shouldn’t even be prescribed, they should be available over the counter. That is the goal. That is what we’re fighting for,” she says.
Of course, Gomperts recognizes that if misoprostol-only abortions are the only option, they should be used – that’s why she pivoted to them herself in 2020. But she thinks we should reject the premise that it’s all we’ve got – just because US courts seem to be having a dark-ages moment, that doesn’t mean we should roll back the rights we believe ourselves to be entitled to.
No matter what Kacsmaryk rules, Gomperts’ organization, Aid Access, and others like it will still be shipping mifepristone all over the US. “People should know we will continue to provide medication abortions this way, whatever the ruling is,” she says….
…“There are difficult conversations ahead for New Zealand about exactly where we all live,” finance minister Grant Robertson said on Sunday, shortly after walking through the remains of a ruined power station. “And the infrastructure that’s required to get us to and from all of that.”
As the climate heats, scientists agree that extreme weather events – including flooding and cyclones – will happen more frequently, and with greater intensity. According to the government’s national adaptation plan, one in seven New Zealanders, or 675,000 people, live in areas prone to flooding, and another 72,065 live in areas projected to be subject to extreme sea level rise. Some of those areas can be protected by extensive mitigation measures – sea walls, stop-banks, stilts, early warning systems for flooding. In others, however, those measures will be cripplingly expensive, or simply impossible – leaving an intolerable risk to the lives of any who live there.
“If those communities go back and rebuild today, are we responsible for letting them do that?” Robertson said in a television interview on Sunday. “Two words New Zealanders are going to get used to hearing over the next few years are: ‘managed retreat’.”
While some may be forced into retreat in a haphazard way – as insurance companies refuse to cover flood-prone properties – it is a question that will also fall to the central government, which must decide what level of risk to life is tolerable, and whether to continue funding and rebuilding the crucial infrastructure that sustains those towns. “If we’re going to build back quickly, some tough calls will need to be made,” prime minister Chris Hipkins said on Sunday….
…Biggar’s real concern is not with the past but with the present. Denigrating colonialism, he claims, is an “important way of corroding faith in the west”. Yet, in seeking to challenge what he regards as cartoonish views of imperial history, Biggar has produced something equally [?] cartoonish, a politicised history that ill-serves his aim of defending “western values”. After all, to rewrite the past to suit the needs of the present, and to defend people’s rights only when politically convenient, is hardly to present those values in a flattering light.
here at the “rage against the war machine” rally in dc, matthew heimbach & shandon simpson tell me they aren’t white nationalists “anymore,” and simpson denies ever being a member of atomwaffen. color me unconvinced!…
Livetweeted thread with photos and video follows.
Quite an assortment at this sparsely attended event: Larouchites, Proud Boys, Oathkeepers, Charlottesville Nazis, Ron Paul, Jill Stein, Jimmy Dore (WSWS: “At one point, Dore bizarrely asked, ‘Why are we sending that money to Nazis in Ukraine when we could be funding Nazis here in America struggling to buy eggs?'”), Roger Waters (via video), Dennis Kucinich, and Tulsi Gabbard.
LOL, Michael McFaul tweeted “Jumping on @Morning_Joe” a few minutes ago and then appeared on Morning Joe seconds after I read the tweet.
ravensays
Thread
Dmitri @wartranslated
Bombshell audio recording indicates Prigozhin is unable to solve any issues with ammunition for Wagner.
This morning, Prigozhin’s mouthpiece channel posted a 7-minute recording of him saying that he is forced to “apologise and obey” to get ammunition.
Resorting to near-yelling, Prigozhin declares he is aware the Russian MoD has enough ammunition produced but doesn’t understand where the limits are coming from. It appears that no recent attempts to raise ammo have worked and Wagner is cut off from supply completely.
It is obvious that Wagner and Prigozhin are being pushed to the side.
Most likely the Russian dictatorship and the Russian army saw an independent power block forming and knew that was bad news. Russia is ruled by force and threats of force and a mercenary army with tanks and jet fighters is a real threat.
There is an outside chance that the Russian army saw Wagner wasting prisoner manpower by the thousands and decided that wasn’t cost effective. Unlikely, but not impossible.
Reports are that now the Russian army is copying Wagner and recruiting cannon fodder from the prisons.
In Vladivostok, police and employees of Center E, Russia’s Anti-Extremism Center, visited the Mayak community center, which helps LGBTQ+ people and women facing domestic violence.
Mayak representatives said on social media that this was the first police visit to the community center. Previously, police have tried to disrupt Mayak events outside of the city.
“The police have chosen a psychological support group for LGBT+ people as a target,” Mayak said.
During their visit the police spoke about “LGBT propaganda,” looked through the center’s brochures, and required several employees to go to the police station to have their fingerprints taken.
“They required that one activist become an ‘informant,’ otherwise they threatened that they would charge him personally with running Mayak,” the center said in a statement.
The Russian justice ministry has declared Mayak and its leader, the human rights activist Regina Duzgkoeva, “foreign agents.”
The film Navalny, directed by Daniel Roher, won the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award for best documentary.
The film, by Canadian director Roher, is about Russian politician Alexey Navalny’s poisoning with Novichok, his treatment, and his return to Russia.
ravensays
Thread
NOËL 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @NOELreports
Biden in Kyiv, while the air alarm goes off. Today is going to be a good day.
Biden and Zelenskyi strolling trough Kyiv while the air alarm is still going off. Do they look scared to you?
Bosses.
I’m not easily impressed.
I’m impressed.
Biden is 80 years old and Kyiv is one of the most dangerous spots on earth. Ground zero for a major war zone.
That took real courage from a lot of people to pull this off.
ravensays
FWIW, I watched the videos of BIden walking through Kyiv with President Zelenskiy.
His physical two days ago said he still showed “stiffness of gait” of unknown significance.
I didn’t really see that. He was walking well and keeping up easily with Zelenskiy who is just over half his age.
He looks good for an 80 year old.
Reginald Selkirksays
@408: It is obvious that Wagner and Prigozhin are being pushed to the side.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has given Fox News’ Tucker Carlson exclusive access to 41,000 hours of Capitol surveillance footage from the Jan. 6 riot, McCarthy sources tell me.
Carlson TV producers were on Capitol Hill last week to begin digging through the trove, which includes multiple camera angles from all over Capitol grounds. Excerpts will begin airing in the coming weeks.
“Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Fox News, and “Tucker Carlson Today” and “Tucker Carlson Originals” on the streaming service Fox Nation — have a massive trove of raw material.
Carlson told me: “[T]here was never any legitimate reason for this footage to remain secret.”
“If there was ever a question that’s in the public’s interest to know, it’s what actually happened on January 6. By definition, this video will reveal it. It’s impossible for me to understand why any honest person would be bothered by that.”
The Jan. 6 committee played numerous excerpts of the footage at last year’s captivating hearings. (See the committee’s archive.)
The archive was previously reported to be 14,000 hours. I’m told it’s now much more.
McCarthy told reporters in Statuary Hall last month that he thinks “the American public should actually see all [that] happened instead of a report that’s written [on] a political basis.”
Carlson argued on his show last month that Washington has “a regime of secrecy and deceit.”
Carlson last year called the attack an “outbreak of mob violence, a forgettably minor outbreak by recent standards.”
Reginald Selkirksays
@413:
Carlson told me: “[T]here was never any legitimate reason for this footage to remain secret.”
Mmmmkay. And what is the legitimate reason for this access to be exclusive?
A good response to the current effects of right-wing moral panics on schools is papers about the satanic ritual abuse scare of the 80’s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_panic
The timing of Biden’s visit to Kyiv is excellent. He showed up right before the one-year anniversary of Russia’s illegal invasion. Not only does that timing show in a very real way that the USA continues to support Ukraine, it also steals the spotlight from Putin’s plans. In a way, Biden’s visit reveals Putin’s weakness.
Also, watching the videos one is reminded again how good Biden is at this sort of thing. This visit plays to Biden’s strengths.
In late 2021, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene briefly referenced “a National Divorce scenario” that seemed to allude to the dissolution of the United States. About a year later, the Georgia Republican seemed to predict a “national divorce” in response to the CDC adding Covid shots to its list of recommended vaccine schedules.
This morning, as some elected officials released statements recognizing the Presidents’ Day holiday, the right-wing congresswoman published a message to Twitter that steered clear of traditional American patriotism. The missive read in its entirety:
“We need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government. Everyone I talk to says this. From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrat’s [sic] traitorous America Last policies, we are done.”
[…] She’s expressed support for violence against Democratic elected officials, and a year ago, the Georgia Republican appeared at a white-nationalist event. The fact that the congresswoman has endorsed a vision in which Americans “separate by red states and blue states” is entirely in line with everything we know about her.
But let’s not lose sight of the larger context: House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and GOP leaders recently rewarded Greene with committee assignments, including a slot on the House Homeland Security Committee. Are Republicans prepared to defend a member of the House Homeland Security Committee openly endorsing the dissolution of the United States?
That’s not a rhetorical question. GOP leaders should let the public know whether they’re comfortable with such a dynamic — and what they’re prepared to do in response if they’re not comfortable with such a dynamic.
[…] we’ve reached the point in our collective history at which members of Congress can publish such messages — which would’ve sparked a genuine scandal in the not-too-distant past — and much of the political world shrugs, seeing it as somehow routine.
[…] How comfortable is the House speaker with one of his prominent allies calling for the breaking up of our country? What is he prepared to do about it? Can we feel confident in the work of the House Homeland Security Committee knowing that Greene is on it — and she no longer wants to live in the same nation as many Americans? […]
Papers on the satanic ritual abuse scare by students in the schools. I had the thought in response to the black children being told to pick things more recent than civil rights or slavery.
Mr Biden had been scheduled to fly out from the US to Warsaw on Monday evening, for a two-day trip.
The advance schedule had two suspiciously lengthy gaps in his itinerary, and many wondered if that might be when he would slip into Ukraine.
Reporters at the daily White House press briefings have been repeatedly asking about a visit. We were told that there was no meeting scheduled with Mr Zelensky and no stops planned outside Warsaw “right now”.
The final decision to make the trip to Kyiv was only taken on Friday, even though it had been planned for months with a handful of the presidents’ top aides.
On Sunday, the official White House schedule still showed the president taking off for Warsaw at 19:00 EST (00:00 GMT) on Monday evening. In fact, Air Force One took off at 04:15 EST on Sunday morning.
On board was a deliberately small team of his closest aides, a medical team and security officers.
Only two journalists were allowed to travel with the president. They were sworn to secrecy and had their mobile phones taken away from them. They were not allowed to report the visit until after Mr Biden had arrived in Kyiv.
Russia was notified of the trip a few hours before Mr Biden’s departure, according to the US national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
He said the US “did so for deconfliction purposes… I won’t get into how they responded or what the precise nature of our message was, but I can confirm we provided that notice”.
President Biden then spent 10 hours on a train to get to Kyiv. He could have visited other locations inside Ukraine that would have been easier to get to, but he wanted to make the symbolic trip to Kyiv itself…
Now 50, and an elected official in a city far from India, Sawant has proposed an ordinance to add caste to Seattle’s anti-discrimination laws. If her fellow council members approve it Tuesday, Seattle will become the first city in the United States to specifically outlaw caste discrimination…
johnson catmansays
re Lynna @419:
Biden also climbed a lot stairs.
I bet he could have descended a ramp without stumbling if one had been available.
Wonkette: “Biden In Ukraine, And GOP Seditionists And Putin Apologists Think They Have Something To Say About That”
It’s been almost exactly a year since Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the enemy of all good people in the world, invaded Ukraine in order to stroke Putin’s sick fantasies about making Russia great again. And because it’s Presidents’ Day, Joe Biden, the president of the United States, decided to make a surprise visit to Ukraine to see Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine.
It makes sense. Zelenskyy is a hero for democracy and Ukraine is our ally. It’s a striking visual. It’s incredibly meaningful.
And as you can imagine, the world’s vilest people are so angry about it. We’re not going to spend a lot of time copy/pasting all the idiot Republicans whining that Biden went to Ukraine and not to East Palestine, Ohio. They themselves are copy/pasting that very original thought, because they all read from the same talking points, and because pretending to give a shit about the town where that derailment happened is their thing right now. […]
Seditionist human wastebasket Marjorie Taylor Greene has had a bunch to say this morning. She is under a lot of mistaken impressions, notions she needs to be disabused from. For instance, that she is considered classy enough to make editorial comments on Zelenskyy’s outfits. That she is an arbiter of what is or is not “insulting” to America.
President’s Day 2023.
Zelenskyy can’t even wear a tie as he greets the President of the United States.
He gladly takes our money in sweat shirts and t-shirts, but Biden is dressed up.
So insulting.
America Last!!! [Tweet at the link]
In this next one it gets really weird. This person who literally sides with worthless domestic terrorists who tried to overthrow the government thinks she gets to say what “Americans” think about Joe Biden.
Of course it’s unsurprising that she sneers at “Ukraine’s government and war.” Putin loves it, we are sure. [Yep. MTG sounds like a Russian propaganda bot.]
This is incredibly insulting.
Today on our President’s Day, Joe Biden, the President of the United States chose Ukraine over America, while forcing the American people to pay for Ukraine’s government and war.
I can not express how much Americans hate Joe Biden.
After those, Greene flipped over to her personal Twitter account so she could REALLY get the anti-American seditionist shit going on Presidents’ Day. [snipped text here because this part was already covered in comment 417]
[…] does she realize her own state is voting blue these days and would likely prefer to stick with the real America?
Anyway, enough of her.
[…] Ron DeSantis was on “Fox & Friends” this morning, also under the impression that he’s got his finger on the pulse of “America.” He said, “I and many Americans are thinking to ourselves, ‘OK, he’s very concerned about those borders halfway around the world. He’s not done anything to secure our own borders here.'” We are sure Putin loves how DeSantis is reducing his genocidal war to a border dispute. (Bet Ron learned that one from Putin’s primo sidepiece Tucker Carlson.) [video at the link]
DeSantis [also] managed to shit on our NATO allies who are indeed worried about Russia invading.
[…] This is what it’s going to be [from Republicans]. Biden doesn’t care about the American border. Biden doesn’t care about East Palestine. Biden doesn’t care about America. He only cares about Ukraine. Whatever.
America’s last president tried to extort Ukraine into helping him steal the 2020 election, in exchange for protection from the country that’s currently genociding it. That’s leading to some interesting juxtapositions, as Ukraine welcomes a legitimate American president.
This is the Zelenskiy adviser who previously had to deal with Rudy Giuliani’s insane demand for Ukraine’s president to announce a sham investigation of Biden and his son to get anti-tank weapons: Andriy Yermak, “I’d like to thank the 🇺🇸 President’s NSA @JakeSullivan46, with whom we have been working on the visit issue. Enjoying cooperation with Jake. It always brings a powerful result.”
Anyway, Joe Biden is in Ukraine, and good people know that’s a good thing.
Since Presidents’ Day is for presidents and mattress sales, we’ll let Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskyy have the last word. All these other seditionist shitheads can get bent. [Tweets and videos are available at the link.]
Historic. Timely. Brave. I welcomed @POTUS in Kyiv as Russian full-scale aggression approaches its one-year mark. I am thankful to the U.S. for standing with Ukraine and for our strong partnership. We are determined to work together to ensure Ukraine’s victory. [Zelenskyy posted]
Hardline Republican members of Congress blasted President Joe Biden’s visit to Ukraine as he met with the nation’s president Volodymyr Zelensky, arguing that it showed the president’s misplaced priorities.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene criticised the fact that Mr Zelensky did not wear a suit or tie when he met with Mr Biden…
Hold on there. Isn’t that the person who cos-played as a balloon during the State of the Union speech?
President Joe Biden’s surprise trip to war-torn Ukraine was a diplomatic coup of the highest order—and that means Republicans are absolutely furious over it. Of course they are; the United States’ government’s solid support for Ukraine, translated into solid military support after Russia’s invasion and attempted annexation of the country, is precisely what Donald Trump and his team tried so very hard to sabotage when Republicans were in power.
From Trump lackey Paul Manafort’s efforts to undermine Ukrainian stability from within to Trump lackey Rudy Giuliani’s invention of increasingly asinine conspiracy theories meant to paint Ukraine as the true mastermind behind Putin’s attacks on American democracy, Republican strategists have increasingly looked to Putin’s oligarchy for both cash and inspiration. It came to a momentary head when Donald Trump used Giuliani’s manufactured disinformation as justification for withholding congressionally mandated aid to Ukraine as it fought against Russia-backed separatists and, increasingly, the Russian army itself.
Trump went even farther, suggesting to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Ukraine could shake loose that desperately needed aid if, in exchange, its government endorsed the Giuliani theories suggesting that Joe Biden’s son was engaged in Ukrainian corruption. It was that act of straight-up extortion, the blockage of congressionally mandated military aid while Trump pressured that country’s government to issue false statements targeting Trump’s most prominent political rival, that led to the first of Donald Trump’s two impeachment trials.
Oh, and Trump’s a straight-up seditionist now, but that came later. It’s important to always mention that, however.
Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin has had fans in the conservative movement and in the Republican Party for a very long time now. Conservatives, including Trump, have expressed admiration for the brutality with which Putin treats both political rivals and his nation’s press; others on the hard right are enchanted with Putin’s vicious campaigns against LGBT Russians.
[…] The seditionist flank of the Republican Party has been trying to halt U.S. support for Ukraine. Rep. Matt Gaetz, who remains influential in Republicanism despite, or perhaps because of, his participation in drug-fueled sex parties, is angrily demanding the U.S. “end its military and financial aid to Ukraine.” The list of co-sponsors on that one is a who’s who of coup-backing Republicans and conspiracy cranks. […]
“Chose Ukraine over America” is a nice touch, and the way you can tell that Marjorie Taylor Greene is still a deeply stupid person no matter what concessions she was able to extract from Rep. Kevin McCarthy. She could have gone a lot of different ways when formulating the proper pout, and chose the stupidest, most blowhardist, twitchiest, most conspiracy-minded version.
Other seditionists also chose the “why did he visit X instead of doin’ Y” approach, possibly by reflex. [See the link for multiple examples, including DeSantis claiming that Russia does not pose a threat to other countries.]
One big reason Putin’s war has not escalated is because, as it turns out, the Russian kleptocracy that Republicans so admire has so hollowed out the nation’s military that Russia cannot meaningfully escalate the conflict. It can only barely kidnap enough Russians to keep the current front lines filled, […] and Russian equipment has proven to be decrepit and in far lower supply than Russia’s own crooked commanders had expected.
That said, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ smarmy dodge suggesting Putin’s Russia does not pose a threat to its neighboring countries would seem to be disproven by Putin’s in-progress invasion of a neighboring country. But not a NATO member, at least not yet, so Ron don’t care.
[…] there is another critique: Joe Biden is being too damn gutsy here.
Conservative correspondent Byron York tweeted: “This is reckless. Bush, Obama visited war zones where US had huge military presence to protect president, deter attack. Some allowed reporting only after president left. Here, reason to be very nervous until Biden leaves Ukraine via ‘hourslong train ride.'”
It’s more than that, though. Biden didn’t just drop himself into Ukraine as means of showing the United States’ deep ongoing commitment to defending the country. The Biden administration told Putin’s government he was going, and all but dared them to do something about it. Multiple outlets have reported that the United States “notified” Putin’s government of Biden’s trip shortly before his departure for “deconfliction purposes”—that is, to give Russian military forces warning of Biden’s arrival and to put the onus on Russia to avoid attacks on Kyiv during that time period.
That’s not “reckless,” that’s an assertion of complete military control over the situation. The Biden administration made sure the Russian military knew full well where Biden would be so that if Russian airstrikes or other military actions did occur anywhere near the U.S. delegation, the United States would presume it to be an intentional assassination attempt.
And that, in turn, would likely result in a full-on United States assault.
That is not something the last Republican president, a coward whose photographed attempts to suck up to Putin were mocked internationally, would ever have dreamed of.
This has been an unreserved diplomatic coup for the Biden administration, and there’s simply no argument to be made otherwise. Biden displayed personal courage, putting himself at risk to underline just how deep the U.S. commitment to Ukraine’s safety continues to be. The Biden administration thumbed its nose at the Putin government and its tattered military, calling the bluff of Russian hardliners who boast impotently on the airwaves of wanting a wider war even as their conscripted military struggles with attacks involving mere dozens of soldiers.
And Biden thumbed his nose at the seditionists, isolationists, and pro-Putin strategists in the Republican Party who have been working to undermine America’s opposition to the Putin regime even as Putin leads a campaign of war crimes. That is what’s got the hard right most irritated today.
President Zelenskyy and all Ukrainians remind the world every day what courage is.
[…] Russian state propagandists will be in rare form. The milbloggers even more so, because of this:
The White House would not go into specifics, but national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that it notified Moscow of Biden’s visit to Kyiv shortly before his departure from Washington “for deconfliction purposes” in an effort to avoid any miscalculation that could bring the two nuclear-armed nations into direct conflict.
That’s a great public excuse. “To avoid conflict.” The reality is the U.S. told Russia to stand the fuck down, and Putin had no choice but to comply. That is beyond humiliating. Let’s see how that reverberates through Russian nationalist circles.
“Putin thought Ukraine was weak and the West was divided,” […] “He’s just been plain wrong,” Biden said of Putin. “One year later, the evidence is right here in this room. We stand here together.”
This really does a number for Putin leading up to his 1st Anniversary of the Invasion speech. Russian news media outlets have been drumming a “the West is growing tired of support” drum (per Julia Davis) in the last month or so, in the leadup to Putin’s speech.
[…] Putin had been planning to make a “Western Support is Waning” as a big part of his speech’s theme.
That’s gonna be a lot harder to sell to even Russians, when they just got done seeing photos of Biden walking the streets of Kiev and embracing President Zelensky.
Putin’s speech writers are gonna have some long nights ahead.
Rather than using Black History Month to recognize the adversity faced by Black Americans and celebrate Black culture, Fox News, its website, and its online streaming platform Fox Nation have instead used the month of February to peddle problematic anti-Black narratives.
Although Fox has aired a few Black history month segments — such as one on civil rights activist and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and one on the first Black woman to hold a pilot’s license, Bessie Coleman — more airtime was spent pushing racist rhetoric. Every day of February so far, Fox figures have spread anti-Black narratives, accusing President Joe Biden’s administration of anti-white racism; fearmongering about critical race theory being taught in K-12 schools as a part of a so-called “woke” liberal agenda; and undermining the existence of and harm done by systemic racism.
Fox News’ rhetoric on race has repeatedly contradicted its parent company Fox Corp.’s initiatives for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) — much like Fox News’ ongoing campaign of anti-LGBTQ hate contrasts Fox Corp.’s claim to be “committed to LGBTQ+ equality and inclusion.” From its own webpage on inclusion, Fox Corp. pledges that it is “committed to fostering a culture and environment where everyone, from everywhere, feels welcome and can thrive.” The page also lists “employee resource groups” including “BLK+,” which “celebrates the intersectionality of our Black colleagues across the diaspora at Fox, and seeks to build community within through programming and professional development while standing in solidarity with our allies.” Despite this corporate commitment, Fox News has given a platform to countless narratives that harm Black communities.
Fox’s behavior is part of a larger trend, as other right-wing media outlets and personalities have also pushed racist narratives this month. For example, The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh jokingly questioned on his February 9 podcast, “Why exactly is it a negative stereotype that a lot of Black people like chicken and waffles?” And on the February 1 edition of his own show, Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA declared, “I don’t think there should be a Black History Month.” […]
The Santa Fe District Attorney’s Office announced Monday it is dropping the gun enhancement charge — a crime that would have carried a five-year sentence if convicted — against Alec Baldwin in the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of “Rust” in October 2021.
Baldwin still faces a charge of involuntary manslaughter for the shooting, however, that crime would carry a lesser sentence of 18 months if convicted. The amended complaint was filed late Friday.
…
“In order to avoid further litigious distractions by Mr. Baldwin and his attorneys, the District Attorney and the special prosecutor have removed the firearm enhancement to the involuntary manslaughter charges in the death of Halyna Hutchins on the ‘Rust’ film set,” Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies said in a statement. “The prosecution’s priority is securing justice, not securing billable hours for big-city attorneys.”
…
“Another day, another motion from Alec Baldwin and his attorneys in an attempt to distract from the gross negligence and complete disregard for safety on the ‘Rust’ film set that led to Halyna Hutchins’ death,” Heather Brewer, spokesperson for the New Mexico First Judicial District Attorney, said. “In accordance with good legal practice, the District Attorney and the special prosecutor will review all motions — even those given to the media before being served to the DA. However, the DA’s and the special prosecutor’s focus will always remain on ensuring that justice is served and that everyone — even celebrities with fancy attorneys — is held accountable under the law.”
That prosecutor sounds like a jerk. The DA screwed up, trying to blame it on the defendants and win some points by lawyer-bashing does not put the DA in a good light.
The law didn’t exist at the time, and also the use of a gun didn’t enhance a separate crime; if not for the gun there would have been no incident which might constitute a crime. Trying to use laws in ways they were not intended is awkward.
The prosecutor should at least pretend they are seeking justice and not running for election.
“So it takes two years for Joe Biden @POTUS to visit the war zone he created at our southern border, but then he goes to see another war zone he created in Ukraine,” tweeted Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C.
The number of ways in which that is wrong is great.
A new 6.4 magnitude earthquake on Monday struck parts of Turkey and Syria that were damaged two weeks ago by a massive quake that killed around 45,000 people. Officials said more buildings collapsed, trapping occupants, and several people were injured in both countries, but there were no immediate reports of fatalities.
Monday’s earthquake was centred in the town of Defne, about 20 km east of Samandag in Turkey’s Hatay province, one the worst-hit regions in the magnitude 7.8 quake that hit on Feb. 6. It was felt in Syria, Jordan, Israel and as far away as Egypt, and was followed by a second, magnitude 5.8 temblor…
There isn’t much new in this article.
Russia is already very far along in taking over Belarus.
The only reason Lukashenko is still in power is because of Russian soliders.
Belarus only has 9.3 million people, a Russian speaking majority, and no allies.
AFAICT, the only thing left in the process of Belarus being taken over by Russia is the details.
Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s permanent representative to the United Nations, told Yahoo News: “Belarus is already a de facto Russian colony.
Lukashenko did one thing right at some cost to himself and that is keep Belarus mostly out of the war with Ukraine.
Yahoo News
Revealed: Leaked document shows how Russia plans to take over Belarus
The document, written for Putin’s Presidential Administration, envisages the total incorporation of Belarus into a “Union State” with Russia by 2030.
Michael Weiss and Holger Roonemaa
Mon, February 20, 2023 at 3:00 PM PST·19 min read
In this article:
A leaked internal strategy document from Vladimir Putin’s executive office and obtained by Yahoo News lays out a detailed plan on how Russia plans to take full control over neighboring Belarus in the next decade under the pretext of a merger between the two countries. The document outlines in granular detail a creeping annexation by political, economic and military means of an independent but illiberal European nation by Russia, which is an active state of war in its bid to conquer Ukraine through overwhelming force.
“Russia’s goals with regards to Belarus are the same as with Ukraine,” Michael Carpenter, the U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, told Yahoo News. “Only in Belarus, it relies on coercion rather than war. Its end goal is still wholesale incorporation.”
According to the document, issued in fall 2021, the end goal is the formation of a so-called Union State of Russia and Belarus by no later than 2030. Everything involved in the merger of the two countries has been considered, including the “harmonization” of Belarusian laws with those of the Russian Federation; a “coordinated foreign and defense policy” and “trade and economic cooperation … on the basis of the priority” of Russian interests; and “ensuring the predominant influence of the Russian Federation in the socio-political, trade-economic, scientific-educational and cultural-information spheres.”
In practice, this would eliminate whatever remains of Belarus’s sovereignty and reduce a country about the size of Kansas, with 9.3 million people, to the status of a Moscow satellite. It would put Belarusians at the mercy of the Kremlin’s priorities, whether in agriculture, industry, espionage or war. And it would pose a security threat to Belarus’s European neighbors, three of which — Latvia, Lithuania and Poland — are members of NATO and the European Union.
To some observers, the strategy confirms what has long been obvious and, at times, openly acknowledged, by both Moscow and Minsk. Rainer Saks, the former head of Estonia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, told Yahoo News that “in the grand scheme of things, this document is no different from what you might think Russia wants from Belarus. Of course, Russia will take control of Belarus, but the question is if it does so at the cost of independence. It is surprising to me why this target — 2030 — is set so far ahead. Why should Russia wait so long?”
“The ‘Union State’ is a threat for the Belarusian people and Belarusian statehood,” said Svetlana Tsikhanovskaya, the Belarusian opposition leader who lives in exile in Lithuania after contesting the last election. “It is not a union of equals. It is a roadmap for the absorption of Belarus by Russia. Since our goal is to return Belarus to the path of democracy, it will be impossible to do so in a Union State with Russia.”
The Kremlin did not respond to Yahoo News’ request for comment.
The strategy document, never before made public, was obtained by an international consortium of journalists from Yahoo News, Delfi Estonia, the London-based Dossier Center, the Swedish newspaper Expressen, the Kyiv Independent, Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung, and the German radio networks Westdeutscher Rundfunk and Norddeutscher Rundfunk, the Polish investigative outlet Frontstory, the Belarusian Investigative Center and Central European news site VSquare.
The authorship of the strategy document, according to one Western official with direct knowledge of its construction, belongs to the Presidential Directorate for Cross-Border Cooperation, a subdivision of Putin’s Presidential Administration, which was established five years ago. The rather innocuously named directorate’s actual task is to exert control over neighboring countries that Russia sees as in its sphere of influence: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova.
in Belarusian: “This is our land! and I will protect it!” last week. (Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP via Getty Images)
The directorate is headed by Alexey Filatov, who reports directly to Dmitri Kozak, the deputy chief of the Presidential Administration. Filatov’s team was tasked to come up with new strategies that would detail Russia’s strategic goals in all six countries, relying on the resources and input of most of the vital Russian state institutions. According to a Western intelligence officer with direct knowledge of the strategy document, Russia’s domestic, foreign and military intelligence services — the FSB, SVR, GRU, respectively — in addition to the General Staff of the Armed Forces, all actively contributed to the Union State plan. The resulting document was presented to Kozak in the fall of 2021, the same source told Yahoo News.
Like all six countries in the directorate’s purview, Belarus was once part of the Soviet Union. But whereas Ukraine and the Baltic states turned toward Europe and Western-style democracy, Belarus has been lorded over for three decades by a reliable Russian ally in the form of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, often referred to as “Europe’s last dictator.”
Lukashenko won the presidency in 1994 and has never relinquished it, through a succession of elections, none of which has ever been deemed free by international monitors. Especially egregious was Lukashenko’s last election, in 2020, when a mass protest movement took to the streets, denouncing it as stolen. Both the U.S. and EU no longer recognize Lukashenko as Belarus’s legitimate president as a result. Lukashenko’s rivals, including Tsikhanovskaya, have been driven into exile or prison. Human Rights Watch has documented instances of torture of Belarusian dissidents and pro-democracy activists in its prisons, including the use of electric shock and rape.
The concept of a Union State was first introduced in the mid-1990s, in the form of a treaty designed to politically, economically and culturally integrate Russia and Belarus. A federation modeled on the former Soviet Union was created in 1999 with its own governing institutions, including a council of ministers, parliament and high court. But the project fizzled, and full implementation wasn’t discussed in earnest again until 2018, to coincide with Putin’s aggressive geopolitical ambitions.
“The Union State was an old legacy of Belarus’s own ambitions, when [Boris] Yeltsin’s weak-handed Russia was in a crisis and Lukashenko, in power since 1994, tried to squeeze as much as possible out of Russia,” according to Anton Bendarjevskiy, a Belarusian foreign and security policy expert based in Hungary. “After Putin came to power, Lukashenko’s hopes were dashed, and the union treaty sat on the shelf for nearly two decades. It was dusted off by Putin shortly after his annexation of Crimea, in the face of opposition from his allies.”
In November 2021, Lukashenko and Putin signed an agreement allowing for 28 integration programs, mainly focused on economic and regulatory questions. They also inked a joint military doctrine. Left out were the political aspects of fusing the two countries.
And while other neighbors of Ukraine were horrified by Moscow’s brutal invasion last year, Lukashenko remains one of the few outward geopolitical partners of an increasingly isolated Russia.
On the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Biden said the Russian leader “wants to, in fact, reestablish the former Soviet Union.” Putin certainly seems dead-set on doing so outside of the areas denied to him because they are members of NATO or the European Union.
Russia has been steadily encroaching on the territory of its neighbors, with an emphasis on Russian-speaking populations. Putin invaded and illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014. That year, the Kremlin fomented, armed and financed a “separatist” movement in Donbas, in eastern Ukraine, drawing from a well-tested playbook for hybrid warfare already long in use in the breakaway territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, and in Transnistria, Moldova, where 1,500 Russian troops are currently garrisoned. In September 2022, Russia announced it was annexing four regions in southern and eastern Ukraine last year, even as its military was being pushed back in those very areas.
Rumors abound that Belarus will directly join Putin’s war against Ukraine, after allowing its territory to serve as a launchpad for the invading Russian military and ongoing fusillades of Russian rockets and drone attacks on Ukraine. Doing so would further link Lukashenko’s fortunes with Moscow and open up his regime to even further isolation and sanctions from the West.
The leaked document also outlines how Russia’s military presence in Belarus will expand to feature a joint command system and Russian weapons depots. Such a development would be deeply concerning to the NATO members along Belarus’s western border.
“If a strong Russian air defense force is permanently deployed in Belarus, it will also change the defense calculus for Poland, because the Russian-Belarusian force can intercept missiles from Poland from Belarusian territory,” according to András Rácz, a senior research fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations. “The question from the Visegrad Group side,” Rácz said, referring to the Central European umbrella of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, “is whether combat capable troops will be permanently stationed in Belarus. They already have Russian military objects, but no Russian military bases.”
Anna Maria Dyner, an analyst at the Polish Institute of International Affairs, a Warsaw-based think tank, said Russia’s strategic goal is to maintain a permanent Russian military presence in Belarus. “This basically guarantees the realization of the remaining strategic goals of taking political and economic control of the country. This situation guarantees Russia an increase in security stability, that is, first of all, some cover from NATO countries, while flanking the military operation in Ukraine,” she said.
The Belarus strategy document is divided into two parts. The first lists Russia’s goals in the short-term (2022), mid-term (2025) and long-term (2030). These are categorized into three sectors: the political, military and defense sectors; the humanitarian sector; and trade and economy. The second part of the document identifies risks associated with the goals.
For example, the document advocates the “formation of pro-Russian sentiments in political and military elites and the population” by 2022, while at the same time “limiting the influence of ‘nationalist’ and pro-Western forces in Belarus.” It also envisages the completion of the constitutional reform in Belarus that would be predicated on Russian priorities. Such reforms are in keeping with what has already taken place in Belarus in the last year.
In February 2022, Lukashenko held a referendum based on amendments to Belarus’s constitution. Among the proposed changes was removing the stated neutrality of Belarus from its constitution — one of several provisions that the BBC characterized as concessions to Putin. The referendum passed.
By 2025, the strategy document states, there need to be “sustainable pro-Russian groups of influence in Belarusian politics, military and business.” It also advocates the expansion of Russian military presence in Belarus and the introduction of a simplified procedure for issuing Russian passports to Belarusian citizens.
A Western military officer who was not authorized to speak on the record told Yahoo News that “passportization” is one of the key processes Russia uses to quietly take over sovereign territory. “They used it in Abkhazia as well as in South Ossetia and Eastern Ukraine,” the officer said. “They hand out Russian passports to local people in order to extend their interests in the regions. When needed, they can use their compatriots’ rights as a justification to intervene with force.”
The Kremlin has made no secret of its “compatriots policy,” which has evolved to include not just ethnic Russians but anyone who speaks the Russian language. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov wrote in an article for Russian newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta in 2015 that offering “comprehensive support” to Russian speakers outside Russian Federation territory was “an unconditional foreign-policy priority for Russia.”
Belarus’s political establishment is to eventually fall under the dominion of “stable pro-Russian groups of influence,” the document states. But it’s not only political and military control that Russia wants to have over Belarus.
Another unmistakable aspect of Russia’s slow-motion state capture is the introduction of a single monetary currency. While the document doesn’t explicitly state that this would be the Russian ruble, the implication is obvious, given Russia’s hegemonic role in the relationship.
Indeed, the general context of the strategy doesn’t leave much room for interpretation that Moscow is seeking to gobble up Minsk’s marketplace. The majority of Belarusian exports have always gone to Russia, but with the introduction of Western sanctions on Lukashenko’s government, they became even more crucial. Russia has also propped up its economically straitened neighbor in the form of loans and budget transfers.
Energy integration is another factor for the pending Union State. The document implies that Ostrovets 1, Belarus’s lone nuclear reactor, which was financed by Russia’s state-owned atomiс energy corporation, is intended to be enlisted in a power-sharing scheme between the two countries. Belarus already imports its gas from Russia. According to Dzmitry Kruk, a senior researcher at BEROC, a leading Belarusian economic think tank, currently based in Kyiv, “Russia remains in control of the Belarusian energy sector, further deepening the country’s dependence on Russia. And Belarus will also have to pay for it.” The document also redirects the landlocked Belarus’s cargo shipping from its Baltic neighbors to Russian ports.
A significant part of Russia’s strategy for Belarus focuses on what the document calls “the humanitarian sphere,” a euphemism for Russianizing and controlling the country’s civil society. One stated long-term objective is doubling the number of Belarusian students studying in Russian universities, or “opening of new centers of science and culture” in the Belarusian cities of Mogilev, Grodno and Vitebsk. These centers would be branches of Rossotrudnichestvo, a Russian cultural outreach organization that technically operates under the auspices of Russia’s Foreign Ministry. However, Rossotrudnichestvo is a notorious clearinghouse for Russian intelligence operatives and agents of influence, making Moscow’s capacity to recruit Belarusians to its security organs that much easier.
The Union State program calls for the creation of a network of Moscow-friendly nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), with financial and legal support from Russia to keep them running. This, too, would pose new international security headaches for NATO and the EU. “The Kremlin has long used dirty money, banks, companies, NGOs and law firms to support malign and subversive activities in the West,” John Sipher, a former CIA officer focused on Russia, told Yahoo News. “They’ve had an even easier time in the Russian-speaking countries in their periphery, and what this document outlines is what they’d have liked to do in Ukraine before the war and probably still think they can do now.”
By 2030, the strategy document states, Russia must have “control of the information space” and must establish “a single cultural space” and “common approach to the interpretation of history” in Belarus. One key deliverable in this realm is the predominance of the Russian language over Belarusian — something already largely in place. Russian is enshrined in the Belarusian constitution as one of two state languages. According to a 2019 census, more than 60% of Belarusians claimed Belarusian as their native tongue, but more than 70% of the country indicated that they also speak Russian at home.
Belarus’s government is also drifting towards Russia. Lukashenko foreclosed on Belarus’s cooperation with Europe after he brutally suppressed the mass protests after the 2020 election. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe subsequently concluded that the election was “falsified and that massive and systematic human rights violations have been committed by the Belarusian security forces in response to peaceful demonstrations and protests.”
“If it were not for Putin, Lukashenko would not have survived,” Tsikhanouskaya, the opposition leader, told Yahoo News. “Therefore, Lukashenko is now repaying [Putin] with Belarus’s sovereignty.”
One Western intelligence source added: “Lukashenko always kept an open mind toward the West. That only changed with the 2020 election and the following demonstrations. Since then, he owes his power only to the FSB, which rushed to help the [Belarusian] KGB. Putin never made a secret of his Greater Russia idea, and he will do everything to prevent Belarus from opening up to the West.”
There are also signs, according to analysts and government officials, that Lukashenko does not look at the prospect of evolving from client to vassal with unmixed delight.
“Neither the politicians nor the local oligarchs have a desire to join the Union State,” the Western intelligence source said. “Despite its closeness to Russia, Lukashenko has always emphasized the independence of the country in the past. He and Putin don’t like each other very much. Either is waiting for the other to die.”
The Belarusian dictator has met with his Russian counterpart 14 times over the last year, far more than with any other foreign head of state. Lukashenko almost always emphasizes that the two nations are “allies.” But he has been conspicuously hesitant to certify that alliance by sending his own troops into Ukraine — something Putin is said to have repeatedly prevailed upon him to do.
In April 2021, Russia deployed its troops to the Belarus-Ukraine border, presumably in preparation for its forthcoming attack the following February. “In the summer of 2021, it was assumed that in six months at the latest, Ukraine would have been defeated and a puppet government installed,” a Western intelligence source explained. “Everything that the Kremlin planned for Belarus, according to the paper, would certainly have been implemented then.”
Russian troops invaded northern Ukraine from Belarusian territory on Feb. 24, 2022, making a play for Kyiv. Belarusian military installations have been used ever since to fly Russian aerial sorties and launch Russian cruise missiles and drones into Ukraine. Some Western observers have gone so far as to characterize Belarus as a legal co-combatant in Russia’s war of conquest. Following Russia’s invasion, one Western diplomat to the United Nations told Yahoo News, “Putin keeps asking Lukashenko to go in, and Lukashenko keeps telling him he needs ‘three more weeks.’ Then three weeks pass and Belarus still hasn’t gone to war. And so the cycle repeats itself, comically.”
Ukrainian officials, meanwhile, have been hot and cold on the likelihood or inevitability of fighting two invaders. “We understand Belarus’s efforts are to support Russia and refrain from joining the war themselves, but we also know how much Russia is pressuring them,” Andriy Chernyak, a spokesperson for GUR, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, told the British broadcast network ITV last week.
There have been a few telling episodes, too, of Belarus signaling its stated desire to remain, if not neutral, something short of an active participant in the carnage in Ukraine. In December 2022, a Ukrainian missile attempting to intercept a Russian one landed in Belarus. The incident caused no hiccups in Belarusian state propaganda, which might have otherwise easily turned this into a pretext for attack. Lukashenko has even publicly thanked Ukraine for not submitting to what he characterizes as Western pressure on Ukraine to strike back at Belarus.
He is said to be acutely aware that deploying Belarusian troops across the border would be unpopular and destabilizing to his rule. Acts of sabotage along Belarusian rail lines have been frequent since the start of the war, as have hacks waged by exiled Belarusian IT experts that have halted train cargo carrying materiel to the front. Piotr Żochowski, a senior fellow at the Department for Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova at the Center for Eastern Studies, a Warsaw-based think tank, said: “Lukashenko is trying to build his public authority by telling Belarusians that they will not fight on foreign soil. He just keeps repeating the phrase: ‘If we are attacked, we will defend ourselves.’”
But Lukashenko’s political bind has only tightened as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has faltered. Belarus remains a giant backstop for Russian forces, which have been engaged lately in training newly mobilized Russian conscripts on Belarusian soil.
The war in Ukraine has evidently slowed down the pace of implementing the Kremlin’s plans in Belarus. However, the war has by no means halted them. “The long-term goal to achieve total control over Belarus is still in force and hasn’t changed,” the Western intelligence officer told Yahoo News, adding that Russia continues to bank on its articulated strategy for the Union State and is still working to achieve its benchmarks. “Russia is aware that Belarus is trying to torpedo these processes,” the officer said. “Some of that is visible publicly, for example dragging out the political integration process. Russia continues to pressure Belarus regardless.”
Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s permanent representative to the United Nations, told Yahoo News: “Belarus is already a de facto Russian colony. And Lukashenko is in a Catch-22. The Russian invasion of Ukraine left him with no options. Putin doesn’t like him. His days are numbered. Lukashenko knows that well.”
Wonkette“James O’Keefe’s Dildo Lube Boat Runs Aground Maybe For Last Time”
It’s funny to read a headline about the board of Project Veritas ousting James O’Keefe and kicking him out on his ass. Board? Firing O’Keefe? Is Project Veritas some kind of real entity and not just the name that weirdo gave to his “me” time?
But yes, we guess Project Veritas grew into an entire organization of selective editing and dishonest conservative propaganda bullshit, with a board and donors and everything. We had a thing a couple weeks back on how the organization hated him so much he was put on a paid leave of absence. An internal memo painted a picture of an O’Keefe who had become completely paranoid and a “power drunk tyrant,” who stole sandwiches from pregnant women, and who was wasting donor money using Project Veritas to finance his failed theater kid dreams. He and his allies denied it all, of course.
But now we guess his dildo lube boat has run ashore for the last time, at least in its current incarnation. […]
The group’s executive director, Daniel Strack, informed some staff on Monday that O’Keefe had issued an ultimatum demanding that the board of directors resign for him to stay [LOL] R.C. Maxwell, a spokesman for Project Veritas, wrote on Twitter that O’Keefe “was removed from his position as CEO by the Project Veritas board.”
[…]
The Washington Postreports on the speech O’Keefe delivered this morning, where he explained more about that ultimatum:
O’Keefe said he wrote a letter to the board on Feb. 16 proposing that its members resign by the end of last week “or I’ll be forced to walk away.”
“I was asked to be gone until the 20th; it is now the 20th,” he said. “I asked the board to resign for their conduct, and they did not. So currently I have no job at Project Veritas. I have no position here based on what the board has done.”
[…] Toward the end of his remarks to staff, O’Keefe choked up as he thanked his parents, recalling how he founded Project Veritas, 13 years ago, from his father’s carriage house.
Hahahahahaha.
The Washington Post says O’Keefe told employees this morning, and then “proceeded to pack up his belongings.” It’s too bad nobody took some hidden camera footage of that to later deceptively edit and make even funnier than it probably was. […]
He hinted that he would form a rival organization, according to a video of his remarks obtained by The Washington Post, saying “the mission will perhaps take on a new name.”
Christ.
[…] In the recent big NYMag expose on Project Veritas, a former employee said, “Quite frankly, he’s the company,” and wondered how it would exist in his absence. So if O’Keefe decides to try to make Dildo Lube Boat II: The En-Dildo-ening happen, we can see how that would kind of become the new thing, which would leave Project Veritas … where, exactly?
Oh well, guess we’ll all just have to remain hot and bothered with anticipation, like we definitely are right now. […]
johnson catman @423, there was a ramp! Biden has no trouble negotiating the ramp at the train station.
In less happy news, here are Steve Benen’s summaries of the latest mass shootings in the USA:
The latest New Orleans shooting: “One person is dead and four others injured after a shooting unfolded toward the end of the route of Sunday’s Krewe of Bacchus parade, one of the largest of Mardi Gras season in New Orleans, police said.”
* The latest New Jersey shooting: “Authorities say four people were dead following a shooting in New Jersey, and the suspected gunman is believed to be among the deceased. Police in Linden in Union County said officers responding about 9:30 a.m. Sunday found two adults and a juvenile deceased.”
* The latest Texas shooting: A man fatally shot three teenagers before he sexually attacked a 12-year-old girl at a home in suburban Houston overnight, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office in Texas said Sunday. The suspect was found in the master bedroom of the home in Galena Park dead from self-inflicted gunshot wounds, Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said. Officers found the other victims, ages 13, 14 and 19, dead in the residence, he said.”
* The latest Memphis shooting: “A shooting early on Sunday morning in Memphis left one person dead and five in critical condition at two separate crime scenes that the authorities said they believed were connected.”
Sturgeon’s positions on same-sex marriage, abortion clinic buffer zones, banning conversion practices and on gender recognition, confirming he would “absolutely” challenge Westminster’s use of section 35 to prevent the bill – which was supported cross-party in Holyrood – going for royal assent.
The other two are transphobic (and at least in Forbes’s case, homophobic) bigots. Regan has spoken of trying to reconcile with former First Minister and SNP leader Alex Salmond’s “Alba” (aka “We-Hate-Nicola-Sturgeon”) party. The contest will be decided by votes of the 100,000-ish party members. I don’t know how the contest is run, or whether there is time for others to enter it. Either Forbes or Regan winning would lead to the end of the cooperation agrement with the Scottish Greens.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has given a long televised national address to the joint houses of the Russian parliament, in which he blamed the west for starting the war in Ukraine, announced Russia would suspend the New Start nuclear treaty with the US, and promised a new fund to help those who had lost loved ones in what he referred to as Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Putin claimed the Ukrainian people had become “hostages of their western masters” who occupied the country in political, economic and military terms […blah blah blah…]
Referring to the sham referendums held late last year, Putin praised […blah blah blah…]
Putin said the west […blah blah blah…]
Ukrainian responses to the speech were scathing. “He is in a completely different reality, where there is no opportunity to conduct a dialogue about justice and international law,” political adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said. Another adviser, Anton Gerashchenko, said: “The insolent thief said that Russian farmers harvested a ‘record harvest’ last year. And he shyly kept silent about the fact that it was stolen Ukrainian grain, which was transported to the Russian Federation by freight trains.” Ukraine’s ambassador to Austria called Putin a liar.
Russian state media websites broadcasting Putin’s address suffered an outage during his speech. The state-run RIA Novosti news agency said the outage was the result of a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.
Joe Biden had visited Kyiv on Monday to announce a new package of additional US aid to Ukraine worth $500m (£415m) including artillery ammunition, anti-armour systems, and air surveillance radars. The timing of his visit – before Putin’s address – was seen as a deliberate rebuke of the Russian president.
The US president then arrived in Warsaw late on Monday evening where he is set to meet with Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, along with other leaders of countries on Nato’s eastern flank. The US president will make a speech later today outside Warsaw’s royal castle.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he and Biden spoke about “long-range weapons and the weapons that may still be supplied to Ukraine, even though it wasn’t supplied before”. But no new commitments were detailed.
There have been at least 18,955 civilian casualties since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). The OHCHR released the report citing the number of casualties as being 7,199 killed and 11,756 injured, but believes the actual figures are considerably higher.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, said on Tuesday that the country’s defence minister and chief of general staff were depriving his fighters of munitions, accusing them of trying to destroy Wagner. “There is simply direct opposition going on,” Prigozhin said in a voice message posted on his Telegram channel. He said it was “an attempt to destroy Wagner” and equated it to treason.
Belarus said on Tuesday that there was a significant grouping of Ukrainian troops massed near its border and warned that this posed a threat to its security. “At present, a significant grouping of the Ukrainian army is concentrated in the immediate vicinity of the Belarusian-Ukrainian section of the state border,” the defence ministry said in a post on Telegram. “The probability of armed provocations, which can escalate into border incidents, has been high for a long time,” it said, adding that it would take “measures to adequately respond.”
Japan is to provide $5.5bn in financial aid to Ukraine, the prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has said, ahead of a G7 video conference on Friday that will include the Ukrainian president.
The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, is in Kyiv to meet with Zelenskiy, and reiterate Italy’s support for the war-torn country. Tuesday’s trip is seen as one of the most significant made by Meloni since she came to power in October and comes a week after her coalition partner Silvio Berlusconi, the Forza Italia leader, blamed Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Researchers are announcing that a 53-year-old man in Germany has been cured of HIV.
Referred to as “the Dusseldorf patient” to protect his privacy, researchers said he is the fifth confirmed case of an HIV cure. Although the details of his successful treatment were first announced at a conference in 2019, researchers could not confirm he had been officially cured at that time.
Today, researchers announced the Dusseldorf patient still has no detectable virus in his body, even after stopping his HIV medication four years ago…
Centuries-old books, manuscripts and printing plates often contain invisible etchings, mysterious letters – and even doodles. A new technology that maps the surface of these objects is bringing them to light….
This is the first thing I saw this morning on my screen.
It reminds me of my childhood up north.
I was 5 years old in the 1950s when I started to nag my parents about our serious lack of a nuclear bomb fallout shelter. We then went on to duck and cover drills in grade school.
Things are not going well in Russia if they have to dig up ancient weapons like these and wave them around.
WORLD
Putin says Russia suspending participation in New START treaty, last nuclear weapons pact with U.S.
FEBRUARY 21, 2023 / 7:31 AM / CBS/AP
Moscow — Russian President Vladimir Putin declared Tuesday that Moscow was suspending its participation in the New START treaty — the last remaining nuclear arms control pact with the United States — sharply upping the ante amid tensions with Washington over the fighting in Ukraine. Speaking in his state of the nation address, Putin also said that Russia should stand ready to resume nuclear weapons tests if the U.S. does so, a move that would end a global ban on nuclear weapons tests in place since Cold War times.
Explaining his decision to suspend Russia’s obligations under New START, Putin accused the U.S. and its NATO allies of openly declaring the goal of Russia’s defeat in Ukraine.
“They want to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on us and try to get to our nuclear facilities at the same time,” he said.
Putin argued that while the U.S. has pushed for the resumption of inspections of Russian nuclear facilities under the treaty, NATO allies had helped Ukraine mount drone attacks on Russian air bases hosting nuclear-capable strategic bombers.
“The drones used for it were equipped and modernized with NATO’s expert assistance,” Putin said. “And now they want to inspect our defense facilities? In the conditions of today’s confrontation, it sounds like sheer nonsense.”
Putin emphasized that Russia is suspending its involvement in New START and not entirely withdrawing from the pact yet.
The announcement from Putin drew criticism from Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who called it “deeply unfortunate and irresponsible.”
“We’ll be watching carefully to see what Russia actually does,” he told reporters traveling with him in Greece. “We’ll of course make sure that in any event, we are postured appropriately for the security of our own country and that of our allies.”
The New START treaty, signed in 2010 by U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, limits each country to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers. The agreement envisages sweeping on-site inspections to verify compliance.
Just days before the treaty was due to expire in February 2021, Russia and the United States agreed to extend it for another five years.
Amid tense talks over the treaty almost two years ago, the top U.S. negotiator told CBS News’ Pamela Falk at the United Nations that the U.S. was “not going to allow Russia and China to continue” increasing their nuclear weapons stockpile.
Russia and the U.S. have suspended mutual inspections under New START since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, but Moscow last fall refused to allow their resumption, raising uncertainty about the pact’s future. Russia also indefinitely postponed a planned round of consultations under the treaty.
Those moves prompted the U.S. to accuse Russia of non-compliance with the pact as recently as January.
ravensays
From SC #439
…and (Putin) promised a new fund to help those who had lost loved ones in what he referred to as Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine.
That is something really necessary.
Reports are that a lot of Russian soldiers aren’t even being paid now.
And the Russians aren’t overly concerned with collecting their dead and returning them to Russia. There are also reports many of their dead soldiers are being cremated on site.
I don’t believe this will happen in any sort of effective fashion though.
This is Russia, after all.
They will set up a system that doesn’t work very well.
Most of the money will be siphoned off by everyone along the way.
The widows of the dead soldiers will get a bag of potatoes, a cabbage, and two chickens.
from the article above.
Amid tense talks over the treaty almost two years ago, the top U.S. negotiator told CBS News’ Pamela Falk at the United Nations that the U.S. was “not going to allow Russia and China to continue” increasing their nuclear weapons stockpile.
That wasn’t a very smart threat.
Two years ago would have been the Trump era.
We have no real way of enforcing such a threat whatsoever.
It is meaningless
On a Friday night this month in Knowsley, near Liverpool, a crowd of people gathered outside a hotel housing asylum seekers. Witnesses said missiles were thrown, and later that night a police van was set on fire.
The Guardian reporter Diane Taylor tells Hannah Moore that for those inside the hotel who had fled their home countries, it was a terrifying ordeal. The crowd protesting outside was largely made up of locals, but in recent weeks the area has been targeted in a leaflet campaign by far-right groups including Patriotic Alternative.
As Joe Mulhall of Hope Not Hate explains, the far-right threat in Britain comes from a tiny minority of people. But social media are giving them an outsize influence – and mainstream politicians willing to echo their language are playing into their hands.
“We are not at war with the people of Ukraine,” putin said today. Also today, russian terrorists, who are mistakenly called an “army,” shelled a public transport stop in Kherson.
5 people are dead, 21 wounded.
Indeed, killing civilians is not war, it’s terror.
MSNBC says Biden’s speech is at 11:00 ET, which is in 5 minutes. No idea.
ravensays
Tweet
Timothy Snyder @TimothyDSnyder
Credit where due. Biden warned of the Russian invasion. He reacted wisely and flexibly. And now he has gone to Kyiv to give hope. We haven’t had a statesman like this in a long time.
(Photo here of Biden and Zelenskiy looking cool and presidential in Kyiv.)
This is a widespread sentiment.
I’m so glad that we finally have a real leader as president again.
Instead of the last one, that shambling wreck of hate, lies, and incompetence that almost wrecked the USA.
We already knew that.
What is lacking in this article are the actual numbers.
They are behind a paywall.
I could get a free copy but only by giving up personal information I’m not willing to give.
COVID-19 vaccination associated with fewer heart attacks, strokes, and other cardiovascular issues
Download PDF Copy
Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Feb 20 2023
Analyzing the most extensive datasets in the United States, researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have revealed that vaccination against COVID-19 is associated with fewer heart attacks, strokes, and other cardiovascular issues among people who were infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
What I liked about Biden’s speech in Warsaw: he put the responsibility for ending the war on Putin. Putin started the illegal, senseless war. He could end it “with one word.”
A few excerpts from the speech:
[…] “Autocrats only understand one word: no, no. no. No you will not take my country, no you will not take my freedom, no you will not take my future,” Biden said in his remarks. “Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia, never.”
[…] “One year ago, the world was bracing for the fall of Kyiv. Well, I just came from a visit to Kyiv and I can report, Kyiv stands strong. Kyiv stands proud, it stands tall, and most important, it stands free,” Biden said.
“The defense of freedom is not the work of a day or a year, it’s always difficult,” he said. “But Ukraine is steeled for the fight ahead and the United States, our allies and partners continue to have Ukraine’s back as it defends itself.”
he Barents Observer reports that Russia continues excavating the high Arctic permafrost on land and under the sea to open new Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) terminals and dig channels for transporting the LNG in the shallow continental shelves and bays of Siberia. LNG has a lower volume of methane than in its gaseous form. Liquified gas requires massive fossil fuel extraction infrastructure on the tundra, Boreal forests’ frozen soils, and the shallow continental shelves off Siberian coasts.
The ice-cold waters worldwide have stores of submerged methane; in it’s solid form is known as Methane clathrate where the gas is trapped “within a crystal structure of water, forming a solid similar to ice.” […]
Much more at the link, including an explanatory video about Arctic methane.
If even a small fraction of Arctic sea floor carbon is released into the atmosphere, we’re fucked. Jason Box
tomhsays
Accountable.US
“The Election Denial Industrial Complex: Meet The Individuals Who Have Made A Cottage Industry Out Of Election Challenges”
Summary:
Those making a cottage industry out of election denial include attorney Kurt Olsen, newly elected Arizona State Senator Jake Hoffman, Former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, and “election integrity” activists Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips….
But Taiwan also hold territory just offshore from China – the island of Kinmen is just 10kms from the mainland city Xiamen. And further north, some of the Matsu island archipelago is less than 50kms away from mainland China.
In early February, life got a little harder in Matsu when two submarine cables providing internet service were damaged.
Last week, the deputy chairman and spokesman of Taiwan’s National Communications Commission Weng Baizong told local media one of the cables was damaged by a Chinese fishing boat, while the other was damaged by an unknown freighter…
Accidents with undersea cables do happen. Whether this was an accident or something else I do not know.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints engaged in the scheme for more than 20 years.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a nonprofit entity that it controlled have been fined $5 million by the Securities and Exchange Commission over accusations that the religious institution failed to properly disclose its investment holdings.
In an order released Tuesday, the SEC alleged that the church illicitly hid its investments and their management behind multiple shell companies from 1997 to 2019. In doing so, it failed to disclose the size of the church’s equity portfolio to the SEC and the public.
The church was concerned that disclosure of the assets in the name of the nonprofit entity, called Ensign Peak Advisors, which manages the church’s investments, would lead to negative consequences in light of the size of the church’s portfolio, the SEC said.
The allegations of the illicit shell company structure first emerged in 2018, when a group formerly called MormonLeaks – now known as the Truth and Transparency Foundation – claimed that year the extent of the church’s investments had reached $32 billion.
The following year, a whistleblower filed a complaint to the Internal Revenue Service, according to a 2020 Wall Street Journal report; that year, the newspaper said the church’s holdings had grown to $100 billion.
“For more than half a century, the Mormon Church quietly built one of the world’s largest investment funds,” the Journal said. “Almost no one outside the church knew about it.”
The SEC accused the church Tuesday of going to “great lengths” to avoid disclosing its investments and, in doing so, “depriving the commission and the investing public of accurate market information.”
“The requirement to file timely and accurate information on Forms 13F applies to all institutional investment managers, including non-profit and charitable organizations,” said Gurbir S. Grewal, director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, in a statement.
In a statement, the church said that, starting in 2000, its Ensign Peak investment management group “received and relied upon legal counsel regarding how to comply with its reporting obligations while attempting to maintain the privacy of the portfolio.”
As a result, it said, Ensign Peak established “separate companies” that each filed required disclosure forms, instead of a single aggregated filing.
“Ensign Peak and the Church believe that all securities required to be reported were included in the filings by the separate companies,” the church said in its statement.
After the SEC expressed concern about Ensign Peak’s reporting approach in June 2019, the church said, Ensign Peak “adjusted its approach and began filing a single aggregated report.”
Since that time, the church said, it had filed 13 quarterly reports in accordance with SEC requirements.
“This settlement relates to how the forms were filed previously,” the church said. “Ensign Peak and the Church have cooperated with the government over a period of time as we sought resolution. We affirm our commitment to comply with the law, regret mistakes made, and now consider this matter closed.”
[…] Putin has added into his rhetoric ever-more-heaping doses of culture war tropes that for American listeners might sound familiar, pushing a dark worldview and conspiracy theories of the sort favored by Tucker Carlson and the U.S.’s right-wing religious fringe.
Putin set aside time in his Tuesday speech to Russia’s federal assembly to rail against “the destruction of the family, cultural and national identity, perversion, and the abuse of children, up to pedophilia.”
[…] similar remarks have constituted a key part of Putin’s public outreach since he launched his murderous invasion of Ukraine last year.
In October, Putin declared that “there are at least two Wests,” and contrasted one of “traditional, mainly Christian values” against a West that was “aggressive, cosmopolitan, neocolonial, acting as a weapon of the neoliberal elite,” before referring to “dozens of genders” and “gay parades.” […]
On Tuesday, he repeated similar themes but struck a more mystical tone. He leaned into some of the same culture war tropes that have dominated the American right-wing over the past several years, notably around the integration of same-sex couples into the rest of society and questions over the provision of gender-affirming care to youth.
Putin then suggested in his speech that Western elites try reading “scripture,” which, he says, clarifies that “family is a union of a man and a woman.”
[…] “What can you say?” Putin lamented. “Forgive them, God, ‘for they know not what they do.’”
The Russian President added that “millions of people in the West understand that they are being led to a real spiritual catastrophe” and that “the elites are losing their minds.”
“We are obligated to defend our children,” he added.
Fiona Hill, a Russia expert who worked as senior director for European and Russian Affairs at the White House from 2017 to 2019, told the Wall Street Journal last year that similar examples of traditionalist rhetoric were self-consciously aimed at a Western audience, and were part of an attempt to fracture the West.
“What he wants to do is to stoke culture wars as much as possible,” she said.
Putin’s Tuesday cop to the traditionalist far-right did get some desultory praise from mid-level influencers in those circles, but it’s not clear whether it’s permeated deeper than it has in the past.
[Tweets and video snippets of Putin speaking are available at the link]
[…] It also works as part of a broader attempt to cleave Europe away from the United States.
Andrey Pertsev, an independent (and exiled) Russian journalist, described the traditionalist messaging in an article for for Carnegie Endowment last year as an attempt to portray the “‘correct’ Europe,” one which “preserves traditional values.”
“Echoes of this concept can be heard in Putin’s recent speeches, in which he reminds viewers that if Europe wants to retain its identity, it must stand together with Russia,” Pertsev wrote. […]
[…] The New York Times is reporting on that growing schism between Wagner Group and the Russian military. Now it’s come down to Prigozhin calling senior officials traitors. This seems to be coming to a head just as fighting around Bakhmut is reaching a zenith. [Tweet at the link, followed by video of close quarter combat in Bakhmut.]
Unlike Putin who spoke to a small herd of bored sycophants, President Biden spoke to an enthusiastic crowd of thousands in Warsaw’s Royal Castle. Said “Autocrats only understand 1 word: NO. Brutality will never grind down the will of the free. #Ukraine will never b a victory for 🇷🇺” [photos at the link]
President Joe Biden’s trip to Kyiv was a diplomatic masterstroke. There’s no other action he might have taken that would have demonstrated the United States’ dedication to providing Ukraine with the materiel to finish this fight. What Biden did took genuine bravery, and it sends a signal both at home, across NATO, in Kyiv, and in Moscow about the United States’ determination to prevent Vladimir Putin from seeing any benefit in his illegal, unprovoked, murderous invasion.
One part of the story of Biden’s trip to Kyiv—a trip that saw him strolling the streets of the Ukrainian capital next to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, even as air raid sirens were sounding—was that Russia was informed in advance. That turns out to be true. But the idea that Russia somehow “gave permission” for Biden’s visit? Nope.
Here’s a morning Q & A with national security adviser Jake Sullivan:
Sullivan: The Russians are saying they provided a security guarantee for the President’s visit?
Reporter: That’s correct. Yes.
Sullivan: Yeah, they—they did not respond, other than to acknowledge receipt of the notification. So, there was no exchange. It was mere notification and acknowledgement of receipt.
Biden told Russia he was going, then he went. He didn’t wait for Putin to say a single word.
The importance of Biden’s visit in preserving support for Ukraine in the U.S. is very important, and so is the message this sends to NATO allies. The impact of Biden’s visit also pervaded the droopy, downbeat speech that Vladimir Putin delivered to a carefully distanced group of sycophants in Moscow; a speech in which he not only announced that he was suspending the last nuclear arms treaty between the United States and Russia, but repeatedly treated a defeat in Ukraine as an absolute strategic defeat for Russia.
But maybe the most important message is the one that rolled out across Ukraine. Everywhere on Monday, from the citizens on the streets of Kyiv to the soldiers in the front lines, they got the message: America is with you. In the most literal sense.
That image at the top of the article? That soldier was taking cover from artillery fire in a bunker when the news of Biden’s visit reached him. He had an immediate response. “Today Biden visited in Kyiv, and we are very happy. It’s fantastic.”
There is a hope benefit here that cannot be quantified.
Still, in a way, Putin is right: Russia will emerge from the Ukraine war fantastically weakened. Its reputation as “the world’s second greatest army” is already in tatters. If the war continues grinding away at the physical components of this army, it will be so diminished that only its stockpile of nuclear weapons will keep Russia from being treated as a trivial power. Putin could still choose to salvage what remains of his army, but his speech is a firm indicator that he intends to go right on with the destruction.
The U.K. defense secretary has said that Russia now has an astounding 97% of its army engaged in Ukraine. Defeat that force, and there really is no other Russian military waiting over the hill. […]
[…] On Monday, Trump released his version of a Republican education reform policy. It is perfectly fascistic and does away with all of the pretend parental rights the Republican Party has been giving lip service to. It’s about putting kids in prison. Seriously. That’s the plan.
[…] Trump begins by explaining how he’s going to fix our public education by making it a crime issue. “We’ll end the leftist takeover of school discipline and juvenile justice,” Trump read into a camera on Monday, jumping track to explain, “Many of these car-jacking criminals are thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen years old.” That isn’t a jump to a different part of his speech. That’s the next sentence. The problem with public education is “car-jacking” teens. Or more specifically, the “leftist takeover” of education means we now have a lot of car-jacking teens. Something along those lines, it seems.
The bluntest instrument of the conservative movement, Donald Trump, does what he always does—demolishes the stated positions of the conservative movement by being relatively transparent about his (and his party’s) real feelings about children and at-risk youth and education:
“I will order the education and justice departments to overhaul federal standards on disciplining minors. So when troubled youth are out of control, and they’re out on the streets, and they’re going wild, we will stop it. The consequences are swift, certain and strong and they will know that.”
He then took one of those weird big quick breaths he takes when he’s going to talk some more.
Remember how Trump took out a full-page ad in New York newspapers calling for the teens caught up and railroaded in the Central Park 5 case to be murdered by the state using the death penalty? I do. Those kids spent the better part of their lives in prison for a crime they had nothing to do with, and it was people like Donald Trump—people with abundant money and racism and fear—that lead to that profound injustice. That’s what he’s offering as an education platform in 2024.
No parental rights whatsoever. Just state and federal imprisonment. Eh, I mean discipline.
[…] Elsewhere in his speech, Putin flat-out lied and said, “They were the ones who started the war.” He said he’s using force in Ukraine in order to “stop it.” You betcha. The speech was what it was. Read the full Washington Post roundup if you’d like.
But in light of everything that’s going on in America right now we’d like you to read this translated section of Putin’s speech, where he got real hot and heavy into the culture war shit.
In this age of rightwing smear campaigns and violence incitement against LGBTQ+ people, by Twitter accounts like Libs of TikTok, by Tucker Carlson, by Ron DeSantis and his vile spokesperson, and so many more. In these days of attacking transgender kids and accusing drag queens of preying on children. [video with English subtitles at the link]
“Look at what they are doing in the West. They distort historical facts, do not stop their attacks on Russian culture, on the Russian Orthodox Church. The West is perverting the family, the national identity.
“They are making pedophilia the norm in their lives, and priests encourage same-sex marriage. Forgive them Father, they know not what they do.
“The Anglican Church is planning — so far only planning — to look into the idea of a gender-neutral God. What do you say to that?
“We are obligated to protect our children from degradation and degeneracy.”
[…] Of course, this is far from the first time Putin has gotten into this shit. His war on LGBTQ+ people has been going for years, and he and his religious mouthpiece Kirill, patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, have specifically said that the Russian war on Ukraine is actually Russia’s war against the decadent values of the West. In fact, LGBTQ+ people have been Putin’s favorite scapegoats pretty much from the get-go. Read Kirill’s weirdass shit about gay pride parades causing the war. It’s pretty constant.
And of course, Putin has been cultivating this relationship with the American white fascist Christian Right, and they with him, for a long time.
But isn’t it amazing how much Putin’s tirade sounds exactly like American rightwing discourse now? The random, baseless accusations of pedophilia? Bellyaching about marriage equality? Meaningless paeans about protecting the children? […]
That’s all we wanted you to see, Putin sounds like Libs of TikTok, Libs of TikTok sounds like Putin, they’re all playing from the same unhinged fucked up playbook.
And people wonder why MAGA conservatives are so far up Russia’s ass these days.
More at the link, including a video excerpt from Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News.
At the northern end of the front, Russia has been trying to push Ukraine back from the area around Kupyansk. However, this effort seems to have stalled over the past few days. [map at the link]
Ukraine appears to have halted Russian efforts along the rail line east of Dvorichna between Masyutivka to Hryanykivka. In the Kupyansk direction, Russia seems to have reoccupied parts of Vilshana and Lyman Pershyi, but that seems to be about the limits of the advance. Most of these areas have remained in dispute since Ukraine crossed the Oskil River, so it’s not much of a significant advance. It doesn’t seem that Russia has enough force in the area to extend this effort or that they’ve come close to impacting Ukrainian control over the P07 highway running east out of Kupyansk—meaning that Ukraine still has multiple routes to supply its forces in the Svatove area.
At the northern end of this map, Russian sources are claiming that they have captured Dvorichne and are right across the river from Dvorichna. However, this is unconfirmed by Ukrainian sources.
There were reports from some quarters that Ukraine had made an advance near Svatove on Monday. However, this hasn’t been confirmed and may just be a rumor.
At the moment, things around Kreminna are confusing enough that I’m not going to attempt to map there. There are multiple reports of Russia slowly making its way west, with Russian troops reportedly reaching Novovodyne to the north and reestablishing control over the P66 highway between Svatove and Kreminna. On the other hand, there continue to be reports of action in the towns along that highway just north of Kreminna, and Ukrainian forces in the woods just to the south (although Russia is also said to be moving toward Bilohorvika).
One report that keeps coming up: mud. Bad weather and bad conditions have reportedly slowed Russia’s attempted advance.
Russia appears to be putting a significant effort into moving the line, especially north of the city, but I can’t tell yet how successful they have been. I’ll try to revisit this in the next few days to see if there’s a better sense of what’s happening. Some Russian sources are claiming that Bilohorivka has been recaptured and that Ukraine has been forced out of Luhansk. To which I can only reply … that’s probably not true.
Fighting around Bakhmut has been repeatedly described today as “the most intense since the invasion began.” That includes Russian forces pressing forward both north and south of the city. There is a tremendous feeling that Russia is doing everything possible to capture the city by Friday to give Putin a cherry for the anniversary of first rolling his tanks over the border. [map at the link]
North of the city, Russia’s efforts to move north toward Fedorivka or west to Zaliznyanske appear largely stalled. Instead, Russian forces continue to press through Krasna Hora in block-by-block fighting that is approaching the northern edge of Bakhmut.
On the east, reports that Ukraine intended to withdraw across the narrow river appear to have been accurate. While there is still some fighting going on east of this line, the river now seems to serve as Ukraine’s line of control.
The most concerning action at the moment may be to the south. After numerous failed efforts, Russia is throwing a large number of forces into an attempt to cross the highway south of Ivaniske. Their real target is Chasiv Yar, which represents one end of the last fully paved road that Ukraine controls in and out of Bakhmut. Ukraine has reportedly established additional lines of control into Bakhmut, but if Russia can get to Chasiv Yar, it will definitely crimp the best route currently in use.
At this point, Russia controls about one-third of Bakhmut proper, including all those much-fought-over factories and storage buildings on the east. A breakthrough on the north or south could give Putin what he wants for his Invasion Day present. However, should Ukraine hold against this all-out effort, Russia’s drive for Bakhmut might seriously culminate.
After months of fighting, what happens at Bakhmut is likely to be decided in the next few days.
[…]
Biden: “The United States and the nations of Europe do not seek to control or destroy Russia. The West is not planning to attack Russia, as Putin said today.”
Reginald Selkirksays
@461: Putin then suggested in his speech that Western elites try reading “scripture,” which, he says, clarifies that “family is a union of a man and a woman.”
A special grand jury that investigated election interference by former President Donald J. Trump and his allies in Georgia recommended indictments of multiple people on a range of charges in its report, most of which remains sealed, the forewoman of the jury said in an interview today.
“It is not a short list,” the forewoman, Emily Kohrs, said, adding that the jury had appended eight pages of legal code “that we cited at various points in the report.”
She declined to discuss who specifically the special grand jury recommended for indictment, since the judge handling the case decided to keep those details secret when he made public a few sections of the report last week. But seven sections that are still under wraps deal with indictment recommendations, Ms. Kohrs said.
Asked whether the jurors had recommended indicting Mr. Trump, Ms. Kohrs gave a cryptic answer: “You’re not going to be shocked. It’s not rocket science,” adding “you won’t be too surprised.”
tomhsays
Followup to #467:
A reporter told Ms. Kohrs that Trump had claimed the redacted materials “totally exonerated him”, to which she replied;
“she rolled her eyes and then burst out laughing. ‘Did he really say that?’ she asked. ‘Oh, that’s fantastic. That’s phenomenal. I love it.’ When asked if she had any response, she said, ‘I invoke my Fifth Amendment right. That’s what I have to say to that,'” is how the Atlanta Journal-Constitution described the exchange.
This is a followup to the comment at #452 about the Covid-19 vaccines.
They must have given up their email address because it has the numbers.
They used a database of 1.9 million Covid-19 cases. This is a huge database, a population level sample.
…the researchers found that being fully vaccinated reduced the risk of having a major cardiac event by about 41 percent, while being partially vaccinated reduced the risk by about 24 percent.
This sums it up.
It isn’t that impressive, reducing the occurrence of Major Cardiac Events by about half for fully vaccinated, but way better than nothing.
There are some limitations here.
They are calling fully vaccinated as two doses.
That isn’t fully vaccinated any more. We now know that the vaccines wear off relatively rapidly.
WHO’S DYING SUDDENLY NOW? — Unvaccinated more likely to have heart attack, stroke after COVID, study finds
Being fully vaccinated reduced the risk by about 41 percent.
BETH MOLE – 2/21/2023, 2:33 PM
A bout of COVID-19 is known to increase a person’s long-term risks of having a major cardiovascular event, such as a heart attack or stroke. But being fully vaccinated or even partially vaccinated appears to bring that risk down, according to a study published this week in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
The study, led by researchers at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, drew on medical records from over 1.9 million patients who were infected with COVID-19 between March 2020 and February 2022. Of those 1.9 million patients, a “major adverse cardiac event,” namely a heart attack, stroke, or another cardiac event, was identified in 13,948 patients, and 3,175 died following the event.
Overall, the researchers found that being vaccinated—fully or partially—was linked to fewer cardiac events in the six months following a case of COVID-19. After adjusting for demographics, comorbidities, and time since the pandemic began, the researchers found that being fully vaccinated reduced the risk of having a major cardiac event by about 41 percent, while being partially vaccinated reduced the risk by about 24 percent.
For those who had a major cardiac event, the median time of the event was 17 days after the start of a COVID-19 infection and 212 days (roughly seven months) since the last vaccine dose. Overall, the people most at risk of having a cardiac event after an infection, regardless of vaccination status, were male, older, and had other underlying health conditions. Previous cardiac events increased the risk the most, but diabetes, liver disease, obesity, and high cholesterol were also significant risk factors.
The study has some limitations. Namely, it couldn’t account for reinfections or possible differences from infections with different SARS-CoV-2 variants. But, its findings back up results from previous reports, including a similar study done using a Korean medical database. It also adds some new data to the literature by including partially vaccinated patients—defined as those who had only received one dose of a two-dose mRNA vaccine series at the time of their infection or were within the 14-day window after a single J&J shot.
In a statement, the study’s first author, Joy Jiang, noted that the researchers were surprised that even partial vaccination lowered the risk of major cardiac events. “Given the magnitude of SARS-CoV-2 infection worldwide, we hope our findings could help improve vaccination rates, especially in individuals with coexisting conditions,” she added.
Every credible analyst of the invasion of Ukraine has been stunned by the scale of the Russian President’s folly—and his failure extends well beyond the battlefield.
Excerpts from an article by David Remnick:
On February 24, 2022, Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, ordered the invasion of Ukraine, unleashing the full force of his military on an unthreatening neighbor, and the full force of his propagandists on his own population. He had little doubt about his prospects. For years, he had been regarded in the world press as a singularly cunning strategist; at the same time, he methodically crushed civil society in his country and sidelined any dissenting voices in the Kremlin.
So who was going to stop him on the road to Kyiv? Hadn’t Donald Trump, during his Presidency, exposed and deepened the fissures in the nato alliance? Under Joe Biden, the United States seemed finished with foreign adventures—humiliated by its chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and distracted by its internal divisions. And what of Ukraine itself? It was a pseudo-nation, hopelessly corrupt and led by Volodymyr Zelensky, a former sitcom actor with an approval rating south of thirty per cent. Putin’s serene presumption was that, within a week, his forces would overrun Kyiv, arrest Zelensky and his advisers, and install a cast of collaborators. Putin was counting on historians to celebrate his rightful restoration of Imperial Russia.
A year later, the ramifications of his delusions are enormous and bloody. We do not know the precise number of dead and wounded, though it is certainly more than a quarter of a million. Unmoved by the losses on his own side, much less on Ukraine’s, Putin has sent his minions to the provinces to scoop up more human material for the meat grinder of his war. And what of his strategic mastery? For years, the Kremlin leadership advertised the modernization of its post-Soviet military, the sophistication of its “asymmetric” fighting doctrine. But every credible analyst of the invasion has been stunned by the scale of Putin’s folly—the miserable planning and poor intelligence, the lack of training and logistics, the lawlessness of his officer corps. His strategy, it turned out, was of the most primitive and criminal variety: the deliberate targeting of civilian structures—schools, hospitals, apartment buildings, power plants, bridges. In Bucha, Kherson, Izyum, and elsewhere, Russian forces and mercenaries have carried out acts of torture, which have been well documented by journalists and human-rights organizations.
[…] Russian propagandists (much like the propagandists of the G.O.P.) refer to President Biden as a doddering hack, incapable of making it through a coherent sentence, let alone putting up an effective resistance to the Russian armed forces. Yet, in the past year, Biden has conducted a foreign policy of competence and moral clarity, skillfully balancing strength, diplomacy, and restraint. […] The Europeans have acted with similar determination. The opposition in Congress to supporting the Ukrainian cause has so far been limited mainly to the right wing of the Republican Party, with an assist from its attendant media outlets.
Putin’s failure extends well beyond the battlefield. He has isolated Russia from much of the world, undermining its reputation, its economy, and its prospects. Hundreds of thousands of Russians—often the best and the brightest in tech, academia, and the arts—have left the country. […]
Crucially, Putin seems not to care about casualties in his ranks. Just recently, hundreds of his soldiers were, according to a leading Russian officer, killed “like turkeys at a shooting range” in the town of Vuhledar, in eastern Ukraine. Putin responded laconically to the debacle. His 155th Marine Brigade, he said, was “performing as it should.”
One of the many gifts that Zelensky and the Ukrainian people have provided in the past year is the example of their valor and their sanity. In the most heroic terms, they have drawn the line against delusion. […]
Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal, is the first to make it through to the general election for an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
The Associated Press called her primary night win well under an hour after polls closed.
Her early win means that liberal hopes to retake the court majority for the first time in nearly 15 years stay alive. Such a shift in power would be all the more significant given the cases the court is expected to hear on the state’s draconian abortion ban, aggressively gerrymandered maps and any potential disputes stemming from the 2024 election.
[…] Shortly after the call, with about 61 percent of the vote in, former state Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly and Waukesha County Judge Jennifer Dorow — the conservatives — are duking it out for second within less than a point of each other. Dane County Judge Everett Mitchell, the other liberal in the race, is currently trailing in fourth. The top two vote getters Tuesday go through to the April general election.
Both Kelly and Dorow hold anti-abortion views, as well as hostility toward other landmark privacy cases: Kelly has praised the late Antonin Scalia’s dissent in Obergefell v. Hodges and Dorow called Lawrence v. Texas “judicial activism at its worst.”
Both also have ties to Donald Trump — Kelly received his endorsement, and went on a Big Lie-fueled “election integrity” tour in Wisconsin last summer. Dorow’s husband served as deputy assistant secretary for state and local law enforcement in Trump’s Department of Homeland Security.
How the Trump family is helping Trump campaign for the presidency:
Eric Trump is touring with far-right commentator Charlie Ward, an antisemite who has shared posts praising Adolf Hitler for supposedly “warning us” about Judaism; claiming that “VIRUSES are Man (JEW) made”; and calling 9/11 a Jewish plot. He’s also promoted a book which claims “that the official narrative of the Holocaust cannot be sustained” and shared a video attacking the alleged Jewish media for supposedly lying about the Holocaust.
Ward, who is a QAnon supporter, has also promoted fringe conspiracy theories claiming the Earth is flat, the moon landing was faked, and prominent people including President Joe Biden and Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett are actually “reptilian humanoid hybrids.” […]
Eric Trump is the tour’s most prominent featured speaker, and he and Ward most recently appeared at the tour’s stop in Nashville, Tennessee, last month. He and Ward are on a promotional poster for its next stop at the Trump Organization’s Doral resort in Miami, Florida. […]
Eric Trump touring with antisemitic commentators is part of a larger pattern within the Republican Party. […]
Ward trivialized the Holocaust during the ReAwaken America tour. During a November stop in Branson, Missouri, he said: “How many people in here know that more people have been killed by the jab than were killed in the Holocaust? And they’re still doing it because nobody can stop them.” […]
mages from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter reveal that China’s Zhurong rover remains stationary on the Red Planet as China remains silent on the status of its spacecraft…
The Southern Baptist Convention on Tuesday ousted its second-largest congregation — Saddleback Church, the renowned California megachurch founded by pastor and best-selling author Rick Warren — for having a woman pastor.
The vote by the convention’s Executive Committee culminates growing tension between the nation’s largest Protestant denomination — which officially opposes women as pastors — and a congregation whose story has been one of the biggest church-growth successes of modern times…
Former President Donald Trump is set to visit East Palestine, Ohio, on Wednesday, after criticizing the federal response to the Feb. 3 derailment of a Norfolk Southern train carrying toxic chemicals. But while Trump’s visit is drawing more attention to the cleanup, it also highlights the disconnect between his promises to Rust Belt towns like East Palestine and his actual record in office.
Trump visits as a leading Republican contender to challenge President Biden in next year’s election, echoing his 2016 promises to restore white rural communities and postindustrial cities. While those areas are most likely to suffer from dangerous train derailments, his administration reduced rail safety protections. In 2015, the Obama administration instituted regulations mandating that trains carrying flammable crude oil use electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes. This was a looser regulation than the National Transportation Safety Board had advised, and the train that derailed in East Palestine wouldn’t have qualified because while it was carrying tankers of toxic chemicals, it didn’t have crude oil.
Despite calls for a wider range of cargo to fall under new regulation, Trump went the other way after taking office. His administration rolled back the rule on trains carrying flammable liquids, stating that the cost of the new braking systems outweighed the benefits of accident prevention. The Associated Press found that the Department of Transportation during the Trump administration underestimated the future damages of derailments during its analysis by more than $100 million…
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 477
Trump and his handlers are counting on the fact that most of the residents don’t know about how his “policies” resulted in the derailment or would consider the facts of the matter “FAKE NEWS!!!!1!1!” A pretty safe bet if I know rural America.
Rhode Island congressman David Cicilline said Tuesday he will step down this summer to lead his home state’s largest funder of nonprofits.
The Democrat, who is a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Committee on the Judiciary, was named president and CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation, effective June. 1…
Cicilline has represented Rhode Island in the U.S. House since 2011…
“The Russian Federation is taking measures to ensure the next wave of mobilisation. Currently, they are actively building up capabilities to ensure the mass mobilisation of students from higher education institutions.” …
Yet, this will be surprising or even funny to many people. That is because zygotes and fetuses have never been considered persons. Not in our culture, and frankly not in any culture in human history.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Nato must “seriously plan” for the likely future reality of a Russian-controlled Belarus, the US-based thinktank the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has warned.
Vladimir Putin will “very likely secure significant gains in restoring Russian suzerainty over Belarus” and use it as a launch pad to further threaten Ukraine and Nato’s eastern flank, regardless of the outcome of his invasion of Ukraine, the ISW said in its latest update on the war.
It said:
Russia’s likely permanent gains in Belarus present the west with a decision about how to deal with the potential future security landscape on Nato’s eastern flank.
Invasionpalooza is underway in Moscow’s Luzhniki stadium, the site of the 2018 World Cup final, to mark the first anniversary of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Mafia-linked crooner Grigory Leps, seen here, was only just recently taken off the US sanctions list
In a sign of how the Kremlin believes spontaneous public outbursts are impossible, you couldn’t even buy tickets for this concert.
Per Russian media, state employees and students were paid or forced to go. They shut the doors to stop them leaving before Putin’s speech at the end
I didn’t think it was possible to butcher Viktor Tsoi more brutally than they did at the invasion concert last year, but this cover of Kino’s “Blood Type” – the most famous Russian anti-war song! – has done it.
Featuring Dmitry Dyuzhev, who has come a long way since Brigada
This soldier has been sent back home from the front lines to… rap, backed up by the Russian army choir
Here you can assess the rhymes he is busting yourself. Sounds a lot like Kasta (one of whose members just released an an entire anti-war album)
This is part of an extended bit about how Mariupol, the Ukrainian city Russia razed to the ground, is a Russian city.
This guy is rapping in Ukrainian (!) but then said “Glory to Russian weapons!” in Russian. And, yes, that’s Ramzan Kadyrov’s father Akhmat-Hadji on the flag
…
Russia may be running low on munitions, but Oleg Gazmanov is older than Putin and still out there belting pro-war songs at every opportunity
I once saw the late Iosif Kobzon sing this song to a room full of elderly Ukrainian women and Russian proxy fighters in full combat gear. Russia was pretending not to have invaded at the time so it got a bit awkward when he sang “Officers! Russians!”
Arsenal fans may be interested to know that the meeting is being co-hosted by Andrei Arshavin’s ex-wife Yulia Baranovskaya. Here she is explaining why it is actually Ukraine’s fault that the Russian army destroyed Mariupol
And now here’s Putin. “The motherland is our family,” he says. “The people standing up here are deciding to defend the most valuable and dear thing they have – our family.”
“They are fighting heroically, courageously, bravely. We are proud of them. Three hoorahs in their honor!” Putin says. “The whole country must support them. That means everyone who does that is also a Defender of the Fatherland. That’s what helps our fighters get on their feet.”
“Even children who write letters to our fighters at the front are very important. All our people are Defenders of the Fatherland. I bow lowly before you.” Then they sign the national anthem
Earlier, they brought some children who were “saved” by the Russian army in Mariupol onstage and showed a video including battle scenes. For one girl, it appeared to bring back some traumatic memories:…
The concert’s still going on, but Putin’s left and it’s 11°C below zero, so attendees are leaving.
– What about our boys freezing in the trenches?
– It’s their choice!
Photos, video, and links at the link. It looks so cold.
ravensays
Here is a Mastodon summary of a report on Russian Telegram. “The students were handed mobilisation orders by the military registration and enlistment office staff and were pressured to sign them. However, they refused, …”
I don’t think these young men have much of a future as policemen in Russia now.
It is known that Russia uses force and threats of force to mobilize their young and not so young men for the invasion of Ukraine.
I’m sure scenes like this are common all through Russia.
And likely to happen as long as the war goes on.
ChrisO_wiki @ChrisO_wiki@mastodon.social
1/ Cadets at the Moscow Police College have reported an attempt to forcibly mobilise them en masse under false pretences. They say they were locked in a hall while attempts were made to get them to sign up to join the army. They had to call the police to be released. ⬇️
2/ The Russian ‘Mobilisation News’ Telegram channel reports: “The cadets were assembled under the pretext of rehearsing a graduation ceremony. But representatives of the military enlistment office came to the meeting.
“The students said that they were detained for an hour and a half in the college on Fabritiusa Street by their teachers – department head Vyacheslav Rozhko and teachers Sergey Vasilyev and Alexei Novikov, as well as 2 representatives of the Tushino military enlistment office.”
3/ The students were handed mobilisation orders by the military registration and enlistment office staff and were pressured to sign them. However, they refused, leading to an impasse in which they were locked into the hall while their instructors refused to let them go.
4/ Mobilisation News reports that student Maxim G., 19, “called the police asking for help. The boy said that he was a cadet in a police college and that he and his classmates had been locked in the auditorium to force him to go to the front.”
The police students were released after the police arrived at the police college to free them from the police instructors.
The incident likely reflects another example of Russia’s ongoing ‘quiet mobilisation’, targeting state employees. /end
Source: https://t.me/mobilizationnews/9120
МОБИЛИЗАЦИЯ I Новости I Что делать?
Students at the University of Cambridge have voted to support a transition to a solely vegan menu across its catering services.
The Cambridge students’ union voted on Monday to hold talks about removing all animal products from its cafes and canteens with the university’s catering services.
However, the move does not guarantee that Cambridge’s catering services will go fully vegan, as that power lies with the university. It also does not apply to the university’s 31 colleges, although the campaign said it provided “an extremely strong mandate for colleges to begin transitioning to 100% plant-based menus”.
The group’s motion, which calls for the change in response to “climate and biodiversity crises”, was backed by 72% of non-abstaining student representatives who voted after a four-week consultation process. It comes after lobbying from Cambridge’s Plant-Based Universities campaign, which is supported by Animal Rebellion….
The patronizing statement from the University of Cambridge spokesperson at the end is pretty odd:
The University of Cambridge removed ruminant meat from the menu in all university catering Service cafes in 2016 and has a sustainable food policy which also seeks to actively promote plant-based options, remove unsustainable fish from the menu and reduce food waste. We always welcome suggestions from students and staff.
A link to part I and a description of the two-part episode are at #86 above. I have a few objections and remarks, but overall the interview is extremely useful.
On this week’s Fever Dreams, James O’Keefe gives his fans and foes a truly memorable send-off, while the Libertarian Party continues to its slide to the right. Plus, co-host Will Sommer discusses his years of reporting on QAnon—as well as his new book Trust the Plan: The Rise of QAnon and the Conspiracy That Unhinged America.
ravensays
Tweet
Amichai Stein @AmichaiStein1
Russia plans to seize the airport in Chisinau for the transfer of troops, claims Moldova president
@sandumaiamd
The Russians say the same thing.
There is no doubt that if Ukraine falls, Moldova is next.
They won’t last a week.
Putin cancels decree underpinning Moldova’s sovereignty in separatist conflict
by admin CNNM
CHISINAU, Feb 22 (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin revoked on Tuesday a 2012 decree that in part underpinned Moldova’s sovereignty in resolving the future of the Transdniestria region – a Moscow-backed separatist region which borders Ukraine and where Russia keeps troops.
The decree, which included a Moldova component, outlined Russia’s foreign policy 11 years ago which assumed Moscow’s closer relations with the European Union and the United States.
The order revoking the 2012 document was published on the Kremlin’s website and states that the decision was taken to “ensure the national interests of Russia in connection with the profound changes taking place in international relations”.
It is part of a series of anti-Western moves announced by Putin on Tuesday.
Alexandru Flenchea, Moldovan chairman of the joint control commission in the security zone around Transdniestria, said the cancellation did not mean that Putin was abandoning the notion of Moldovan sovereignty.
“The decree is a policy document that implements the concept of Russia’s foreign policy,” Flenchea told Publika-TV. “Moldova and Russia have a basic political agreement that provides for mutual respect for the territorial integrity of our countries.”
The Kremlin has said that Russia’s relations with Moldova, which last week approved a new pro-Western prime minister that vowed to pursue a drive to join the EU, were very tense. It accused Moldova of pursuing an anti-Russian agenda.
Wedged between Romania and Ukraine, Moldova, one of Europe’s poorest nations, has been led since 2020 by President Maia Sandu with strong U.S. and European Union backing. U.S. President Joe Biden met her in Poland on Tuesday affirming his support.
The 2012 decree committed Russia to seeking ways to resolve the separatist issue “based on respect for the sovereignty, territorial integrity and neutral status of the Republic of Moldova in determining the special status of Transdniestria”.
The Russian-speakers of Transdniestria seceded from Moldova in 1990, one year before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, amid fears that Moldova would merge with Romania, whose language and culture it broadly shares.
A brief war pitted newly independent Moldova against the separatists in 1992. But there has been virtually no violence in the past 30 years, with Russian “peacekeepers” still posted in the tiny sliver of land, which has no international recognition.
Moldova’s foreign ministry said it would “carefully study” the document.
Reporting by Alexander Tanas, Lidia Kelly and Ron Popeski; Writing by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Michael Perry
ravensays
Moldova more or less doesn’t have an army.
6,000 troops, very little in the way of tanks and planes.
Very small defense budget.
They are rated 143 out of 145 in defense power.
AFAICT, Moldova has never quite got it together enough to run a country.
This was and is a problem from all the former SSRs. Being occupied by the Russians for 70 years means they never had the opportunity or need to govern themselves and they are learning as they go along.
Moldova is one of the poorest countries in Europe.
Does Moldova have a military force?
For 2023, Moldova is ranked 143 of 145 out of the countries considered for the annual GFP review. The nation holds a PwrIndx* score of 4.0861 (a score of 0.0000 is considered ‘perfect’).Jan 9, 2023
Evgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group has published a photo of several dozen dead mercenaries. Prigozhin himself explains that all of them were killed on February 21, and that their deaths could have been avoided if not for the scarcity of ammunition supplied by the Defense Ministry.
In an interview to the self-styled “war correspondent” Vladlen Tatarsky, Prigozhin said the daily death toll could have been a fifth of the actual number of mercenaries killed due to poor supply.
Judging by the context, the photo was likely taken near Bakhmut, a locus of fierce combat in Ukraine.
“Who is responsible for their deaths?” Prigozhin asked rhetorically. He then blamed “those who had to make a decision about supplying us with sufficient ammunition,” namely Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov and Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu.
The reason for their reluctance to supply the private military company, Prigozhin added, is that “Wagner Group kind of doesn’t exist.”
The group’s founder posted a past ammunitions request addressed to Gerasimov, pointing out that Wagner Group only got a fraction of the supplies it had requested. He says that some high-ranking decision-makers in the Russian military supply the mercenary group without keeping records, even at the risk of facing felony charges.
Prigozhin is calling on patriotic Russians to start a social media campaign demanding “ammo for Wagner.”
A South Korean appeals court ruled Tuesday that government health insurance should offer spousal coverage to same-sex couples.
The landmark ruling is the country’s first legal recognition of social benefits for same-sex couples. South Korea has not legalized same-sex marriage or civil unions…
This piece by @stephenkinzer takes issue with the supposed “unwillingness of most war correspondents to cover the Ukraine War from both sides.” Leaving aside that it’s not the “Ukraine war”but Russia’s war on Ukraine, Russia simply doesn’t grant media access to occupied areas
“We read an endless flood of stories about Russian atrocities… Many are no doubt accurate, but the imbalance in reporting leads us to presume that the Ukr army commits no war crimes,” @stephenkinzer writes. What if it’s because of an imbalance in war-criming, not in reporting?
There are basic truths. Russia invaded for no justifiable reason, murdered tens of thousands, razed cities to the ground, and Putin just yesterday spoke of “our historical territory currently known as Ukraine.” The fundamental question here is not “Is Putin justified?”
It’s depressing how many people I recognize from their solid critical work on the US or capitalism have turned into wackadoos when it comes to COVID or Russian imperialism or both.
Oggie: Mathomsays
Reginald Selkirk @491:
That’s about 3,000,000 kilocalories. Not including the other chocolates that were stolen. Too bad the police weren’t eggzactly specific about what else was stolen.
Starlink says it limited Ukrainian military use, particularly for drones.
We already knew that Starlink was limiting Starlink use in Ukraine.
Now we know why.
As the Tweet states, apparently defending your country from Russian genocide is offense.
Much of SpaceX and Starlink support comes from the US government and the US military. You don’t think those 4,000 satellites are launched from Musk’s backyard.
They use government launch facilities at Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg.
·
Guardian liveblog:
KG @ #496, thanks for the response and the further recommendations (especially The Sugar Barons).
I’ll always remember that you recommended Čapek’s War with the Newts years ago, which is now one of my favorite books!
From the Guardian Ukraine liveblog:
(Haidai’s claims need to be taken with a grain of salt. IIRC, several weeks ago he suggested the Russians were withdrawing or had withdrawn from the area.)
Guardian liveblog:
New If Books Could Kill – “The End of History”:
Ukraine update: Russia’s big attack from Kreminna is turning into another epic disaster
More updates coming soon.
More clumsy, laughable propaganda from Russians:
More Ukraine updates, some of which have already been mentioned upthread, but we do find a few more details here:
Nicaragua frees 222 political prisoners to the U.S.
I think the “Previous Thread” link needs to be updated. it didn’t send me to the most recent previous version.
Democrats win control of Pennsylvania House, end GOP rule in competitive swing state
Reginald @7, that happens frequently.
Here’s a link back:
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/01/11/infinite-thread-xxvi/comment-page-2/#comment-2167105
So. Musk takes down the parts of StarLink that Ukraine utilizes for drones. And then, the very next day, Russia starts a ‘major’ offensive? Were I a more cynical man, I would wonder at the timing.
Going to repost my comment on Starlink and Ukraine because it makes an important point.
Apparently, SpaceX/Starlink don’t want Ukraine to do what?
Use Starlink to defend themselves against a Russian invasion.
It’s absurd and evil.
By claiming not to choose sides, they are in fact, helping the Russians.
The number of reasons I dislike Elon Musk is going up rapidly.
Starlink says it limited Ukrainian military use, particularly for drones.
We already knew that Starlink was limiting Starlink use in Ukraine.
Now we know why.
As the Tweet states, apparently defending your country from Russian genocide is offense.
Much of SpaceX and Starlink support comes from the US government and the US military. You don’t think those 4,000 satellites are launched from Musk’s backyard.
They use government launch facilities at Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg.
re Reginald Selkirk @7: What you want is the “Older Comments” link at the bottom of the current comments. The “Previous Thread” does, in fact, send you to the previous incarnation of the Infinite Thread (#XXV in this case).
They can’t really do that.
AFAICT, all they can do is limit Starlink operations in areas around where the front line battles are taking place.
Which of course, is exactly where the Ukrainian military needs to use Starlink for their own communications among themselves.
As well as using Starlink for controlling drones.
raven @13:
I stand corrected. Actually, sitting down right now, but I still stand corrected.
More Ukraine updates from Mark Sumner:
From comments posted on Twitter:
White House says blog post on Nord Stream explosion ‘utterly false’
https://www.wonkette.com/tucker-carlson-democrats-kill-mutilate-children
Guardian liveblog:
I can’t see that the USA would blow up those pipelines.
We had zero reason to do so.
They were already shut down, not being used, and not likely to ever be used again.
The Europeans discovered the hard way that Russian gas was too expensive.
You had to give up your national sovereignty and national security to pay for it.
Wasn’t worth it.
I hadn’t heard this.
That makes it easy for the Russians to blow up their own pipeline.
Followup to comment 16.
Posted by readers of the article:
NPR:
Plan to collect menstrual data on high school athletes in Florida is voted down
SARAH MCCAMMON / Updated February 9, 2023
I’ve said this about numerous medical procedures and drugs.
Wut.
Aaron Rupar:
Thread with video clips follows.
Tweet o’ the day. (I didn’t know this!)
@12: That worked. Thank you.
The New York Times is now reporting that the death toll in Turkey and Syria has surpassed 20,000.
“How Angry Parents Forced Florida to Back Down From Forcing Student Athletes to Reveal Menstrual History”
More on the outrageous menstrual history questions.
There is zero reason for the schools to know anything about someone’s menstrual history and a lot of reasons for young women to refuse to answer those questions.
Not least of which is that creepy guys with an unhealthy sexual interest in children are not uncommon in fundie xian areas and/or in schools.
How Angry Parents Forced Florida to Back Down From Forcing Student Athletes to Reveal Menstrual History
I think this belongs in the “about damned time” category:
Pence subpoenaed by special counsel leading Trump investigations
Special counsel Jack Smith is overseeing inquiries into Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack and the former president’s handling of classified documents after he left office.
Cartoon: Sarah Huckabee Sanders
A few more people who disliked Sarah Huckabee Sander’s speech:
Link
Posted by readers of the article:
New York Times:
More details from the article:
Republicans Have Some Ambitious Gerrymandering Goals For 2023. Will Dems Play Hardball For A Change?
Florida’s education system is vastly underperforming
Zelenskyy: Ukraine caught Russian plan to ‘destroy’ Moldova
This isn’t the least bit surprising and was already known a long time ago.
Russia operates solely on the basis of might makes right.
If they can invade and conquer a region, that is what they will do.
I’m sure if Ukraine falls, Moldova might last a week.
Then it is on to Georgia and Kazakhstan.
The big prize after Ukraine is Kazakhstan, a large empty country full of natural resources.
Zelenskyy: Ukraine caught Russian plan to ‘destroy’ Moldova
Lynna @ # 15: From comments posted on Twitter: The Swedes concluded the blast came from inside the pipeline, not outside.
So far, I haven’t found anything confirming, or even repeating, that. Although, I haven’t looked at Twitter itself…
Break from bad news – albeit an endnagered oratleats classed a svulnerable species. :
joyous under thirty second playing Longtailed Goral footage here
Five minutes of beautiful footage of long-tailed gorals in the wild here .
In case people want something different or as what Phil Plait used to call a “palate cleanser” on his old blog(s).
^ D’oh! Plus meant to include this species link :
https://www.wilddocu.de/long-tailed-goral-nemorhaedus-caudatus/
For a species profile info thingy too.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Guardian – “Most US Republicans sympathetic to Christian nationalism, survey finds”:
More at the link.
Guardian liveblog:
Kyiv Independent – “Belarus Weekly: Minsk, Moscow plummet in latest Democracy Index”:
More re #38 – Chrissy Stroop at Religion Dispatches – “Christian Nationalism is Authentically Christian — And According to a New Poll Most White Evangelicals are Supporters”:
Much more at the link.
Rioter Who Paraded Confederate Flag Through U.S. Capitol On Jan. 6 Sentenced
May he rest in prison.
Secret Russian Mission to Shield Putin From ‘Dwarf’ Insults Exposed
Companies involved in the making of the Chinese spy balloon could face sanctions
“Gaetz introduces resolution to end military and financial aid to Ukraine”
Matt Gaetz and the Trumpists are at it again.
They are open traitors and supporters of genocide.
The cosponsors of the bill, which are many, are the usual open fascists of the GOP.
“America is in a state of managed decline, and it will exacerbate if we continue to hemorrhage taxpayer dollars toward a foreign war,” he said. We must suspend all foreign aid for the War in Ukraine and demand that all combatants in this conflict reach a peace agreement immediately.”Cthulhu, this guy is stupid.
.1. No, American is not in a state of managed decline.
If any country is, it is Russia which is rapidly declining in every way.
.2. We aren’t spending all that much in Ukraine.
To destroy our main enemy’s military, it is extremely cost effective money, well spent.
.3. Yeah, demanding that Russia get out of Ukraine is going to work really well.
It probably won’t even make what passes for the daily news in Russia.
Gaetz introduces resolution to end military and financial aid to Ukraine
Guardian liveblog:
They’re very consistent in their responses to people who make them angry: disparage them using misogynistic and homophobic slurs and then call for them to be killed.
I wish to post a link to a TikTok about “Correctile Dysfunction”, but without splattering the thing itself onto the page.
How do I do this?
_
New Mad in America podcast episode – “Psychiatry’s Cycle of Ignorance and Reinvention: An Interview with Owen Whooley”:
New Citations Needed – “Ep 176: How the ‘Parental Rights’ Rallying Cry Has Been a Rightwing Stalking Horse for Over 100 Years”:
Related to this last, from Religion Dispatches – “But What About the Parents? New York Times Falls Into the Anti-Trans ‘Parents’ Rights’ Trap”:
As Biden drags Rick Scott over cutting Social Security, McConnell gets in on the action
Yep, Biden still has the Republicans on the ropes.
Republicans really do fear that their past and present “reform” proposals for Social Security are going to become widely known.
Election Misinfo on Key Podcasts Rose by Over 600% In The Days Before Jan. 6 Insurrection, Study Finds
Great piece by Eamon Whalen in Mother Jones (I posted a link about this last week in the previous chapter of the thread) – “The Future of American Environmental Protests May Be Unfolding in a Forest Outside Atlanta”:
Much more at the link. They note that “the Atlanta Community Press Collective, a group of activist writers and researchers, issued a statement calling for a worldwide ‘Week of Solidarity to Stop Cop City’, from February 19-26.”
NBC yesterday – “Body camera footage released from ‘Cop City’ protest shooting”: “‘Is this target practice?’ someone can be heard saying in body cam footage released in relation to the deadly shooting of an activist in Atlanta….”
This is all extremely sketch and cries out for an independent investigation.
Ukraine update: Russia launched another ‘big offensive’ at Donetsk … and got another big disaster
Followup to comment 49.
Trump’s the real ‘liar’—he tried to cut Social Security while in office
Palate cleanser (thanks, StevoR @ #35) – Colossal – “The Astonishing Biodiversity of Fungi Blooms in Max Mudie’s Macro Photographs”:
Photos at the link.
US shoots down another ‘high-altitude object’ over Alaska
Pilots are getting a lot of target practice.
A few quick looks at the news:
Amish country farmers say George Santos took puppies, left bad checks. So says an article posted by The Washington Post.
Also from the Washington Post: FBI finds one additional document with classified markings at Pence home.
From the New York Times: The prime minister of Moldova, a Ukrainian neighbor rattled by the war, steps down. Natalia Gavrilita had been prime minister since 2021, when she took charge of the government after elections gave a strong majority in Parliament to pro-Western politicians.
From NBC News:
Sheesh.
The featured speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference’s Ronald Reagan Dinner next month will be failed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake. CPAC organizers announced the decision yesterday.
New episode of Meduza’s The Naked Pravda podcast – “Russia’s wartime emigration sparks a ‘reckoning’ in Central Asia”:
Chinese balloon reconnaissance platform located, officials say
Moldovan government quits amid economic turmoil, Russia tensions
Rep. Angie Craig told police she fought off an attacker using hot coffee
a Democrat from Minnesota
Attorney General Ken Paxton agrees to apologize and pay $3.3 million to whistleblowers in settlement
AKA the people of Texas.
So that just leaves the matter of…the crimes.
“China Balloon Had Western-Made Parts With English Writing, Lawmakers Told”
Where have we seen that before?
The Iranian Shahed drones are almost all foreign parts. 75% of them are American made.
I do have to say that the Chinese response to the balloon shoot down was pathetic. They should have just said oops, sorry, no we won’t do that again and then shut up.
These days everything is famous for 15 minutes and the world would soon be on to something else.
This was a big balloon. 200 feet tall and the payload, which has been located on the ocean floor is 30 feet long. They are saying the payload may be 1000 lbs.
China Balloon Had Western-Made Parts With English Writing, Lawmakers Told
SC @64, it really bothers me when taxpayers get stuck with legal bills and/or fines when an elected official does something wrong.
Speaking of elected officials doing something wrong:
Cartoon: House programming guide
Yet another chapter in Trump’s classified document fiasco.
Trump team turns over additional classified records and laptop to federal prosecutors
Why is there a laptop mentioned? Some of the documents had been copied onto the laptop! There were also some classified documents on a thumb drive!
NPR:
My bet is that Russia does not think those parts of Ukraine will be under Russian occupation much longer. Russia thinks it will lose the war there. However, Russia does think that it can hold on to Crimea.
More at the link.
NPR link
In earthquake-battered Syria, a desperate wait for help that never came.
Washington Post link
More at the link.
Volunteers Piece Together a Makeshift Medical System in Earthquake Zone
New York Times link
In place of damaged or destroyed hospitals, a series of field clinics have sprung up in Turkey, with doctors and nurses from around the world.
More at the link.
New phone, who dat?
Conspiracy Theorists Believe a U.S. Weather Weapon Caused the Turkey Earthquakes
Trump supporter in California bomb plot begs judge to accept plea deal that could net 9 years
Indian gov’t withdraws appeal to hug cows on Valentine’s Day
Re: Lynna, OM @ #70…
I used to live in Albany, CA which is across San Francisco Bay from the Golden Gate. After my wife and I went through CERT training, we got occasional invitations to events involving the local fire department. Some were downright fun, like being a volunteer “victim” in a major airport disaster drill. On another occasion, we got invited to talk by a Red Cross representative on how to set up and run an emergency shelter the way they did. This is worth knowing, because if you do it their way, they’ll reimburse 100% of any expenses…and if you don’t do it their way, they won’t. After the talk there was time to get questions answered. One that a bunch of us were interested in was: If there is a major local earthquake (the area is close to the Hayward Fault), how long would it be before the Red Cross would be able to bring in substantial relief supplies? In other words, how long would be be on our own and reliant only on what was locally available? The answer was “7 to 10 days.” Keep in mind that this is not just in the US, but in California, a state that takes disaster planning seriously.
So…if you want to how long it’ll be that you have to make do with what you’ve got–and, hopefully, what you have stored as disaster supplies–now you know. Plan for 1 to 1.5 weeks.
“A lunar landscape with residents who hate us’ Russian military source tells Novaya Gazeta that Moscow is gearing up for a new offensive”
Which is no surprise.
The end of this war isn’t remotely in sight.
All that is happening is the Russians and the Ukrainians are taking heavy casualties and losing a lot of weapons.
“As a result of the attacks, we end up getting a lunar landscape with the remnants of a population that hates us, rather than inhabited settlements. Enemy sabotage and reconnaissance groups operate in the occupied territories. They stab you in the back, plot the land for the artillery, mine the roads, take prisoners. In circumstances like these, holding the front can only be done at the cost of enormous losses,” he said.
Not much to show for a year of war.
A lunar landscape with residents who hate us’ Russian military source
This is from Meduza which is Russian but based in Latvia.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Also, 9 tanks and 19 artillery systems.
Guardian – “Koch brothers’ advocacy group courts far-right Republicans it vowed to thwart”:
Also in the Guardian:
“‘It’s just crazy’: Republicans attack US child labor laws as violations rise”: “Changes lawmakers are seeking, such as expanding types of approved work, will potentially ‘put kids in dangerous situations’…”
“Far-right protesters clash with police at Merseyside hotel housing asylum seekers”: “Three people arrested as witnesses [?] say police van set on fire and counter-protesters surrounded…”
“Children fleeing danger in small boats should be deported, says Tory thinktank”: “Policy Exchange paper envisages sidestepping Human Rights and Modern Slavery Acts to eliminate legal challenges…”
The paper “includes a foreword by the former Australian immigration minister Alexander Downer, who was commissioned under Priti Patel’s tenure as home secretary to review the UK Border Force. In it, he describes Channel crossings as ‘an existential crisis for the government’.”
I learned from the podcast @ #59 that the UK is now bringing in tens of thousands of people from Central Asia every year as seasonal agricultural workers (RFERL link).
Mykhailo Podolyak:
a few more details on Alaska shoot-down
Ian Dunt at i News – “GB News used to be a joke – now it’s dangerous”:
In Pakistan, angry mob lynches man accused of blasphemy
Robert Burns
House briefing on China spy balloon turns tense with Greene comments: ‘I chewed them out’
Delusions of adequacy
Ukraine claims its first kill of Russia’s ‘Terminator’ armored vehicle, believed to be one of Putin’s most advanced weapon systems
New SWAJ – “It’s In the Code Ep. 38: Understanding Trauma with Dr. Laura Anderson Part I”:
“Scientists Find Fossil of Biggest Penguin Ever”
This one is 350 lbs and lived 57 million years ago.
Scientists Find Fossil of Biggest Penguin Ever
The Terminator was designed specifically to serve in suburban/urban/center city combat zones. The multiple weapon systems, each much less powerful than an MBT’s main gun, are meant to be used against semi-hardened defenses — houses, apartment and office buildings — rather than other hard-skinned vehicles.
One of its biggest problems during development was the software to allow the combat crew to actually use the weapons, differentiating between different targets and different munitions. I had understood (this may be superseded) that Russia had basically given up on the idea of multiple targets, of different types, for multiple weapons due the difficulty of interfacing control and intelligence in targeting — crews in combat vehicles have very limited ability to see and understand what is happening outside their vehicle and, when asked to multitask with different weapons, targets and target types, the crews become overwhelmed. Which is also one of the big reasons that the multi-turreted tanks of the late 1930s (the T-35 and T-28) were so unsuccessful during the Winter War and the initial invasion of the Soviet Union.
Ukraine update: Russia is hitting new records for men and equipment lost as repeated assaults fail
More updates coming soon.
Oggie @88, thanks for the additional information. That makes sense.
More Ukraine update:
Musk follows divide-the-nation-for-profit model, raking in ad revenues via restored far-right trolls
“These are unsustainable levels of loss.”
We’ve been hearing this for a long time.
So far it isn’t evident in the Russian attacks.
We also saw this in Vietnam. The daily body count, much of which was made up.
Still the Viet Cong and NVA took heavy losses, maybe a million total.
And they just kept coming.
I wouldn’t bet on time being on Russia’s side though.
This is genocide.
The Ukrainians have no place to go and every reason to keep on fighting to the end.
Surveys show Biden hit the State of the Union out of the park
Turnover in NC Democratic Party leadership. 25-year-old defeats incumbent chair.
High-altitude object shot down over northern Canada
Matt Gaetz Honors Accused Murderer In First Judiciary Committee Meeting
A lawyer died after his concealed gun was fired by an MRI scanner and shot him
“Russian failures at Vuhledar show poor training of Russian conscripts – ISW”
I’m sure that is true. A lot of the mobiks were given more or less no training and sent to the front.
I’m also sure their officers aren’t all that good either. They generally stay way behind the front lines.
Russian failures at Vuhledar show poor training of Russian conscripts – ISW
SpaceX has just prohibited the Ukraine military from using Starlink.
I’m not even sure how legal this is.
It is however, extremely scummy.
It is quite clear that Musk has gone completely pro-Russian and pro Russian genocide.
SpaceX has received billions of dollars from the US government and US military. Plus they use US government launch facilities at Cape Canaveral and Vendenberg. Plus, the US government is one of their biggest customers.
I’m sure right now in the US government and US military, there are a lot of generals who are extremely angry at Musk and SpaceX. And trying to figure out how to stop dealing with them. This is called biting the hand that feeds and then trying to claw their eyes out. Not smart.
We can’t have our national security depend on a flaky idiot like Elon Musk. Musk isn’t even a native US citizen, he is from South Africa.
Scott Kelly says it as well as any.
It won’t do any good.
Scott Kelly is a former astronaut. His identical twin brother is the Senator from Arizona.
The US government should seriously consider not doing business with Elon Musk any more.
He isn’t reliable and he has aligned himself with our enemy, Russia.
PS Twitter has been overrrun with Russian trolls. It is becoming useless. No surprise.
I’m not the only one who Musk has alienated.
He is rapidly alienating most of his customer base, including the Pentagon.
The Defense Department, meanwhile, confirmed it’s looking for other satcoms to do business with.
One company is the Bill Gates associated Kymeta
“The biggest difference between our terminals and the Starlink terminals, besides the fact that we would never shut them off, is our terminals work on the move,” Marks said.
You can tell the US military is pretty ticked off. They aren’t used to having a supporter of their enemies as one of their suppliers in the USA, like Musk and Starlink.
They are going to get another supplier but it won’t happen fast.
SpaceX has 4,000 satellites in low earth orbit and getting that much hardware and launching it takes a lot of time. They were talking about 2027.
Starlink Competitor Touts Pentagon Partnership, Blasts Musk
“Kymeta’s chief development officer Bill Marks said…“I’m sure there’s blood on his hands for that,” he said.
From the article above.
I’m getting the impression that Musk is about to find out how obnoxious and destructive you can get before people a lot more powerful decide enough is enough.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Also in the Guardian:
“New Zealand North Island braces for ‘potentially devastating’ weather as Cyclone Gabrielle barrels towards region”: “Communities still reeling from recent flooding issued red weather warnings and told to prepare for intense rain and gale-force winds…”
“Berlin’s plan for a car-free city prompts bitter war of words”: “This summer the German capital will roll out a controversial trial abolishing almost all parking spaces in the Gräfekiez neighbourhood…”
“Untouchable review: Trump as ‘lawless Houdini’ above US justice”: “Elie Honig offers a powerful indictment of the former president and those who have failed to bring him down…”
British Intelligence reveals reasons for Russia’s heavy losses
UK Defence Intelligence believes that the increase in Russian casualties is likely due to a range of factors, including a lack of trained personnel, coordination, and resources across the front, as seen in Vuhledar and Bakhmut.
Likely to get worse rather than better as the Russians lose more soldiers and weapons.
British Intelligence reveals reasons for Russia’s heavy losses
Apparently the War of the Worlds has begun. Marjorie Taylor Greene is quite alarmed, what with Montana having nuclear missile silos & stuff. Blah blah something Americans demand answers & so forth.
Of course, the questions being asked are straight out of UFO unsolved mystery TV–Are aliens preparing to take out our nuclear missile defense to open the way to an attack on Earth? Is the American government hiding it to avoid panic, or even worse, in collusion with the aliens? Some experts believe…
Raven at 87: Interesting!
Crucially, it seems that these large penguins evolved to fill a niche left open by mosasaurs, and whatever other large marine predators went extinct at the end of Cretaceous. They did before whales evolved, but eventually, the largest penguins were outcompeted by cetaceans.
Dougal Dixon’s fictional giant penguins had become fully aquatic by evolving vivipary, like mammals. It seems this isn’t easy for birds and other archosaurs, and probably the size of early penguins was limited by their need to walk on land to lay and brood eggs. Though who knows what might’ve have happened by now if there were no whales…
ABC headline here: https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/turkey-arrests-building-contractors-6-days-after-quakes-97064099 puts the death toll from the quakes at a bit over 33,000. No end in sight. The money quote from the article…
The attacks on libraries continues.
The right wingnuts have a new hate, books and libraries.
“Sen. Heather Cloud, R-Turkey Creek, speaks about a bill she introduced to restrict minors’ access to certain library materials.”
There is so much wrong with these laws that it is hard to know where to start. It’s just cuckoo right wingnut complaining.
.1. The libraries aren’t in charge of your children!!!
You are as a parent.
Asking the librarians to supervise a thousand or so children is unreasonable.
The bill would also set new standards for material reviews that would give appointed local library boards the final say on what is sexually explicit, rather than libraries.
.2. This is mindless censorship. What they are calling obscene is material most people wouldn’t even notice as obscene. And, who is going to appoint these local censorship bodies?
.3. Louisiana must have forgotten that cable TV and the internet exists. Just about any kid can use the internet and see sexually explicit material that is way beyond anything a public library would carry.
And, I’m sure if the kids want to, they do exactly that.
The real targets here are LGBTQI kids and adults and Trans children and adults.
Louisiana bill to restrict library books and media
Ukraine Update: Tankies love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians
DeBamboozling the Social Security Scare Talk
In the USA the childcare crisis is an economic crisis that affects everyone.
Link
More at the link.
Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron, officials say
From Wonkette’s coverage of the upcoming Super Bowl:
Link
They Are Russians Fighting Against Their Homeland. Here’s Why.
China Ready to Down Object Flying Near Naval Base
“Wyoming Republicans are criticizing a child marriage bill that seeks to raise the legal age to 18. It’s sponsored by one of their own party members.”
Here are the real pedophiles in action. Republicans, in this case, the clown show in Wyoming.
“The email continues that since minors are capable of bearing children before they are 16, marriage should be an open option “for the sake of those children.”” Right. Because a young child who was raped and got pregnant should always marry her rapist. And children raising children is always a good idea.
Cthulhu, these people are sick in the head.
“For minors to whom God has given a child, states should allow for the best interest of that child,” another argument read.
FFS, this pastor doesn’t even know how babies are made. When a 12 year old gets pregnant, I don’t think that god had anything to do with it.
This is a fundie xian and especially a Mormon thing and there are a lot of Mormons in Wyoming. They claim they don’t have a problem with teen age pregnancy. Because if their kids get pregnant they force them to get married.
They never say how stable those marriages are or how long they last. Probably not long.
And, this bill is already dead.
Wyoming Republicans are criticizing a child marriage bill that seeks to raise the legal age to 18.
All these stories about UFOs are bizarre.
An octagonal structure? That doesn’t sound like a weather balloon, but I’ve no idea what a flying octagonal structure might look like.
I expect the Jewish space lasers look like menorahs, so the octagon isn’t Jewish
I’m actually shocked that there isn’t more Qanon type hysteria over alien invasions.
The company you keep. Elon Musk is sitting next to Rupert Murdoch at the Super Bowl. I not sure which one this is a worst look for.
So.. breaking news today of finally, finally some positive changes to Australian policy on refugees here :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-13/albanese-govt-to-abolish-temporary-protection-visas/101968828
As this notes too :
https://theaimn.com/the-immigration-news-is-almost-good/
Yes. A good long overdue start. But offshore processing not abolished yet and no release of the people from the prisons of Manus and Nauru yet so I gather.
https://academic.oup.com/jrs/article/35/4/1508/6646968
WARNING : Sexual abuse of children : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-14/thousands-of-children-abused-by-members-of-portugal-s-catholic-c/101969204
Sorry, more grim news – a sickening attack :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-14/anne-aly-cost-of-living-crisis-qa-keith-wolahan/101969020
Plus on the AUKUS downside too :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-14/anne-aly-cost-of-living-crisis-qa-keith-wolahan/101969020
Whilst in happier news :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-11/record-flooding-in-nsw-triggeres-bird-breeding-bonanza-/101812042
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From there:
@121: China has several controversial territorial claims. Suppose the USA flew spy planes over the South China Sea, or specifically the Strait of Taiwan. China would probably complain that those flights were over Chinese territory.
Philippines accuses China of temporarily blinding coast guard ship crew with laser
A Russian general was poisoned by a letter laced with an unknown toxin, close Putin ally says
France says its troops misrepresented in ‘Wakanda Forever’
Should someone tell them it doesn’t claim to be a documentary?
General not ruling out spy balloons or extra-terrestrials
I am. Those objects were not extra-terrestrials. Quote me.
Also in today’s Guardian:
“Protests and strikes in Israel as plans for judicial overhaul move forward”: “Tens of thousands gather for rally and workers in several sectors strike over rightwing government’s proposals…”
“Israel to authorise nine ‘wild’ West Bank settlements”: “Security cabinet announces recognition of areas built without Israeli authorisation, after series of attacks in East Jerusalem…”
DKos – “After protecting Khashoggi’s murderer, Donald Trump and Jared Kushner are now cashing in”:
Meduza – “Founder of Russian anti-domestic violence group to be deported from Georgia”:
The US State Department is asking all US citizens to leave Russia.
IMO, this is way late.
Human life is cheap and meaningless in Russia.
And, that means YOU!!! That US passport isn’t going to help you at all if the Russians decide to take you hostage.
Russia has millions of people in poorly marked graves scattered around everywhere.
Russian security services have arrested U.S. citizens on spurious charges, singled out U.S. citizens in Russia for detention and harassment, denied them fair and transparent treatment, and convicted them in secret trials or without presenting credible evidence.
Is this how you want to spend your vacation?
and
Kyiv Independent:
Georgia judge orders release of report in Trump election interference probe
Megan Butler / February 13, 2023
Courthouse News Service
Kevin Rothrock:
BBC – “No tents, no aid, nothing: Why Syrians feel forgotten”:
The fact Florida Republicans punished Disney because the company fell out of line with the GOP’s rhetorical demands is extraordinary.
@136: I have no idea who Kevin Rothrock is. But to him I say: “Block me, bro.”
A lampshade?
Link
Donald Trump’s latest unsavoury nickname for Ron DeSantis revealed: ‘Meatball Ron’
“Russians abandon wartime Russia in historic exodus”
I wouldn’t want to visit there much less live there.
There isn’t much of a future in Russia, a vicious dictatorship run by a Stalin wannabe.
Russia already has the typical European demographic crisis, falling population numbers. They are acutely aware of it.
That was in fact, one of the reasons to invade Ukraine, to gain 44 million more people.
Instead they are losing their best and brightest at about 1/2 million to 1 million a year.
Plus all the men killed and wounded in Ukraine.
Initial data show that at least 500,000, and perhaps nearly 1 million, have left in the year since the invasion began — a tidal wave on scale with emigration following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991.
Russia building 200-km water pipeline to Donbas, TASS agency says
In no surprise to anyone, conservatives lost their s**t over all the Blackness at the Super Bowl
Some Tweets and video snippets at the link.
https://time.com/6254827/rihanna-super-bowl-halftime-show-highlights-2023/
Rihanna’s FULL Apple Music Super Bowl LVII Halftime Show
Link
Evidence of questionable taste from Republican Representative Ronny Jackson (former liar for Trump about health issues and Trump’s weight):
The Mastodon Bump Is Now a Slump
re Lynna @148: FOR SURE!!! Wang-Tang Sweet Poontang is definitely much more family friendly!!
Vermont ice fishing tournament canceled after 3 fishermen die falling through the ice
johnson catman @150, LOL!
In other news: 3,000 sq. miles in Ohio and Pennsylvania are now toxic, and could be for years
Followup to comment 152.
Posted by readers of the article:
Czech soccer player Jakub Jankto comes out as gay
Followup to comment 140.
Link
Reginald Selkirk @ #139:
He’s the managing editor of Meduza (see #s 59, 76, and 132 above).
Republicans in a hole … and still digging:
Link
“balloon” shootdown briefing
Thank goodness there are still sane people in charge
Chinese satellite fires green laser beams over Hawaii as tensions escalate over spy balloon
@157:
Supposing Social Security might need to be “made better” at some point. Republicans – who have consistently called for the program to be eliminated since 1935 – are not the people I would ask to do it.
Supposing you owned a dog, and your neighbor had threatened to poison your dog. Then you get called out of town for a while. Is that neighbor the person you would ask to care for your dog in your absence? I think not.
They must have gotten a hold of a copy of Roget’s Thesaurus. They are not using the word “privatize.” Privatization would not be an improvement for Social Security, it would be to change its basic nature in a destructive way.
Respectful Insolence – this study was discussed a bit in the previous chapter of the thread – “COVID-19 is now a leading killer of children”:
Putin uses armoured train for security reasons since beginning of war
Guardian – “‘Sadness in the whole forest’: family of Cop City activist killed by police seeks answers”: “Manuel Paez Terán was protesting planned Atlanta police training center when officers repeatedly shot and killed them…”
Bellingcat – “How Wagner Gave Three Russian Crime Bosses from the 90s a New Lease of Death.”
Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #162…
Many of the comments are suggesting going after the tracks. What I’m wondering…how well would the locomotives cope with being hit by at ATGM?
“Ukraine Has the Battlefield Edge”
Or so this article in the Atlantic claims.
I wouldn’t take that claim too seriously, as much as I wish it were true. Right now, it is a stalemate, neither side is able to advance.
Ukrainian success has come down to skillful use of modern weapons against this incompetent and demoralized enemy. A succession of Wunderwaffe, or wonder weapons, has been much hyped: Turkish Bayraktar attack drones, Javelin anti-tank missiles, and, most recently, HIMARS rocket artillery. All of these have had an impact, but none individually has been decisive.
The article does make a good point.
We’ve seen that supplying Urkaine with modern weapons has helped a lot but none have proved decisive. We are still hoping though. Maybe better tanks. F16s, and what next?
The article also ignores that the Russians are slowly learning and adapting.
Ukraine Has the Battlefield Edge???
Ukraine update: The obscure, unheralded weapon that won the Battle of Vuhledar
German Ballet Director Smears Dog Poop on Journalist’s Face Because She Wrote a Bad Review
Wonkette: “Did You Need More Proof Trump Knew There Was No Fraud? Okay, WaPo Brought You Some.”
The earthquake death toll has topped 35,000.
Link
Video at the link.
How My Work For Trump and Giuliani Sought to Make Ukraine Defenseless
by Lev Parnas
“U.S. jets have shot down 4 flying objects in 8 days. Here’s everything we know.”
Almost nothing.
We have no idea what they are, where they came from, or what their purpose is.
It’s entirely possible that the smaller balloons flying lower, are in fact, weather balloons that people launched and lost track of.
They aren’t flying saucers. I don’t think you can cross interstellar distances in small balloons.
Here’s everything we know.
“We’re going to learn from these three events. We’re going to continue to study what happened,” Kirby added. “But bottom line for President Biden is, you’ve got to do the right thing for the American people, for our safety and security.”
“Our Losses Were Gigantic’: Life in a Sacrificial Russian Assault Wave”
Here is what it is like to be human cannon fodder in the Russian army.
Heavy casualties and short lives.
Wagner orders small groups to advance to a target and dig in. Then other waves follow. Usually they have artillery going by over head. It is a tactic that sometimes even works.
Some military analysts and Western governments have questioned Russia’s strategy, citing rates of wounded and killed at about 70% in battalions featuring former convicts.
Putin has done more to isolate Russia than anyone since Stalin invented the Iron Curtain. Which was his one good idea anyway.
The Russians always tried to get rid of their minorities by persecuting them, assimilating them by force, and moving large numbers of Russians into their areas. Which means all of the former SSRs have large Russian minorities that they have to assimilate with and coexist with.
They saw what happened in Ukraine with a large Russian speaking part of the population and don’t want to repeat it. (AFAICT, at least half and maybe more of Ukrainians are native Russian speakers.)
Estonia is going to try to get them to…learn Estonian.
Putin’s War Fuels a Bitter Breakup With the Russian Language
Satire from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
New York Times:
Ari Melber just launched a new segment called “Open Mind” and his first guest was philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum talking about animal rights! I hope they put it on YT.
Axios
House readies first GOP-led COVID vaccine probe
Andrew Solender, Victoria Knight / February 13, 2023
Update to #177 – the video!
The Beat last night (YT link) – “A lawyer for Obama’s Dog? Bombshell animal rights idea rocks Green Movement [LOL WTF]”:
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Also in the Guardian:
“BBC offices in India raided by tax officials amid Modi documentary fallout”: “Searches come weeks after release of documentary critical of PM that was later blocked by government…”
“Cyclone Gabrielle worst storm to hit New Zealand this century, says PM”: “National state of emergency invoked and thousands displaced as storm devastates large parts of North Island…”
“New Zealand minister decries climate crisis ‘lost decades’ in wake of Cyclone Gabrielle”: “James Shaw says country is entering ‘period of consequences’ for inaction over climate change as extreme weather wreaks havoc across the North Island…”
From the Kyiv Independent’s news feed:
CNN – “The Michigan State University gunman is dead after killing 3 and critically wounding 5 in another US mass shooting”:
Yesterday’s tweet o’ the day.
Guardian liveblog:
Guardian liveblog:
Tesla’s Autopilot Workers Tell Elon They Want to Unionize
“What to know about the deadly Marburg virus as new outbreak emerges”
There has been an new outbreak of Marburg virus, a virus similar to Ebola.
So far it isn’t too bad, 9 dead in Equatorial Guinea.
What to know about the deadly Marburg virus as new outbreak emerges
JFC.
Steve Bannon believes Joe McCarthy and his panel on “un-American activities” were “extremely, extremely helpful.” On the right, he’s not alone.
Three-Quarters of House GOPs Endorsed Social Security Cuts Last Year. Josh Marshall posted the article.
There is such a correlation, of course: a negative one.
Including the president, of course. A majority of those first-language Russian speakers nevertheless identify as Ukranians. In the Republic of Ireland, IIRC only about 20% of the population are fluent in Gaelic. The country is overwhelmingly English-speaking. That didn’t prevent it rising against British rule.
Ukraine update: Analysts warn that Russia is ‘preparing to launch an air campaign’
More Ukraine updates coming soon.
USPS Update: There is no update
Images at the link.
https://twitter.com/space_osint/status/1625170852743462928
Reportedly escorted away from the border by a Dutch F-35A.
Ukraine Update:
The problem with the GOP’s new Covid committee is its members
Kevin McCarthy cleared tapped the wrong members to serve on a new congressional panel on the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.
WSJ does damage control after Republican ‘oversight’ hearings devolve into conspiracy circus
“Tough-guy Ron DeSantis defeats Woke Disney! Except … he didn’t. At all.”
Turns out that Ron DeSantis is mostly cosplaying as a fascist.
As The New York Times reported: “This time, Disney would be allowed to keep the special tax district – which never went away – and almost all its perks, including the ability to issue tax-exempt bonds and approve development plans without scrutiny from certain local regulators.”It turned out that abolishing the Disney special tax district would cost Florida taxpayers a lot more money.
So the Florida legislature ended up reversing it.
Tough-guy Ron DeSantis defeats Woke Disney! Except … he didn’t. At all.
Some items from the Guardian liveblog before it closed for the day:
NBC – “CDC says teen girls are caught in an extreme wave of sadness and violence”:
“Wagner Group Head explains why he was ousted from recruiting convicts”
Well sort of anyway.
It looks like there is a power struggle between Wagner and the Russian army.
The fact that the convicts were just cannon fodder and getting killed often, didn’t matter at all. They were expecting 90% of them to be dead in 6 months, the standard term of enlistment at the front.
It might be that now the Russian army is recruiting convicts as cannon fodder.
Wagner Group Head explains why he was ousted from recruiting convicts
Dianne Feinstein, 89, won’t seek re-election, opening up a California Senate seat in 2024
Judge upholds Donald Trump contempt order, sanctions in New York civil probe
Republican FTC Commissioner Wilson announces resignation, saying Chair Khan has a ‘disregard for the rule of law’
Reginald @203, good. She made the right decision.
Followup: After a half-century of service, Dianne Feinstein to retire
U.S. arrests 4 in connection with assassination of Haitian president
Wonkette: “Elon Restricting Ukrainian Military’s Internet Because Of This Russian Propaganda He Swallowed”
https://twitter.com/0liviajulianna/status/1625560064042958850
https://www.wonkette.com/america-its-bad-im-nikki-haley
re Lynna @208: The Michigan State shooting was the 67th mass shooting this year. We are not even 67 days into the year. There may have been days when we did not have one, but that averages almost 1.5 mass shootings per day. It is such a good thing that all the guns and lax gun laws have nothing to do with all the shootings (/s).
Trump’s plan for a 2nd term reportedly includes firing squads, hangings, and group executions
Under Trump, Barr and Durham Made a Mockery of the Rules I Wrote, by Neal K. Katyal, writing for The New York Times.
FFS.
Link
New York Times:
New York Times:
That’s a common authoritarian tactic that was highlighted last night by Rachel Maddow.
Miami Herald:
So they are paying the anti-education conservative dunderhead $400,000 more per year than his predecessor?
Yikes! That’s a lot of taxpayer funds.
Greg Abbott’s border photo-op needs $460 million in additional funds just to get through the summer
Objects shot down aren’t from China, likely ‘benign’, Kirby says
More on the balloons from Lynna’s #213.
It is likely that the last three balloons were routine and harmless.
It turns out that the USA launches something like 60,000 balloons a year, mostly weather balloons. Some of those get away and go missing.
It does look like the first one was a Chinese surveillance balloon though.
Objects shot down aren’t from China, likely ‘benign’, Kirby says
Re: raven @ #216…
One of the early uses of the Raspberry Pi single board computes (SBC) was to attach a camera and radio and send it up attached to a balloon. “High Altitude Ballooning” (HAB) is a hobby for some people.
An article here https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/community-profile-dave-akerman/ mentions getting a picture back from just over 43Km up.
Lynna… @ # 189 quoting Steve Benen: … [Sen. Joe] McCarthy and his panel on “un-American activities.”
Oops, that was the House Unamerican Activities Committee (aka HUAC), a separate project in the same witch-hunt; Joe McCarthy was much more the “lone-wolf” operator.
Not a big deal in any political way, but the first time I’ve seen Benen get his history wrong.
re Pierce R. Butler @218: The link is for a story on MaddowBlog about Steve Bannon, the far-right drunk that served under The Orange Idiot, praising McCarthy’s hearings and the HUAC hearings.
re Pierce R. Butler @218: Sorry, I misunderstood. I see that Benen was the author of the piece on MaddowBlog. My Bad and I apologize to you.
Excerpt from a longer Media Matters article:
Link
Excerpt from a longer New Yorker article written by Jane Ferguson:
New Yorker link
It’s reported that Nicola Sturgeon is about to resign as First Minister of Scotland – a complete surprise, although she’s had a few setbacks recently.
Quoted in Lynna’s #214:
It’s a public college!
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Poland Made A Better Russian-Style Tank—And Gave It To Ukraine
A few links:
New Fever Dreams – “James O’Keefe Theater Camp? w/ Kim Kelly”:
All In last night (YT link) – “Republicans use Ohio train disaster to pursue culture wars, ignore solutions”:
NBN – “Susannah Heschel, The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany“:
(I could live without her religious advocacy and inconsistent musings on “cancel culture,” but worthwhile discussion.)
Guardian liveblog:
See Lynna’s #89 above.
NBC – “Special counsel seeks testimony from Trump lawyer as prosecutors allege evidence of crime”:
This is apparently Musk’s plan.
To kill Twitter and replace it with something else.
I suppose he will call it Stormfront or Magatville or some such.
He didn’t need to spend $44 billion to do this.
He could have spent zero dollars and done this.
There are already a lot of similar forums to Twitter such as Gab, Parler, Truth Social, Telegram, Mastodon etc..
I’m sure it will be a lot like present era Twitter. Overrun with child porn, Russian trolls, and Nazis.
Guardian – “Revealed: the hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections”:
More at the link. The “disinformation industry” – my god.
Kyiv Independent:
raven @ #230, I believe Musk will be announcing not a successor to Twitter but his successor as Twitter CEO.
Meduza – “‘To die without blood on my hands’: 20-year-old conscript from Komi Republic commits suicide after refusing to go to war.”:
There are now Iranians in Russia, fighting with Russia against Ukraine. This interception is of phone and radio calls, of drone operators speaking Iranian languages.
Not really too surprising.
To call this an act of war isn’t exactly wrong but is an overestimation.
We also have a huge amount of Western material from NATO and the EU in Ukraine along with some of our people.
We are at war with Russia, just not too directly as of yet. A proxy war as they are called.
South Dakota Passes First Law That Will Force Trans Kids to Detransition
I’m posting the text of #236 because it is clearly more horrible hate from the GOP. It’s also just Noem being cuckoo.
“Healthcare professionals have until the end of the year to stop treatment for patients currently receiving gender-affirming care, from hormone therapy and surgery to puberty blockers. ”
This is a Red Herring.
We don’t do Trans surgery on children.
We also don’t do hormone replacement on Trans children. Most hormones being prescribed to teenagers are to cis teenagers for one medical condition or another. Haven’t they ever heard of birth control pills in South Dakota.
Puberty blockers are prescribed to Trans children but those aren’t permanent. That is the whole point. They are reversible. Noem calls them permanent because lying isn’t a problem for her.
I’m wondering how legal any of these bills detailing medical care are. The people passing them aren’t medical professionals and in fact, the real medical professionals are who they are targeting.
I’ve read articles that they are of dubious legality but can’t remember why offhand.
I put some terms in Google search about the legality of anti-Trans children laws.
I didn’t get much.
This ACLU guy calls them “unconstitutional” but he doesn’t say why exactly.
I’m guessing the legal experts are getting their arguments together and I’m sure these laws will be challenged in court.
The problem(s) with GOP demands to protect Trump-era tax breaks
As Republicans try to make Trump-era tax breaks permanent, remember: The GOP is pushing for smaller deficits while also pushing for larger deficits.
NBC News:
Commentary from Steve Benen:
Well, that’s disappointing.
Nikki Haley taps controversial pastor for campaign launch invocation
Instead of “controversial,” I would describe Hagee as homophobic, anti-semitic and misogynistic.
Yuck.
Raquel Welch: US actress and model dead at 82
In Ukraine’s ‘fortress,’ soldiers struggle to save a city almost empty of life
Ukraine update: Bakhmut holds, but tankies are falling ever deeper into fantasy land
More updates from Ukraine coming soon.
Nikki Haley launches GOP campaign by insulting Americans age 75 and over. Great start!
Why bring age into it? I would love to see MTG, Boebert, Gohmert, Gosar, Santos and many others have to pass mental competency tests.
Pro-Kremlin propagandist loses it on live TV after his son’s patriotism was called into question for not fighting in Ukraine
Oh, FFS.
Link
Ex-Russian military bomber engineer seeks asylum at U.S. border, offers military secrets
Europe is now stuck with a huge stockpile of natural gas after hoarding it last year for a brutal winter that never came
DKos – “Hundreds of contributors are calling out The New York Times for its transphobia in an open letter.”
Wonkette: “Trump’s Lawyers Continue Pattern Of Bad Faith F*ckery In E. Jean Carroll Defamation Case”
Followup to comment 244.
More updates from Ukraine:
Link. Scroll down for these additional updates.
Very interesting – France 24 – “Ilan Shor, le pion de Moscou pour déstabiliser la Moldavie ?”:
Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #245…
Well…those criteria leave me out. I’m not 75…yet…and I not in politics.
What I’d like to see is for everyone running for or holding office take the naturalization citizenship test, and require that the scores be published in some easy to find location.
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/national-international/catalytic-converter-theft-suspect-run-over-and-killed-in-palmdale/3158355/
Driver woke up to the sound of someone sawing off her vehicle’s catalytic converter. She backed and ran over him. Stopped to find out what the bump was. Perp was declared dead at the scene by paramedics.
If charged, all she’ll have to do is ask for jury trial and she’ll not only be acquitted, but the jury would probably vote to give her a medal.
Satire from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
Resurfaced videos from 2019 shows Turkish president bragging about builders skirting earthquake construction codes in areas now turned to rubble
Buffalo supermarket shooter gets life sentence
Justice Department Wields Crime-Fraud Exception to Pierce Trump’s Attorney-Client Privilege
Clarence Thomas statue backed by Republicans in Georgia
For Older Americans, the Pandemic Is Not Over
It’s not over for anyone. Some people are just ignoring it.
For older Americans, the pandemic still poses significant dangers. About three-quarters of COVID deaths have occurred in people older than 65, with the greatest losses concentrated among those older than 75.
The number of dead is still high.
In January it was 11,800 dead. That comes out to around 140,000 a year.
For the flu, we might see 20,000, counting deaths like we do Covid-19 virus.
90% of them were older than age 65.
Only 40% of older Americans have gotten the bivalent booster. That is one big thing we could do to easily lower the older people’s death rates.
For Older Americans, the Pandemic Is Not Over
It’s not over for anyone. Some people are just ignoring it.
For older Americans, the pandemic still poses significant dangers. About three-quarters of COVID deaths have occurred in people older than 65, with the greatest losses concentrated among those older than 75.
The number of dead is still high.
In January it was 11,800 dead. That comes out to around 140,000 a year.
For the flu, we might see 20,000, counting deaths like we do Covid-19 virus.
90% of them were older than age 65.
Only 40% of older Americans have gotten the bivalent booster. That is one big thing we could do to easily lower the older people’s death rates.
For Older Americans, the Pandemic Is Not Over
It’s not over for anyone. Some people are just ignoring it.
For older Americans, the pandemic still poses significant dangers. About three-quarters of COVID deaths have occurred in people older than 65, with the greatest losses concentrated among those older than 75.
The number of dead is still high.
In January it was 11,800 dead. That comes out to around 140,000 a year.
For the flu, we might see 20,000, counting deaths like we do Covid-19 virus.
90% of them were older than age 65.
Only 40% of older Americans have gotten the bivalent booster. That is one big thing we could do to easily lower the older people’s death rates.
For Older Americans, the Pandemic Is Not Over
It’s not over for anyone. Some people are just ignoring it.
For Older Americans, the Pandemic Is Not Over
For older Americans, the pandemic still poses significant dangers. About three-quarters of COVID deaths have occurred in people older than 65, with the greatest losses concentrated among those older than 75.
The number of dead is still high.
In January it was 11,800 dead. That comes out to around 140,000 a year.
For the flu, we might see 20,000, counting deaths like we do Covid-19 virus.
90% of them were older than age 65.
Only 40% of older Americans have gotten the bivalent booster. That is one big thing we could do to easily lower the older people’s death rates.
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-16/tongan-volcano-impact-australian-weather/101978886?utm_campaign=abc_news_web
An even bigger mighty Kabooom (though no sound in vacuum, I know, still)
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-16/astronomers-marvel-at-perfect-explosion-a-cosmic-fireball/101985626
Whilst back on Earth in Arachnid news here
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-16/three-new-spiders-species-discovered-alpine-australia/101985382
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-16/three-new-spiders-species-discovered-alpine-australia/101985382
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Also in the Guardian:
Oliver Wainwright – “In praise of the ‘15-minute city’ – the mundane planning theory terrifying conspiracists”:
“Pompeo says Israel has biblical claim to Palestine and is ‘not an occupying nation’”: “Trump’s secretary of state makes comments on podcast to defend former administration siding more openly with Israel…”
“French broadcaster BFMTV suspends presenter amid disinformation scandal”:
New Maintenance Phase – “Elizabeth Taylor’s ‘Elizabeth Takes Off'”:
New SWAJ – “NAR Apostles and Prophets on 2024 – And the End of the World”:
Pence visits Minnesota, says parents’ rights are being ‘trampled’
‘Splain it to me again: zygotes and fetuses have full rights of ‘personhood’, but actually born children are the property of their parents until they turn 18. (?)
Scientists find first evidence that black holes are the source of dark energy
Poland restricted the Belarus border last week. They are down to one border crossing.
Belarus is landlocked so this isn’t going to do them much good.
OTOH, Belarus barely exists any more as an independent country.
Their own language, Belarusian is almost dead and being actively suppressed by their own government. Their last elected leader lives in Lithuania as an exile.
Belarus is what Russia intended to do to Ukraine.
Wagner has been stopped from recruiting prisoners for cannon fodder.
In part this is because Wagner was becoming too powerful and a rival and threat to the Russian army and the ruling oligarchies.
In part it is because the Russian army saw a resource and grabbed it. They now have a ready source of cannon fodder that no one much cares about.
Ukraine is losing their best and brightest every day.
Russia is losing all their criminals and prisoners every day.
Quite a contrast between the two societies.
All In last night (YT link) – “Raskin calls for investigation into Kushner’s $2 billion Saudi deal”:
Another high ranking Russian official is dead.
Wonder what she did to deserve that.
It might not be anything. As head of finance in the Russian military, she might have just known too much about the finances of Putin and the oligarchies.
Some people claim the KGB (now called the FSB) just kills a few people here and there to remind the oligarchies and bureaucrats that they can die any time someone important decides they should be dead.
You can call Russian culture a culture but it certainly isn’t a good one.
Meduza:
“Moscow police arrest gay Chechen refugee at Domodedovo Airport and hand him over to Chechen authorities”:
“Finance director for Russia’s Western Military District found dead, possibly by suicide”:
Religion Dispatches – “Still Left Behind: What the Endurance of the Left Behind Cinematic Universe Can Tell Us About Conservative Moral Psychology”:
More at the link. This squares with the analysis at the end of the SWAJ episode @ #264.
This is a quote out of a NYTimes article that wouldn’t post due to a filter problem.
The pandemic isn’t over with.
Last month, 11, 800 people died, 90% of them were over 65.
That is about 140,000 a year and is a lot.
Only 40% of adults over 65 have had the bivalent booster. It should be a lot higher and that would reduce the death toll among this age group.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian US liveblog. From there:
Washingtonian – “Inside QAnon: A Look at an Alarming New Book”: “Author Will Sommer is a top chronicler of right-wing extremism….”
Ukraine update: ‘Russian forces are moving before they are ready due to political pressure’
More Ukraine updates coming soon.
Mozambique pastor dies attempting 40-day Jesus fast
Jesus had the unfair advantage of being fictional.
Russian warplanes fly near Alaskan airspace second time in two days
A Russian marine who survived bitter fighting in Vuhledar says soldiers left alive are being treated like deserters:
“There were just eight survivors in one company, he told Russian media outlet 7×7.”
This doesn’t tell you too much because who knows how many are in a Russian company. Usually these run around 200.
The Ukrainians are claiming the whole brigade was more or less destroyed.
These Russian soldiers are being treated badly, like literal cannon fodder.
And yet, they never seem to ask themselves just what they are fighting for. Or better said, what are they dying for? Which is to increase the wealth of a few oligarches and Russian politicians.
Tucker’s Favorite Russian Propaganda Dispenser Fluffing Putin For Charlie Kirk Now
Who is paying MacGregor? Who is this “gentleman just came back from Moscow” to fill MacGregor’s head with more Russian propaganda?
Followup to comment 276.
More Ukraine updates:
Link. Scroll down to view these additional updates.
Rep. George Santos barricaded himself in his district office as angry constituents stood outside demanding his resignation
Ukrainian drone downs enemy quadcopter in sneak attack from above
Rudy Giuliani gets hit with 2 more counts in Smartmatic’s defamation lawsuit
At least 476 rioters have pleaded guilty for their role in the Capitol insurrection so far. This table shows them all.
Link
Proud Boys defendants plan to subpoena Trump to force him to testify in their January 6 riot trial
Link
Kari Lake’s lawyers hit with bar complaints
Petition to rename Russia to Moscovia attracts enough support for Zelenskyy to consider
House Republicans Decide On ‘Policy’ To Support, Surprise, It Is F*ck The Poors
Be Careful in Idaho
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/be-careful-in-idaho
WTF?
Ukraine update:
Link. Same link as in comments 276 and 281. Mark Sumner just added more information.
New York State Senate rejects Hector LaSalle as Chief Judge of the State Court of Appeals
So, what fresh fuckery has been revealed concerning Alex Jones?
Link
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/yet-another-2
Businessman, economist, cop, international sex crimes expert? The stories of Congressman Andy Ogles
New York Times link
More details are available at the link.
The death toll from the earthquakes in Syria and Turkey has topped 40,000 people.
Followup to comment 297.
New filing shows Tucker Carlson tried to get a Fox reporter fired for correctly fact-checking Donald Trump’s false claims about Dominion
This thread is summarizing some of the findings of a report from Yale School of Public Health, USA. Trigger warning. Child abuse and atrocities.
2. More than 6,000 children in Russia’s custody. Children from Ukraine ages four months to 17 years who have been held at camps and other facilities since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.
These are children who have been kidnapped from Ukraine. A few might be orphans, but most of them are just children the Russians managed to find and deport to Russia. They are occupiers and invaders so it isn’t like they have to ask for permission.
The fate of these children is likely to be pretty dismal.
A lot of them will be sex trafficked. Some will end up as slave laborers. Some will end up in their military as more cannon fodder.
Most of them will probably have short, unhappy lives and die young.
We’ve seen this before. Remember the hundreds of thousands of Romanian orphans that Ceausescu produced? What happened to them? No one knows.
This is deliberate. Most of them probably had short lives and ended up dead.
Many of those children were infected by hepatitis C virus and/or HIV virus due to the dysfunctional state of every thing in Romania including their medical system.
Evidence of Russia’s War Crimes and Other Atrocities in Ukraine: Recent Reporting on Child Relocations
More. This is a statement from the US Department of State.
They are not happy.
Mounting evidence of Russia’s actions lays bare the Kremlin’s aims to deny and suppress Ukraine’s identity, history, and culture. The devastating impacts of Putin’s war on Ukraine’s children will be felt for generations. The United States will stand with Ukraine and pursue accountability for Russia’s appalling abuses for as long as it takes.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
More re the last item – AP – “Facebook ran ads in Moldova for oligarch sanctioned by US”:
Also in the Guardian:
“Taliban bans contraception calling use a ‘western conspiracy’”: “Reports that fighters have threatened those issuing birth control medicines come as Afghan midwives and activists warn of impact on women’s health and rights…”
“Iran protests flare in several cities amid continuing unrest”: “Online videos from Tehran and other centres appear to show demonstrations including anti-government chants as execution of protesters commemorated…”
“Chinese billionaire tech banker Bao Fan goes missing”: “Disappearance of China Renaissance chair raises fears of fresh crackdown on China’s finance industry…”
“Moldovan MPs approve pro-western PM amid tensions over Russia”:
“John Fetterman hospitalised to treat clinical depression, chief of staff says”:
Retraction Watch – “Harvard surgeon has five papers pulled following internal investigation”:
Denver council member dragged himself onto stage before a political debate due to a lack of wheelchair accessibility
From the Kyiv Independent’s “Belarus Weekly”:
Alex Ward, Politico:
FBI says it has ‘contained’ cyber incident on bureau’s computer network
Nice story, nice look – Yahoo! – “Steven Van Zandt Sends Bandana to Rep. Jamie Raskin Amid Cancer Battle.”
Justice Department in D.C. takes over corruption probe into Texas attorney general
China Sanctions U.S. Defense Companies Over Arms Sales to Taiwan
Bao Fan: Billionaire tech banker in China reported missing
I guess it beats falling out of a window?
Ann Coulter tells Nikki Haley to ‘go back to your own country’ in racist rant against new GOP presidential candidate
Ann Coulter reminding us that a) she is still alive and b) she is still a terrible human being.
2,200-year-old flush toilet — oldest ever found — unearthed at palace ruins in China
The Guardian liveblog is reporting the various speeches and statements from Munich.
More weirdness from Idaho.
An antivaxxer pharmacist who refuses to give vaccines.
Boise pharmacist who denied customer COVID vaccine should find another line of work
A Rite Aid official told Berger that they were having trouble finding pharmacists, and that Amy wasn’t typically in a customer-facing position because of such incidents in the past.
At this rate, Rite Aid is going to have trouble finding customers.
I would really have to think hard before trusting my prescriptions to a pharmacy run like that.
Under fire, Rick Scott changes plan to exempt Social Security, Medicare from sunsetting
It hardly matters, since his plan is going nowhere.
Isobel Koshiw at the Guardian liveblog:
Zelenskiy: It’s ‘obvious’ Ukraine won’t be Putin’s last stop
Which everyone who has looked can see.
Moldova is next. Then Georgia.
The big prize will be Kazakhstan.
The source for this claim is NATO intelligence.
There’s a post (diary? story? whatever they call it) up at Daily Kos: “We have all kinds of shaming not allowed on here but the worst allowed is FAITH shaming. Stop it.”
It’s fairly incoherent, and I have multiple disagreements with even the more coherent aspects. I don’t have time to read through all of the comments, but I saw some good arguments being made in the portion I did read. Kind of nostalgic!
I wish there were a bot that would drop Allen Wood’s “The Duty to Believe According to the Evidence” into comment threads like the one at DKos @ #321…
Ukraine update: New Western armor is just days away from arriving in Ukraine
Rep. Angie Craig receives vulgar and threatening messages after her attack
Wagner Group releases graphic video of corpses in desperate plea for more ammunition
Arrested German intel officer was to leak HIMARS and IRIS-T locations in Ukraine to Moscow – Der Spiegel
Resistance in occupied Crimea growing noticeably more pro-Ukrainian – Tasheva
Florida lawmakers move to give DeSantis control over school athletics board
Spain approves self-ID trans law
From Andrew Bates, Deputy White House Secretary:
Our Must See Interview with Paul Krugman
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/our-must-see-interview-with-paul-krugman
Totally adorable little Ukrainian girl gives us a lesson in cooking a Ukrainian specialty.
https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1626316685949927427
Another day, another shooting: At least 6 dead in Mississippi; suspect in custody
Why are precisely none of the ‘Free Speech Warriors’ concerned with Ron DeSantis?
Fisheries Department says it will shut 15 salmon farms off B.C.’s coast to protect wild fish
Lost 4,500-year-old palace of mythical Sumerian king unearthed
GOP campaign consultant sentenced to 18 months for arranging Russian contribution to Trump campaign
He took a 75% cut?
What a darling! Her outfit and instructions are superb. I especially like how she is too small to carry hot water so her brother must help.
I in fact, very much do not like varenicka. Dough balls filled with potato (or cottage cheese) and boiled is the epitome of white, bland, flavorless food.
This is what passes for Russian TV.
Open calls for genocide.
Update to #321: Ha, now there’s a post/diary/story/whatever responding to that one, with hundreds of comments.
“Dear Christians, Please stop punching down on Atheists.”
So, question about rhetoric :
What’s the better way to put it :
Traitor Slave(r) states or Slave(r) traitor states
For the former short-lived Confederate ones?
Thoughts please?
Rewatching A Time To Kill on TV right now (ad break) thoughts on that movie too?
Anyhow, y’know y’all have a global reputation right?
(Not that Oz doesn’t either but.. yeah.)
@340. SC (Salty Current) : Isn’t punching down their kinda thing?
Always. Despite the supposed words and acts and deeds of their supposed idol and hero and inspiration and lliteral figure of worship? (No, not Trump or the TV preachers who keep asking for cash, the one they actually talk about so much yet also ignore so much.)
Happy Pluto Discovery Day y’all.
Reckon should be a national holiday and cause for celebration. (Yeah am biased but still,.)
Today back in 1930.
Clyde Tombaugh entering his bosses office after a very close look at the blink comparator which he’d been working and looking at since April 6th, 1929 :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyde_Tombaugh
Plus :
https://earthsky.org/space/clyde-tombaugh-discovered-pluto-on-february-18-1930/
Oh and we’ve seen in 2015 thankyou New horizons – 2 min long animated view
Love the way Sputnik planitia / Tombaugh Regioio is oth a heart and an open book.
AggmanUK Pluto’s clip – 5. 45 min love this even if some errors like like the astrological symbol for Pluto which is a merged P & L referciing Percival Lowell who was right at leaat about the co-incibental but stunningy accurate~ish spot Pluto was found.
Nina Simone singing truth back when it was black & white in colour terms like TV colour terms & now .
Listen to her voice. To her body language, Consider when she sang what she sang & what power what she sang when she sang it..
Too slow.. Stil in 2023 now.. Dafuck?
Tethys @338, yes! The little girl is intelligent and it’s all cuteness-overload.
As far as not liking varenyki, I noticed that a lot of people commenting in that thread noted that they included much more flavorful ingredients in their varenyki. That seems like a good idea.
Satire from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
How COVID-19 Changes the Heart—Even After the Virus Is Gone
We’ve known for a long time that the Covid-19 virus affects the heart, lungs, and kidneys, causing permanent and in come cases, fatal damage.
This article looks at the detailed mechanisms.
In these autopsy patients, the virus weakened the heart to the point where it went into chronic heart failure that ended up being fatal.
From the Standard Speaker here in PA.
The rest of it is behind a paywall.
This is in anthracite country (not too far from Hazleton, PA). There are settling pits (big ponds to help reduce acid drainage) up the creek from these two towns. I know that radon is a problem in the area. Due to coal mining, well water is not an option, so the two towns (Weston and Nuremburg) have their own public water and sewerage system. Could radon contamination through the tap water (which is in compliance with federal standards) be producing enough radiation in the sewage, which is reduced to a sludge, to be detectable at the incinerator?
I know, not nationally significant. Then again, how many towns across the US have polluted water due to industrial waste and environmental damage?
Associated Press:
NBC News:
Ukraine update: Wagner Group alone has lost 30,000 men in the failed assault on Bakhmut
The headline is a bit misleading. It should say that approximately 9,000 were killed in action. The “30,000” figure is all casualties. Still alarming.
Yep, that last sentence is what I was thinking.
More Ukraine updates coming soon.
Could be Restless Leg Syndrome.
Or Parkinson’s. Or both since they can occur together.
A lot of claims that Putin has some sort of illness but I’m sure a lot of that is wishful thinking.
The number of people who wish he would die is probably close to a billion.
Russia has committed ‘crimes against humanity’ in Ukraine, Harris declares.
Washington Post link
The vice president cited numerous occurrences since Russia’s invasion began, saying that the evidence points to such a finding
Followup to comment 352.
More Ukraine updates:
Speaking of people with blind trust in Putin, here’s the deep sourcing behind that Seymour Hersch story. [Tweet showing that Hersch appears to confirm that he had a single source.]
Followup to comment 354.
It’s Official: US Determines Russia has Committed “Crimes Against Humanity” in Ukraine
It depends on the situation for me.
I’ll ask why someone wants to keep symbols of respect for murderous slavers and traitors, while noting the history is still in the books. Books similar people want to remove when the books show the enslavement and treason.
Similar wording works for pointing out that BLM protests are about murderous racist police.
I’d call that a good start.
It is also a fact that a huge number of companies are still doing business in Russia.
From CNN:
I knew this was coming (I mean, not specifically, but the guy is 99 years old) but it saddens me. He was the first President that I actually remember personally rather than historically.
President’s Physician Says Joe Biden Is ‘Healthy’ and a ‘Vigorous 80-Year-Old’
“According to his health summary, Biden is currently undergoing treatment for multiple “stable” medical conditions that include non-valvular atrial fibrillation, hyperlipidemia, gastroesophageal reflux, seasonal allergies, “mild” sensory peripheral neuropathy of both feet, and his gate, which “remains stiff but has not worsened since last year.”
I don’t see much that is concerning here except someone can’t spell gait. Hyperlipidemia just means he is on a statin like mllions.
The non-valvular atrial fibrillation is concerning but I’m sure he is being treated for it. It is treatable most of the time.
A change that was observed was a small lesion on the president’s chest that was removed during the examination and sent out for a traditional biopsy.
No big deal. I just had the same thing done. They are usually benign.
The claims were that Biden was showing age related cognitive decline of some sort. I haven’t really seen that at all. He makes mistakes here and there but he always did that. I’ve seen many 80 year olds that were far worse.
Blinken says U.S. has had talks with Elon Musk about Starlink in Ukraine
I’m sure the US government has. I’m almost sure they didn’t do any good.
SpaceX and Starlink have been heavily subsidized by the US government, get a lot of their revenue from the US government, and depend on US government facilities for their launches and permits. SpaceX launches from Cape Canaveral and Vandemberg.
IIRC, the US military is planning their own Starlink version, which not too surprisingly, has nothing to do with SpaceX.
Florida doctors refuse abortion for woman whose baby is expected to live less than 2 hours
It is Florida. No surprise.
The story doesn’t explain why the couple doesn’t just go out of state, get the abortion, and come back.
This might be a late term abortion, in which case, it is going to be hard to get one anywhere these days.
Propagandists of Wagner Group accidentally reveal repair base near Luhansk
Is it HIMARS o’clock?
How Ukraine uses high-tech anti-drone guns to down Russian drones and recover intelligence from them
Dunning-Kruger alert:
‘I’m doing everything right,’ Marjorie Taylor Greene tells GOP gathering in Coeur d’Alene
Trump lawyers try to ban ‘Access Hollywood’ tape from trial
Russia tried to shuffle spies around Europe after they got kicked out, but everyone already knows who they are
Man who drove into crowd and shot Seattle protester won’t be charged with assault
Mitch McConnell tells German audience that Republican leaders support aid to Ukraine: ‘Don’t look at Twitter’
WaPo:
Far-right election denier beats Trump’s pick for Michigan GOP
By Isaac Arnsdorf / February 18, 2023
Proposed bill bans Florida dogs from sticking heads out car windows
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Also in the Guardian:
“Cattle, not coca, drive deforestation of the Amazon in Colombia – report”:
“How Florida’s Republican supermajority handed Ron DeSantis unfettered power”:
“‘I too was an orangutan in a zoo’: Russia’s bizarre propaganda in Ukraine”:
“Bernie Sanders: ‘Oligarchs run Russia. But guess what? They run the US as well’”:
“Could Alzheimer’s be caused by an infection?”:
War on the Rocks – “Russia’s Winter Offensive”:
From Mark Sumner in the comments of his DKos Ukraine Update yesterday (link @ Lynna’s #352):
Guardian liveblog:
I hadn’t listened to the TRACE podcast Bribe, Swindle[,] or Steal in a while I guess, and had missed several good episodes:
“Doping in International Sports”:
“‘When McKinsey Comes to Town'”:
“‘Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present'”:
(Ben-Ghiat mentions South Dakota twice in the interview, and I thought I had maybe misheard her, but no: “Pandora papers reveal South Dakota’s role as $367bn tax haven.” Seems relevant to understanding Kristi Noem and politics in South Dakota….)
Faint cracks emerge in the facade of Putin’s rule, one year after Ukraine invasion
The headline is clickbait.
It is wishful thinking and right now, Putin is dictator of Russia.
There are a few good points though.
But in the year that has passed since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has gone back to a dark, repressive past.
Over the last 12 months, Putin’s government has crushed the remnants of Russia’s civil society and presided over his country’s first military mobilization since World War II.
Thanks Captain Obvious but we already knew that.
Russia is dead as anything resembling a First World democracy.
“After the failure of the (2022) blitzkrieg, Russia adapted and placed its bets on a long war, relying on its superior numbers in population, resources, military industry and the size of its territory beyond reach of enemy strikes,” Russian political observer and commentator Alexander Baunov wrote in a recent Telegram post. “This is a war of attrition that can be won without involving too many people … On the strategy of ‘wait them out, add pressure, put the squeeze on.’”
Yeah, that looks about right.
The problem for Russia is that when you add up NATO and the EU, all of the sudden Russia doesn’t look so big. Russia has 144 million people. NATO has 949 million people and a much larger economy.
Helping matters for the Russian government is the unexpected durability of parts of the Russian economy, despite heavy Western sanctions. The war has been costly for the government – the country’s Finance Ministry recently admitted it ran a higher-than-expected deficit in 2022, in large part due to a 30% increase in defense spending over the previous year – but the International Monetary Fund is projecting a small return to GDP growth for Russia in 2023 of 0.3%.
Sanctions haven’t done a whole lot.
The Russian economy at least in Moscow is holding up well.
“Is Prigozhin ready to challenge Putin?” she wrote in a recent piece. “While the answer is negative,…War breeds monsters, whose recklessness and desperation can become a challenge to the state.”
Prigozhin is already being neutralized.
The Russian army itself is now recruiting prisoners as cannon fodder.
About those monsters that war produces.
They aren’t a challenge to the state.
They are running the state. Russia is run by monsters.
Via Climate Denial Crock of the Week here :
https://climatecrocks.com/2023/02/18/the-weekend-wonk-fox-news-naked/#more-83131
Brazil’s vaccine-skeptic Bolsonaro got the shot, document indicates
Catholic bishop shot and killed in his Los Angeles home
Spaaace Neeeews!
Source : https://phys.org/news/2023-02-nasa-planetary-radar-captures-view.html
Turns out this NEA very elongated and dark as charcoal visually.
https://www.universetoday.com/160154/the-mass-of-a-single-star-other-than-the-sun-has-been-directly-measured-for-the-first-time/
Using gravitational lensing to mass a nearby white dwarf.
Is the Milky Way special, or, at least, is it in a special place in the universe? An international team of astronomers has found that the answer to that question is yes, in a way not previously appreciated. A new study shows that the Milky Way is too big for its “cosmological wall,” something yet to be seen in other galaxies. The new research is published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Source : https://phys.org/news/2023-01-milky-big-cosmological-wall.html?utm_source=nwletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=weekly-nwletter
Hairdresser by day, drone hunter by night helps defend skies over Ukraine
ACLU hails first ‘After-School Satan Club’ meeting at Virginia elementary school ‘a victory for free speech and religious liberty’
I think I see their problem here.
These Russians are drinking too much vodka and not bothering to sober up in the morning.
Poland has suffered under the Russians for centuries and at times has been close to disappearing i.e. the Hitler Stalin pact.
Now they are finally free and you can tell they aren’t going back.
I’ve noticed that the Polish seem to deeply hate the Russians and they are spending a lot of money on their military.
I’ve noticed the same thing with the Baltics.
It was a close thing that they didn’t end up being erased like Belarus.
I can’t confirm this.
But it wouldn’t surprise me.
Since a lot of the Russian army is cannon fodder, there is no reason to be overly concerned about paying them.
If you wait a few months, most of them will be…dead.
Since Russia runs on corruption, you can then just pocket their pay.
“They say, this is happening in every unit and will lead to a social explosion.”
Nice thought but unlikely.
The Russians are so used to be abused by their governments that nothing that happens to them seems to shake them out of their apathy.
Russia has started destabilizing Moldova and the Balkans
No surprise.
Russia is at war with the West, NATO, and the EU.
You can bet that Russia is also spending a huge amount of time and money trying to destabilize the USA. They have their own cadres in the GOP and a discredited former president.
Moldova doesn’t have much of an army.
They are also one of the poorest countries in Europe.
Like some of the former SSRs, they have had a hard time learning how to actually run an independent country.
Theo Baker in the Stanford Review (via Retraction Watch) – “Internal review found ‘falsified data’ in Stanford President’s Alzheimer’s research, colleagues allege.”
Wow.
Guardian liveblog:
Ukraine Update: More holes emerge in Seymour Hersh’s fanfic story; No Russia in 2024 Olympics
Followup to comment 389.
More Ukraine updates:
Link in comment 389. Scroll down for the addition shown above.
Followup to comments 389 and 390.
More Ukraine updates:
DeSmogBlog – “Revealed: The Science Denial Network Behind Oxford’s ‘Climate Lockdown’ Backlash”:
Much more at the link. Nicely brings together this network of duplicitous people and organizations.
Followup to comments 389 and 391.
Posted by readers of the article:
Respectful Insolence – “‘Heroism’ in the face of COVID-19?”:
Orac:
Well, it was written somehow – maybe it was ChatGPT. I call bullshit on this persona.
Hundreds rally against changing part of Nashville’s John Lewis Way to Donald Trump Boulevard
Vegas physician, America’s Frontline Doctors sued after Washoe County man died from hydroxychloroquine
A lot of antivaxxer health care workers are now getting sued or having their medical licenses examined.
“Dr. Robert Bruce Bannister wrote. “Serious cardiac rhythm disturbances are known adverse reactions when taking hydroxychloroquine and the presence of certain cardiac rhythm/cycle variants are noted contraindications and reasons to be cautious when prescribing hydroxychloroquine.”
I knew someone on hydroxychloroquine for an autoimmune disease. It was working well but they had to go off it. Because they started to show the characteristic long QT syndrome heart arrythmia from hydroxychloroquine.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, reporting U.S. Food and Drug Administration data, showed that adverse effects from taking the drug then skyrocketed and more than 100 people died in the first half of 2020.
The number of people who died from taking hydroxychloroquine isn’t well known but it is likely to be in the hundreds. Based on 6 months of data in 2020, it is likely to be around 300 dead in the USA, from taking a drug with no activity against Covid-19 virus.
Israeli missile strikes building in central Damascus, five dead
State Supreme Court dismisses Griffin’s appeal of ruling finding him an insurrectionist
Ukraine war: How the conflict is creating family rifts in Russia
@SC #394
I also questioned if Kynefin was an invented name, which is pronounced conniving. Sadly no, Haley appears to be an actual human who read a Joseph Campbell book in college while studying behavioral psychology, and then left to ‘pursue her own path.’ as a writer.
I suppose it’s possible that her online presence is entirely fictitious. Everything google produced about her sounds like it was written by a chat bot.
The Brownstone is a ‘libertarian thinktank’ that supports bitcoin, alternate facts about Covid(amongst other wackaloon theories), and freedomz!!!
How the hell is obvious nonsense and propaganda classified as a legitimate think-tank that gets special tax free status as a 501k?
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
Also from there:
Guardian liveblog:
Also in today’s Guardian:
“‘It’s a war’: the doctor who wants Americans to get abortion pills before it’s too late”:
“After Cyclone Gabrielle, New Zealand wonders how – and if – to rebuild”:
Kenan Malik – “Colonialism by Nigel Biggar review – a flawed defence of empire”:
“Video of a historic day: first @POTUS visit to Ukraine in 15 years.”
Twitter link.
Zelenskyy couldn’t look more thrilled. I think he wipes away tears at one point.
Molly Conger, yesterday:
Livetweeted thread with photos and video follows.
Quite an assortment at this sparsely attended event: Larouchites, Proud Boys, Oathkeepers, Charlottesville Nazis, Ron Paul, Jill Stein, Jimmy Dore (WSWS: “At one point, Dore bizarrely asked, ‘Why are we sending that money to Nazis in Ukraine when we could be funding Nazis here in America struggling to buy eggs?'”), Roger Waters (via video), Dennis Kucinich, and Tulsi Gabbard.
Tweet o’ the day.
LOL, Michael McFaul tweeted “Jumping on @Morning_Joe” a few minutes ago and then appeared on Morning Joe seconds after I read the tweet.
It is obvious that Wagner and Prigozhin are being pushed to the side.
Most likely the Russian dictatorship and the Russian army saw an independent power block forming and knew that was bad news. Russia is ruled by force and threats of force and a mercenary army with tanks and jet fighters is a real threat.
There is an outside chance that the Russian army saw Wagner wasting prisoner manpower by the thousands and decided that wasn’t cost effective. Unlikely, but not impossible.
Reports are that now the Russian army is copying Wagner and recruiting cannon fodder from the prisons.
Meduza:
“Anti-extremist police visit Vladivostok center for LGBTQ+ community and domestic violence survivors”:
“Documentary Navalny wins at BAFTA”:
I’m not easily impressed.
I’m impressed.
Biden is 80 years old and Kyiv is one of the most dangerous spots on earth. Ground zero for a major war zone.
That took real courage from a lot of people to pull this off.
FWIW, I watched the videos of BIden walking through Kyiv with President Zelenskiy.
His physical two days ago said he still showed “stiffness of gait” of unknown significance.
I didn’t really see that. He was walking well and keeping up easily with Zelenskiy who is just over half his age.
He looks good for an 80 year old.
I guess no windows were available.
Axios:
Exclusive: McCarthy gives Tucker Carlson access to trove of Jan. 6 riot tape
Mike Allen
Mmmmkay. And what is the legitimate reason for this access to be exclusive?
I had a thought.
A good response to the current effects of right-wing moral panics on schools is papers about the satanic ritual abuse scare of the 80’s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_panic
The timing of Biden’s visit to Kyiv is excellent. He showed up right before the one-year anniversary of Russia’s illegal invasion. Not only does that timing show in a very real way that the USA continues to support Ukraine, it also steals the spotlight from Putin’s plans. In a way, Biden’s visit reveals Putin’s weakness.
Also, watching the videos one is reminded again how good Biden is at this sort of thing. This visit plays to Biden’s strengths.
As Marjorie Taylor Greene endorses the dissolution of the United States, the question is whether House GOP leaders will bother to care.
Papers on the satanic ritual abuse scare by students in the schools. I had the thought in response to the black children being told to pick things more recent than civil rights or slavery.
A gallery of photos from Biden’s visit to Kyiv:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/gallery/biden-makes-surprise-visit-to-kyiv
Followup to raven @411: Biden also climbed a lot stairs.
Biden in Ukraine: How the president’s surprise visit was kept a secret
Dutch Say Maritime Infrastructure Faces Russian Sabotage Threat
Seattle considers historic law barring caste discrimination
re Lynna @419:
I bet he could have descended a ramp without stumbling if one had been available.
Wonkette: “Biden In Ukraine, And GOP Seditionists And Putin Apologists Think They Have Something To Say About That”
‘So insulting’: Marjorie Taylor Greene and GOP hardliners slam Biden’s surprise trip to Ukraine
Hold on there. Isn’t that the person who cos-played as a balloon during the State of the Union speech?
President Biden’s Kyiv trip was a diplomatic masterstroke, so of course Republicans are fuming
Followup to comment 426.
Commentary from Mark Sumner:
Followup to comment 427.
Posted by readers of the article:
Fox has pushed anti-Black narratives every single day of Black History Month so far
More at the link.
DA drops gun enhancement charge against Alec Baldwin in ‘Rust’ shooting
That prosecutor sounds like a jerk. The DA screwed up, trying to blame it on the defendants and win some points by lawyer-bashing does not put the DA in a good light.
The law didn’t exist at the time, and also the use of a gun didn’t enhance a separate crime; if not for the gun there would have been no incident which might constitute a crime. Trying to use laws in ways they were not intended is awkward.
The prosecutor should at least pretend they are seeking justice and not running for election.
Japan to give Ukraine $5.5B, host online G-7 plus Zelenskyy
WTF?
source
The number of ways in which that is wrong is great.
Another deadly earthquake further devastates hard-hit regions in Turkey, Syria
Revealed: Leaked document shows how Russia plans to take over Belarus
There isn’t much new in this article.
Russia is already very far along in taking over Belarus.
The only reason Lukashenko is still in power is because of Russian soliders.
Belarus only has 9.3 million people, a Russian speaking majority, and no allies.
AFAICT, the only thing left in the process of Belarus being taken over by Russia is the details.
Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s permanent representative to the United Nations, told Yahoo News: “Belarus is already a de facto Russian colony.
Lukashenko did one thing right at some cost to himself and that is keep Belarus mostly out of the war with Ukraine.
Wonkette“James O’Keefe’s Dildo Lube Boat Runs Aground Maybe For Last Time”
johnson catman @423, there was a ramp! Biden has no trouble negotiating the ramp at the train station.
In less happy news, here are Steve Benen’s summaries of the latest mass shootings in the USA:
Link
There are three declared candidates to succeed Nicola Sturgeon as leader of the SNP and First Minister of Scotland: Humza Yousaf, Kate Forbes and Ash Regan. Yousaf, believed to be Sturgeon’s preference to succeed her, has made clear he backs:
The other two are transphobic (and at least in Forbes’s case, homophobic) bigots. Regan has spoken of trying to reconcile with former First Minister and SNP leader Alex Salmond’s “Alba” (aka “We-Hate-Nicola-Sturgeon”) party. The contest will be decided by votes of the 100,000-ish party members. I don’t know how the contest is run, or whether there is time for others to enter it. Either Forbes or Regan winning would lead to the end of the cooperation agrement with the Scottish Greens.
Putin blames the West for his war of choice in Ukraine
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
5th person confirmed to be cured of HIV
BBC – “The mysterious doodles hidden in a 1,300-year-old book”:
Putin says Russia suspending participation in New START treaty, last nuclear weapons pact with U.S.
This is the first thing I saw this morning on my screen.
It reminds me of my childhood up north.
I was 5 years old in the 1950s when I started to nag my parents about our serious lack of a nuclear bomb fallout shelter. We then went on to duck and cover drills in grade school.
Things are not going well in Russia if they have to dig up ancient weapons like these and wave them around.
From SC #439
That is something really necessary.
Reports are that a lot of Russian soldiers aren’t even being paid now.
And the Russians aren’t overly concerned with collecting their dead and returning them to Russia. There are also reports many of their dead soldiers are being cremated on site.
I don’t believe this will happen in any sort of effective fashion though.
This is Russia, after all.
They will set up a system that doesn’t work very well.
Most of the money will be siphoned off by everyone along the way.
The widows of the dead soldiers will get a bag of potatoes, a cabbage, and two chickens.
That wasn’t a very smart threat.
Two years ago would have been the Trump era.
We have no real way of enforcing such a threat whatsoever.
It is meaningless
Guardian podcast – “The new tactics of Britain’s far right”:
“[Today] Putin honored the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade, based in Kursk, which investigators of the Joint Investigation Team identified as the one shooting down the passenger plane MH17.
He did something similar with the 64th Motorized Brigade, better known as the butchers of Bucha”
Biden’s speech in Warsaw will be in an hour, at 11:30 ET in the US.
Ukraine MoD:
MSNBC says Biden’s speech is at 11:00 ET, which is in 5 minutes. No idea.
This is a widespread sentiment.
I’m so glad that we finally have a real leader as president again.
Instead of the last one, that shambling wreck of hate, lies, and incompetence that almost wrecked the USA.
Now MSNBC is also saying the Biden speech is at 11:30. Get it together, MSNBC. :)
This could possibly be a huge breakthrough in understanding Dark Energy & cosmology here :
https://phys.org/news/2023-02-scientists-evidence-black-holes-source.html
COVID-19 vaccination associated with fewer heart attacks, strokes, and other cardiovascular issues
We already knew that.
What is lacking in this article are the actual numbers.
They are behind a paywall.
I could get a free copy but only by giving up personal information I’m not willing to give.
What I liked about Biden’s speech in Warsaw: he put the responsibility for ending the war on Putin. Putin started the illegal, senseless war. He could end it “with one word.”
A few excerpts from the speech:
Link
Oh FFS.
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1628037900750274566
Video at the link.
Putin is strip-mining sub-sea permafrost in Siberia’s shallow coasts. What could possibly go wrong?
Much more at the link, including an explanatory video about Arctic methane.
Accountable.US
“The Election Denial Industrial Complex: Meet The Individuals Who Have Made A Cottage Industry Out Of Election Challenges”
Summary:
The Election-Denier-Grifter-Research-Report has all the receipts. Suffice it to say it is a very lucrative cottage industry.
Happy Mardi Gras.
raven @ # 443: … [quoting the Grauniad] Amid tense talks over the treaty almost two years ago…[unquote] Two years ago would have been the Trump era.
The Trump™ regime ended about two years, one month and one day ago, so “almost two years ago” explicitly means early Biden time.
Clumsy ships, one Chinese, sever submarine cables that connect Taiwanese islands
Accidents with undersea cables do happen. Whether this was an accident or something else I do not know.
Religious leaders who are ethically challenged …
Feds fine Mormon church for illicitly hiding $32 billion investment fund behind shell companies
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints engaged in the scheme for more than 20 years.
Link
Ukraine update: Biden’s visit resonates across Ukraine as Bakhmut faces critical days
More Ukraine updates coming soon.
Link
Video is available at the link, scroll down.
“Has Putin Been Reading Libs Of TikTok Or Do All Bigots Just Sound The Same?”
https://www.wonkette.com/putin-speech-anti-lgbtq
More at the link, including a video excerpt from Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News.
Followup to comment 462.
More Ukraine updates:
It sounds like the bald dwarf has not read scripture himself.
And then of course there’s the hypocrisy.
The U.S. has sanctioned Vladimir Putin’s long-rumored romantic partner
NYT:
Jury in Georgia Trump Inquiry Recommended Multiple Indictments, Forewoman Says
Danny Hakim / Feb. 21, 2023
Followup to #467:
A reporter told Ms. Kohrs that Trump had claimed the redacted materials “totally exonerated him”, to which she replied;
“she rolled her eyes and then burst out laughing. ‘Did he really say that?’ she asked. ‘Oh, that’s fantastic. That’s phenomenal. I love it.’ When asked if she had any response, she said, ‘I invoke my Fifth Amendment right. That’s what I have to say to that,'” is how the Atlanta Journal-Constitution described the exchange.
Unvaccinated more likely to have heart attack, stroke after COVID, study finds
Being fully vaccinated reduced the risk by about 41 percent.
This is a followup to the comment at #452 about the Covid-19 vaccines.
They must have given up their email address because it has the numbers.
They used a database of 1.9 million Covid-19 cases. This is a huge database, a population level sample.
…the researchers found that being fully vaccinated reduced the risk of having a major cardiac event by about 41 percent, while being partially vaccinated reduced the risk by about 24 percent.
This sums it up.
It isn’t that impressive, reducing the occurrence of Major Cardiac Events by about half for fully vaccinated, but way better than nothing.
There are some limitations here.
They are calling fully vaccinated as two doses.
That isn’t fully vaccinated any more. We now know that the vaccines wear off relatively rapidly.
“A Year of Putin’s Wartime Lies”
Every credible analyst of the invasion of Ukraine has been stunned by the scale of the Russian President’s folly—and his failure extends well beyond the battlefield.
Excerpts from an article by David Remnick:
New Yorker link
Good news so far: One Liberal Judge Through To Barnburner Wisconsin Supreme Court General Election
The conservatives in the race sound awful.
How the Trump family is helping Trump campaign for the presidency:
Media Matters link
So, yeah, bats in the belfry and all that, and sometimes laughable, but also people who are encouraging citizens to vote for Trump.
Not sur e about people fromoverseas here but Aussies now have an ecxtra couple of weeks to nominate a twree here :
https://www.20metretrees.org/nominate
With the deadline for this being extended.
NASA Mars orbiter reveals China’s Zhurong rover has not moved for months
Mystery sphere found on beach perplexes Japan
Southern Baptists oust Saddleback Church over woman pastor
Trump set to visit East Palestine after cutting rail regulations as president
@ 477
Trump and his handlers are counting on the fact that most of the residents don’t know about how his “policies” resulted in the derailment or would consider the facts of the matter “FAKE NEWS!!!!1!1!” A pretty safe bet if I know rural America.
US Rep. Cicilline to step down, lead nonprofit foundation
Russia prepares for mass mobilisation of full-time students
Pregnant Florida suspect in Uber murder seeks release because unborn baby not charged with crime
The logic is clear and in line with legal precedents: our legal system is not supposed to punish the innocent. I can recall a case in Minnesota where DNA evidence implicated one of a pair of twins in a felony, and it wasn’t prosecuted because they couldn’t tell which twin.
Yet, this will be surprising or even funny to many people. That is because zygotes and fetuses have never been considered persons. Not in our culture, and frankly not in any culture in human history.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From there:
They also link to Max Seddon’s livetweeting of Putin’s rally in Moscow earlier:
Photos, video, and links at the link. It looks so cold.
Here is a Mastodon summary of a report on Russian Telegram.
“The students were handed mobilisation orders by the military registration and enlistment office staff and were pressured to sign them. However, they refused, …”
I don’t think these young men have much of a future as policemen in Russia now.
It is known that Russia uses force and threats of force to mobilize their young and not so young men for the invasion of Ukraine.
I’m sure scenes like this are common all through Russia.
And likely to happen as long as the war goes on.
Guardian – “Cambridge University students vote for completely vegan menus”:
The patronizing statement from the University of Cambridge spokesperson at the end is pretty odd:
Podcast episodes:
SWAJ – “It’s In the Code Ep. 39: Understanding Religious Trauma Part II.”
A link to part I and a description of the two-part episode are at #86 above. I have a few objections and remarks, but overall the interview is extremely useful.
Fever Dreams – “Trust The Host ft. Will Sommer”:
The Russians say the same thing.
There is no doubt that if Ukraine falls, Moldova is next.
They won’t last a week.
Moldova more or less doesn’t have an army.
6,000 troops, very little in the way of tanks and planes.
Very small defense budget.
They are rated 143 out of 145 in defense power.
AFAICT, Moldova has never quite got it together enough to run a country.
This was and is a problem from all the former SSRs. Being occupied by the Russians for 70 years means they never had the opportunity or need to govern themselves and they are learning as they go along.
Moldova is one of the poorest countries in Europe.
Meduza – “Evgeny Prigozhin blames Wagner Group casualties on Defense Ministry, demands ‘ammo for Wagner’”:
In a first, a South Korean court says same-sex partners should get government benefits
Australia has taken out ‘hive’ of spies, security chief says
British man pleads guilty to stealing 200,000 Cadbury Creme Eggs
Yaroslav Trofimov:
It’s depressing how many people I recognize from their solid critical work on the US or capitalism have turned into wackadoos when it comes to COVID or Russian imperialism or both.
Reginald Selkirk @491:
That’s about 3,000,000 kilocalories. Not including the other chocolates that were stolen. Too bad the police weren’t eggzactly specific about what else was stolen.