Your day probably hasn’t been weird enough, so let’s fix that right now with a quote from an ex-President of These United States.
“I wanted to have people be ready because we were put on alert that they were going to do fruit,” said Donald J. Trump, previously in charge of this nation’s nuclear arsenal.
[…] this and many other important fruit-related quotes have now surfaced thanks to an October deposition just now being filed in the civil lawsuit against Trump brought by Trump Tower protesters who were assaulted by Trump’s private security force back in 2015. Lawyers for those protesters were probing Trump’s history of encouraging violence against protesters in general, including his public request to a crowd at one of his 2016 rallies that “If you see someone getting ready to throw a tomato, just knock the crap out of them, would you?”
This led the man who could once issue orders to nuclear submarines, perhaps orders demanding that they pull up to a seaside McDonalds and order him some fries, to explain that he was justified in asking the crowd to “knock the crap” out of anyone who might try to throw fruit because his campaign had learned somebody might possibly be planning to throw fruit and the fruit-throwing could have been “very dangerous.”
[…] some of the fruit-related highlights of Trump’s testimony:
“You get hit with fruit, it’s—no, it’s very violent stuff. We were on alert for that.”
Tomatoes are: “very dangerous stuff.”
“You can get killed with those things.”
“Some fruit is a lot worse than—tomatoes are bad, by the way. But it’s very dangerous. No, I wanted them to watch. They were on alert. I remember that specific event because everybody was on alert. They were going to hit, they were going to hit hard.”
“You can be killed if that happens.”
The specific fruits Trump enumerated as “dangerous stuff” consist of “pineapples, tomatoes, bananas, stuff like that.” While the threat of pineapples is obvious, there remain few to no incidents of American politicians being pelted by pineapples, because they are simply too heavy to throw very far. Bananas could potentially be dangerous because, being of a boomerang-like shape, a skilled thrower could potentially throw a banana that would approach from an unexpected direction, foiling even the most skilled of Secret Service agents and resulting in a potential Dear Leader being poked somewhat annoyingly by one of the banana’s two somewhat pointy ends.
As for the “very dangerous,” “very violent,” and “you can be killed if that happens” nature of a thrown tomato, the dangers are a bit less clear. Is it possible the tomato juice could have combined with Trump’s velvety facial make-up to produce some sort of napalm-like solution? Is there a way for tomatoes and other thrown fruits to combine to produce, say, thermite? […]
Kazakhstan may declare a prominent Russian television host persona non grata after he said the central Asian nation could meet the same fate as Ukraine if it did not side decisively with Russia, a Kazakh official said on Wednesday.
Reuters has this report below:
Tigran Keosayan – married to Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the Kremlin-backed media outlet RT – said on his YouTube show that Kazakhstan was being “ungrateful” and “sly” by failing to show its support for Russia.
Kazakh foreign ministry spokesperson Aibek Smadiyarov said Keosayan’s comments were “insulting” and lacked objectivity.
Perhaps his statement reflects the views of some parts of the Russian public and political establishment, but it goes against the spirit and essence of the cooperation between our countries and the existing agreements between our leaders,” he added.
I expect he will be included in the list of people who are not welcome in Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan, an oil-rich former Soviet republic, has so far not condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but has called for the crisis to be resolved in line with the United Nations charter. It has also sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine, and has said it will abide by Western sanctions against Moscow.
Though Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) is taking serious heat for his involvement with a dubious cryptocurrency venture, he’s not the only one to have supported it.
Both former President Donald Trump and his son Don Jr. promoted the digital asset, known as Let’s Go Brandon coin after the coded insult for President Joe Biden.
The Washington Examiner published an article on Tuesday accusing Cawthorn of participating in a “pump and dump” scheme around the coin, suggesting that he promoted the coin based on non-public information — increasing its value — then sold it before it crashed.
The report speculated that Cawthorn could be investigated over his involvement in the coin. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) jumped out of the woodwork on Wednesday morning to suggest that the allegations merited a congressional inquiry.[…]
Our friend Michael Kofman popped in for another conversation with Ryan about where things stand in the Russo-Ukrainian War. He gives a wide-ranging assessment of Russia’s unfavorable position as it musters an offensive in the Donbass that might be the last one that the Russian military is capable of launching before it is a spent force. From Ukraine’s advanced Western kit to holdouts in Mariupol to the naval state of play to Russia’s dire manpower shortages, Mike and Ryan discuss it all. Mike also gets into the nitty gritty on Russian infantry manning levels.
…So I’m trying to develop an organized picture of the spectrum of views of the experts on the war and the internal Russian situation (which are of course related).
From less to more “bullish” (apologies if that sounds glib) on Ukraine’s chances in the war, it goes from the Kremlin-shill Guardian oped writers (who, OK, aren’t honest brokers) through the Pentagon, the UK military, Kofman, and Mark Hertling to the Daily Kos writers.
For writers about resistance/democratic possibilities within Russia, it goes from Julia Ioffe through the experts interviewed by Meduza, Michael McFaul, and Alexey Navalny to Vladimir Kara-Murza.
There’s no reason to think that anyone in the middle of either spectrum is more correct than those toward the ends (or vice versa). I’m trying to figure out which factors people are focused on, what the important unknowns are, what the major changes are in the situation and the evaluations over time, which analyses relate to the short vs. the long term, what the analysts’ sources of information are, etc.
Let me know if you have any criticisms or suggestions.
There seems to be a fundamental aspect in #4 – the spectrum of resignation vs. hope – not just in Ukraine or Russia, but in Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Romania, Belarus, and elsewhere.
Scott Morrison is criticising the Coalition’s own climate policy – it’s just one that has barely been used
Scott Morrison and other government MPs are accusing Labor of planning to introduce a “sneaky carbon tax” by – wait for it – using an existing Coalition policy as it was intended.
Sounds ridiculous, right? Election campaign shamelessness on steroids. But there is a lot going on here and it is worth stepping through it.
What is the policy?
The awkwardly named safeguard mechanism was created by Greg Hunt, the former environment minister and introduced under then prime minister Tony Abbott, a well-known climate sceptic. It was legislated in 2014 as part of what was then known as the Coalition’s “direct action” policy.
A close look at the election campaign’s energy promises shows major parties still back fossil fuels | Temperature Check
The idea was that emissions limits would be set for the country’s biggest industrial sites, those that emit more than 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. The limits – known as baselines – would stop “rogue” polluters from significantly increasing emissions and effectively wiping out any cuts the government paid for from farmers and others through its emissions reduction fund.
The baselines were meant to “safeguard” those cuts. If a company went over its baseline it would have to buy carbon credits to offset the extra pollution pumped into the atmosphere.
In practice, that hasn’t happened. Industrial emissions continue to increase – by 7% since the safeguard was introduced – as the government has mostly just allowed companies to increase baselines, or change the timeframe over which baselines are measured, without penalty.
Industry representatives, climate activists and analysts believe it has made the scheme a waste of time and have long called for an overhaul.
How has the government responded?
The government has refused to acknowledge that industrial emissions are an issue that need to be addressed now. Official government projections show they are not expected to be cut before 2030 under the Coalition’s policies.
The government’s ambition for the safeguard mechanism has reduced since its early days. Shortly before the landmark Paris climate conference in 2015, Hunt included it as part of Australia’s pledge to the summit and said it would be developed to cut emissions from industrial polluters by 200m tonnes between 2020 and 2030.
But the ministers who followed him – Josh Frydenberg, Melissa Price and Angus Taylor – have not repeated that claim, and the Coalition now has no plans to require industrial polluters to cut emissions.
Instead, it assumes cleaner technology will eventually lead to businesses taking voluntary steps to deliver most emissions cuts. It has not explained the basis for this assumption in any detail.
What is Labor proposing?
The Business Council of Australia, which in the past had campaigned for the abolition of the country’s carbon pricing scheme and described a science-based emissions target as “economy wrecking”, last year had something of a reversal on climate policy.
In October, the business council called for Australia’s climate target for 2030 to be increased to a 46% to 50% cut – more than Labor’s 43%, and nearly twice as much as the Coalition’s 26-28% – and released a policy blueprint. It said the safeguard should be “enhanced and expanded” to “deliver a strong carbon investment signal to invest in new low, zero and negative emissions technology”. Others, including the Australian Industry Group, support this position.
Does Labor plan to force the top 200 energy users and producers to cut emissions by 25%? | Temperature Check
Labor’s safeguard policy, released in December, basically adopted the business council’s recommendations. It said if it was in government the baselines for the 215 major industrial sites covered by the safeguard would be cut “predictably and gradually” in a way that supported “international competitiveness and economic growth”.
Big emitting export industries – coalmines, for example – would get “tailored treatment” to ensure they weren’t disadvantaged against other countries where there was not an equivalent scheme in place. Opposition MPs appeared to stumble trying to explain this, with some suggesting coalmines in the Hunter valley would be exempt, while the opposition climate change and energy spokesperson, Chris Bowen, said they would be included but their circumstances meant they wouldn’t face a hit.
It was mostly a semantic difference but it underlined that there are many details still to come if Labor wins. Modelling for the ALP by RepuTex suggests it could use the safeguard to cut emissions by 213m tonnes by 2030 – roughly similar to what Hunt proposed back in 2015 – while creating 1,600 mostly regional jobs. The policy said officials would work out new baselines in consultation with industry on a case-by-case basis.
What would it mean for fossil fuel industries?
Power generation is not included in the safeguard, but fossil fuel exports – coal and gas – are. Labor says that demand for thermal coal and liquified natural gas exports will fall as the world cuts emissions, but it would not penalise those industries against overseas competitors while people want to buy their product.
The Coalition’s net zero plan also acknowledges a long-term decline for coal and gas but has a different emphasis. It says both industries “will continue through to 2050 and beyond, supporting jobs and regional communities”. Given carbon capture and storage’s lack of economic viability, that appears to be banking on the world failing to address the crisis, a situation that would lead to worsening extreme weather and climate disasters.
Among the parties, only the Greens say Australia has a responsibility to significantly cut emissions from fossil fuel export industries in line with climate science. They want a levy on coal exports that would be used to fund climate disaster recovery and development of new clean exports, and for the industry to end by 2030.
Morrison this week said the government had “put incentives in place” while “what Labor is doing is binding them on this and issuing penalties on those companies”. What did that mean? Is it fair?
Dear politicians, young climate activists are not abuse victims, we are children who read news | Anjali Sharma
It’s not exactly clear what incentives Morrison was referring to, but it seems likely he means a proposal to create a “safeguard crediting mechanism” that would allow companies that cut emissions below their baseline to earn credits they could sell. It was among the recommendations of a review in 2020 ordered by Taylor.
It is a contentious change – currently, some businesses have baselines set well above what they actually emit. If that was not properly addressed, the government could end up giving away credits to industry that has not made cuts.
The government has consulted industry on the design of this scheme and allocated $279.9m in funding over 10 years to buy credits. But the plan has yet not been introduced – so there are no “incentives in place”. Labor has proposed a similar change, but also released few details.
Both models sound a fair bit like a form of carbon trading but neither side concedes this.
As for Labor issuing penalties, Bowen has estimated about half of the cuts under the ALP safeguard plan could come from businesses using better technology, supported by a new $15bn national reconstruction fund. There are no penalties involved there.
The other half would come from industry buying carbon credits to offset their emissions. That already happens now, to a lesser extent. As Guardian Australia has reported, the Coalition model required 14 companies to buy 419,000 carbon credits at an estimated cost of more than $15m last financial year for breaching their emissions baselines.
Both parties plan to significantly expand the use of carbon credits, which have been in the news of late due to concerns over their credibility. Under its net zero plan, the Coalition says credits could deliver up to 20% of the emissions cuts needed by mid-century. It has not explained who would pay for these.
So, is the safeguard mechanism already a “sneaky carbon tax”?
No. As Katharine Murphy has pointed out, it is not a tax now, and won’t be under Labor’s changes. It is a scheme to limit and hopefully reduce pollution. Companies that go above their limit are required to offset the damage. That is not a tax under any normal definition.
Coalition climate policy forced big polluters to pay $15m for carbon credits in past year
The bottom line is that the safeguard is a Coalition policy that has barely been used, but most experts think could be. Labor has strategically adopted its opponent’s model after repeat scare campaigns left it bruised and gun-shy on climate.
The Morrison government has built a hard-earned reputation as a global laggard on climate. It stuck with a low, seven-year-old 2030 emissions target despite significant international pressure, has no significant policies to cut emissions in that timeframe and claims a 20% emissions cut since 2005 despite most of that having come before it was elected in 2013.
It has a net zero emissions plan for 2050 that assumes the bulk of the work will come later, at odds with climate science advice, and does not actually add up to net zero. Despite the subsequent denials, LNP candidate and climate sceptic Colin Boyce was on to something this week when he said there is wriggle room in the net zero commitment.
Meanwhile, Morrison is suggesting using the Coalition’s policy to do what it was designed to would be economically disastrous. That should be treated as what it is: a scare campaign and an argument for inaction.
blfsays
On the mysteriously-sabotaged Internet fibre cables here in France (see SC@471(previous page), et al.), I myself was not knowingly affected, and in fact didn’t even know of the attacks until late yesterday. To-date I’ve not seen any speculation or insights into who was responsible, albeit since the attacks all(?) appeared to happen at about 4am, it is widely-presumed they are related / coorientated. Nothing like this has ever happened before in France (or anywhere), leading to a great deal of head-scratching… why? who? wtf? (Previous attacks have all been small-scale and localised, and rare; I have no idea if those questions — why? who? wtf? — were ever answered in those previous rare cases.)
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From their most recent summary:
Russia’s foreign affairs ministry has issued another stern warning to western countries over encouragement given to Ukraine to strike within Russian territory.
Spokesperson Maria Zakharova said: “[blah blah blah].”
…
The head of Ukrainian parliament’s energy committee, Andriy Herus, has attempted to reassure the country that energy supplies are secure in the short term. He said Ukraine has enough gas and electricity to meet its needs at the moment, but cautioned that he was less certain it would be able to do so in the late autumn.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, is in Ukraine, and has visited Borodianka to see the destruction there.
Efforts are under way to get emergency contraception into Ukrainian hospitals as quickly as possible, as reports of rape after the Russian invasion continue to rise. About 25,000 packets of the medication, also known as the morning-after pill, have been sent by International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).
…
Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary general of Nato, has said in Brussels “if they decide to apply, Finland and Sweden will be welcomed with open arms to Nato.”
…
Germany’s Bundestag lower house of parliament has overwhelmingly approved a petition on support for Ukraine, backing the delivery of weapons including heavy arms to the country to help it fend off Russian attacks….
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) recently told a far-right Catholic media organization that “Satan’s controlling the church” of Christians who provide aid to undocumented immigrants.
The extremist lawmaker, whose website boasts of her “strong Christian faith,” sat down for an interview Thursday with right-wing activist Michael Voris, founder of Church Militant.
In a clip from the interview released by the group Right Wing Watch, Voris asked Greene about Catholic organizations in the U.S. that use federal funding to help resettle undocumented immigrants and refugees.
“I thought we had a separation of church and state,” Greene said in response. [LOL]
“What it is, is Satan’s controlling the church,” she continued. “The church is not doing its job, and it’s not adhering to the teachings of Christ, and it’s not adhering to what the word of God says we’re supposed to do and how we’re supposed to live.”
She added that Christian groups that say you should take care of migrants are “destroying our laws” and taking advantage of Americans.
“Yes, we are supposed to love one another, but their definition of what love one another means, means destroying our laws,” she said. “It means completely perverting what our Constitution says. It means taking unreal advantage of the American taxpayer. And it means pushing a globalist policy on the American people and forcing America to become something that we are not supposed to be.”
She also suggested that the U.S. government should sever foreign aid to the home countries of undocumented immigrants who are “illegally invading.”
“We should hold those countries accountable,” she said. “‘Oh, I’m sorry, Guatemala, you’re not getting a check this year because you’ve sent X number of thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands and millions of people to illegally invade our country as if they’re an army.”
…
Voris, a devout supporter of former President Donald Trump, has claimed that Catholics support men like Trump because they “no longer see any trace of masculinity in their religious leaders.” In 2020, he warned that not voting for Trump would result in Christians being “identified, hunted down, declared ‘illegal’ for some made-up reason.”
“Don’t be expressing your regrets as you’re herded onto the trains heading for the camps,” he wrote….
The video is at the link. It’s worth watching – when she talks about Catholics believing they should treat migrants with love, she uses a mocking tone and gestures to imitate them.
Joe Biden is asking Congress to approve another $20bn in military aid to Ukraine, significantly ramping up the US contribution to the battle against Russian occupation.
Biden will also ask for $8.5bn in economic aid to Kyiv and $3bn in humanitarian relief, as well as funds to help increase US production of food crops and strategic minerals to offset the impact of the war in Ukraine on global supplies.
The total request for supplemental spending comes to $33bn. The last supplemental request approved by Congress in March was $13.6bn.
In a letter to the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Biden said:
What I want to make clear to the Congress and the American people is this: the cost of failing to stand up to violent aggression in Europe has always been higher than the cost of standing firm against such attacks.
The new military assistance the congressional funding will finance will include:
– More artillery, armoured vehicles, as well as anti-tank missiles and anti-aircraft systems
– Help to build up Ukraine’s cyber warfare capabilities
– More intelligence sharing
– Support to increase Ukraine’s ability to produce munitions and strategic [?]
…
– Assistance to clear landmines, improvised explosive devices, and other explosive remnants of war and for the Government of Ukraine in securing and addressing threats related to chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear materials
– Further building up US presence on Nato’s eastern flank
The package of proposals the administration is sending to Congress also includes measures to strengthen the hand of the justice department in pursuing Kremlin-aligned oligarchs.
Biden said the measures would allow for “expanded and expedited measures for investigating, prosecuting, and forfeiting assets of Russian oligarchs to be used for the benefit of Ukraine”.
The US has “information that Russia’s planning for its further invasion of Ukraine includes a forced capitulation of Ukraine’s democratically elected government, including dissolving all local municipal governments in Ukraine,” per [Michael Carpenter, US ambassador to OSCE].
According to @USAmbOSCE, “new governance structures were to be set up in ‘liberated’ territories under Russian control” and “plans for a new government and new constitution are being developed by Russian officials and so-called ‘separatists.’”
The world also “should expect Russia to intensify its ongoing forced transfers of local populations from areas of Ukraine’s south and east to Russia or Russia-controlled parts of the Donbas via so-called ‘filtration camps,’” @USAmbOSCE said today.
“There are alarming reports that those suspected of having such connections are being beaten or tortured before being transferred to the so-called ‘Donetsk People’s Republic,’ where they are reportedly disappeared or murdered,” @USAmbOSCE said.
“Reporting indicates that many civilians in these filtration camps who ‘pass’ the interrogation are transferred to Russia or Russia-controlled Donbas, including via Belarus,” @USAmbOSCE said.
“Our information indicates Russia is abducting, torturing, and/or murdering locally elected leaders, journalists, and civil society activists, as well as religious leaders,” @USAmbOSCE said.
Rachel Maddow shares a bizarre transcript from a deposition taken from Donald Trump in a civil case in which protesters are suing him for rough treatment at the hands of security outside of Trump Tower, in which a lawyer explores Trump’s unusual preoccupation with the possibility of being injured or killed by a thrown piece of fruit.
Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, talks with Rachel Maddow about the January 6th Committee’s scrutiny of the plan to use presidential emergency powers as part of Donald Trump’s scheme to negate his 2020 election loss, and what Congress can do to minimize that threat in the future.
According to Petro Andriushchenko, advisor to Mariupol mayor, stolen artworks include paintings of Ivan Aivazovsky and Mariupol-native Arkhip Kuindzhi, ancient icons, and medals.”
n a 4-3 ruling, New York’s top court rejected the gerrymandered district map created by the Democratic-led legislature. That’s a serious setback for the party: The map was poised to help Democrats win three additional seats and blunt the effects of Republican gerrymandering elsewhere.
Meanwhile, in Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis created his own severely gerrymandered district map and Republican legislators in that state approved it.
There are some court challenges to gerrymandered maps in various states, but I expect to see Republicans drawing districts that keep them in power for a decade in most instances. Republicans in the Senate have, for the most part, prevented the passage of voter-protection and voting-rights laws at the Congressional level.
In Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial race, state Sen. Doug Mastriano, a leading Republican contender, appeared at a right-wing event last week where attendees were told that a “global satanic blood cult” would soon be exposed and that Adolf Hitler faked his death. Oddly enough, Mastriano was also awarded a sword by QAnon conspiracy theorists at the event.
It seems the exploitable portions of our outmoded and outdated constitution, which allows the states to devise their own election procedures, are finally coming home to roost.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 21
…and that Adolf Hitler faked his death.
You’d think that crowd would be happy about the news. Then again, the right has long ago declared that the Nazis really leftists AND homosexuals.
Earlier this week, Russia declared that it had taken “all of Mariupol.” Which meant that they had captured all of the city except the vast collection of factories, buildings, sheds, scrapyards, and material heaps of the Azovstal complex. Established in 1930, Azovstal was one of the Soviet Union’s largest manufacturers of steel and other alloys through World War II, the Cold War, and into the present day. During all that period, the complex continued to grow, and as it did its importance to the USSR, which was marked by an increasing complex of shelters and tunnels explicitly designed to keep the factory’s 40,000 workers on site and in business, even in the middle of war.
The tunnels beneath Azovstal were designed to take a near-direct hit from a nuclear weapon. For the last two months, hundreds of Ukrainians, including families with children, have been in those shelters and tunnels as part of the resistance to the Russian invasion of their city. And for the most part, those tunnels and shelters have served their purpose, holding out against not just a constant pounding from artillery, incredibly, but against weeks of bombardment by Tupolev Tu-22M “Backfire” bombers that blanketed the area with explosions felt miles away.
But not everywhere is equally protected: On Wednesday evening, a field hospital located within the complex failed under the constant weight of the Russian air and artillery assault.
The Russians bombed the AzovStal plant all night. Part of the military hospital collapsed. The video shows that the wounded in the hospital were buried in rubble.
ps I just can’t stand it anymore.
I don’t understand why we have UN, ICRC etc who can do nothing to help people
[https://twitter.com/avalaina/status/1519659500147511298 Video is available at the Twitter link, and at the main link.]
Dozens of people, including children, have reportedly died in the attack as Russia continues to bring down the boot on the last holdouts in a city already turned to rubble by weeks of constant attack. Most of those still remaining below Azovstal are fighters from the national Azov Regiment, who Russia has made into the boogeymen of this war. The regiment knows what would happen to them if they tried to surrender. They know what would happen to their families, to their wives and children.
Azovstal was built to be a shelter under the worst imaginable circumstances. Now those circumstances are here. And unless something changes soon in Mariupol, what started as a shelter will end as a tomb. [Tweet available at the link, including claims from The Kyiv Independent that Russia launched phosphorous bombs and around 50 airstrikes on Mariupol overnight.]
Deputy Commander of the Azov Regiment Sviatoslav Palamar called for decisive measures to evacuate the city as Russia is employing “everything that a barbarian can use against humanity.”
Elsewhere in Mariupol, the BBC reports that Russia has set up “filtration camps” at which local citizens are processed before being taken away to unknown locations within Russia. Some of the few to escape from those camps call conditions there “unimaginable.”
“It was like a true concentration camp,” Oleksandr, 49, says. …
Elderly people slept in corridors without mattresses or blankets, Olena says. There was only one toilet and one sink for thousands of people. Dysentery soon began to spread. “There was no way to wash or clean,” she says. “It smelt extremely awful.”
Those suspected of being “Ukrainian Nazis” or who showed any sign of protest were taken away to be tortured or killed.
“The filtration camps are like ghettos,” she says. “Russians divide people into groups. Those who were suspected of having connections with the Ukrainian army, territorial defence, journalists, workers from the government – it’s very dangerous for them. They take those people to prisons to Donetsk, torture them.”
The situation in Mariupol is intolerable for the people there. It should be intolerable for everyone who is not there.
Akira @23, part of that nonsense about Hitler faking his death also concludes that some of Hitler’s descendants are now the leaders of anti-liberal, white supremacist groups.
Think of Putinism as next-stage Trumpism: Oh, sure, we’re all going to die, but that’s a good thing because we get to go out while expressing our hate for everyone else. It’s all the worst things about radical jihad, in a western suit. Oh, and with nukes.
Link, (see the 8:30:48 AM post), which also includes a tweet and video about Russian state TV raging about WWIII and inevitable escalation. “Citizens are being primed to believe that even the worst outcome is a good thing, because those dying for the Motherland will skyrocket to paradise.”
Some Russian forces leaving Mariupol, says US official
The US has seen indications that some Russian forces are leaving Mariupol and moving towards the north-west, even as fighting for the Ukrainian port city continues, a senior US defence official said.
Reuters reports the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that in addition to training Ukrainian forces on howitzers, training was ongoing outside of Ukraine for a mobile radar system and the M113 armoured personnel carrier.
The official did not give any details about where this training was taking place.
‘Massive bombing strike’ on Azovstal plant, says Mariupol official
Russian forces have been hitting the Azovstal steelworks in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol with the heaviest strikes yet, a local official said.
Hundred of fighters and civilians are believed to still be trapped in the vast iron and steelworks. In a video posted online on Wednesday, Serhiy Volyna, commander of Ukraine’s 36th marine brigade forces in Mariupol, said there are more than 600 injured Ukrainian soldiers and hundreds of civilians including children in the plant….
UN ‘doing everything possible’ to evacuate people from Mariupol’s Azovstal plant, says secretary general
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has been speaking following a meeting with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in Kyiv….
British citizen killed in Ukraine understood to be former soldier Scott Sibley
A British citizen has been killed in Ukraine and a second is missing, the Foreign Office has confirmed, amid reports that both were volunteers who had gone to fight in the country, Peter Beaumont and Ben Quinn report.
The Briton who died is understood to be Scott Sibley, a former British soldier who had served in Iraq….
The Russian war in Ukraine is evil, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said during his visit to the country.
Guterres visited Irpin, Borodianka and Bucha, and inspected a mass grave before meeting the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Just when you thought Russian airwaves could not get any more bizarre, Putin’s puppets have now surrendered to the idea of nuclear apocalypse, because at least they’ll “go to heaven.”
Akira @27, very confusing. The neo-Nazis in the state where I live are not leftists. I think that Putin and many others are using the word “Nazi” to mean “ultimate evil,” and that they are not really discriminating when it comes to what terms they use to describe their perceived enemies.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 26
And here we thought that if nuclear annihilation were to occur because a Rapture-obsessed Christian zealot pressed the button that it would an American to do it.
Followup to SC @16: Some people are pointing out that Biden’s proposed relief bill to help Ukraine includes more money than Russia’s entire budget. Now we are starting to really see how Russia’s depressed, limping economy cannot support the war it is waging against Ukraine.
Bulgaria will be helping Ukraine in another important way — repairing equipment so it can get back in the field. At a Thursday meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Prime Minister of Bulgaria Kirill Petko, an agreement was reached to actually ship some equipment out of Ukraine to Bulgaria, where it can be repaired and put back into service.
In exchange, Ukraine is promising to increase the supply of gas and electricity it provides to Bulgaria to help compensate for the loss of Russian energy sources. Ukraine also reached an agreement to ship agricultural products — like the wheat and corn being grown in the areas of the country not currently directly threatened by the Russian invasion — through Bulgaria’s Black Sea port at Varna. [map available at the link]
By routing wheat across Romania to the Bulgarian port at Varna, Ukraine can get food out to the international market while avoiding the blockade Russia is conducting on Ukrainian ports.
Leff Ukraine earlier this am after 11 weeks of reporting that have shred and strained every fibre of my being. Ukraine looks like surviving in some state – and that wasn’t a given. But the pain is enormous.
On Tues, spoke to man who lost most of brother’s family after Russians opened fire on convoy. One 7 year old grandkid survived: “He told me he saw granddad in flames, mummy in flames and brother in flames, and he couldn’t help them. What can I tell him?” What can anyone tell him
During her seven years on Capitol Hill, Ohio’s Jean Schmidt earned a reputation as one of the more controversial Republicans in Congress. In 2005, after the congresswoman lashed out at a Democratic war hero as a “coward,” The New York Times published a headline that referenced her unfortunate nickname: “Mean Jean.”
A decade ago, Schmidt unexpectedly lost in a GOP primary, ending her congressional career. Last year, however, the Ohioan launched a comeback bid of sorts, and was elected to the state legislature for a second stint.
And she’s now reminding everyone about some of the qualities that made her controversial in the first place. The Cincinnati Enquirer reported:
Ohio Republican Rep. Jean Schmidt sparked outrage during a hearing on an abortion bill when she said a hypothetical teenager traumatized by rape would have the “opportunity” to help that child become a “productive human being.”
At issue is a GOP proposal to ban abortions in Ohio if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. The state bill includes no exceptions for rape or incest.
[…] [Jean Schmidt said,] “Rape is a difficult issue and it emotionally scars the individual, all or in part, for the rest of their life, just as child abuse does. But if a baby is created, it is a human life. And whether that mother ends that pregnancy or not, the scars will not go away, period.”
Schmidt went on to say, in reference to the hypothetical teenager, “It is a shame that it happens but there is an opportunity for that woman, no matter how young or old she is, to make a determination about what she’s going to do to help that life be a productive human being. Just because you have emotional scars doesn’t give you the right to take the life.”
As longtime readers may recall, it was 10 years ago — right around the time Schmidt lost her primary — when Republican Todd Akin famously declared, “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” The Missourian was, of course, in a competitive U.S. Senate race at the time.
Two months later, in Indiana’s U.S. Senate race, Republican Richard Mourdock argued that when a woman is impregnated by a rapist, “it’s something God intended.”
As the dust settled on the 2012 election cycle, and Akin and Mourdock lost their red-state contests, Kellyanne Conway was brought in to advise House GOP candidates and officeholders on the issue. Conway — at the time, a prominent Republican pollster, years before she joined Donald Trump’s political operation — implored her partisan allies: Stop talking about rape.
Ten years later, some in the party appear to have forgotten the lesson. Last fall, for example, J.D. Vance, a Republican U.S. Senate hopeful said he’d support abortion bans, even if they applied to pregnancies resulting from rape. The Ohioan described such pregnancies as “inconvenient.”
[…] a few months later Garrett Soldano, a GOP gubernatorial candidate also said he’d oppose rape exceptions for abortion bans. “How about we start inspiring women in the culture to let them understand and know how heroic they are and how unbelievable they are that God put them in this moment,” he said earlier this year.
Now, Jean Schmidt is lending her voice to the argument, saying those impregnated by rapists have “an opportunity” — not to terminate the unwanted pregnancy, but take the pregnancy to term.
It’s hardly unreasonable to wonder how many more Republicans will echo this line as the election season unfolds over the next several months.
The American right has often made a big deal that the “S” in NSDAP means “socialist,” therefore Hitler and company were leftists no matter how many actually Marxists they sent to their deaths. It’s much like the way that claim that “Democrat’s started the Klan” despite the Southern Strategy and the ideological swap the parties made in the 20th century (which they deny happened).
Meanwhile, I’m pretty sure Putin’s usage of the term “Nazi” is meant to stir up jingoistic emotions about “The Great Patriotic War” and defending the rodina from the Germanic hordes. You’re not suppose to think about what he’s saying, you’re supposed to ACT upon it.
The House held a vote to express support for Moldova’s democracy, independence, and territorial integrity. The vote passed 409 to 17.
Commentary from Wonkette:
[…] You got Lauren Boebert, Madison Cawthorn and Marjorie Taylor Greene, AKA the remedial learners of the newest class of Republicans. You’ve got Clay “WHAR BOXES!” Higgins and Thomas Massie and Paul Gosar and Andrew Clyde and Chip Roy and Greg Steube and all the rest. It’s just the whole entire Sedition Caucus, that’s who.
This is all kind of a thing.
When it was time to suspend normal trade relations with Russia and Belarus in April, the entire Congress voted for it, except three Republicans: Matt Gaetz, Greene, Massie. (Guess Gaetz is cool with Moldova for some reason.)
When it was time to ban oil imports from Russia, 413 House members said yes. Nine said no, including Republicans Gaetz, Greene, Massie, Gosar, Roy, Dan Bishop and Andy Biggs. (And then there were two Democrats, Ilhan Omar and Cori Bush. We noticed.)
An earlier similar resolution in March was opposed by 15 Republicans.
Just a simple resolution backing Ukraine in March? That was fine with everyone except Gosar, Massie and Matt Rosendale.
The exact list of usual suspects in Putin’s caucus changes a bit depending on exactly what the bill or resolution is. But that caucus is there, and as William Saletan wrote earlier this month at The Bulwark, it really really loves Russia, and it really really really hates America.
And now they hate Moldova, we guess. We also imagine the number of hours that elapsed between “finding Moldova on map” and voting against Moldova was in the single digits for several of them. You can guess which several we’re wildly speculating about.
Can’t wait until the House has to vote on Sweden and Finland in NATO. How much Putin-fluffing will there be then?
lumipunasays
Re 37:
Meanwhile, I’m pretty sure Putin’s usage of the term “Nazi” is meant to stir up jingoistic emotions about “The Great Patriotic War” and defending the rodina from the Germanic hordes. You’re not suppose to think about what he’s saying, you’re supposed to ACT upon it.
I heard years ago that the term “antifascism” is commonly used in Russia in roughly the meaning we’d understand as “patriotism”. This includes at least implicitly the message that fascism is when someone wants to hurt Russia, period. It’s somewhat understandable in the light of Great Patriotic War, the memory of which has been extensively reheated in recent Russian propaganda. Only in recent months I’ve heard references to literal “nazism” in reference to Ukrainian resistance, but that’s hardly a meaningful distinction.
More signs that Elon Musk is ill-informed, if not willfully stupid, when it comes to politics:
Elon Musk, who’s poised to take control of Twitter, tends to publish a fair amount of politically provocative content, much of which is better off ignored. But today the billionaire raised a few eyebrows with this tweet: [Tweet and image available at the link.]
[…] the image — which Musk apparently agrees with, but did not personally create — purports to show a political evolution of sorts. In 2008, Musk saw himself as someone who was ideologically center-left, but in the years that followed, as progressives moved further to the left — while, evidently, the right and Musk remained the same — he suddenly finds himself on the right.
We are apparently supposed to believe this is the left’s fault: Musk hasn’t changed at all, the argument goes; it’s liberals who left him behind. He didn’t intend to end up on the right; it just worked out that way.
Obviously, Musk, like everyone else, is free to choose political ideologies and values in line with his conscience. If he used to see himself on the left, and now he considers himself a conservative, so be it. That’s his business.
But voters need to understand that the underlying claim at the core of Musk’s observation is literally unbelievable.
Just last month, for example, the Pew Research Center published a report measuring ideological shifts among Democrats and Republicans in Congress. The findings were as striking as they were important: [Tweet and chart available at the link]
[…] what the Pew Research Center found is that Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill have moved a little to the left over the course of the last half-century, while Republicans have moved sharply to the right over the same period.
[…] few trends in American politics are as important as this one. Why is it so difficult for Democrats and Republicans to work out compromises? So is common ground so elusive? Why does it so often seem as the parties operate in competing realities? The chart goes a long way toward answering the question: The gap between Democrats and Republicans has grown as the GOP has gradually moved further and further away from the center.
And yet, there’s Musk’s tweet, insisting that the right hasn’t budged over the last decade and a half, while the left has scurried furiously toward a cliff.
[…] Musk’s broader political vision appears to be idiosyncratic, and sometimes doesn’t fall neatly along a left-right line. What’s more, it’s not at all clear which issues, if any, he’s referring to as part of this complaint. One could even quibble over the fact that Musk referenced ideologies, and not parties, which may not be entirely symmetrical.
But the bottom line remains the same: To look at American politics in recent years and conclude that the left has undergone a dramatic transformation, while the right has remained unchanged, is at odds with everything that’s actually happened. The radicalization of conservative politics in recent years has been profound, whether Musk has noticed it or not.
The United Nations General Assembly will vote on May 11 on a country to replace Russia on the world organization’s leading human rights body following its suspension over allegations of horrific rights violations by Russian soldiers in Ukraine, The Associated Press reports.
Assembly spokeswoman Paulina Kubiak said Thursday that the Czech Republic was the only candidate for the seat on the 47-member Human Rights Council.
Seats on the council, based in Switzerland’s Geneva, are divided among regional groups and a replacement for Russia has to come from an east European country.
After the General Assembly suspended Russia, its deputy ambassador Gennady Kuzmin told UN members that Russia withdrew from the human rights council before the vote.
Council spokesman Rolando Gomez said that by withdrawing, Russia avoided being deprived of observer status at the rights body.
Since its February 24 invasion of Ukraine, Russia has lost its spot on multiple UN bodies, including the executive boards of UN Women and the UN children’s agency UNICEF, the Committee on Non-governmental Organizations and the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.
Russia was also suspended this week from the World Tourism Organization.
One of the Russian strikes on Kyiv on Thursday hit the lower floor of a residential building, injuring at least three people, in the first such attack on the Ukrainian capital since mid-April, Agence France-Presse reports.
Witnesses have seen a building in flames and black smoke pouring into the air with a heavy presence of police and rescuers in the area, a residential neighbourhood on the western side of the city.
Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said the three injured have been taken to hospital. Their condition and further details are not yet known.
AFP further reports that a close aide to the United Nations secretary-general António Guterres, who had just finished an in-person meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenzkiy in the city when the explosions occurred, sent a message to journalists confirming the UN party was safe.
The strikes prompted a furious response from Ukraine’s government, with foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba denouncing it as a “heinous act of barbarism [sic – FFS]” which demonstrated Russia’s “attitude towards Ukraine, Europe and the world”.
When I described the two miles between Popasna and Pervomaisk as “the center of the world” two weeks ago, what I missed was that those two miles are also apparently much larger than any other miles on the planet. How else to account for Russia reporting “steady progress” in Popasna for 12 days in a row, without actually taking Popasna?
As of Thursday, more of the town appears to have come under Russian control, and there are Chechen forces in the eastern part of the town performing what seems to be the specialty of Kadyrov’s forces: making propaganda videos. Those videos are supposed to show Ukrainian forces running away from Popasna as the Chechen fighters laugh. Shockingly, they seem to be fakes.
So far as can be discerned at this point, the center of Popasna remains under Ukrainian control, but the fighting there has devolved to a horrendous street-by-street nightmare. Russian artillery is continuing to fire into the heavily damaged town, and 10 more houses were reportedly taken out. But if Russia took more ground in the past 24 hours, it could be measured with a yardstick. And that’s in spite of hitting the small town with everything, including reportedly using cluster bombs, phosphorus, and something similar to napalm. [video available at the link]
The tactic being used at Popasna is the tactic Russia is using everywhere, as well as the tactic Russia deployed in Chechnya, Georgia, and Syria: Fire artillery until everything ahead is dust. Then advance across the dust.
This is why getting the artillery sent to Ukraine by the U.S. and other Western nations to the front lines is so vital. The 110 U.S. M777 howitzers (over half of which are now in Ukraine, with trained crews) have a range up to 24 miles, and they are closely coupled to anti-artillery radar systems that are specifically designed to trace back the source of incoming fire so that it can be destroyed. Artillery that is outranged by modern opposing artillery fires once. Then it’s gone.
Loitering munitions like the Switchblade and still-mysterious Phoenix Ghost can also help take out Russian artillery, but it’s not clear that these systems have been effective at this task to this point.
In any case, Russia’s grind with an artillery-and-then-advance system isn’t just slow; it’s costly for Russia. […] Russia’s “tactical successes” gained by days of shelling have come at a cost of high levels of casualties and significant losses of equipment. Quoting former DNR separatist leader Igor Girkin:
“…after a certain time, in this area, the same situation will repeat as in Rubezhnoe-Severodonetsk, Popasnaya, Avdeevka and Maryanka, where united forces are advancing extremely slowly and with huge losses (especially among the infantry), or not moving at all (Avdeevka).”
When Russia advances over that dust, troops are not just crossing the rubble of Ukrainian cities. They’re walking on the bodies of their own troops and the wreckage of their own gear.
[…] Russia is crawling toward Popasna, and a dozen other towns and cities, behind a screen of artillery, losing men and machines all the way, because they’ve been told to advance despite having insufficient forces to overwhelm defenders. Ukraine can’t allow that advance to continue forever. On the other hand, Russian forces can’t survive this rate of attrition forever.
If it sometimes seems that sites like CNN are wringing their hands over the idea that Russia is winning everywhere while Daily Kos continues to be optimistic about the chances for Ukraine, it’s because CNN is looking only at what Russia bought. Meanwhile, we’re looking at the price. [Map and an additional video are available at the link.]
Deborah Birx, who served as coronavirus response coordinator for former President Trump, said in her book released Tuesday that her first meeting with Trump lasted 30 seconds before he turned on Fox News and she was escorted out.
[…] “Mr. President, this is not like the flu. This is far more serious than the flu. We have to shape our response differently,” Birx said she told Trump, who dismissed her concerns and said the people he talked to did not believe COVID-19 would be very serious.
“Mr. President, I don’t know who are you speaking with, but I have evidence to fully support the conclusion that this outbreak is going to be nothing like the seasonal flu or even pandemic flu. This virus is very deadly,” she says she responded.
Trump reportedly got tired of her pleas and turned on Fox News before she was beckoned out of the room.
“His eyes return to his television screens. He reaches for the remote control, and the voice of someone at Fox News enters what passed for a conversation between us,” Birx wrote in her book, according to Business Insider.
“I don’t hear the rest. Someone takes a few steps toward me and gestures toward the door. I’ve had less than thirty seconds to speak with the president.” […]
what the Pew Research Center found is that Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill have moved a little to the left over the course of the last half-century, while Republicans have moved sharply to the right over the same period.
Anna Lührmann, V-Dem’s deputy director, said the Republican transformation had been “certainly the most dramatic shift in an established democracy”.
I was watching All In with Chris Hayes last night and thinking how much the Republican Party – especially when we consider what’s happening at the local level – increasingly looks like a quasi-fascist party. But whereas in Europe fascistic movements have more of a history and tend to take more recognizable forms, in the US we’re seeing one of two long-established parties transform relatively rapidly into something more culturally amorphous. This makes it harder for people to recognize it and to unite and mobilize against it.
The US congress has approved a measure extending a World War II-era military lend-lease program to send aid to Ukraine.
The AP reports:
The measure, which passed by an overwhelming 417-10 vote, now goes to the White House for President Joe Biden to sign into law.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Gregory Meeks of New York said with unified support from the US Congress, “Ukraine will win.”
The bill is the latest from Congress, which is steadily churning out resolutions and resources to counter Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and help the country and its President Volodymyr Zelenskiy fight back. The Biden administration announced Thursday it will seek another $30 billion from Congress in military and humanitarian aid, on top of the nearly $14 billion Congress approved last month to help Ukraine fight the war.
Months in the making, the bipartisan bill was first introduced in January as part of the U.S.’s posture of deterrence to warn off Putin’s aggression towards Ukraine.
The measure would update the 1941 legislation Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law to help allies fight Nazi Germany. At the time, the then-U.S. president ushered the Lend-Lease Act through Congress, responding to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s appeal for aid, even as America initially remained neutral in the war, according to the U.S. National Archives.
Biden is expected to sign the bill into law, giving the administration greater leeway to send military equipment to Ukraine and neighboring allies in Eastern Europe.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also gave nod to the moment, saying the war is a battle between democracy and autocracy, and echoed Roosevelt’s call on Americans to provide the fuel to keep light of democracy burning.
“Our task today remains the same,” she said. “The Ukrainian people are making the fight for all of us.”
Re the Lend-Lease bill, After Lynna’s #38 above, you’ll be unsurprised to learn:
The final vote was 417-10, with the ten no votes coming from Republican Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar of Arizona, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Dan Bishop of North Carolina, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Warren Davidson of Ohio, and Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin.
Marine Corps — 1968 (20% honorable)
Navy — 798 (100% honorable)
Army — 345 (3% honorable)
Air Force — 287 (2% honorable)
Space Force — 0 [giggle]
Except for rare cases, all other dismissals were general.”
Seem like pretty small numbers.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
The James Webb Space Telescope has completed the initial mirror alignments, and cooled the instruments to to their operating temperatures. What is left is the commissioning of the instruments which is expected to take a couple of months before the first official science photos are available. Link 1 Link 2
[…] The infamous Trump ally, Roger Stone, recently appeared on an episode of “Elijah Streams,” which is the podcast version of the Elijah List website that proclaims to publish credible modern day prophecies as they come down the pike. A quick browse reveals the website may be just another arm of QAnon, particularly focused on the idea that the Christian God is using Donald Trump to save America.
Anyways, Stone’s appearance on the show was first noted by Right Wing Watch. In it, Stone reveals that he’s recently become a Christian, prompted by Trump’s pardoning. So as a born again Christian, he apparently has developed a new belief in the power of prayer, a not uncommon value for Christians and one that you will not see me malign here. Stone refers to it as a type of “spiritual warfare.”
He then calls on Christians to join him in prayer to defeat some orange orb that he claims lives in the sky above President Biden’s White House — a “satanic portal,” if you will. Here’s a picture of it: [Tweet and photo available at the link.]
[…] I watched the video of the podcast, but Stone appears to be … taking this all very seriously. He claims that a friend sent him multiple photos of the “satanic portal” that he believes sits above the White House morning and night. And it only appeared conveniently after Trump left the White House, when Biden entered.
“It’s like a swirling cauldron,” Stone said. “I’ve tried to find some natural explanation: a reflection or an aerostat balloon for weather. No. I sent a personal friend down there — he thought I was crazy — I said, ‘Do me a favor, go down there, use a regular digital camera and see what you see.’”
Okay.
“There you can see it,” Stone said as the photo flashed across the screen. “It’s very, very clear. It doesn’t move, day or night. It’s harder to see during the day, but you see it at night. And I’m absolutely convinced about the inherent evil of what’s going on in the White House, what’s going on in the country, and I think it’s imperative that people know about this, that people of good faith and Christians know about this, and we begin a national, essentially a prayer assault to close the portal.”
I’m no expert, but my hours of “reality” haunted TV bingeing has taught me a few things about stuff like, the moon, lit-up buildings, reflections, imaginations, fear and the devil himself.
Roger Stone is back! Nope. I spoke too soon! It seems that Roger Stone created a new Twitter account on Thursday morning, announcing he was back from his lifetime suspension. Stone seems to have been under the impression that Elon Musk’s impending take over of Twitter and all of the solipsism Musk represents meant that “free speech” speech talk included him coming back onto the social media platform that banned him back in 2017.
According to the Daily Beast, Stone took to Telegram to write, “Well [B-word, plural] I’m back on Twitter.” He added, “I’m anxious to see how strong Elon Musk’s commitment to free speech is.” It took Twitter a little while to make sure that @RogerStoneUSA was indeed connected to the odiously pardoned criminal. After they did that, Twitter banned Roger Stone again. […]
A Twitter spokesperson told the Beast: “The account referenced was permanently suspended for violations of the Twitter Rules, specifically our ban evasion policy.”
Stone told the outlet, “I posted a new account to prove a point. I look forward to whoever made the decision to suspend my account getting fired. Attn: Elon Musk.” Only the best people. […]
This is my stand up from a bomb shelter in Kyiv. Sorry for mistakes. I wrote it in a week and my English level is military-intermediate. My goal is to collect donations for Ukrainian army. Here you can see a couple of jokes. Full video is on Youtube, you can find link in my bio….
Video at the link. There are subtitles, but he’s speaking English. And it’s funny!
Geoffrey Berman, who was fired by President Trump as the top Manhattan federal prosecutor, will be out Sept. 13 with a memoir, “Holding the Line,” that charges Trump with trying to undermine the office’s integrity.
…Trump tapped Berman for U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York — an office that has historically moved independently of the White House — after firing Preet Bharara.
“Almost immediately, Berman found himself pushing back against the Trump Justice Department’s blatant efforts to bring weak cases against political foes and squash worthy cases that threatened to tarnish allies and Trump himself,” says Penguin Press, the publisher.
“When Bill Barr became Attorney General, Berman hoped and believed things would get better, but instead they got much worse. The heart of ‘Holding the Line’ is his never-before-told account of the lengths … Berman had to go in preserving” the office’s independence.
The book also covers the Southern District’s casework under Berman, “including taking down notorious sex traffickers Jeffrey Epstein and Peter Nygard, Big Pharma executives, and vicious criminal syndicates, and repatriating Nazi-looted art.”…
The Republicans are still trying to take away health care! On top of all the fashing, they’re continuing their efforts to take away health care and railing against Biden for planning to erase some student loan debt. Meanwhile, Johnson is working to privatize Channel 4 and make more cuts to day care. So populist.
The person behind the anonymous anti-LGBT account supported by Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson and now the broader right wing media has been identified as LA-based real estate broker Chaya Raichik. We sit with Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz to discuss the absurd accusation that her reporting “doxxed” Raichik, who by the time the article was released had already registered a media company, been interviewed by the New York Post and Fox News, and was taking money from the founder of the Babylon Bee.
“Russian state propaganda outlet Ria Novosti runs an op-ed praising Rod Dreher’s article in The American Conservative, ‘Endarkening the Nations’, in which he attributes ‘the collapse of Western civilization’ to ‘transgender madness’.”
The old adage that “if it’s too good to be true, it likely is,” definitely applies in this war, as I spent much of the day trying to verify fantastical claims from both sides. I even had to enlist Mark Sumner at one point to help me sort through one rumor of a major Ukrainian breakthrough toward Mariupol. Turns out, no one is making big sweeping gains. It’s all “lay down artillery until defenders get the f’ out, walk in. Leave when their artillery returns fire.” Rinse, lather, repeat.
Kutuzivka is a perfect example, as Ukraine claimed to have captured it back in April 8. Then, it was supposedly “partially” liberated on April 17. And here we are, today, confirmed fully captured. Given the heavy shelling in the area, it very well may have gone back and forth for a while. [Map at the link]
Ruska Lozova is on the main highway heading back to Russia, the largest town (pop. ~5,000) before the border. It would allow Ukraine to hit Kozacha Lopan up north on the border from three sides. Ukraine suffered heavy losses just a few days ago trying to take that town.
I am curious why Ukraine is pushing so hard north of Kharkiv. Russia can sit on its own side of the border and shell Kharkiv with impunity, so I suspect it’s not about protecting the city, but the supply routes that flow to the south and south east—a way to prevent an exposed “Chuhuiv salient” as Ukraine pushes east toward the Russian supply hub of Kupiansk. By clearing the north, there’s no left flank to worry about.
It could also be a simple, emotional “get the f’ out of my land” effort. But given the limited scope of Ukraine’s offensive abilities at the moment, I doubt they’d waste them on symbolic gestures. Let’s head down south: [Map available at the link.]
I spent way too much time trying to confirm the Oleksandrivka news before posting this. The terrain in the area is flat, open, and exposed. Look at the picture at the top of this story. That’s here. So one side lays down heavy artillery, drives out exposed defenders. That side waltzes in. But oh shit! The other side is now returning fire! So troops withdraw, and the other side moseys back in. So wait, who is in control of the town? No one, that’s who.
Oleksandrivka presents another challenge—it’s one of the most popular town name in Ukraine, with over 100 of them. At least four are in contested areas. There’s this one in Kerhson Oblast. But head north from Kherson toward Kryvyi Rih, and there’s another one. These two are a real pain to keep straight. [Map at the link.]
Then there’s the two Oleksandrivkas near Izyum, on the Donbas front, one straight north, the other to its southwest. [More maps at the link.]
I swear I’ve also seen one east of Izyum, and there’s likely several. So anytime someone reports “fighting in Oleksandrivka,” I groan and throw my hands up in the air.
Anyway, looks like the one west of Kherson is back in Ukrainian hands after falling to Russia yesterday, which had been pushed out the day before, etc. Given how these battles are shaping up, don’t get overly invested in who holds what. It’s all fluid outside of key locations like Izyum, Kherson, Kharkiv, etc.
That’s the north and south, so what about the Donbas front in the west? Ukraine fended off nine separate attacks. Maybe there’s a big massive Russian offensive brewing somewhere, ready to be unleashed on Ukrainian lines on the Donbas front. I remain forever skeptical.
There is one change we’ve seen to Russian tactics: “The concentrated use of artillery by Russian forces in eastern Ukraine in April is one of the few major changes Russia has made to its operations compared to the early weeks of the war.” Before, Russia would send a bunch of kids to die against entrenched Ukrainian defenders. Now, those defensive positions are first shelled before Russia sends those kids to die. Most of the time, Ukrainian defenders remain, but every once in a while Russia gets lucky, the artillery does its job and clears out an area, and Russia can creep up a kilometer or two.
Given that around 5,000 square miles of Donbas territory remain in Ukraine’s hands, does anyone truly believes this is a winning strategy? Ukraine’s job is to hold their strongholds at Slovyansk (pop. 111,000) and Kramatorsk (pop. 157,000), while Russia burns through their troops, equipment, and ammunition in time for those sweet Western artillery guns to make their way to the front. [Map at the link]
As of now, Russia has a long way to go before directly threatening those two cities. Heck, a chunk of Russian forces are heading west of Izyum, in the wrong direction! You know those network of defenses that have held on the border with separatist Donbas? There’s a lot more of that around Slovyansk and Karamtorsk, and that’s before Russians even think about entering those cities, which would be its own special kind of hell.
Another 4-6 weeks, maybe, and then we can start talking about Season Three of this war.
Meanwhile, the breakaway Russian-held territory of Transnistria in Moldova is on the verge of calling a general mobilization, blocking all military-age men from leaving the territory. Both Transnistria and Moldova don’t look to have have military forces worth a damn, and the 2-3,000 Russians stationed there wouldn’t be enough to seriously threaten Moldova. But the destruction of a Ukrainian bridge south of Odesa opens up an interesting possibility: Is Russia planning an amphibious assault? [Map available at the link.]
By blowing the bridge, Ukraine wouldn’t be able to defend an attack on Moldova from the sea, though I doubt it would be interested in trying anyway. Ukraine is sort of busy at the moment. Of more interest would be the chance to take out yet another landing ship, but this one full of Russian naval infantry. Ukraine doesn’t need that bridge to threaten any landing effort.
Would Russia really be stupid enough to open up yet another front, spreading out its troops even further, and risk additional naval losses, for a logistically unsupported assault on a piece of land with zero value to the current war effort in Ukraine? Russia’s naval infantry is already heavily committed (and heavily attrited) in Mariupol. Meanwhile, don’t forget that in addition to losing their flagship Moskva guided missile cruiser, Russia also lost two landing ships in that “accident” in Berdyansk, offloading their gear for land operations after giving up on their Odesa dreams. Russia can’t reinforce either, with the Black Sea closed to military traffic by Turkey.
So is Russia that stupid? Doubtful. I’m guessing it’s psy-ops, destabilizing Moldova and keeping Ukrainian troops in the Odesa region on alert. Given the resources at their disposal, I just don’t see it physically possible for Russia to do this, no matter how much its generals may want to.
Wonkette: “Oh No Roger Stone Found The Satanic Portal Above The White House”
He did, he found it, the Satanic portal that exists above the White House.
JoeMyGod has the transcript, Right Wing Watch has the video, Wonkette is here to lazily make jokes about it. [Embedded links are available at the original link.]
It’s like a swirling cauldron.
But upside down!
I’ve tried to find some natural explanation: a reflection or an aerostat balloon for weather.
He Did His Own Research.
No. I sent a personal friend down there — he thought I was crazy —
Not a personal friend of Roger Stone’s! How rude of friend to think Roger crazy!
I said, ‘Do me a favor, go down there, use a regular digital camera and see what you see.’
He’s aware that a few million people could also go test this right now, isn’t he? Even DSM-V candidates who listen to his show, if they live close enough. [photo available at the link]
It’s very, very clear. It doesn’t move, day or night. It’s harder to see during the day, but you see it at night.
But only through a digital camera. Allegedly.
Question: Did somebody in Roger Stone’s life take his digital camera and fuck with the settings as a joke?
Glob of dried jizz on the lens?
Scratch ‘n’ sniff and find out, Roger.
And I’m absolutely convinced about the inherent evil of what’s going on in the White House, what’s going on in the country, and I think it’s imperative that people know about this, that people of good faith and Christians know about this, and we begin a national, essentially a prayer assault to close the portal.
You know that thing when you’re half awake and half asleep and your dream is still happening but you can also hear your alarm clock? Roger Stone lives there.
But yes, there is a portal and the Christians need to know it so they can all put on their robes and their wizard hats and prayer assault the portal and force it to close.
One million prayers = one foot of portal closed.
It is just math.
Was this portal there when Dumpy the Pockmarked Fuck Clown was living there up until January 20, 2021? Was it inside his golden Squatty Potty? Or did it appear the day Joe Biden got there? Roger Stone is leaving out some important science details.
We were born for this moment. I’ve been preparing for this moment for my entire life without even knowing it.
Hard same.
I just thought I was a political warrior. But this is no longer a war in the political realm, and I do know how it comes out because I know how the Bible comes out.
“How the Bible comes out.” Pro tip: If you think the Bible has a “plot” like a common Michael Bay movie, you are the stupid kind of Christian.
Also, not even the loopiest interpretation of Revelation includes a Satanic cauldron above the White House that only Roger Stone can see.
I don’t know exactly what the plan is, but I do know that closing this portal is crucial to victory.
Works on “Buffy” usually! Close the hellmouth!
I want others to talk about it. I want others to see it. This is not some practical joke. This isn’t some conspiracy theory.
Wonkette agrees that “this isn’t some conspiracy theory.” It hasn’t risen to that level. [Give it time.]
Can you really call it a “conspiracy theory” if it’s just something Roger Stone is hallucinating in the part of his brain cavity between his underbite and his oddly shaped forehead?
I’m absolutely convinced that this is demonic.
It is a satanic portal. It is access to this Earth by those who are evil, and only by closing it will we be successful in saving this nation under God.
[LOL]
Well then get to it, Roger. Time’s a wastin’, bucko. Get over there, ye chosen, and prance around naked to scare it away or whatever you need to do. Sure, people will think you’re certifiably insane, but how is that different from any other time?
Thanks for lookin’ out for the demon portals, Roger. Warmest regards.
StevoRsays
Periodic reminder for other Pharyngulites in Adelaide or nearby enough and hopefully worth noting given recent developments :
The Adelaide Refugee Vigil is not over. Not yet. The sadistic. national disgrace that is Offshore non processing – jailing refugees in horrific conditions indefinitely – continues and as long as it does, so will we. Please join us 5 pm tonight in Rundle Mall near the metal pigeon sculpture. Details below :
Event by Adelaide vigil for Manus and Nauru
Duration: 1 hr 15 min
Public · Anyone on or off Facebook
Adelaide Vigil members invite you to join us for this week’s vigil, in RUNDLE MALL, at the intersection with Gawler Place, near the giant silver pigeon.
A few months ago Australian Government announced its plan to abandon the 110 refugee men remaining in Papua New Guinea, having detained them there, illegally, since 2013. That has now been in effect since January 1st, and is causing much anxiety.
A new Memorandum Of Understanding was signed with Nauru, enabling the continuation of Australia’s offshore human warehousing to continue there, into the future.
The Park Hotel in Melbourne continues to be an onshore detention site, currently housing more than 30 medevacced refugees. It attracted national and international media attention last week when ABF detained an international tennis star there. He was released, redetained and eventually deported, but in the meantime the human rights abuse and deplorable treatment of the men detained there was recognised globally.
Please help us to keep a spotlight on this wrong, perpetrated in our name, and join us in standing for the freedom, safety and human rights of the refugees the Australian government wants us to forget. Hundreds still being held in inhumane conditions after over 8 years of punishment on #Manus, #Nauru and now also Port Moresby PNG and Australian Immigration Detention.
The only laws that have been broken in their seeking of asylum are those which Australia itself has an international obligation to uphold, through its signing of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention.
Source : Adelaide Refugee Vigil for Manus and Nauru fb page.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their most recent summary:
Russia attacked western Kyiv with two cruise missiles late yesterday, as the UN secretary general, António Guterres, visited the Ukrainian capital. Two loud explosions rocked Kyiv on Thursday evening, after Guterres visited the site of massacres and mass graves on the city’s outskirts, and met Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The UN chief admitted: “Let me be very clear. The security council failed to do everything in its power to prevent and end this war.”
…
Russian gains in Donbas have come at a “significant cost” to its forces, the UK Ministry of Defence has said in its latest intelligence report.
The International Atomic Energy Agency says it is investigating a report that a missile had flown directly over a nuclear power station, adding it would be “extremely serious” if true.
…
The UK will send 8,000 soldiers to eastern Europe on expanded exercises to combat Russian aggression in one of the largest deployments since the cold war.
The UK is also sending experts to help Ukraine with gathering evidence and prosecuting war crimes, with a team due to arrive in Poland in early May.
German authorities search Deutsche Bank over potential money laundering
Prosecutors, federal police and other officials are conducting a search at Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt, the city’s prosecutors have said.
Germany’s largest lender said the search involved suspicious transactions it had itself reported in relation to money laundering, and that it was cooperating fully.
Reuters has the details:
Prosecutors said they had a search warrant but declined to elaborate. They said representatives of financial regulator BaFin were also taking part.
BaFin and federal police declined to comment.
Deutsche Bank, under CEO Christian Sewing, has been trying to repair its reputation after a series of embarrassing and costly regulatory failings….
Spoke with Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tileuberdi to reaffirm the traditionally friendly relations between Kazakhstan and Ukraine. We also discussed cooperation within international organizations. He assured that Kazakhstan does not and will not provide sanctions evasion mechanisms.
StevoRsays
Seems Traiassic Ichthyosuars maye have been Earth’s largets ever libving animals :
Timothy Snyder in the New Yorker – “The War in Ukraine Is a Colonial War”: “For centuries, the country has lived in the shadow of empire. But its past also provides the key to its present….”
Nearly 80 Holocaust survivors have been evacuated from Ukraine in a complex operation to rescue the most elderly and fragile out of the war, the New York Times reports.
Two Jewish groups have organised a rescue mission to evacuate Ukraine’s Holocaust survivors, of whom there are some 10,000, to Germany.
Galina Ploschenko, 90, embarked on a three-day journey from Dnipro, her hometown in central Ukraine, to Hanover, in northwestern Germany.
She said she was trapped in her bed at a retirement centre in Dnipro, as nurses fled to the basement while artillery strikes thundered and air raid sirens blared.
Ploschenko said:
That first time, I was a child, with my mother as my protector. Now, I’ve felt so alone. It is a terrible experience, a painful one.
The groups said convincing these elderly Holocaust survivors to leave Ukraine and go to Germany was not an easy one. Rüdiger Mahlo, of the Claims Conference, who works with German officials in Berlin to organise the rescues, said:
One of them told us: I won’t be evacuated to Germany. I do want to be evacuated — but not to Germany.
Ploschenko told the NYT that the decision to leave was not made without trepidation:
They told me Germany was my best option. I told them, ‘I hope you’re right.’
She said she now has “nothing but love” for Germany, though she still remembers “everything” about the last war she survived. From the senior care centre in Hanover where she now resides, she practices the German phrases she has carefully recorded on a notepad: “Danke Schön”, many thanks. “Alles Liebe”, much love.
The President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, has just tweeted a picture of his meeting with Bulgaria’s prime minister Kiril Petkov. In the message he says they discussed ways to deepen cooperation and promote their interests within the European Union and Nato.
Iohannis also rather pointedly, given recent events in the breakaway Transnistria region that borders Ukraine, specifically said the two men spoke about their support of Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova.
The United States believes Russia is days behind its schedule on its military operations in Ukraine’s Donbas region, a US defence official said.
The official said the US believes that Russia’s fighting with Ukraine in the Donbas region will be a potential “knife fight”.
Fighting in the Donbas could become prolonged by toe-to-toe ground combat and the use of long range fires, the official said.
…
Meanwhile, western officials said Russia suffered fewer casualties in Ukraine after focusing on the Donbas region, but the numbers are still quite high.
Asked about Ukrainian casualties, one official said there had been Ukrainian losses in the Donbas:
They are taking some losses (but) certainly not at the sort of scale that Russian forces are taking.
Those losses on Russian forces, we assessed to be having a significant impact on the will to fight of wider Russian forces, but the Ukrainian losses are not affecting the morale of the Ukrainian forces.
The US does not believe the threat of Russia using nuclear weapons despite a recent escalation in Moscow’s rhetoric, a senior US defence official said.
[…] Teddy Daniels, who’s running a Republican campaign for lieutenant governor, was asked yesterday about attending a right-wing event last week where attendees were told that a “global satanic blood cult” would soon be exposed and that Adolf Hitler faked his death. Daniels told The Philadelphia Inquirer, “At least I’m not a communist.” Daniels was also ordered this week to stay away from his home “after his wife made claims of physical and mental abuse in obtaining a protective order.”
The Wives of Western Philosophy: Gender Politics in Intellectual Labor (Routledge, 2020) fills in a rather large hole in the understanding and the substance of the generation of knowledge. This edited volume provides an exploration of the thinking around the role of the wife, helpmeet, or intimate companion, and how political theory is created, written, and moved into the public sphere. This book also pays particular attention to what we understand to be intellectual labor, and how we have come to think about the genesis of ideas and theories as the work of a solitary individual—usually male—when others are often quite intimately involved in the generation of this labor.
The contributing authors all focus on three themes: how are intellectual work, knowledge, and theory produced or created across disciplines and topic areas—who is actually involved in this process as a contributor to the outcome; the political reality of what wives have done, are expected to do, actually do, and how we have come think about the wife as a political concept itself; the crafting of the biography or narrative of the thinker—who is included and excluded from this construction. These issues or themes are not necessarily indigenous to political theory—they come up in context of any intellectual production, in any field or discipline. But The Wives of Western Philosophy: Gender Politics in Intellectual Labor concentrates on some of the canonical thinkers and their intimate partners, and what we know but perhaps were unaware of in regard to these contributions, not merely fulfilling daily needs like cooking food, but the actual intellectual contributions by intimate partners that are threaded into the work of these theorists. All of the contributing authors pay attention to trying to understand how the intellectual communities are, in fact, the spaces and places where theorists live and engage—and that these communities contribute to the formation of ideas and knowledge. This is a different narrative than those that generally surround theorists, who are often cast as solitary thinkers, disembodied minds, alone, developing ideas and writings. Collaboration is often eschewed in these conceptions of the author, the thinker, and gendered collaboration between men and women is even more suspect as a means to generate important concepts and work….
Earlier this week, Chris Hayes did a nice job pulling together the various elements surrounding Vice President Mike Pence’s movements (or lack thereof) during the Jan. 6 attempted coup. Some of this has been known for months, other pieces of it have been revealed more recently, but I haven’t seen anyone else bring it all together in one place: [Video available at the link]
Kos has written at length about the problems with the command structure in the Russian army. In an army filled with disinterested conscripts and poorly-trained regulars, Russia also has no non-commissioned officers—the corporals, sergeants, staff sergeants, etc. that turn orders from above into actions on the field. Why do Russian generals keep getting killed in Ukraine? Because Russian generals have to practically be in the ear of every ryadovoy (private) under his command. A general who is in earshot is also in rifle shot.
For most people, the idea of dropping all the middle management in their company may sound sort of blissful. It is definitely not blissful when that company is trying to coordinate moving thousands of tons of heavy equipment down hundreds of miles of muddy road before deploying to fight a pitched battle.
In any case, the Russian army demands generals on-site, and now the biggest general of them all may already be on the ground in Ukraine. Valery Vasilyevich Gerasimov isn’t just a general, he’s Putin’s Agrippa. Whenever Putin goes into a war, it’s actually Gerasimov who executes that war.
Gerasimov started as a tank commander and first took command of an army in the Second Chechen War. How did that war go for Gerasimov? Well, it started by blowing up buses carrying refugees out of the battle zone, moved on to bombing villages with cluster bombs, and then moved onto the phase for which it’s known: using bombs and artillery to reduce the city of Grozny to absolute rubble.
Say, does this look familiar? [Photo available at the link]
It’s not just the pulverized buildings and Russian tanks driving forward over wrecked cars and concrete dust that looks familiar, pictures of Grozny have it all—the shocked families staring at apartment buildings split wide open by missiles, the sad graves dug into the space between ruined buildings and parking lots, the blank-eyed stares of civilians who have become the targets of ongoing torture on its most massive scale.
Russian General Alexander Dvornikov, who was put in charge of Ukrainian forces just two weeks ago, might be known as the “Butcher of Syria,” but it’s Gerasimov’s butcher shop. The tactics Gerasimov used to successfully crush Chechnya were used again and again. Gen. Gerasimov had already been Chief of the General Staff for four years before Dvornikov played his role in Syria.
Gerasimov is regarded as a “military theorist” and the man behind the current design of those Battalion Tactical Groups that make the Russian army peculiarly fragile and deliciously griftable. What is Gerasimov’s theory? We’ve seen it. We’re seeing it. Gerasimov isn’t an idiot. He knows what he has—an untrained military with a lot of aging heavy equipment that’s poorly maintained and a lot of soldiers who are more interested in looting (with a side order of rape) than shooting. Whether it’s Dvornikov or Gerasimov calling the shots, that’s not going to change.
What will change? It won’t be the level of brutality. Already, roughly twice as many civilians have died in Mariupol alone as died in Grozny. More civilians may have died in the suburbs of Kyiv than in Russia’s entire war in Georgia. The levels of pure cruelty in Ukraine already seem to be higher than they were in Chechnya or Georgia. Maybe not Syria, but in that case, Russia had assistance from their chemical-weapons loving puppet, Assad.
It’s not so much that Dvornikov is some kind of unique monster. He’s just a regular commander in a military whose structure, culture, and tactics are entirely based on being monsters.
The whole Russian army is designed to operate on brutality. Because it has to. Corrupt officials, generals, and just plain criminals steal everything that’s worth stealing. So Russian equipment, like the T-72 tank, is deliberately not advanced. It’s crude, cheap, easy to produce in numbers, and designed to be operated by disposable knuckleheads who just got shoved into the thing yesterday. Russia tactics are just like that tank. Crude. Blunt. Dependent more on numbers than skill.
What difference will it make to have both Dvornikov and Gerasimov on the ground in Ukraine? Well, it might momentarily distract the Russian soldiers in their immediate area from scheming to steal washing machines. Maybe. It might also distract Ukrainian snipers as they look for that big score.
But in terms of overall strategy, don’t expect much. Because what Gerasimov needs to execute a different strategy is a different army.
I’ve long known Oleg Orlov of Memorial as a man of great dignity and quiet bravery. Here he is on Red Square, preparing for Victory Day, with a poster that reads: “USSR 1945: overcame fascism. Russia 2022: overcome by fascism.” He was quickly arrested.
Next to him is a Memorial activist Irina Galkova, whose sign reads “Stop killing people. Peace in Ukraine.” She was also arrested.
[…] An early heatwave has enveloped South Asia since March. Temperatures have only risen higher in April, and today temperatures are 113 to 122 F in many areas of the Indian sub-continent. The body can’t cool off at night so it weakens and is vulnerable to organ shutdown. The worst part is that temperatures will only increase in the next ten days, perhaps longer if the Monsoon rains continue to be unseasonably late.
India’s wheat crop is scorched in yet another blow to fight world hunger. India was expecting a bountiful harvest this year, but the heat will mean very little export will be available to fill in some of the gaps from the Ukraine and Russia wars.
In the Himalayas of Pakistan, plans for likely glacial flooding events have been activated by local governments as fears of meltwater lakes bursting and destroying everything in their path roaring down to the valley’s floor.
[…] From the NY Times:
NEW DELHI — Across a wide swath of the Indian subcontinent, scorching temperatures have damaged harvests. People are suffering from heat stroke. And the lights are flickering in some cities amid surging demand for air-conditioning.
Now, the heat wave that has been pummeling India and Pakistan for weeks is expected to intensify over the weekend. In some hard-hit areas, it may be weeks before the region’s annual monsoon sweeps in to provide relief.
Heat-related watches were in effect on Thursday afternoon for all but a few of India’s 28 states, encompassing hundreds of millions of people and most of the country’s major cities. An alert — one notch up in severity — was in effect for the northwestern state of Rajasthan on Thursday, and would come into effect for other central and western states starting Saturday.
snip
The subcontinent’s scorching weather is a reminder of what lies in store for other countries in an era of climate change. Climate scientists say that heat waves around the world are growing more frequent, more dangerous and lasting longer. They are certain that global warming has made heat waves worse because the baseline temperatures from which they begin are higher than they were decades ago.
[…] In New Delhi, fires have broken out in landfills and tire dumps. Modi warned the country of the threat of forest fires.
[…] From The Guardian:
Temperatures are rising rapidly in the country, and rising much earlier than usual,” India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, said on Wednesday, adding that India has seen “increasing incidents of fires in various places – in forests, important buildings and in hospitals – in the past few days”.
In New Delhi, a 60-metre-high (200ft) rubbish mountain has been ablaze since Tuesday, while firefighting teams battle it with lorry-loads of sand and mud.
The inferno, belching toxic black smoke that engulfed nearby districts, was the fourth such incident at a landfill site in the megacity of 20 million people in less than a month. Pradeep Khandelwal, the former head of Delhi’s waste management, said they were likely sparked by warmer temperatures speeding up the decomposition of organic waste.
“The dry and hot weather produces excess methane gas at the dumping sites that trigger such fires,” Khandelwal told AFP.
From CBC:
The wet bulb temperature is essentially a metaphor for human sweat. Sweat is the body’s cooling mechanism, providing humans with relief when the body heats up.
But for sweat to actually cool a person’s skin, it relies on the process of evaporation to move heat away from the body.
At theoretical wet-bulb temperatures, evaporation and cooling can no longer take place because the atmosphere is fully saturated with water. And when the wet-bulb temperature reaches 35 C, it crosses a threshold at which humans can no longer lose internal body heat and cool themselves.
There is very little to no reporting on deaths so far. It wouldn’t make a difference anyway, as people don’t die from climate change in death certificates or notices. They die from diarrhea from drinking contaminated water or eating food that goes bad due to power outages and lack of refrigeration, heatstroke, dehydration, and other horrors. […]
A few weeks back I wrote about a Russian family who suddenly fled the country (leaving behind a prosperous small business) after police arrived at their door threatening arrest for treason […]
The family spent a few days in Armenia and Georgia en-route to Canada, where they asked for political asylum when they arrived at Toronto airport on tourist visas. On April 28 they had a preliminary immigration hearing to determine whether the Canadian government was prepared to accept their application for refugee status and allow them to stay in the country until an asylum panel was able to adjudicate their application.
The preliminary hearing allowed their application for asylum to go forward, and authorized:
– the family to remain in Canada until the hearing next year
– the adults to obtain working papers and get jobs in Canada
– the daughters to attend public school in Canada
– the entire family to be covered by Canada’s no-premium universal health insurance
[…] An early heatwave has enveloped South Asia since March. Temperatures have only risen higher in April, and today temperatures are 113 to 122 F in many areas of the Indian sub-continent. The body can’t cool off at night so it weakens and is vulnerable to organ shutdown. The worst part is that temperatures will only increase in the next ten days, perhaps longer if the Monsoon rains continue to be unseasonably late. […]
Ukraine acknowledged heavy losses from Russia’s attack in the east as Moscow’s forces, having failed to seize the capital, redoubled their efforts to fully capture the eastern Donbas region. But Ukraine said casualties in the invading army were even worse. “We have serious losses, but the Russians’ losses are much much bigger … They have colossal losses,” a Ukrainian presidential adviser, Oleksiy Arestovych, said.
European Union countries are likely to approve a phased embargo on Russian oil as early as next week, according to EU officials. European ambassadors are reportedly expected to give their approval of a finalised proposal by the end of next week after meeting on Wednesday, according to several EU officials and diplomats involved in the process.
…
Moscow has confirmed it carried out an airstrike on Kyiv during a visit by the UN secretary general, António Guterres. The defence ministry said two “high-precision, long-range air-based weapons” had destroyed the production buildings of the Artyom missile and space enterprise in the Ukrainian capital on Thursday night.
The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, however, said a 25-storey residential building in the capital’s Shevchenkivskyi district was hit in the strike. Klitschko said one body had been recovered. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty said one of its staff, the journalist and producer Vera Gyrych, had died “as a result of a Russian missile hitting the house where she lived” during Guterres’ visit.
The situation inside the besieged Azovstal steel plant in the city of Mariupol is “beyond a humanitarian catastrophe”, a Ukrainian commander inside the facility has said….
…
The US Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, says the House will vote to pass Joe Biden’s $33bn request for aid for Ukraine “as soon as possible”. Speaking at her weekly press briefing on Friday morning, the House speaker framed the administration’s request as one of a number of “emergencies” Congress needed to address urgently….
The US has begun training Ukrainian armed forces at US sites located outside of Ukraine, including one in Germany, announced a US Pentagon spokesperson.
…
Kirby added: “Those sites could change over time…but training has already occurred outside Ukraine, particularly on the Howitzers,” referring to long-range weapons that Ukrainians were recently given by the US.
US officials are also saying that it is unclear if Russian president Vladimir Putin is receiving accurate information on the war in Ukraine from his advisors….
It’s Friday and a senior U.S. defense official held a background briefing at the Pentagon about the war in Ukraine a bit ago.
It’s Day 64 since Russia’s invasion.
Updates:
Up front: The military situation in the Donbas region appears to have little change. I suspect we’ll have a lot of that sort of news in days to come.
The senior defense official defined Russia’s progress as “incremental,” “slow,” and “fairly plodding.”
Russia has launched airstrikes and artillery strikes ahead of ground advances, but still run into stiff Ukrainian resistance, official says.
Significant effort right now is in areas southeast through southwest of the city of Izyum, in areas around towns like Lyman, senior defense official said.
The Russians appear to be setting the conditions for a “sustained and longer offensive,” but “of course” an offensive already has begun in the Donbas region, the senior official said.
Russia still has about 92 battalion tactical groups in the fight, the same number the Pentagon reported yesterday. There are still an undefined number of Russian troops moving from the southern city of Mariupol to the north.
The preponderance of airstrikes are still in Mariupol and the Donbas region, though there were strikes in Kyiv, Odessa and other locations in the last day, senior defense official said.
The Pentagon believes that Russia may have been targeting “military production capabilities” with its strikes in Kyiv, which appear to have in part hit a residential area and caused civilian casualties, including the death of a journalist.
“They could have missed” their intended target in that strike in Kyiv, the official said.
Weapons are still flowing into Ukraine at a significant rate. Twenty flights of military aid from seven countries arrived in the region in the last day, the senior defense official said.
The U.S. intends to deliver 12 more flights in the next day. They will carry more howitzers, rounds for them, radar and the first batch of Phoenix Ghost drones to be turned over to Ukraine. Those are loitering munitions.
As of today, Russia has launched more than 1,950 missiles at Ukraine since the invasion began. That number is up about 50 from yesterday.
…What can lead a people to tie their national identity to the explicit genocide of another people? By definition, genocidal rhetoric singles out a specific social group and justifies its eradication. An “antagonistic ideological social group” is a cohort whose self-definition involves a strongly negative collective response to another group. Genocidal speech creates the most extreme kind of antagonistic ideological social group, nurturing this negative emotional attunement in a specific way. By advancing false narratives about history, it defines the targeted group’s essence as an existential threat. A “genocidal antagonistic ideological social group” is thus one whose identity is based on the notion that its own existence is imperiled by that of another group.
…On April 3, 2022, the official Russian press agency RIA Novosti published an article titled, “What Should Russia Do with Ukraine?” The historian Timothy Snyder has aptly described this text as “Russia’s Genocide Handbook,” noting that it is “one of the most openly genocidal documents I have ever seen.”…
…
“What Should Russia Do with Ukraine?” offers a pseudo-historical litany of the grave wrongs that Russia has suffered at the hands of the West. “Russia did everything possible to save the West,” it proclaims, but “the West decided to take revenge on Russia for the help that it had selflessly provided.” In this telling, Ukraine is the primary tool of Western treachery, and the country’s identification as an independent nation reflects the ascendancy of “Ukronazism.”
This, we are told, is an especially bad version of Nazism: “Ukronazism poses a much bigger threat to the world and Russia than the Hitler version of German Nazism.” Ukrainian identity is an “anti-Russian construct that has no civilizational substance of its own.” Its central feature – the essential nature of the Ukrainian nation – is its antagonism toward Russia. Thus, “unlike, for example, Georgia or the Baltic States, history has proved it impossible for Ukraine to exist as a nation-state, and any attempts to ‘build’ such a nation-state naturally lead to Nazism.”
The document then describes all the practices that constitute “denazification” of Ukraine. They include “mass investigations” to uncover personal responsibility for “the spread of Nazi ideology” (Ukrainian sovereignty) and “support for the Nazi regime” (the duly elected Ukrainian government and its appointed officials). The punishments for these transgressions include forced labor, imprisonment, and death. Denazification also requires “the seizure of educational materials and the prohibition of educational programs at all levels that contain Nazi ideological guidelines” (anything mentioning Ukrainian identity).
In focusing on Russia’s historical role vis-à-vis the West, the document offers a new conceptualization of Russian identity. Specifically, it defines Russians as a genocidal antagonistic ideological social group. To be Russian is to be committed to the total annihilation of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. The “denazification” of Ukraine is the purest expression of Russian identity. According to its logic, Russian identity is best exemplified in acts of brutal and violent revenge.
To justify Russia’s actions in Ukraine requires changing what it means to be Russian, by inscribing genocide into the national identity. To be Russian is to revel in the eradication of Ukraine. The cost of this change will be borne by all who identify as Russian, forever.
…
If Russia’s genocide in Ukraine continues, and if the reconceptualization of Russianness succeeds, assertions of Russian identity will forevermore evoke not Pushkin or Tolstoy but the enthusiastic extermination of an entire people. The deaths and atrocities that we have already seen in Bucha and elsewhere will become the ultimate expression of Russian identity. That is the choice – an identity bound up with a horrifying legacy – that today’s Russians are making for their descendants.
A pro-Russia cybercrime group hacked several Romanian government websites because of the country’s support for Ukraine, reported AFP citing Romania’s cybersecurity agency.
A series of attacks hit “public institutions and private entities”, Romania’s National Cybersecurity Agency said in a statement.
The so-called Ddos attacks, where multiple requests are sent to a website to overload its servers, knocked several websites offline for a few minutes, including the defence ministry, border police and railways.
The cybersecurity agency said a group called “Killnet” posted a message on Telegram saying they had carried out the attacks because of “Romania’s support for Ukraine in the military conflict with Russia”.
Romania’s intelligence service (SRI) said the cybercriminals had “exploited vulnerabilities” in the websites by “taking control of equipment operating outside Romania”.
It added that Killnet had recently targeted official websites of the United States, Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia and NATO.
The United States and its major partners in the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance last week said they had information warning of massive Russian cyberattacks being prepared against Ukraine’s allies.
A few thoughts triggered by the prevalence of heuristics – instinctive, learned responses – especially w.r.t. assumptions of mass and might. Principally the enduring assumption that Russia has latent capital reserves of mass it can ‘liquidise’ into combat power.
The FT published a ‘long read’ that demonstrates such thinking, citing “western officials” who reveal that Russia will get its act together militarily when it fights “as they were trained to fight”. This is a heuristic response. So can Russia do that?
It is increasingly difficult to see Russia being able to mobilise a large reserve much within a year. So its troops in the Donbas are what it has. (There are lessons here for general assumptions on generating mass: if even Russia cannot…)
Most estimates place [more than] 80K RUS troops in BTGs against [more than] 40K UKR in good defensive positions. This is not a good ratio for any attacking force – even with firepower. But can it ‘fight like its doctrine’ under its new, centralised commander: Dvornikov?
My own experience makes me sceptical that he & it can. 5Eyes Generals will admit only the US Army can train effectively at Corps or Army level – and it is complicated, hard, and needs repeated exercising to master. Mark Hertling gives a flavour: [link to Hertling’s thread at the link; pretty sure I linked to it here]
Also, Dvornikov will need to build a C2 apparatus for his new, huge, command. How will he fuse the previous regional C2? Will he take the southern command and expand it to sit above, or build anew? How will he train the staff for it?
And that decades old, corrupt & bankrupt RUS military culture is not going to change overnight. Yes, the Darwinian instinct will teach the BTGs how to be less vulnerable, but don’t expect great flourishes of manouevre warfare.
And then there is the logistics. Fast armoured warfare relies on equal dash from the loggies. We just don’t see it. And every mile further into UKR territory is another vulnerability from extension, and exposure to a hostile pop’n.
Russia is caught between needing a lightning offensive campaign to achieve a bold victory, and not being able or capable enough to risk its remaining force in such a move. It has neither the assumed mass of the East nor the skill of the West.
So when you see maps with dramatic, pincing arrows suggesting RUS’ next move, think on what each of those easy to draw symbols means in all-arms manoeuvre, logistic support, and then holding the territory taken.
UKR must work out how much ground it is willing to trade while writing down RUS through attrition. Some assess UKR now has more tanks. But it needs more long-range artillery, and a CONOPs for going on the offensive eventually with smaller numbers.
Which is why the Biden administrations announcement of $33Bn is so significant. It has bought time for UKR to work out what its modern CONOPs and theory of victory looks like, as long as it can contain current RUS pressure.
Two things remain. The threat of nuclear weapons should retain its awe. But proper statecraft can manage this as long as NATO does not get directly involved, ie the escalation remains sub-strategic….
And to best do that NATO must ensure it does not get directly involved, where a route to an existential rationale for RUS is easier to draw. Our rhetoric on these two points needs to be careful and deliberate.
But my overall conclusion has not changed. There is no room for complacency, but a well-sustained UKR can prevail and defeat the invasion of its territory. It is in everyone’s interests that it does, and the US has just put down a big bet.
Moscow has confirmed it carried out an airstrike on Kyiv during a visit by the UN secretary general, António Guterres. The defence ministry said two “high-precision, long-range air-based weapons” had destroyed the production buildings of the Artyom missile and space enterprise in the Ukrainian capital on Thursday night.
The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, however, said a 25-storey residential building in the capital’s Shevchenkivskyi district was hit in the strike. Klitschko said one body had been recovered. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty said one of its staff, the journalist and producer Vera Gyrych, had died “as a result of a Russian missile hitting the house where she lived” during Guterres’ visit.
So, the Russian missiles were not “high-precision” then.
…They claim they’re fighting a battle. In reality, they are retreating in fear – away from the notion of complexity, away from the compromises and difficulties of adult debate, back to the realm of reassuring childish simplicity….
Musk is also just plainly a political imbecile. I don’t think he’s retreating from these issues; I’ve seen no evidence that he’s capable of coherent, sophisticated reasoning in this realm.
It was six months ago yesterday when former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows agreed, at least initially, to cooperate with the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack. […] during that brief window, Meadows shared quite a bit with congressional investigators.
In fact, he shared thousands of texts that have proven to be among the most important White House disclosures in American history. Meadows’ treasure trove has exposed brutal truths about Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, the Jan. 6 attack itself, Republican lawmakers’ misconduct, and wildly unethical actions from conservative media figures.
The seriousness of the revelations has not escaped Meadows’ former boss. In fact, this afternoon, Trump presented his new idea to address the unfolding controversy in a written statement. Here’s [Trump’s] pitch in its entirety:
“I immediately call for the release of all text messages sent to and from Barack Obama’s Chief of Staff during their attempt to overturn the 2016 Presidential Election. They spied on my campaign, they spied on my transition team, and they even spied on the White House while I was in the Oval Office. They did everything they could to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power, and stop the ‘Will of the People’ with their Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, Mueller Scam, and more. I wonder what the texts would reveal? Unlike my Chief of Staff, which show patriotic Americans concerned about illegal and massive Election Fraud in 2020, I say bad things would be revealed.”
Before we get to the forest, let’s take stock of some of the trees.
1. Trump is a private citizen. For him to “immediately call for the release” of anything carries roughly the same amount of weight as you or I doing the same thing.
2. There was no “attempt to overturn the 2016 presidential election.” In fact, Barack Obama welcomed Trump to the White House less than 48 hours after the race was called, and Trump repeatedly and publicly thanked Obama for his graciousness.
3. No one spied on the Trump campaign, the Trump transition, or the Trump White House.
4. No one did “everything they could to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power,” as evidenced by the fact that there was a peaceful transfer of power. To see an example of someone doing “everything they could to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power,” the former president should try reading the Meadows’ texts.
5. Trump’s 2016 election didn’t reflect the “Will of the People” — his idiosyncratic approach to grammatical rules continues to amaze me — since he came in second in the popular vote.
6. The Russia scandal and the Mueller investigation were very real, the ridiculous “hoax” talk notwithstanding.
But as notable as these details are, what’s especially entertaining about Trump’s hapless pushback is that it’s little more than an exaggerated example of whataboutism.
Texts from [Trump’s] former White House chief of staff have proven to be scandalous in historically significant ways. Confronted with this inconvenient fact, Trump’s new idea is to effectively say, “Oh, yeah? Well, I bet texts from Obama’s former White House chief of staff might be scandalous, too.”
Despite saying it would only repay loans in roubles, Russia made overdue interest payments in dollars, Reuters reports:
Russia made what appeared to be a late U-turn to avoid a default on Friday, as it made a number of overdue interest payments in dollars on its overseas bonds, despite previously vowing to pay only in roubles as long as its reserves remained frozen.
Russia’s $40b of international bonds have become the focus of a game of financial chicken amid sweeping Western sanctions – and speculation about a default is likely to revive in less than four weeks, when a U.S. license allowing Moscow to make payments is due to expire.
Russia’s finance ministry said it had managed to pay $564.8m in interest on a 2022 Eurobond and $84.4m on another 2042 bond in dollars – the currency specified on the bonds.
A senior US official confirmed Moscow had made the payment without using reserves frozen in the United States, adding that the exact origin of the funds was unclear.
Deputy U.S. Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo told Reuters that the payments siphoned funds away from Russia’s Ukraine war effort and were a “sign of success” for US sanctions policy.
He declined to comment on the future of a Treasury general license due to expire on May 25 that allows banks to process Russian debt payments.
“Our overarching goal is to try to starve Russia of the resources that they’re using to both prop up their economy and finance their war effort, and to stop their invasion of Ukraine. So we’re going to keep making policy decisions with that in mind,” Adeyemo said.
Russia said it had channelled the required funds to the London branch of Citibank, one of the “paying agents” whose job it is to disburse them to the bondholders.
“Charlie Kirk warning of a recession: ‘The only benefit is that employers are now going to, kinda, get some of their leverage back because everyone’s going to be begging for a job soon'”
Meduza – “‘They can’t imprison everybody’: Yevgenia Kara-Murza on assuming the mantle of her husband’s political work — and explaining his arrest to their children.”
Also, a reminder: CNN will re-air Navalny tonight at 9 ET (in about 15 minutes).
In a new article published in the journal Mental Health, Benjamin Ang and his colleagues explore how psychiatry championed the debunked “serotonin theory” of depression, the assertion that lowered serotonin levels cause depression.
As the evidence against the serotonin theory of depression grows each day, many psychiatrists have claimed that the field never truly embraced this damaging and incorrect theory. To test whether psychiatry championed the serotonin theory of depression, the current work examines highly cited reviews of the causes of depression, highly cited papers that discussed depression and serotonin, and several textbooks published between 1990 and 2012. Despite contemporary psychiatrists’ claims to the contrary, all of the textbooks examined and nearly all academic papers supported this theory despite the lack of evidence.
“The findings suggest that the serotonin theory was endorsed by the professional and academic community,” the authors write. “The analysis suggests that, despite protestations to the contrary, the profession bears some responsibility for the propagation of a theory that is not empirically supported and the mass antidepressant prescribing it has inspired.”
[“Theory” and “hypothesis” are misplaced here, of course. This was never a theory, and to the extent it was ever a plausible hypothesis it was so briefly decades ago. “Notion” or “claim” would be more apt. Also, some background: Though many people continue to believe it, the chemical-imbalance notion was debunked a long time ago. Several leading psychiatrists in the past several years have thus contended that psychiatry never promoted this idea, and even that if people say WTF they were told by their doctor or therapist that they had a chemical imbalance, they’re not to be trusted; so this is research examining those claims. Finally, for anyone on psychiatric drugs who might be surprised to learn this: don’t just stop taking the drugs. Never just stop taking any drugs! There are serious withdrawal effects and people need to do this safely.]
The entire Republican brand has been built on a wobbly foundation of vile lies and exaggerations. It has to be. How else do you convince people that cruelly suppressing flows of immigrants to a country that faces both short- and long-term labor shortages is a good idea? Or that harassing gay and trans kids and the companies that support them somehow makes up for scuttling a child tax credit that would vastly improve the lives of tens of millions of parents in this country?
Without Russian lies and misinformation, it’s a safe bet Donald Trump would have spent recent years snorting Adderall out of his carpet until his brain bled, repeatedly bragging about passing dementia tests, and tweeting incomprehensible nonsense from his toilet. Which is pretty much what he did anyway, of course—but he would have been doing it on his own time, and in his own home, not forcing us to observe every lurid plot twist in his profane horror show. And his toilet would likely have been powerful enough to completely flush all his embarrassing errors and revolting secrets […]
So it stands to reason that conservatives would freak about a new initiative to counter the disinformation upon which they rely.
It’s this news that has left the right shrieking:
The Department of Homeland Security is stepping up an effort to counter disinformation coming from Russia as well as misleading information that human smugglers circulate to target migrants hoping to travel to the U.S.-Mexico border.
“The spread of disinformation can affect border security, Americans’ safety during disasters, and public trust in our democratic institutions,” the department said in a statement Wednesday.
Okay, that’s brutally unfair. Countering lies about immigration with the truth? How are Republicans supposed to demagogue the issue? […] And since Russian disinformation is now the lifeblood of the GOP, if they take that away, Trump is just a garden-variety traitor with 24/7 Secret Service protection.
The new board also will monitor and prepare for Russian disinformation threats as this year’s midterm elections near and the Kremlin continues an aggressive disinformation campaign around the war in Ukraine. Russia has repeatedly waged misinformation campaigns aimed at U.S. audiences to further divisions around election time and spread conspiracy theories around U.S. COVID-19 vaccines. Most recently, Russian state media outlets, social media accounts and officials have used the internet to call photographs, reporting and videos of dead bodies and bombed buildings in Ukraine fake.
The board will be headed by Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation expert who has researched online Russian misinformation campaigns. Sounds reasonable, right? I mean, no self-respecting American wants notorious war criminal Vladimir Putin sowing chaos among our citizens and tilting the playing field in favor of candidates he can more easily manipulate into supporting his diabolical plans, right?
Ha ha ha! You naif! These people do, of course. [Tweet from Josh Hawley available at the link.]
Hmm, that video, originally posted in February, was actually kind of great. But Jankowicz parodied Mary Poppins, and Mary Poppins is a “groomer” now, so …
Donald Trump Jr., “Historically, was there ever a despotic regime that didn’t have the equivalent of a Ministry of Truth?”
Despotic regime. That’s rich from Junior. Pot meet every other pot and kettle on the fucking planet. […]
Of course, new Twitter Daddy Elon Musk felt compelled to get in on the act as well. [Tweet from Musk available at the link]
And then there was this nitwit:
Marjorie Taylor Greene, “Now that the Biden regime has a Ministry of Truth, what’s next? Re-education camps?
What’s next? Space lasers, of course. […]
And in case the irony isn’t rich enough for you yet, Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad apologist Tulsi Gabbard got in on the act. [Gabbard tweet available at the link]
And if that wasn’t quite enough irony to break your brain, well, this will pulverize it:
Tucker Carlson, “Nina Jankowicz is the most ridiculous of all in Biden’s Ministry of Truth.”
Of course, countering Russian disinformation is something all Western liberal democracies should be doing. It’s something Trump should have done while he could have done it. Instead, Trump stood onstage with Putin in Helsinki and gave him the green light to misinform all he wanted. [This article is accompanied by a photo of Putin smirking in a self-satisfied way as he follows Trump onto the stage in Helsinki.]
Trump was both the primary beneficiary and most eager domestic proponent of Russian disinformation. So if you’re in the Trump cult, you’ll naturally regard any attempt to stanch Russia’s dangerous, anti-democratic lies as an existential threat.
It’s obvious by now that they’ll just keep saying “Ministry of Truth” until it means something to their followers, even though it’s a safe bet very few of these philistines have actually read George Orwell’s1984 or even understand the reference. But the problem with the comparison is that the Ministry of Truth did nothing but tell lies. In other words, it was the 1940s version of Fox News’ “Fair and Balanced.”
Today’s conservatives aren’t about spreading the facts. They just want to spread manipulative (and manipulated) versions—and they own and operate the vast majority of this country’s manure spreaders. They like the current political landscape—with its endless hillocks of bullshit—just the way it is. So now they’ll ramp up their lies in order to keep the Russian lie pipeline open in the face of efforts to shut it down.
Russia has been loading up its front lines with troops from the poorest and most remote regions of Russia. The Tuvans in the image above are equipped with cheap rubber boots to face winter conditions in Ukraine. Ethnic minorities like the Tuvans and the Buryats are more expendable to Putin than ethnic Russians from places like Moscow and St Petersburg.
[…] Ukrainian intelligence reports that Russian troops from Buryatia deployed near Kherson, had been becoming increasingly resentful of the Kadyrite Chechens.
One of the reasons for this ethnic conflict is the reluctance of the Buryat soldiers to conduct offensive operations and their perception of the “inequality” of their circumstances compared to those of the Chechen soldiers. The latter are never on the frontline – they always remain in the rear as “barricading detachments.” Their task is to ensure the units of [Russian] occupying forces maintain active military action. That is, to open fire on those [Russian troops] who are trying to retreat.
Things came to a head when the Chechens decided to keep all the loot to themselves. The Buryats decided to do a forcible redistribution and a 50 a side firefight ensued. No news on casualties yet. An army that leaves behind its wounded but never leaves behind it’s loot is not a unified fighting force.
In addition to cannon fodder from remote corners of Russia, The Russian military is rounding up and forcibly conscripting males from the separatist regions of Ukraine to toss into the meat grinder. These troops are under-trained, under-equipped and are terrified and the opposite of motivated to fight.
Reports of mutinies are multiplying. Russian Colonel Yuri Medvedev was run over by a tank and killed at the hands of his own brigade. 60 Russian paratroopers sent to Belarus to deploy to Ukraine staged a mutiny and refused to be deployed.
Intercepted phone calls of Russian soldiers paint a picture of troops that hate their officers and are despondent and hopeless about their future.
Russian officers shooting (drugging) up their soldiers to force them to attack #Ukraine, in this “Special motivation operation”.
Intercepted call’s. (English dub by @doanactor)
[Audio available at the link]
Pro Russian telegrams saying they are winning
Vs intercepted phone call Reality:
[Audio with subtitles is available at the link, no food, no water, no shells]
[…] And if you thought it couldn’t get any worse for the Russian army…
‘Putin has now taken day-to day-control of the conflict and delegated the running of Russia to the Prime Minister’.
Putin’s delusional mindset and his desperation to prevent his own downfall by achieving a quick victory will likely break his army. Kos and Mark Summer have done an excellent job of detailing the disastrous logistical, tactical, and strategic deficiencies of the Russian military. But its rotten and depraved internal culture may consume it before its incompetent leadership or the Ukrainians destroy it.
More at the link, including additional intercepted Russian conversations.
StevoRsays
@ 71. Lynna, OM
1.2 Billion people suffer through temperatures up to 122 F, with a likely staggering death toll
“[…] An early heatwave has enveloped South Asia since March. Temperatures have only risen higher in April, and today temperatures are 113 to 122 F in many areas of the Indian sub-continent. The body can’t cool off at night so it weakens and is vulnerable to organ shutdown. The worst part is that temperatures will only increase in the next ten days, perhaps longer if the Monsoon rains continue to be unseasonably late. […]”
Much more at the link.
Himachal Pradesh, the northern Indian Western Himalayan “roof of the world” / “third pole” whos e name literallytranslates as “Province of the Snow-laden Mountains” ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himachal_Pradesh ) has :
normally sees rain, hail and even snow in higher areas at this time of year, but many parts have seen no precipitation in two months, sparking more and bigger blazes than normal.
Oh & for those like me who prefer their temps in degrees C rather than F – 122 fahrenheit = 50 Celsius
we’ve found Jovian moon Io has dune’s sculpted by steam blasts from its volcanoes. Wonder if similar features might also exist on Pluto which has dunefields on it too as well as its own complex nitrogen atmosphere? :
on the Hayabusa 2 mission to Ryugyu sample return which landed its captured asetroid material prize at Woomera then faced some unexpected prosaic and other obstacles.
[…]
Four distinct political blocs were revealed by the first round of the French election: a radical left, something approximating a centre-right, the far right and those who looked at the choices on offer and said “none of the above”.
One of many noteworthy things about this French election was how seriously the abstentionists were taken. In his victory speech, Emmanuel Macron acknowledged them directly, saying: “I think as well of all of our fellow countrymen that abstained. Their silence demonstrated a refusal to choose, to which we must also respond.” The next morning Bruno Le Maire, the finance minister during Macron’s first term, vowed to change the institutions to address the millions of people who felt a sense of abandonment and didn’t vote.
Abstentionism was also covered prominently in the media. TV channels featured a count of abstentions alongside the votes. […]
Taking abstentionists seriously is key — especially in an age where voters feel alienated by politics. A recent report on attitudes towards democracy from the IPPR thinktank found that just 6% of voters in Britain think their views are the main influence on government policy, and 55% of 18- to 24-year-olds believe democracy serves them badly. This chimes with Peter Mair’s classic work of political science, Ruling the Void, which showed that as parties come to resemble each other more closely and disconnect themselves from a mass base, abstention increases.
[…]
Discussions of abstention can easily become sucked into misguided debates about privilege — Bernie Sanders supporters who planned to abstain rather than vote for Hillary Clinton were told to check their class and racial privilege. In France, some criticised those who opted for the “white vote” (submitting a blank ballot) in the same terms: “a white vote is white privilege” read some graffiti widely shared on social media. Yet Seine-Saint-Denis, the poorest departement in mainland France with a 30% immigrant population, had the highest abstention and blank ballot rate at 47.8% in the second round. A middle-aged mixed-race waiter I spoke to in Bagnolet, Seine-Saint-Denis, told me he thinks of himself as apolitical “because nothing they do will change my little life” — hardly a smug expression of privilege. Overall, abstentionism was significantly more pronounced among poorer people, with an abstention rate of 40% in households with an income of less than €1,250 (£1,050) [c.$1,320] a month, which then decreased with each more affluent income bracket.
[…]
Macron’s moment of uncharacteristic humility and the French media’s centring of abstentionists were important — and other countries could learn from this. Politicians and journalists publicly acknowledging the problem of abstentionism and actively working to re-engage those voters could play a key role in reviving trust and faith in democracy
blfsays
Nasa/JPL’s Mars helicopter Ingenuity has completed its 26th flight in a planned one-month five-flight technology demonstration mission, exactly one Earth later after its original flight (April 19th). It imaged the Perseverance rover’s EDL backshell and supersonic parachute, NASA’s Mars Helicopter Spots Gear That Helped Perseverance Rover Land (contrary to the title’s implication, this imaging was planned, not serendipitous):
“Perseverance had the best-documented Mars landing in history, with cameras showing everything from parachute inflation to touchdown,” said JPL’s Ian Clark, former Perseverance systems engineer and now Mars Sample Return ascent phase lead. “But Ingenuity’s images offer a different vantage point. If they either reinforce that our systems worked as we think they worked or provide even one dataset of engineering information we can use for Mars Sample Return planning, it will be amazing. And if not, the pictures are still phenomenal and inspiring.”
In the images of the upright backshell and the debris field that resulted from it impacting the surface at about 78 mph (126 kph), the backshell’s protective coating appears to have remained intact during Mars atmospheric entry. Many of the 80 high-strength suspension lines connecting the backshell to the parachute are visible and also appear intact. Spread out and covered in dust, only about a third of the orange-and-white parachute — at 70.5 feet (21.5 meters) wide, it was the biggest ever deployed on Mars — can be seen, but the canopy shows no signs of damage from the supersonic airflow during inflation. Several weeks of analysis will be needed for a more final verdict.
Ingenuity has now flown almost 50 minutes (and almost six miles) in total. In the future:
Håvard Grip, chief pilot of Ingenuity at JPL[, said:] “Our [current] landing spot set us up nicely to image an area of interest for the Perseverance science team on Flight 27, near ‘Séítah’ ridge.”
Upon reaching the [Jezero Crater’s dry river] delta, Ingenuity’s first orders may be to help determine which of two dry river channels Perseverance should climb to reach the top of the delta. Along with route-planning assistance, data provided by the helicopter will help the Perseverance team assess potential science targets. Ingenuity may even be called upon to image geologic features too far afield for the rover to reach or to scout landing zones and sites on the surface where sample caches could be deposited for the Mars Sample Return program.
Friday was most notable in eastern Ukraine for the sheer lack of Russian attacks. Whether this was a result of the cascade of incoming overall commanders (Here comes Dvornikov! Here comes Gerasimov! Wait, here comes Putin!), a matter of being out of some sort of supplies (noticed all those burning ammo dumps lately?), or just giving the guys a break after weeks of throwing themselves on swords each day (which sounds very un-Russian), very little forward progress was even attempted.
Though artillery shelling of Ukrainian towns and villages continued Friday, it was hard to find any evidence of a genuine attempt at an advance. Anywhere. The result was daily summaries that contained the phrase “no change on the ground” in area after area. Only north of Kharkiv, where Ukrainian forces are slowly pushing Russian troops back from a series of villages just a few miles from the Russian border, was there any measurable change.
In their own daily update of the situation, the U.K. Ministry of Defense had something to say about the status of Russian troops. In their evaluation, Russia had been forced to redeploy troops who were “depleted and disparate” after their experience in the failed Battle of Kyiv. Those troops have now been pushed into the Donbas, often as part of patchwork units formed from the fragments of BTGs that remained after losses in the north. They’ve brought with them fear, exhaustion, and a big feeling of just being done-with-this. [Map available at the link]
The U.K. also noted that, despite the much shorter supply lines in the east—after all this whole area is not just adjacent to Russia, but to areas Russia has controlled for eight years—that doesn’t seem to have translated into more reliable supplies at the front line. Ukrainian attacks on supply locations and fuel depots may have played some role in that failure, but whatever the cause, Russia still isn’t getting ammo, fuel, and even food to the places where they are needed.
Russia is also still having issues with coordinating troops. That’s in spite of placing the focus of the war in a smaller area and piling on all that top brass. All those attacks that have been happening are still attacks by just one or two tactical groups.
Something unusual was reported on Friday night—an attempted night attack by Russian forces. Throughout the war, Russian forces have been completely lacking in night vision equipment. With NATO donations of exactly that kind of gear to Ukraine, attempting to move forces at night is something that Russia has rarely dared. However, updated tanks and othered armored vehicles often have their own built-in thermal or low-light vision system. So it seems that Russia did make a push Friday night along the line north of Popasna. It went this well: [Tweet and photo of destroyed Russian BMP-2 IFV equipment is available at the link]
Oh, and on Friday, Russia continued to bomb the fighters and civilians holding out in the Azovstal plant in Mariupol. It seems they can always find the energy for that.
StevoRsays
I’m so, so, so, very sick of people in power being needlessly cruel to other people & the rest of the world we all share.
Dangerous literature
State Duma Culture Committee Chairman Yelena Yampolskaya made an online post criticizing bookstores that continue to sell works by authors who have spoken out against the war (such as Boris Akunin, Dmitry Bykov, Leonid Parfenov, and Dmitry Glukhovsky). The post was reprinted in the Russian parliament’s official newspaper and has sparked a conversation about the possibility of literary censorship in Russia.
A long layover in Kyrgyzstan
A Ural Airlines plane was detained in the Kyrgyz city of Osh after officials noticed it had two airworthiness certificates — one from Russia and one from Bermuda. After numerous Russian airliners were detained abroad because of EU sanctions, Russian authorities passed a law allowing Russian airlines to register the rights to foreign aircraft they had leased and receive domestic airworthiness certificates for them. After conducting an inspection, Kyrgyz officials reported that the plane would be allowed to return to Russia.
Volgograd’s preteen security threat
An 11-year-old in Russia’s Volgograd region has been put on a preventative watch list for discrediting the Russian army on social media. Local police made the decision after coming across posts made by the child during the course of a regional operational and preventative event called Your Choice[Putin Pravda] that was held in Volgograd from April 14–22.
The show won’t go on
Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, announced that the annual May 9 “Immortal Regiment” parade will not be held in districts bordering Ukraine, but that officials may find another way to mark Victory Day. Local leaders recently raised Belgorod’s terrorist threat level to “[blue &] yellow”[🇺🇦], or medium[nonexistent].
Russian cinemas go under
The Russian Movie Theater Owners’ Association predicts that half of all Russian movie theaters will close in the next two months, blaming, among other things, a “critical lack of content” to show. “The shutdown of theaters will automatically terminate the life of the entire film industry, as movie theaters ensure the creation of large-scale, high-quality, intellectual cinema. We must understand that the film industry today is 55,000 jobs.”
Whilst the Association is probably correct that will have a devastating blow on Russia’s (independent) film-makers, the closure of cinemas is only a proximate cause. The real cause is Putin’s invasion of Ukraine (which those same (independent) film-makers would probably have an even harder time making films about). In addition, there are reports Russian cinemas are now resorting to screening pirated copies of movies. (I don’t think there are — yet — any movies about, or set in or after, the invasion, but screening those (pirated or not), or Ukrainian movies in general (ideally not pirated?), would be a neat — and dangerous — move.)
Russian media is now bragging about the one aspect of the Ukraine invasion where Russia is actually demonstrating an ability to conduct operations on a frighteningly large scale. That thing doesn’t involve standing up to the Ukrainian military; it involves the wholesale processing of Ukrainian civilians for torture, kidnapping, and enslavement.
[Julia Davis] Military expert on state TV talks about “filtration camps” for POWs, with just one facility “set up to accept 100,000.” With such large numbers, they’re obviously talking not just about POWs, but Ukrainians at large who don’t welcome Putin’s invasion. How many camps are there? [video available at the link]
Back in early April, Yahoo News took a look at the filtration camps Russia had created at that point, and at the degrading conditions faced by Ukrainians who found themselves placed in one of these camps.
“The filtration camps, described as large plots of military tents with rows of men in uniforms, are where deported Ukrainians are photographed, fingerprinted, forced to turn over their cellphones, passwords and identity documents, and then questioned by officers for hours before being sent to Russia.”
At the time of that report on April 7, the Bezimenne camp in the Russian-occupied area of Donetsk had processed over 40,000 Ukrainians to be “exfiltrated” to Russia. That number can be expected to be much higher now, as Russia continues to send Ukrainians to unknown locations in Russia. On April 11, the Russian military gave an astounding number of 723,000 Ukrainians “evacuated” from Ukraine since the beginning of the invasion. That number could now be much higher. [Map available at the link]
For those who have any association with the Ukrainian military, the Ukrainian government, as well as foreign journalists, or for anyone so unfortunate as to be suspected of any connection to the Azov Regiment, the situation is much worse than being fingerprinted and robbed before being stuck on a bus for who knows where.
“It was like a true concentration camp.” #Ukrainian’s from Mariupol share chilling accounts of being held in Russia’s filtration camps. Any resistance & they could take you to the basements for interrogation & torture.” https://bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61208404… #Ukraine
“The filtration camps are like ghettos,” she says. “Russians divide people into groups. Those who were suspected of having connections with the Ukrainian army, territorial defence, journalists, workers from the government – it’s very dangerous for them. They take those people to prisons to Donetsk, torture them.”
How many people have been executed and buried in mass graves outside Mariupol isn’t clear, but based on the size of those graves and the numbers already exhumed in Bucha and other locations around Kyiv, these graves are expected to contain thousands, if not tens of thousands.
Mariupol is far from the only place where people are being rounded up and shipped to these camps. Prisoners have been taken from their homes in other occupied areas like Kherson, and the some of those who have managed to escape have reported Russia is holding civilians from as far north as engineers from Chernobyl.
The term “filtration camp” goes back to World War II, when the USSR held people, including Russians, in these camps to filter out those who didn’t have “appropriate” political beliefs, and to distribute people where the government felt they were needed. The term resurfaced following Russia’s two wars with Chechnya, where at least 200,000 people were held in the first war alone. Human Rights Watch published a report on these camps appropriately titled “Welcome to Hell” in which they recorded accounts of widespread torture, beatings, and executions. Many Chechens were simply “disappeared” from these camps, either to be murdered to shipped to labor camps elsewhere in Russia. Another aspect of these camps that was reported to be common was rape and sexual abuse of women and girls. And reports of rape by Russian soldiers were not restricted to women.
In case there was any doubt, detention and deportation of civilians is a war crime. But, as with the other war crimes Russia has already committed, punishing the guilty, much less any restitution for those individuals and families destroyed by this process, may be difficult to obtain.
Whether camps like Bezimenne will be ultimately remembered with the same kind of enduring disgust as those as Buchenwald or Bergen-Belsen remains to be seen. Right now, the biggest question may be: If Russia says they have exported over 700,000 Ukrainians to Russia, where are they? […]
.
@Polk_Azov on evacuation from Mariupol:
-ceasefire started 11.00; whole night, 🇷🇺artillery shelled Azovstal
-18.25: evacuation column arrived
-19.40: 20 civilians board for evacuation to Zaporizhia; Azov continue rescuing others from rubble
-🇺🇦WIA not taken; insists they must
This is a breaking news update, details are still emerging. The far-right People’s Convoy reportedly opened fire with live rounds at anti-fascist counter protesters today on I-205 freeway in Oregon. Independent journalist Alissa Azar confirmed that two shots were fired and that no counter protesters were injured. [Tweet and video available at the link]
Anti-fascist activists reportedly were throwing paint-filled balloons on convoy vehicles from an overpass. After some of the convoy stopped, gunshots could be heard on Proud Boys livestreamer Josh Fulfer and Capitol rioter livestreamer Christopher Brow’s videos. Brow’s livestream also appears to show an alleged shooter pulling a sidearm out right as shots are heard. [More tweets and videos available at the link]
The People’s Convoy began in Adelanto, California and traveled all the way to Washington D.C. and back, and they’ve now moved up to the Pacific North West of the United States. They have been decrying the vaccine and mask mandates for COVID-19 safety, but have been pivoting to other far-right issues as mandates nationally come to an end. As far back as two months ago; it was clear that the convoy was filled to the brim with far-right militants, many of whom openly bragged that they were armed. I’ve independently confirmed convoy participation from Proud Boys, Three Percenters (III%ers), Confederate supporters, KKK-supporters, and Capitol rioters. Three Percenters leader Erik Rohde claims that he has been consulting the convoy since February. One of the pro-KKK convoy paritipcants even met with Republican Senator Ted Cruz. [Tweet and photo available at the link]
Law enforcement around the country have failed to protect respective communities from this fascist menace that has resulted from the People’s Convoy. After harassing Washington D.C. for weeks, they’re now resorting to using lethal force against any that would stand in their way. [Tweets, photos of guns, and video available at the link]
For more details on the extremist involvement of the People’s Convoy, I’ve documented some of the most dangerous and important figures on the ground. [Tweet with photos available at the link]
Wonkette: “Tennesseans Now Able To Deworm Their COVID Without A Prescription”
Governor Bill Lee has signed a bill that will allow people who believe, despite all available evidence, that Ivermectin can treat COVID-19, to get it without a prescription at a local pharmacy instead of at a feed store. This is very exciting news for people who are very wrong about things, and has been described by the Tennessee Conservative as “giving residents access to treat COVID-19 without a prescription,” which it is not, because Ivermectin does not do anything to treat COVID-19.
That same site very seriously reports that this means that “Adults can complete a sheet giving information regarding pre-existing conditions, describe their current symptoms to the pharmacist, and the pharmacist can then dispense the correct dosage for that patient,” which does not actually exist, because Ivermectin in correct or incorrect doses does not do anything to treat COVID-19.
On the bright side, should the dopes that take this end up in a bad way from taking it, they will not be able to sue the pharmacist that was forced to prescribe it to them.
The bill reads:
AMENDMENT #1 rewrites the bill to authorize a pharmacist to provide ivermectin to a patient, who is 18 years of age or older,, pursuant to a valid collaborative pharmacy practice agreement containing a non-patient-specific prescriptive order and standardized procedures developed and executed by one or more authorized prescribers.
This amendment requires the board of pharmacy to adopt rules to establish standard procedures for the provision of ivermectin by pharmacists, including rules to provide the patient with a standardized fact sheet regarding ivermectin.
This amendment provides that a pharmacist or prescriber acting in good faith and with reasonable care involved in the provision of ivermectin under this amendment is immune from disciplinary or adverse administrative actions for acts or omissions during the provision of ivermectin. Also, a pharmacist or prescriber involved in the provision of ivermectin under this amendment will be immune from civil liability in the absence of gross negligence or willful misconduct for actions authorized by provisions of this amendment.
You know what? If people are that desperate to own the libs by taking medication that does not work and could give them seizures, then they should be free to do that. At this point, I feel the same way about this as I do with drugs that actually are illegal — it’s better to “legalize” and try to make things as safe and unlikely to end in death as possible, since people are going to use them anyway. That’s all you can do. Either they’re going to get it from a pharmacist or they’re going to get it from the farm, nothing we can do about it. We’ve shouted from the rooftops for at least a year now, and if they haven’t gotten the message by now, no one can help them.
The truly obnoxious thing is that they want it to be treated like a medication that will actually do something to treat covid, and they want the pharmacists to play along and pretend like it will, doling out “fact sheets” and the like. That’s what’s dangerous.
A similar bill proposed in Ohio this week will force doctors to “promote and increase distribution” of Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine and tell their patients that these drugs have been proven to be effective in treating COVID-19, despite the fact that they have not been.
[…] if a doctor is required by law to promote something even if they, as a doctor, know it to be unsafe, that is not actually so much making a decision in consultation with their patient as it is with the government.
At this point, they may as well require doctors to prescribe homeopathic tinctures and that magic drinking bleach all of the conspiracy theorists love. Really, what’s the difference? Well, other than the fact that it is impossible to overdose on homeopathic tinctures, on account of the fact that they are literally just water. [Still a waste of money, and still an action that would encourage faulty thinking.]
Republicans have long lobbied for the state’s right to interfere in the patient-doctor relationship, frequently forcing doctors to lie to abortion patients about fake potential risks and non-existent “abortion pill reversals” and give them unwanted and unneeded transvaginal ultrasounds meant to emotionally manipulate them into having a baby they don’t want.
There is a reason why prescriptions exist, and why one must be secured, from a doctor with years of training, before taking certain medicines. Because people who don’t have that training are not qualified to make those decisions. It’s one thing to say “Hey, I was looking into this kind of birth control, what do you think?” and another to say “I would like to take oxycontin as a birth control pill!” and demand the doctor give you a prescription even though it’s not going to do anything for you. We have enough problems with doctors prescribing certain medications based on which pharmaceutical companies give the best perks, we don’t need this nonsense.
This does not seem like a thing that will end well.
Wonkette: “MTG Oddly Familiar With Satan’s Conversations With Prospective Abortion-Havers”
Marjorie Taylor Greene has been talking an awful lot about Satan lately. Earlier this week she was on about how the Prince of Darkness is in charge of the Catholic Church, which is actually a whole ass thing for certain evangelicals, who believe the Pope is the antichrist and that Catholics are bad for helping the poor instead of just declaring Jesus Christ as their personal savior. In that same interview, Green also told the deeply wacky traditionalist Catholic Michael Voris of ChurchMilitant.com all about how women get abortions because Satan tells them to.
Oddly enough, Greene was very clear on what, precisely, Satan says to these women to convince them to have abortions. [video available at the link]
“It’s whispered, softly and gently, into your ears and into your soul,” the Georgia congresswoman explained, in all seriousness, clearly imagining a very sexy Satan. “And he tells you ‘it’s okay’ and he’s says ‘it’s just, just this one thing, you’re just gonna get it done, get it over with,’ and then he tells you a promise. He promises you all these dreams that you have in your heart. And that’s how Satan sells a sin, and that’s how he sells abortion. He tells a woman that all you have to do is you’re just going to go to this clinic, just going to get it over with, you know. And then you’re going to — that guy, he’s gonna stay with you. that boyfriend or the guy, whoever he is, he’s going to marry you, sweep you off your feet.”
[…] I think we ought to be questioning how, exactly, Ms. Taylor Greene got hold of that transcript. Is she in regular contact with Lucifer? Did Beelzebub tell her that she could get a man to marry her by having an abortion? Because otherwise I can’t imagine how on earth she would be able to know exactly what the Monarch of Hell would say to a woman in order to get her to have an abortion and present herself as an authority on the subject.
Now, according to the Guttmacher Institute, there are over 77 million abortions worldwide every year, and according to the musical Rent, there are only 525,600 minutes in a year. This means that Satan would have to be doing this 146 times a minute, which frankly seems like a lot even for an immortal being who probably has some kind of magic powers (I don’t know what, probably he can fly or something), and that’s not even counting those who defy his sin-selling and don’t go on to have abortions. Note that she did not say that it would be one of Satan’s minions doing this — it was Satan himself doing the sensual abortion whispering, at least 146 times a minute, while having time to run the Catholic Church, mind you. […]
Either that or Marjorie Taylor Greene is full of shit and a terrible, terrible person who wants to believe that the only reason people make choices differently than she does is because Satan is whispering in their ear telling them to do so.
lumipunasays
Re 102:
The People’s Convoy began in Adelanto, California and traveled all the way to Washington D.C. and back, and they’ve now moved up to the Pacific North West of the United States. They have been decrying the vaccine and mask mandates for COVID-19 safety, but have been pivoting to other far-right issues as mandates nationally come to an end.
Meanwhile, a reheated “Convoy” protest held today in Helsinki:
(Photo of a dozen or so people protesting peacefully in front of the Parliament House. How the nutty have fallen.)
lumipunasays
BTW, I have a general request for anyone posting quick Twitter links in this thread.
It’d be nice to see not just a standalone link, but also a few words’ summary of what the tweet is about. Then it’d be easier to decide if I want to bother with clicking myself there and back.
Even better would be, if you could quote/paraphrase/summarize the content of the tweet (not always possible, obviously). It seems Twitter has recently restricted browsing to members only. This may have gone unnoticed by many regular users who are always logged in.
[…] very hour, every minute, Fox News and the propaganda machines it has birthed are either selling their audience lies, misinformation, and disinformation about the world, or selling them pillows, telling them to sell their gold, and saying that the way out of debt is to give Magnum P.I. your home in a reverse mortgage.
The Fox-News-o-sphere has been doing double time sticking its head both up its own behind and also deep into the sand. Impossible to do, you say? You can say a lot of things about Fox News but you can’t say they aren’t willing and able to continue to surprise you when it comes to how low they can go. At this point the fact that a hole hasn’t ripped open in the space-time continuum under the Fox News studios is arguably the most surprising thing.
There has been a lot of news lately about audio of GOP House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy saying all kinds of relatively sober things about how much of a disaster Donald Trump and the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol were. He even happened to mention how crappy people like Florida man Matt Gaetz are. The problem is: The GOP is nowhere near sober in their public-facing acceptance of the fascism being called for by the MAGA wing of the party. McCarthy has one thing going for him—being craven and a liar seems to work just fine with the MAGA crowd, regardless of how much evidence is laid before their feet.
Let’s see what Fox News is doing to facilitate the dissemination of news and information to its audience.
[Aaaron Rupar] Fox News/Business mentions Friday morning:
– Audio of Kevin McCarthy blaming Trump for Jan 6 and talking about his resignation: 0
– Hunter Biden: 6
Later on, Fox News’ Howard Kurtz had Glenn Greenwald on to talk about Elon Musk and how great his ideas on free speech are. Surprisingly (see: not surprisingly) they didn’t discuss any of Elon’s stated mentions of what he thinks “free speech” is. They didn’t because this …
[Elon Musk] The extreme antibody reaction from those who fear free speech says it all.
By “free speech”, I simply mean that which matches the law.
I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law.
If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect.
Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people.
…doesn’t make much sense.
Any-the-ways! Kurtz brought up and defended Fox News’ lack of coverage, instead opting to continuously discuss the media’s lack of luster over Hunter Biden’s alleged laptop leak in the days leading up to the November 2020 election. Kurtz’s argument, the one he laid out to his interviewee Greenwald, is that the McCarthy story isn’t a “big story.” Greenwald, who has been spending most of his time recently talking about Hunter Biden’s laptop, had to admit that it showed clearly that Kevin McCarthy is lying, but made sure to offer up the defense (while saying he wouldn’t know why one would want to defend McCarthy) that “it’s a very hard job to manage a Republican caucus with 250 very disparate voices with Donald Trump hovering over you. There was a lot of emotions surrounding 1/6, but we should demand from our political leaders the basic obligation not to tell lies to the public, and the fact that he got caught red-handed should be a pretty significant event for him.”
But, was it a big story? Greenwald, who has spent a considerable amount of the past year talking about Hunter Biden’s laptop, said that he thinks what happened was that “emotions were high” after the “Jan. 6, riot,” and it is definitely a “news story,” but guess what he says next? “If we did flood-the-zone coverage every time a politician lied we would never do anything else as journalists.” Greenwald ended by telling the Fox News host—on the network that continues to cover the Hunter Biden laptop and insist that President Joe Biden is maybe lying about something for the last year and a half—that “covering it is reasonable, but excessively covering it is what happened because obviously there’s a partisan agenda involved.”
Wild stuff. You see what Greenwald did there? He conflated a politician lying about wanting to ASK THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES TO RESIGN FROM OFFICE with “politicians lying.”
That first Fox News story count was from like April 22. I’m sure things picked up a few days later.
[Aaron Rupar] Fox News/Business mentions so far today:
Hunter Biden: 32
Mark Meadows: 1
[…] Ron Johnson claims Joe Biden wouldn’t be president had the media done more reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop ahead of the 2020 election
[…] In an unrelated story, Sen. Ron Johnson is a corrupt, racist, lying, POS.
From The Weekender, written by Nicole Lafond and other Talking Points Memo staff:
Former President Donald Trump has hand-picked a crop of candidates for secretary of state in key battlegrounds that would help him overturn an election loss in the future.
Big Lie candidates are running nationwide, but would have less sway over presidential contests in single-party states like Alabama. Accordingly, Trump has focused his endorsements on states with disproportionate power in picking presidents: Michigan, Georgia and Arizona.
In Michigan, Kristina Karamo brings some Marjorie Taylor Greene energy to the campaign, believing in not just widespread election fraud in 2020, but also that Cardi B, yoga and premarital cohabitation are all conduits of Satan. Trump endorsed her back in September, after she rose to fame in right-wing circles for claiming to witness fraud as a poll challenger in Detroit.
In Georgia, Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA) is trying to take out incumbent Brad Raffensperger, who was forced to go into hiding after Trump unleashed his MAGA hordes on the official for refusing to “find” more votes for the ex-president. Hice actively tried to help overturn the 2020 election behind the scenes, and voted against certifying the results from Pennsylvania and Arizona just hours after the Capitol was attacked.
And in Arizona, state Rep. Mark Finchem (R) rounds out the group of endorsees, demanding audits after holding marathon hearings with Rudy Guiliani in an attempt to fabricate voting irregularities.
Nevada’s Jim Marchant and Ohio’s John Adams are equally eager to do the ex-president’s bidding, though they have yet to earn his endorsement for their labors.
As has proven a problem in our political ecosystem, all of this is out in the open. There’s no Watergate, no cracking of codes, no shoe-leather reporting to figure out who’s involved and what they want.
These people maintain, without a shred of evidence, that Trump won in 2020. If given these powerful roles, the chances that they would ever let a Democrat win a major election, as far as it’s in their power, are about as great as Madison Cawthorn successfully getting through a TSA checkpoint.
Cawthorn was caught … again!… with a gun in his carry-on luggage.
Imagine being part of an industry bringing in record profits—nearly $174 billion in profits in 2021. You receive incentives to grow through taxes, you have benefits thrown at you through state incentives, you are able to work with people to split their surface and mineral property rights to grow when you need to if you want to find more places that can handle your business. Every indicator is coming up roses for you.
Consumer demand for your product is rising as COVID falls, and you decide now is the time to give back investors $36.5 bilion in compensation and nice bonuses, all while raising the price of your product. Care to take a guess about which industry it is?
Welcome to the oil industry. Over the last few years, we’ve all connected via Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meet. With travel resuming, oil and gas demand goes up, and the lack of planning by the industry in face of record profits leads to, well, them making more profits but everyone else feeling the pinch. Cars spin up and so do prices. Conservatives will tell you how much they love Elon Musk this week over his attempt to buy Twitter, while at the same time seemingly hating the sheer concept of electric vehicles. Who knows. The oil industry, though, won’t sweat it, and they aren’t the only ones profiteering right now.
For the American Petroleum Institute, the war in Ukraine has been an absolute gift. They are pushing for greater domestic drilling and more options in the U.S., at one point saying that fracking may be the best weapon the U.S. has against Russia. If you’re curious, you can find out where the oil and gas leases are near you through documents filed with your county, or through a land specialist. It took me minutes to find out that near me, hundreds of wells had been approved for potential drilling and … nothing. There is no movement to drill any of them. In fact, in counties all around me, that number of instilled wells skyrockets.
The United States is full of lease agreements with nothing happening—agreements held and agreed to in states and counties. If you believed the American Petroleum Institute, you would think they have nowhere to go and are all out of options. What may be more desirable is to get similar leases with way, way less oversight. Or maybe no oversight at all while combining it with products that have very little benefit to Americans looking for relief.
Americans will be looking at the ballot boxes this fall and wondering about their pocketbook. That is certainly reasonable. Under Trump, I frequently pointed out the president doesn’t control the price of gas; it is controlled by the industry. The same is certainly true now, and for the oil industry record profits right now are a great way for them to get fat and try to make it harm anyone who sees a more environmentally conscious future. A win-win, if you will.
There is an answer to that, and that is recognizing and talking about it for what it truly is: profiteering. […]
[…] In [“]preparation[” before testifying], she spent the day prior with Alex Jones […]insisting that the legal challenge to disqualify her candidacy is all part of the globalist ploy for a One World Government.
[…] Greene insisted that the hearing was a show trial that has nothing to do with Jan 6, and that she did nothing wrong. They know there was no insurrection, she told Jones. That is their big lie.
Jones agreed that the challenge was so villainous, declaring, this is next level tyranny.
Clearly the globalists want to implode the country, Cloward and Piven to make us dependent and take control. And all the polls show a total collapse and realignment of Republicans, Jones said. How do you think the Democrats and the deep state are going to try to stop this populist peaceful uprising?
The Cloward and Piven reference baffled me. Presumably, Jones means the Cloward–Piven strategy, which was an attempt in the late-1960s to tackle poverty in the States. I don’t recall ever hearing of it before, and so know about it other than the brief summary at the link. It seems to have been partisan, an attempt to force the dummies to do something (they then controlled both houses of congress (and at the time of publication, 1966, the presidency)). Precisely what this alleged-strategy was I do not know, but some quotes / excerpts at the link suggests an important component was a guaranteed annual income. It’s easy to imagine teh thugs, both then and now, considering that socialism, hence Jone’s misreferencing / misdescribing. (I rather doubt Greene had any idea what Jones meant, and am doubtful Jones even understand what he (more likely, his presumably ghost-written script) meant).
“They don’t want me in there,” Greene said.[†] So these globalists that are completely trying to destroy our country and move us into their global economy and their One World Government to where NATO is telling us what, who they should go to war with, and the UN is running the entire world. This is what Democrats want. They know to achieve these goals they have to get the strongest fighters out. That’s why they’re coming after me, and they’re coming after Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar, they went after Madison {Cawthorn}.
And who does Greene believe is behind it? Greene claimed that the attorney group lodging the challenge is totally funded by George Soros dark-money groups.
They hope that we have a civil war, Jones said, adding that it was the devil system.
[… more lunacy, including Jones comparing Greene’s nonsenses to his own about Sandy Hook and the defamation suit (which he lost)…]
† For many values of “They”, Greene is correct, “They don’t want me in [government].” Hence, no eejit quotes, albeit teh “They” Greene was referring to was (presumably) teh George Soros dark-money groups [with space lasers!]
Reuters has an excellent report on pro-Trump Republicans who have attacked U.S. election systems, stealing voting data or attempting to do so under the supposed justification of searching for “election fraud.” Reuters counts eight known recent attempts, the most infamous being the case of Colorado election clerk Tina Peters, who now faces multiple felony charges after allowing voting data to be breached and stolen. But Peters isn’t the only pro-Trump official accused of attempted or successful thefts of voting data or unauthorized access to sensitive, must-be-secured-at-all-times election machines.
There is a trend of Republican officials and allies looking to breach election systems so that they can comb through voter data looking for “fraud” that they claim to be omnipresent simply because they refuse to believe Americans did not vote overwhelmingly to reelect the incompetent loudmouth Donald Trump. Cases include Adams Township in Michigan, where a QAnon-promoting clerk was found in possession of sensitive election tabulation hardware four days after it went missing; another Michigan episode in which a Republican activist impersonated a government official in an attempt to steal equipment; a Colorado election clerk caught on video making “forensic” copies of “everything on the election server”—the two hard drives the information was copied to have not been recovered. Pillow kingpin Mike Lindell features heavily as a financier of election conspiracy theories that have now morphed into pro-Trump crimes and attempted crimes.
[…] there are some key takeaways worth highlighting:
1. It is all based on conspiracy theories. Not sophisticated conspiracy theories, but QAnon or similar-styled ranting at clouds, bizarre claims with no evidence other than being passed around on the internet from crackpot to crackpot. The “evidence” the pro-Trump officials are looking for is not something that they can even describe; the goals are to obtain voting records or the secured software being used on election equipment so that it can be looked through and distributed to others, upon which the presumption is that “something” corrupt will be found. Like what? You know, something. And what are these suspicions based on? What tidbits of information are out there to suggest that stealing this information will result in exposing a conspiracy?
Not a damn thing. Literally nothing. The best the evidence ever gets is the sort of “looking for bamboo fibers in our ballots”-styled nonsense of the Arizona Republican audit; the tabulation machines are being targeted to look for secret “make Joe Biden win this thing” code, the 2020 election records are being targeted in the hopes that a grand conspiracy will be uncovered in which long-dead or nonexistent voters overwhelmed the vote counts through raw force of their nonexistence.
The people doing the crimes are conspiracy cranks who have either risen to positions of minor local party power or want to. They are … not scholarly people, to say the least. They are people who have been incited by the invented propaganda claims put on television by Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, House Republicans, Fox News, and Pillow Dude, […]
2. Each case shows a brazen Republican disregard for the law. The Republican clerks and other local officials behind the data breaches and thefts are unapologetic; since they believe somebody else somewhere might be doing a crime, they assert they are justified in doing real crimes to expose the imagined ones.
Historically, this has tended to be a significant component of conservatism and is a blazingly obvious component of authoritarianism in all its forms. […]
So you’ve got things going on like a local Republican official threatening to get an elections official fired if that elections official doesn’t let the Republican have access to secured voting equipment that by law nobody is allowed to have access to because then it wouldn’t be secure. […]
It turns out that having a “president” willing to break laws regularly, alongside party-devoted lawmakers who are eager to simply scrub out enforcement of whatever rules he breaks, may result in more widespread party beliefs that Criminality Is Good Now. […]
3. These criminal efforts are more coordinated than they might look. The tell here is the simple note that Mike Lindell, the aforementioned Pillow Dude, is pouring a lot of money into convincing people like these local Republican conspiracy theorists that Republican election conspiracy theories are so dire that extraordinary action needs to be taken to combat them. In Texas, a big Republican donor is now under indictment for financing a supposed “investigation” into election fraud that saw one of his investigators run a random Texan off the road and hold him at gunpoint on the bizarre belief that the man’s truck was stuffed with fake ballots.
The crimes are all committed due to a belief in a handful of nebulous, nonsensical conspiracy theories that came from top Trump propagandists and which continue to be repeated now as core movement beliefs. The reason those beliefs continue is because there’s a whole lot of Republican money being poured into making them continue.
There are also legislative efforts to make such tampering the new normal, Republican-controlled state legislatures have now passed a bevy of new laws that allow them to simply seize control of whatever local election offices have reported back with vote totals that Republican partisans find suspicious. Here’s a tip: Counties that tend not to vote for Republican candidates are the ones being singled out as “suspicious.” […]
Reuters is reporting on a wave of conspiracy-minded Republican cranks now looking to target the nation’s election systems by stealing sensitive data, but the broader context here is that the party is looking to legalize those sorts of breaches, not tamp down on them. The problem they’re trying to solve is that, in states like Georgia, Americans aren’t voting for Republicans in sufficient numbers for Republicans to win. The solution they’ve come up with is to declare that if a Republican candidate doesn’t win, it’s because there was a secret conspiracy to fudge the numbers—thus requiring Republican “investigation” into votes against them.
For the second straight day, Russia lost more ground than it gained. Ukraine is pushing Russian forces around Kharkiv toward the international border. Mark Sumner made this map for his last update—blue cities taken the last couple of days, yellow ones under current Ukrainian assault.
[…] So Ukraine got some stuff around Kharkiv. What did Russia get? Nothing. While Russia shelled the entire line, as usual, Ukraine General Staff reported only a handful of ground attacks—pushes southwest (toward Barvinkove) and southeast of Izyum (toward Slovyansk), and ongoing fighting in Rubizhne and Popasna. […]
If you’re wondering, “what’s going on with that push to the west of Izyum, in the wrong direction of their stated objectives?” Well, the answer is nothing! Did it run out of gas? Was it abandoned? Who knows! What we do know is that after a couple of weeks of increased op tempo, Russia has suddenly gotten really quiet the last couple of days. Not only has it been unable to deliver the promised and feared massive offensive, its current efforts are fizzling out.
The Pentagon says logistics are a big part of the problem, “The Russians have not overcome all their logistics and sustainment challenges, and we assess that they’re only able [to] sustain several kilometers or so progress on any given day.” Thing is, Russia isn’t even moving a couple of kilometers per day. They’re stuck.
This is how much they’ve moved in two weeks: [Those and other maps are available at the link]
You might need to open that image in a new browser window, full-size, to see any of the scant changes. Given Ukrainian pickups around Kharkiv and Kherson/Mykolaiv, Russia may be at a net-negative in territory for those two weeks. This thing is a standstill. And what’s worse for Russia, even if they break through at Popasna or Rubizhne, then what? Ukraine just drops back to their next set of prepared defenses a few kilometers back, and we’re back to the daily grind, except now Russia has to run their supply lines a few kilometers further.
Remember, Ukraine’s defenses in Donbas aren’t a single line. They are layered deep.
As of now, Ukraine holds around 5,000 square miles of territory inside the administrative boundaries of the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts (the Donbas region). Vladimir Putin thought that would be fully taken for his May 9 parade. So yeah, let’s have a good laugh. But then let’s remember that the status quo has come at great sacrifice of Ukraine’s brave defenders, holding out under desperate, inhuman conditions, as well as many Russian and proxy forces that don’t want to be there, have no business being there, and are being sacrificed to Putin’s megalomaniacal designs.
Russia’s stalled advance means Ukraine can also wreak havoc on its rear lines, with artillery work that seems to improve by the week. [Tweet and video available at the link.]
The general confirmed killed was the guy in charge of Russia’s VDV airborne troops, the same crew up in Bucha and Irpin committing heinous war crimes. He can rot. But this attack tells us a couple of other things:
1) The first hit is the command post, some sort of agricultural structure. It was specifically targeted, scoring a direct hit. We may be seeing the first of the suicide drones in action, or a direct-hit artillery smart round. Ukraine made sure that round hit dead on, and hit first, before the rest of the barrage took out much of the supporting gear and vehicles. […]
You know the irony? It’s looking like a pretty dry spring. The mud is drying out, and the skies have been clear—perfect weather for their air power. Doesn’t matter. They’re stuck, mud or not.
The White House Correspondents Association returned Saturday night to a packed ballroom of journalists, policy-makers and celebrities, with President Biden and Trevor Noah of the Daily Show providing the entertainment. […]
Early in his speech, Biden thanked the more than 2,000 people in attendance for proving they are vaccinated and had tested negative for the virus that day, per protocols set forth by the WHCA. Everyone attending the event had to show evidence of vaccinations and same-day tests.
“So if you’re at home watching this and you’re wondering how to do that, just contact your favorite Fox News reporter,” Biden said. “They’re all here, vaccinated and boosted. All of ’em.”
The room exploded with laughter as cameras on CSPAN quickly cut to Fox’s White House Corespondent Peter Doocy, who cracked a smirk and gave a head nod while attendees seated around him applauded. […]
Wonkette: “Kirk Cameron Paraphrasing Hitler In Push For Wholesome Christian Homeschooling”
During the pandemic, conservatives screamed and hollered that they needed their kids to go back to school because they weren’t learning to function socially. Then when schools came back, they screamed and hollered that schools were teaching their kids how to function socially in today’s society, both by making them aware of the existence of LGBTQ+ people and racism, and by employing Social Emotional Learning to teach them empathy and communication skills.
And now, a grizzled Kirk Cameron is announcing that public schools are “Public Enemy #1” and encouraging parents to homeschool their kids instead, in order to protect them from the scary, all too sexy liberal agenda of “people exist and you should not be shitty to them.” [video available at the link]
Transcript:
Since the pandemic we’ve been made grossly aware of the inaccurate and the immoral things things that the public school system has been teaching our children and our grandchildren, and it’s up to us as parents to cultivate the hearts and minds and souls of our children. Toward what is good toward what is right, beautiful and true. And the public school system unfortunately has not been working with us but actively working against us. In my opinion, the public school system has become public enemy number one.
I think you need to see the movie because you may be wondering “What can I do about it? How can I be part of the solution? “The Homeschool Awakening” will give you answers. And I think America needs a film like this, right now. We need to take back the education of our children because whoever controls the textbooks controls the future. Whoever’s shaping the hearts and minds and souls of our children will determine whether or not we live in a free country and we have freedom of speech.
Golly, does that last part ever sound familiar. In fact, it sounds a whole lot like a favorite saying of a certain Führer … “He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.” Not to mention, a little like “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past,” the official slogan of the bad guys in 1984.
As weird as it sounds, and as deeply harmful as Christian homeschooling is for children, and as deeply harmful as casually quoting Hitler is for everybody, I’m going to argue that this is kind of a good thing. The Right has three main tacks when it comes to going after their long-time nemesis, the public school system.
You’ve got the hardcore capitalists who think it’s bad to have a system that people aren’t profiting off of and want to push for charter schools and vouchers and all that, you’ve got the culture war Right that wants to be able to take over the schools and use them to push their own propaganda, and you’ve got the Christian Right, which veers between trying to force prayer, bigotry and a 6,000 year old earth in public schools and, upon not getting their way, go full Gothard and start pushing for homeschooling. [That’s a good summary.] Out of these options, frankly, our best bet is that they all go with homeschooling. That way they’re not excessively draining school funds to the point where public schools can barely survive or trying to convince our children that Adam and Eve hung out with dinosaurs in biology class.
I don’t know if conservatives have noticed this yet, but despite their centuries of effort, social progress keeps happening whether they like it or not. I can only think of one instance in human history where a nation actually went fully backwards in terms of social progress, and that involved the damn Taliban. They’re not going to make trans people go away, they’re not going to make gay people go away, they’re not going to get women, outside of wacky Instagram “tradwives,” to go back to the kitchen, they’re not going to be able to get back to some pre-social media world where White people never had to find out that racism did not go unnoticed by those experiencing it. It’s not happening. They can do things legislatively and in the courts to make things miserable for people, but outside of establishing a theocratic dictatorship, they have no chance of “controlling the future” in the way they so desperately want.
For more than a decade, U.S. cybersecurity experts have warned about Russian hacking that increasingly uses the labor power of financially motivated criminal gangs to achieve political goals, such as strategically leaking campaign emails.
Prolific ransomware groups in the last year and a half have shut down pandemic-battered hospitals, the key fuel conduit Colonial Pipeline and schools; published sensitive documents from corporate victims; and, in one case, pledged to step up attacks on American infrastructure if Russian technology were hobbled in retribution for the invasion of Ukraine.
Yet the third month of war finds Russia, not the United States, struggling under an unprecedented hacking wave that entwines government activity, political voluntarism and criminal action.
Digital assailants have plundered the country’s personal financial data, defaced websites and handed decades of government emails to anti-secrecy activists abroad. One recent survey showed more passwords and other sensitive data from Russia were dumped onto the open Web in March than information from any other country.
The published documents include a cache from a regional office of media regulator Roskomnadzor that revealed the topics its analysts were most concerned about on social media — including antimilitarism and drug legalization — and that it was filing reports to the FSB federal intelligence service, which has been arresting some who complain about government policies.
A separate hoard from VGTRK, or All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Co., exposed 20 years of emails from the state-owned media chain and is “a big one” in expected impact, said a researcher at cybersecurity firm Recorded Future who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss his work on dangerous hacking circles.
The broadcasting cache and some of the other notable spoils were obtained by a small hacktivist group formed as the war began looking inevitable, called Network Battalion 65.
“Federation government: your lack of honor and blatant war crimes have earned you a special prize,” read one note left on a victim’s network. “This bank is hacked, ransomed and soon to have sensitive data dumped on the Internet.”
In its first in-depth interview, the group told The Washington Post via encrypted chat that it gets no direction or assistance from government officials in Ukraine or elsewhere.
“We pay for our own infrastructure and dedicate our time outside of jobs and familial obligations to this,” an unnamed spokesperson said in English. “We ask nothing in return. It’s just the right thing to do.”
[…] Russia still has offensive capabilities, and U.S. officials have urged organizations to prepare for an expected Russian cyber-assault, perhaps held to be deployed in a moment of maximum leverage.
But perhaps the most important victim of the wave of attacks has been the myth of Russian cyber-superiority, which for decades helped scare hackers in other countries — as well as criminals within its borders — away from targeting a nation with such a formidable operation.
“The sense that Russia is off-limits has somewhat expired, and hacktivism is one of the most accessible forms of striking at an unjust regime or its supporting infrastructure,” said Emma Best, co-founder of Distributed Denial of Secrets, which validated and published the regulator and broadcast troves among others.
[…] Soon after the invasion, one of the most ferocious ransomware gangs, Conti, declared that it would rally to protect Russian interests in cyberspace.
The pledge backfired in a spectacular fashion, since like many Russian-speaking crime groups it had affiliates in Ukraine.
One of them then posted more than 100,000 internal gang chats, and later the source code for its core program, making it easier for security software to detect and block attacks.
Network Battalion 65 went further. It modified the leaked version of the Conti code to evade the new detections, improved the encryption and then used it to lock up files inside government-connected Russian companies. […]
In a move we’re only hearing about after the fact for obvious security reasons, it has now been publicly revealed that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi traveled to Kyiv, Ukraine, to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday. Pelosi led a small congressional delegation that included House Intelligence chair Adam Schiff and House Foreign Affairs chair Gregory Meeks.
Zelensky posted footage of the trip early Sunday: [Tweet and video available at the link. It looks so good to see Pelosi walking along outdoors in Kyiv, (however briefly), with Zelensky and his entourage. Adam Schiff and other democrats were there too.]
The Pelosi trip is another bold statement of commitment to Ukraine’s cause, and follows the approval of a lend-lease program to Ukraine. That authority allows the federal government to ship as much artillery ammunition, drones, heavy weapons, and whatever else Ukraine is deemed to need without having to ask Congress for further approval, and that equipment is now flooding into Ukraine not just from the United States, but from NATO allies.
Any Russian thoughts of achieving something that can be held up as a modest victory on May 9 are well and truly gone; not only are Russian forces continuing to be depleted in exchange for little to no on-the-ground progress, each passing day brings more NATO-provided weaponry to the Ukrainian frontlines. Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin’s next major decision is whether to begin a general mobilization, ordering Russia’s vast numbers of inexperienced, poorly-trained reservists over the border.
Such a move would be all but necessary if Russia still hopes for a face-saving partial victory, as the Ukrainian government and public are in no mood to entertain thoughts of ceding towns to Russia after Russian war crimes were discovered in the Ukrainian towns Russia has been forced to retreat from. It will also, however, compound Russian logistical problems that have already proved intractable. There’s little reliable information at this point as to what equipment even exists for the reservists to use, and Russian military troops manning popup security checkpoints in Ukraine have already been videotaped carrying bolt-action rifles and other antique equipment.
NATO nations are now sounding exceedingly confident in Ukraine’s ability to at least fight to a stalemate in coming months, though driving Russian forces back across the borders is still a tall order unless enough casualties can be inflicted to convince Putin and his military to declare victory and leave. Pelosi’s trip is just the latest in a series of trips by top U.S. and European officials showing hand-in-hand partnership with Ukraine’s government and military. It’s a far cry from where we started, with NATO nations quietly bickering among themselves about how much aid to give Ukraine, and how much would unnecessarily “provoke” the invading Putin.
The White House Correspondents Association dinner and roasting was better than I expected.
President Joe Biden did not disappoint at the White House correspondents’ dinner on Saturday, which was the first time since 2019 officials have been able to host the event after cancellations resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Biden transitioned from poking fun at former President Donald Trump, calling him “a horrible plague, followed by two years of COVID” to jabs at Fox News and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. “I’m not here to roast the GOP,” Biden said. “That’s not my style. Besides, there’s nothing I can say about the GOP that Kevin McCarthy hasn’t already put on tape.” (That was a personal favorite.)
But the true star of the evening was hardly the president. No, that honor belongs to comedian Trevor Noah, who was still trending much of the morning on Sunday. He joked while underscoring real issues the Biden administration should be prioritizing from student loan forgiveness to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ brand of discrimination. [He really went after Ron DeSantis]
[…] “I know a lot of you are worried and, yes, it is risky making jokes these days. We all saw what happened at the Oscars. I’ve actually been a bit worried about tonight, I won’t lie. What if I make a really mean joke about Kellyanne Conway and her husband rushes up on the stage and thanks me?”
“What I like about Ron DeSantis is if Trump was the original Terminator, DeSantis is like the T-1000. You’re smarter than him. You’re slicker than him. You can walk down ramps. Trump said he won the election, but everyone was able to look at the numbers and see that he was wrong. That’s why Ron DeSantis is one step ahead. First you ban the math textbooks, then nobody knows how to count the votes.”
“Interesting fact: Even as first lady, Dr. Biden continued her teaching career, the first time a presidential spouse has ever done so. Congratulations. You might think it’s because she loves teaching so much, but it’s actually because she’s still paying off her student debt. I’m sorry about that, Jill. Guess you should’ve voted for Bernie.”
“Think of all the journalists whose careers have been hurt by the Biden presidency. People like Daniel Dale. He used to be CNN’s fact-checker on TV every day but now there’s barely anything to check. Same for Glenn Kessler at The Washington Post. On the way here, I saw him offering four Pinocchios for a dollar. Mr. President, that’s on you. What about Maggie Haberman? For four years, it was exclusives. … Now look at her. She spends all day fighting with random people on Twitter like a common political reporter.”
“Fox News is sort of like a Waffle House. It’s relatively normal in the afternoon, but as soon as the sun goes down, there’s a drunk lady named Jeanine threatening to fight every Mexican who comes in.” […]
The news out of Ukraine keeps getting more interesting, Generally speaking. There are reports that General Valery Gerasimov has been injured outside of Izyum. General Gerasimov is not just another field General. Rather, he is the Russian Army Chief of Staff who Putin sent to The Donbas to personally oversee Russia’s flailing war effort earlier this week. […]
Vladimir Putin’s top military commander has been flown out of the war zone with shrapnel wounds after being to sent to Ukraine by the Russian president to secure victory, a former Russian internal affairs minister has claimed.
Valery Gerasimov, the chief of staff of the Russian army, was today wounded in Izyum in Ukraine’s Kharviv region, which has been at the centre of intense fighting since Russia’s invasion….
An unofficial Russian source reported that Gerasimov sustained ‘a shrapnel wound in the upper third of the right leg without a bone fracture.
‘The shard was removed – there is no danger to life,’ he said.
But Gerasimov’s injury was severe enough to have him flown away from the frontlines and back to Russia to undergo further treatment, marking another embarrassing defeat for Putin’s forces.
[…] General Gerasimov is not just another field General. Rather, he is Russia’s leading war theorist, best known as the namesake of the Gerasimov Doctrine of hybrid warfare, pursuant to which Russia now includes political, economic, informational, humanitarian and other non-military activities in a total war strategy. The doctrine became known after its publication in February 2013 and Russia’s subsequent hostile actions against Ukraine in 2014 which were carried out in a manner consistent with the doctrine.
At this point, neither the claim that he has been injured in combat nor the extent of his injuries have been verified, so the story may just be the Ukrainians screwing with the Russians. However, it’s a story of such importance to Russia’s war effort that both sides have an interest in either confirming or denying it. Thus, I expect that more information will likely become available shortly.
There is a never ending well of delusions, stupidity, and criminality that Jan 6th insurrectionists demonstrate during their plea deals and sentencing, but I continue to be surprised by how “inventive” some are with their defense efforts. The latest is Anthony Vuksanaj of New York. Vuksanaj plead guilty to “Parading, Demonstrating, Or Picketing in a Capitol Building,” but Vuksanaj continued to interrupt the judge during his sentencing with lies about his actions on Jan 6th. […]
Although Vuksanaj was not accused of engaging in violence himself during the Capitol riot, pictures and video show that he was at the front of a crowd that was forced back by officers. Prosecutors also said that he joined the crowd in chanting slogans like “Whose house? Our house,” “You serve us,” and calling out the names of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
In court on Friday, Vuksanaj denied chanting those slogans, and said that what he saw at the Capitol was a peaceful protest. He was so insistent on this point that he interrupted Howell repeatedly as she was issuing her sentence.
“No one was trying to do that,” he said as Howell described the riots as an effort to overthrow the government by blocking the peaceful transition of power.
“I saw the videos,” Howell replied.
Vuksanaj insisted that he didn’t see violence when he was at the Capitol.
“You’re not helping yourself,” Howell warned.
“The police let us in, they let us in,” Vuksanaj repeated. “How are we in trouble when the police let us in? I don’t get it.”
I would think that Vuksanaj’s actions during the sentencing would violate his plea deal. My legalese isn’t that great, but Vuksanaj was supposed to agree to the factual statements of his crime. But Vuksanaj is lying his ass off about the cops letting him into the Capitol Building, there being no violence, and he didn’t chant with the other insurrectionists.
Judge Howell sentenced Vuksanaj to an intermittent jail sentence of 42 days and three years probation.
Frankly, he got off lightly. And I do not say that because he was mouthing off to the judge. [He] has had eight convictions for various other crimes since 1992! And he only got probation or fines for all those other convictions. And the judge noted that previous probations had done NOTHING to change Vuksanaj’s behavior.
By the way, it appears that Vuksanaj was also claiming he has been permanently disabled since 2011. However, he could drive the 10 hours round trip from New York, and he was more than mobil enough to get around during the rioting. In fact, there is video evidence of Vuksanaj’s crimes on Jan 6th on his cell phone.
[…] I hope they do revoke his disability claim. I cannot tell you how damn difficult it is for people who have legitimate claims of disability to get classified as disabled by the Social Security Administration. My Dad was disabled, and they put him through hell to get on disability.
Vuksanaj did not get the sentence he so richly deserves.
Judge Howell also expressed doubts about Vuksanaj’s disability:
“I have to say, he doesn’t look permanently disabled to me,” Howell said. “Not given his five-hour drive to and from his home to Washington, D.C., standing and watching this rally, walking two miles to the Capitol, walking all the way through the Capitol[.]”
“That’s not a man who looks permanently disabled. He had great mobility,” Howell added. She urged prosecutor Alison Prout to refer Vuksanaj’s disability case to the Social Security Administration, which has apparently been sending Vuksanaj monthly payments for a decade.
When we talk about the history of feminism, we tend to think about the causes and struggles of middle class white women. When we talk about labor history, we tend to think about the causes and struggles of white working class men.
And that is some absolute bullshit.
Working class women, very often women of color and immigrant women, were, are and always have been the backbone of the labor movement. They were working and organizing well before Second Wave Feminism “made it possible” for women to enter the workforce. They’re the ones who first fought for equal pay, and they’re the ones who were doing the bulk of feminist work and activism during the years in between getting the right to vote and The Feminine Mystique. They are still fighting today.
So, since it’s May Day, AKA International Worker’s Day, let’s celebrate the hell out of them, starting with the woman who started it all.
Lucy Parsons
“Governments never lead; they follow progress.When the prison, stake or scaffold can no longer silence the voice of the protesting minority, progress moves on a step, but not until then.” [photo at the link]
“More dangerous than a thousand rioters,” anarchist Lucy Eldine Gonzalez Parsons was a writer, orator, one of the founders of the Industrial Workers of the World and tireless campaigner for the rights of people of color, all women and all workers. Her husband, Albert Parsons, was one of the Haymarket martyrs.
We, the women of this country, have no ballot even if we wished to use it…but we have our labor. We are exploited more ruthlessly than men. Wherever wages are to be reduced, the capitalist class uses women to reduce them, and if there is anything that you men should do in the future, it is to organize the women.
Though Parsons and Emma Goldman were widely regarded as the most prominent female anarchists of the day, they, very notably, did not get along so well. Parsons believed that oppression based on gender and race was a function of capitalism and would be eliminated when capitalism was eliminated, whereas Goldman believed such oppression was inherent in all things. Parsons was all class struggle all the time, and felt that the “intellectual anarchists” like Goldman spent too much time bothering with appealing to the middle class.
One of her most important contributions to the labor movement was the concept of factory takeovers.
“My conception of the strike of the future is not to strike and go out and starve, but to strike and remain in, and take possession of the necessary property of production.”
Parsons is best known for being the woman who really started the celebration of May Day as a day for workers’ rights — leading a parade to commemorate the anniversary of the Haymarket Affair. Soon, nearly every other country in the world followed suit and proclaimed this day International Worker’s Day. Alas, here in America, we go with the less radical and more picnic-y Labor Day […]
Anna LoPizzo
Not much is known about Anna LoPizzo, other than that she was a 34-year-old mill worker who was murdered by police officer Oscar Benoit during the 1912 Lawrence Textile Strike — also known as the Bread and Roses Strike. Initially, police tried to charge two IWW organizers who were miles away for her murder, even though literally everyone there had seen Benoit shoot her.
The reason for the strike in the first place was that the textile mills of Lawrence, Massachusetts, cut worker pay after the state cut the number of hours women could legally work from 56 down to 54. The Industrial Workers of the World, led by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (we’ll get to her in a minute), organized more than 20,000 workers of more than 40 different nationalities to demand they get their fair wages. One of the primary tactics used in the strike was sending the starving families of the mill workers on a tour to New York City so that people there could see for themselves what these low wages were doing to children. Between that and LoPizzo’s death, sympathy was on the side of the workers. Congressional hearings into the conditions of the mills were held, and the mills themselves ended up settling the strike by giving all workers across New England a 20% raise.
Lillian Wald [photo at the link]
Susan B. Anthony isn’t the only important feminist buried in the Mount Hope Cemetery in my hometown of Rochester, New York. There is another. Her name was Lillian Wald, and she was a total fucking bad ass. She wasn’t just a suffragist — she was also an early advocate for healthcare for all people regardless of economic class or citizenship, a founding member of the NAACP, lobbied against child labor, advocated for the rights of immigrants, helped to found the Women’s Trade Union League and was an anti-war activist. Wald also founded the Henry Street Settlement House in New York City, which provides — to this day — social services, education and health care to the impoverished. And she was active in the ACLU.
WHY THE HELL IS SHE NOT MORE FAMOUS? I am legitimately bothered by this and bring it up often.
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn [photo at the link]
“The IWW has been accused of pushing women to the front. This is not true. Rather, the women have not been kept in back, and so they have naturally moved to the front.”
[…] As previously mentioned, she was an organizer with Industrial Workers of the World who helped organize the Lawrence Textile Strike. She also organized a hell of a lot of other strikes across the country, helped found the ACLU, and was known for the creative tactics she used to elicit sympathy and support for the American worker.
Hattie Canty [photo at the link]
When Hattie Canty’s husband died in 1972, she found herself supporting eight children on her own. She found work as a maid at a Las Vegas hotel where she joined the Las Vegas Hotel and Culinary Workers Union Local 226. By 1990, she was president of that union, leading one of the longest strikes in American history — a six year strike of hospitality workers which, happily, ended in victory.
The Women of The Atlanta Washerwomen’s Strike [photo at the link]
Back in the 1880s, only two decades after the Civil War ended, the most common occupation for black women was as laundresses — this was largely because if poor white families were going to hire anyone to do chores for them at all, they were going to hire someone to do their laundry. These women were independent workers, often working from their own homes and making their own soap, and they only made about $4 a month. (Average non-black-woman laborers earned about $35 a month in 1880.)
One day in 1881, about 20 of them got together and decided that $4 a month was some bullshit for all the work they were doing and decided to go on strike and demand wages of $1 for every 12 pounds of washing. Three weeks later, 3,000 other women joined them. Unsurprisingly, the city freaked out. They fined any participants $25 — which was a lot of money when you only made $4 a month — and they offered tax breaks to any corporation that would come down there to start a commercial steam cleaning business. Still, the women did not back down.
Eventually, people got really sick of doing their own laundry, and the city decided to back down on the fines, and cede to their demands for fear that the unrest would spread to other industries.
Dolores Huerta [Photo at the link]
Dolores Huerta, along with Cesar Chavez, helped to organize the National Farmworkers Association, which later became United Farm Workers. She wasn’t a farmworker herself — rather, she was an elementary school teacher who was tired of seeing the children she taught living in poverty because their parents were not making enough money as farmworkers.
I couldn’t tolerate seeing kids come to class hungry and needing shoes. I thought I could do more by organizing farm workers than by trying to teach their hungry children.
[…]
Angela and Maria Bambace
Though she’s not as well known as some of the other women on here, Angela Bambace, an organizer the International Ladies Garment Worker’s Union who started unionizing her fellow shirtwaist factory workers at age 18, is a personal hero of mine, along with her sister Maria. Angela was known to punch strikebreakers in the nose […]
She also left her husband and a traditional marriage in which she was confined to “making tomato sauce and homemade gnocchi” –and lost her parental rights in doing so, because back then, women didn’t have any — to fight for workers’ rights on the front lines. She was the first Italian-American woman elected Vice-President of the ILGWU, where she worked from 1936 until 1972.
May Chen [photo at the link]
May Chen, also of the International Ladies Garment Worker’s Union, led the New York Chinatown strike of 1982 — 20,000 workers strong and one of the largest strikes in American history. As a result of the strike, employers cut back on wage cuts, gave workers time off for holidays and hired bilingual interpreters in order to accommodate the needs of immigrant workers.
Lucy Randolph Mason [photo at the link]
Lucy Randolph Mason was a weird one. She was a well-off Southern lady from Virginia, related to George Mason (author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights), Supreme Court Justice John Marshall, and, uh, Robert E. Lee. So, you know, you might have an idea in your head about what her deal might be. And you would be so wrong. In a good way.
So, despite being from this very fancy family, Lucy goes and gets a job as a secretary for the YWCA at 20. 1918, she gets into the whole suffragette thing. Women get the vote, but Lucy’s not done. She starts organizing for labor rights and integration and ending white supremacy in the South. She organizes interfaith, integrated unions in the South, which you can imagine was a pretty big deal at that time. She does it through the YWCA. She writes a pamphlet telling consumers to boycott companies that don’t treat their workers well. Eventually, she becomes the CIO’s ambassador to the South and spends the next 16 years of her life going to all these small towns where bad things would happen to anyone who tried to unionize, and explaining worker’s rights and why integration is good and racism is bad to pretty much anyone with any kind of power.[…]
Emma Goldman [photo at the link]
Though not a union organizer by trade, anarcha-feminist Emma Goldman’s advocacy for worker’s rights and human dignity and freedom empowered workers and organizers throughout the country, and motivated them to stand up for their own rights. She was considered the most dangerous woman in America for a reason.
She was a feminist, an anti-racist, an atheist, an advocate of free love, an opposer of the institution of marriage and — very unusually for the time (she pretty much started right after Haymarket, which was 1886, and continued until her death in 1940) was living in — one of the first advocates of gay rights.
“It is a tragedy, I feel, that people of a different sexual type are caught in a world which shows so little understanding for homosexuals and is so crassly indifferent to the various gradations and variations of gender and their great significance in life.”
[…]
Rosina Tucker [photo at the link]
“I looked him right in the eye and banged on his desk and told him I was not employed by the Pullman company and that my husband had nothing to do with any activity I was engaged in … I said, ‘I want you to take care of this situation or I will be back.’ He must have been afraid … because a black woman didn’t speak to a white man in this manner. My husband was put back on his run.”
Rosina Tucker is best known for helping to organize the first black labor union, The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, started by A. Philip Randolph in 1925. A Brotherhood? But she was a woman, you say! Well, the Pullman porters wanted to organize, but they were afraid of losing their jobs. With good reason, because their bosses kept trying to fire them for trying to unionize. So Rosina and other wives of the porters got together and started the Ladies Auxiliary of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in order to raise funds to start the union.
In 1963, along with A. Philip Randolph of the BSCP, she helped organize the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and continued to be active in civil rights and labor rights until she passed away in 1987, at the age of 105.
The women on this list, along with the many others who also fought for labor rights in this country and others, didn’t only fight a fight for workers. They fought a feminist fight, they fought for civil rights, they fought for human rights — they understood the interconnectedness of it all, they understood that without economic justice there is no social justice and without social justice there is no economic justice. They understood the way that the labor movement could be used as a catalyst for making social change possible at a time when they didn’t have any political support or power — and that’s a thing we could all do well to remember ourselves.
Tethyssays
Mypillow moron gets back on Twitter after being banned for spreading conspiracy nonsense in 2021. Gets banned again in 3 hours.
Russian troops in the occupied city of Melitopol have stolen all the equipment from a farm equipment dealership — and shipped it to Chechnya, according to a Ukrainian businessman in the area.
But after a journey of more than 700 miles, the thieves were unable to use any of the equipment — because it had been locked remotely.
[…]
CNN is not naming a contact in Melitopol familiar with the details of the case for their own safety.
The contact said the process began with the seizure of two combine harvesters, a tractor and a seeder. Over the next few weeks, everything else was removed: in all 27 pieces of farm machinery. One of the flat-bed trucks used, and caught on camera, had a white “Z” painted on it and appeared to be a military truck.
[… S]ome of it embarked on a long overland journey to Chechnya more than 700 miles away. The sophistication of the machinery, which are equipped with GPS, meant that its travel could be tracked. It was last tracked to the village of Zakhan Yurt in Chechnya.
The equipment ferried to Chechnya, which included combine harvesters [worth $300,000 each] — can also be controlled remotely. “When the invaders drove the stolen harvesters to Chechnya, they realized that they could not even turn them on, because the harvesters were locked remotely,” the contact said.
As quoted, the contact is a bit confusing; I presume the contact means after the stolen harvesters were shipped to Chechnya.
The story continues, mostly about reports of Ukrainian grain being stolen (as previously mentioned in this series of poopyhead threads).
On April 28, the director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service [SVR], Sergei Naryshkin, spun a conspiracy theory about Polish designs on Ukraine.
Without evidence, Naryshkin claimed the United States and Poland are working to restore Polish control over its historical possessions in Ukraine.
[… blah, blah…]
[SVR’s counter-rotating wobbly eyes loon’s statement] further quoted Naryshkin, claiming the first step would come with Polish troops entering western Ukraine under the pretext of protecting it from Russia.
Currently, the modalities of the upcoming mission are being discussed with the Biden administration, the SVR quoted Naryshkin as saying. […]
The Polish government dismissed the unfounded accusations as disinformation.
“The lies about Poland’s alleged plans to attack western Ukraine have been repeated for several years,” Reuters quoted Stanislaw Zaryn, spokesman for Poland’s special services coordinator, as saying.
[…]
“The aim of Russian propaganda is to foster distrust between Ukraine and Poland to undermine PL-UA cooperation.”
[… more Russian blah blahs…]
In his comments, Naryshkin said allied powers accepted Poland’s annexation of western Ukraine after World War I. [parts of Ukraine have been under Polish control since the 14th C, some of which was “returned”(?) to Poland after WW I, Poland gave up those claims after WW ][ (apparently in return for lands seized from it by teh real nazis?), reuniting Ukraine albeit under Soviet control –blf] But unlike the Russian Federation, the modern Polish state has not pursued revanchist policies against Ukraine.
Poland was the first foreign country to recognize Ukraine’s independence in December 1991.
The previous year, Poland and Ukraine agreed to the “Declaration on the foundations and general directions in the development of Polish–Ukrainian relations.”
Article 3 of the declaration states that neither country has, nor will, pursue territorial claims against the other.
[… even more Russian blah blah blahs…]
[… In The New Yorker magazine, Yale history professor Timothy] Snyder noted that Poles, “whose ancestors were the chief victims of Ukrainian nationalism, have admitted nearly three million Ukrainian refugees.”
That, he wrote, demonstrates “there are other ways to handle history than stories of eternal victimhood.”
Ron Watkins, the man who is accused of being behind the QAnon conspiracy movement, was corrected on Thursday after describing the Keystone XL oil pipeline as being the cause of the Ukraine war.
Watkins was speaking at a GOP primary debate to run in Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District. […]
Asked whether he supports U.S. military aid to Ukraine by host Ted Simons, Watkins said: I support military aid to Ukraine but I want to say that we would not even be in Ukraine if President Biden did not shut down the Keystone Pipeline […].
Because now that that’s shut down, we have to get our oil and we’re getting it from Russia and [manages to make even less sense than the current level of none at all –blf],” he added[incomprehensibly burbled whilst drooling].
[… more burbling…]
Another candidate, Arizona state representative Walt Blackman said: “They went into Ukraine because Ukraine didn’t want to be a part of NATO. Listen… you’re trying to work on a national stage and you don’t even know why the war started in Ukraine, it had nothing to do with the Keystone pipeline.
“The Keystone pipeline caused the inflation and the increase in our gas prices,” Blackman said. “The reason why they went into Ukraine is because Russia wanted Ukraine as they had them pre-World War 2 and Ukraine wanted to be part of NATO.”
“He’s right, I made a mistake,” Watkins said [not drooling for only millisecond when he made any sense].
For the past five months, the Kremlin has been waging a disinformation war to discredit Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy by labeling him a drug addict — and its latest effort involves Elon Musk.
Last week, in a pro-Kremlin Telegram channel called Special Operation in Ukraine, the administrators published a video showing Zelenskyy speaking to the new owner of Twitter.
The video was first published back in March on Zelenskyy’s own Instagram page, but the video the pro-Kremlin channel posted last week showed a white powder on the desk next to the Ukrainian president.
We don’t know whether it was editing or just Zelensky’s {sic} cameraman was also on drugs and missed such a moment in the frame, the text accompanying the video said.
A side-by-side analysis of the two videos clearly shows that the white powder was added in afterwards, and several fact-checking organizations have debunked the video.
[…] Russians have been primed for months to believe that Zelenskyy is a drug user.
The conspiracy theory, which has no basis in fact, may date back to the decision by Zelenskyy to submit to a drug test during the presidential election in April 2019 at the request of incumbent Petro Poroshenko, who has since been charged with high treason.
The claims that Zelenskyy is a drug addict first surfaced from pro-Kremlin disinformation outlets in December 2021, as Russian President Vladimir Putin was beginning to amass troops along the border with Ukraine.
On December 8, then–Ukrainian Deputy Interior Minister Oleksandr Gogilashvili was stopped by police as he was leaving eastern Donetsk and asked for his ID. The deputy minister became irate and berated the officers for not recognizing him, an incident that was caught on tape and posted to YouTube three days later.
Zelenskyy reprimanded Gogilashvili, who subsequently resigned. But because part of Gogilashvili’s role as deputy minister was crime prevention, Russian disinformation outlets used the incident to spread a conspiracy theory that he’d been supplying drugs to the president, according to a report at the time from Ukrainian fact-checking group Texty.
[… Russian blah blahs…]
Days before the doctored video with Musk appeared, another claim circulated on pro-Kremlin Telegram channels that cocaine was supposedly visible in another video published to Zelenskyy’s official Instagram page. The original video showed a visibly tired Zelenskyy sitting in a chair in his office, but as a number of fact-checking organizations pointed out, the “cocaine” was in fact inlaid decoration on the table, and the reflection of a photo frame on the polished table surface.
[…]
As Roman Osadchuk, a research associate at the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council, pointed out in a research note on Tuesday, none of the claims have been backed up with anything resembling verifiable facts — but that hasn’t stopped Russian officials from boosting the conspiracy theory.
“To support the allegations of Zelenskyy’s supposed drug addiction, Russian media has quoted disgraced former member of the Ukrainian Parliament Ilya Kyva, cited a Russian narcology expert, and quoted random commenters, but none of their claims contained any actual evidence to support the claim,” Osadchuk said. “The head of Russia-annexed Crimea, Sergey Aksenov, also commented on a different video that Zelenskyy is a junkie, a mention that was later picked up by Radio Sputnik.”
[…]
The article points out this — and similar — absurdities are being used by Putin and his acolytes to disbelieve anything Zelenskyy says, “He says many things, {it} depends on what he drinks or what he smokes.
[…]
The 1631 “Wicked” Bible, as it has become known, omits the word “not” from its seventh commandment, informing readers “thou shalt commit adultery”. One thousand copies of the text, which also came to be known as the Adulterous or Sinners’ Bible, were printed, with the error only discovered a year later.
Upon discovery of the mistake, the printers Robert Barker and Martin Lucas were summoned by King Charles I and hauled before the court, where they were admonished for the scandalous typo and sloppy workmanship. They were stripped of their printing licence, had a £300 fine held over their heads for years (though it was eventually quashed) and most of the texts were destroyed. Only about 20 remain in circulation.
The bibles do come up for auction from time to time mostly in Britain or US, but this is the first time one has been discovered in the southern hemisphere, says the University of Canterbury in Christchurch. The university was first informed of its existence in 2018 but chose to keep the discovery under wraps until now to allow researchers and book conservers enough time to study and preserve the book.
“It’s a mystery, it’s fascinating and it has made its way halfway around the world,” Chris Jones, an associate professor in medieval studies at the university and fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in London, said on Monday.
A former student of Jones’s brought the copy into to him in 2018 after her family had acquired it two years earlier at a deceased estate sale. […]
Jones’s former student told him she believed it was a “Wicked” Bible, but he was “very disbelieving because these are not common items”.
“They are not things that you just walk into an office having found one in a garage in Christchurch. But I looked at it and I thought, wow, this is exactly what my former student thinks it is — it’s a Wicked Bible. I was blown away by it.”
Jones said there is a copy in Canada, some in the US, others in the UK, Ireland and “a very nice copy” in Dublin.
“The Australians claim they have one, but they don’t,” laughed Jones, adding that their copy does not contain the infamous omission of ‘not’.
[…]
The discovery of the book piqued Jones’s interest in the bible’s history and the myths about why the mistake was made, the court case surrounding it, and the printing industry more widely at that time, which he plans to publish papers on.
Debate is rife over how the misprint happened, with theories that it could have been a deliberate act of industrial sabotage by a rival printer. But Jones has panned that rumour, saying it is far more likely the printers, who were operating in a cut-throat industry, were just cutting costs on copy-editors.
Rather like the Grauniad</snark>
[…]
Book and Paper Conservator Sarah Askey has conserved the item, painstakingly treating the work, fitting a new cover and preserving it for future generations. Askey has documented any little features that could help provide clues as to where the book had been — in between some pages she found plant remnants, human hair and textile fibres.
No penguin feathers or bits of cheese? That lack tends to discredit one hypothesis…
“It was an awkward little thing to work around … and there was a lot of problem solving, but that was quite satisfying to do,” Askey said.
The book has been now fully digitised and will become free to the public via a website in the coming months — something Jones hopes will help shed more light on the copy’s mysterious illegible name scrawled inside.
“I’m hoping someone will come and say ‘Chris Jones, you’re an idiot, this is really obvious’, and I look forward to it.”
KGsays
parts of Ukraine have been under Polish control since the 14th C, some of which was “returned”(?) to Poland after WW I, Poland gave up those claims after WW ][ (apparently in return for lands seized from it by teh real nazis?), reuniting Ukraine albeit under Soviet control –blf@124
This is a bit garbled. Medieval/early-modern Poland, which did at times rule much of what is now Ukraine, was removed from the map in the 18th century “partitions of Poland” between Russia, Austria and Prussia. An independent Polish state only reappeared in the wake of the Russian revolution. Lenin was at one stage prepared to recognise it, but as the Red Army came out on top in the Russian Civil War, got over-confident and thought it could maybe spread his revolution westward. This led to the first Soviet-Polish War, which the Poles won, enabling them to include a large chunk of now-Ukraine in Poland. Between WW1 and WW2 there was considerable Ukranian unrest in this area, with the Ukranian terrorist and fascist Stepan Bandera, still disturbingly a hero to many Ukranians, very much involved. In 1939 Stalin colluded with Hitler on a new partition of Poland, but both Poland and Ukraine came under Nazi rule after Barbarossa. With Hitler’s defeat, Stalin was able to insist on shifting Poland westward, taking what is now western Ukraine, and giving Poland a chunk of what had been German East Prussia in compensation (another chunk became the “Kaliningrad” exclave of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic within the USSR, and is now an exclave of the Russian Federation). Much of the population of the chunk taken by Stalin was also shifted – as part of an EU research project I visited the area taken from Germany and repopulated with Poles from now-Ukraine, where the irrigation system had silted up because none of the incomers understood how to run it.
Republican efforts to bully corporations into submission have become more common of late, but a rather dramatic example of the phenomenon came to public light a couple of months ago. Citibank, one of the nation’s largest banks, said it would cover the travel expenses for employees who have to leave their home state to seek an abortion, and a Republican legislator in Texas said that wouldn’t do.
In fact, as The New York Times reported, Texas state Rep. Briscoe Cain announced plans to prevent Citibank from underwriting municipal bonds in the Lone Star State unless it rescinded the policy. Cain added at the time that he’d sent a cease-and-desist letter to the bank’s chief executive, calling the policy a “misuse of shareholder money.”
And while that seemed like a rather extreme example of a GOP official trying to use government policy to force a corporation to change a health care benefit, Citibank’s policy has not gone unnoticed on Capitol Hill.
CBS News reported last month that Citi provides credit cards to members of Congress to pay for expenses such as flights and office supplies. But because of the bank’s abortion policy toward its own employees, 45 House Republicans urged House Chief Administrative Officer Catherine Szpindor to cancel the contract.
[…] Collectively, the Republicans accused Citi of financing “abortion tourism.”
During a stockholders’ meeting last week, Citi CEO Jane Fraser fielded a question about this, explaining, “We know this is a subject that people feel passionate about. I want to be clear that this benefit isn’t intended to be a statement about a very sensitive issue. What we did here was follow our past practices.”
She added that the bank has “covered reproductive healthcare benefits for over 20 years. And our practice has also been to make sure our employees have the same health coverage, no matter where in the U.S. they live. So, to that end, we’ve had a practice of reimbursing travel for many years…. We respect everyone’s views on this subject.”
[…] There’s little to suggest that the House or Senate will drop Citibank anytime soon, though if Republicans reclaim a majority in either chamber, it’s easy to imagine GOP leaders making a switch to satisfy the right.
KG@128, Thanks for the informative clarification. I probably should have added somewhere something like “all(?) of this Ukraine-Poland hisyory is new to me so I’m both simplifying and probably garbling”. I apologise for not doing so.
I’d looked it up because I was curious just how much Putin’s acolytes were lying, and was slightly surprised (but probably shouldn’t have been so surprised) some parts of Ukraine were occupied by the Polish.
[…] the RNC sent a series of emails to the party’s base after Donald Trump’s defeat, urging Republican supporters to reject the results of the 2020 election.
After the bipartisan congressional panel subpoenaed the RNC, the party sued the committee. Last night, as Politico reported, a federal district court rejected the RNC’s arguments in no uncertain terms.
In a landmark ruling rejecting an RNC lawsuit, U.S. District Court Judge Tim Kelly said the select committee had demonstrated its need for the party’s data on its fundraising emails between Nov. 3, 2020, and Jan. 6, 2021 — when the RNC and Trump campaign sent supporters messages falsely suggesting the election was stolen. The committee contends those emails helped sow the seeds of the violence that erupted on Jan. 6.
The report added that the court ruling “is a major victory for the select committee and could open the doors to reams of internal RNC data held by Salesforce, a third-party vendor that the RNC used to run email fundraising campaigns and analyses.”
In his 53-page ruling, Kelly wrote, “[T]he Select Committee seeks reasonably relevant information from a narrow window during which the RNC sent emails promoting claims that the presidential election was fraudulent or stolen.”
Though it shouldn’t matter, let’s note for context that Kelly was chosen for the federal bench by Donald Trump. He’s also a Federalist Society member who once worked as a Republican staffer in the Senate. It’ll be tough for the right to dismiss the ruling as the handiwork of a liberal judge.
But even more important was the question at the heart of the lawsuit: Is the Jan. 6 committee a legitimate investigatory panel with subpoena power? The RNC’s lawsuit said it’s not; the Trump-appointed judge came to the opposite conclusion. The Politico report added:
In his ruling, Kelly swept aside a host of arguments lodged by the RNC against the Jan. 6 select committee, many of which have been made in dozens of lawsuits filed by Trump allies seeking to frustrate the committee’s subpoenas. His ruling could resonate in all of those ongoing legal battles.
As far as the conservative judge was concerned, the panel was created through a legitimate legislative process, it’s properly constituted with members from both parties, and its subpoenas have a “valid legislative purpose.”
For those keeping score, Kelly is not the first federal judge to rule that the Jan. 6 committee is a legally valid panel conducting a legally valid investigation.
And for Republicans, that’s a problem. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has insisted, for example, “This committee is not conducting a legitimate investigation.” Much of his party has spent months making the same case.
But the more Republicans make this pitch in court, the more it fails.
On Friday, ExxonMobil and Chevron, the two largest gas companies in the United States, announced massive profits for their first quarter earnings. This marks the second quarter in a row during which their profits grew while gas prices around the country surged and Republicans blamed it all on Joe Biden stopping the Keystone XL pipeline, not forcing Ukraine to stay out of NATO, and existing in general. Surely, gas company executives have been pleased about this, as they would never want anyone to think of them as just being greedy.
Exxon actually doubled its quarterly earnings from last year, earning $5.5 billion in the first three months of 2022 — counting the $3.4 billion it lost as a result of pulling out of Russia. Chevron’s increased even more — from $1.37 billion during last year’s first quarter to $6.3 billion this year. Meanwhile, gas prices for actual customers are still over $4 a gallon.
Via The New York Times:
“The quarter illustrated the strength of our underlying business,” said Darren Woods, Exxon’s chief executive. “Earnings increased modestly, as strong margin improvement and underlying growth was offset by weather” and other factors, he added.
Exxon reported that its oil and gas production was 4 percent lower than in the previous three months because of bad weather, divestments and planned maintenance. Kathryn Mikells, Exxon’s chief financial officer, said the company was being cautious about the future given the steep drop in energy demand and oil prices during the pandemic.
“We are going to be a little bit more conservative in the short term,” she said, despite the “positive momentum” the company was enjoying.
Well good for them and their strong underlying business helping increase their earnings “modestly,” also known as “double”! […]
Earlier last month, several major oil executives, including some from ExxonMobil and Chevron, were brought before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations to explain why they were charging customers up the wazoo for gas. Subcommittee Chair Diana DeGette (D-CO) asked, fairly, “If the price of gas is driven by the global market, why is the price of oil coming down but the price at the pump is still near record highs?”
Their response, naturally, was that the whole thing is out of their hands and they have nothing to do with it, which seems like it might not be true.
Via Reuters:
Chevron’s Chief Executive Mike Wirth said fuel prices are set by market dynamics that companies have little control over.
“Changes in the price of crude oil do not always result in immediate changes at the pump,” Wirth said, adding that “it frequently takes more time for competition among retail stations to bring prices back down at the pump.” […]
Gretchen Watkins, president of Shell USA, said her company neither controls nor owns the 13,000 gas stations that carry its brand. “Each of these independent businesses is responsible for setting the local retail price of gasoline.”
Exxon, the top U.S. oil company, on Monday said first-quarter results could top a seven-year quarterly record. Other oil company earnings could also surge after Russia’s invasion pushed up energy prices.
“No single company sets the price of oil or gasoline,” said Darren Woods, chairman and CEO of Exxon. “The market establishes the price based on available supply, and the demand for that supply.”
If that is the case, perhaps capitalism is just not a good fit for the oil industry. […]
fossil fuel companies are already getting very, very generous subsidies from US taxpayers — by conservative estimates, about $20 billion a year. So we are already paying these companies to exist, with our money, and they are then turning around and jacking up prices so they can take even more of our money at the pump and then blame it on a Democratic president so they can get a Republican one in there who will let them fuck the environment to their heart’s content. That seems bad for all of us! And if these executives supposedly can’t do anything to keep gas prices fair for consumers, then it is not clear what purpose they actually serve or why they are necessary. […]
Wonkette: “Trump Wants YOU To Vote Tuesday For JP Or JD Mandel Or Barbara Mandrell Or Whatever It Is”
Last week we were treated to the most delightful new reporting about how and why Donald Trump ended up endorsing JD Vance for the Republican Senate primary in Ohio. Apparently, Tucker Carlson was on the phone with Trump and his yuck-faced son Donald Trump Jr., and they were giggling about how this guy David McIntosh, who runs the conservative Club For Growth, which is backing Josh Mandel, is allegedly somehow VERY weird at sex. Tucker told them that guy has a “chronic” sex thing of some kind, and apparently those three guys just couldn’t stop laughing about dude’s penis. Yes, that’s what the story said, we are just reminding readers.
This came on top of earlier reporting that Trump is obsessed with what Josh Mandel himself allegedly does under the sheets. The Daily Beast reported that, on top of Trump thinking Mandel is a “charisma-free weirdo and dork,” he has “privately regurgitated, often in disgust, a wide range of unverified, often completely unvetted, and lurid rumors about the MAGA candidate.” Also:
“The [former] president has used the term ‘fucking weird’ to describe Josh Mandel more than once, when I have spoken to him about” Mandel, one of [the Daily Beast’s sources said]. “He has talked about [Mandel] and sex in the same sentence more times than I would have liked to hear.”
So obviously Trump had to endorse Vance. Trump is offended by even the suggestion of sexual impropriety! He is a devoted Christian, after all.
But it’s possible Trump isn’t as personally engaged in what’s going on in Ohio as we thought, or maybe he’s just senile (never!), because this weekend at a rally in Greenwood, Nebraska, he talked about how he had endorsed Dr. Oz and also “JP, right? JD Mandel, and he’s doing great!” [Tweet and video available at the link]
JP! JD Mandel! Whatever his name is! Barbara Mandrell!
So that’s why #DementiaDon is trending on Twitter.
As the Daily Beast notes, Trump was doing this rally ostensibly to help Charles Herbster, the “bull semen baron” running for Nebraska governor who’s accused of sexually assaulting all those women. Trump said during the rally that Herbster had been “badly maligned.” Trump can’t endorse Mandel because he thinks that guy is fucking creepy, but we guess he’s cool with allegations against the “bull semen baron.” In case you’re keeping score at home.
Politico Playbook reports that Mike Gibbons, one of the other candidates in the race, immediately pounced on Trump not even knowing the name of the guy he endorsed, saying, “To be fair, you really can’t blame Trump. No one knows who the real JD Vance is, as his views change faster than the weather in Ohio.”
By the way, in case you hadn’t heard, the primary is tomorrow, so we’ll see once and for all how this obnoxious damn race with its one million bugfuck candidates will come out.
SPOILER: the winner will almost certainly be some kind of Trumpy A-hole, unless somehow state Senator Matt Dolan, who is a partial owner of the Cleveland Guardians baseball team, comes from behind to win. As FiveThirtyEight explains, Dolan is “the only candidate who has been willing to break with Trump, saying the 2020 election wasn’t stolen and condemning the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.” It continues:
Dolan has made a point of saying that he’s not actually anti-Trump, but for his part, Trump is certainly anti-Dolan: The former president has attacked Dolan for the Guardians’ decision to shed its racist former name, the Indians (a decision Dolan says he actually opposed).
Yep, that’s literally the closest thing the Republicans have to something resembling a vaguely normal human candidate.
And whoever wins will most likely end up running against Democrat Tim Ryan in the fall, and we have no fucking idea what’s going to happen then, so don’t ask us.
A federal jury has convicted a New York police department veteran of assaulting another officer during the 6 January Capitol riot[insurrection], the Associated Press reports.
Thomas Webster, a 20-year NYPD veteran, was the first Capitol riot[insurrection] defendant to be tried on an assault charge, and the first to present a jury with a self-defense argument, the agency said.
The jury rejected his claim that he was defending himself when he tackled the officer and grabbed his gas mask. Webster, 56, testified he was trying to protect himself from a rogue cop who punched him in the face.
He also falsely accused the Metropolitan police department officer, Noah Rathbun, of instigating the confrontation.
[…]
Webster was indicted on six counts, including that he assaulted Rathbun with a dangerous weapon, a metal flag pole. […]
Officer, I just tripped over this metal flag you left lying in my hands and accidentally used it to grab your gas mask.
Barack Obama […] the former president, spoke at Stanford University on April 21 to lay out his vision for fighting disinformation on the Internet. His focus on the subject is fitting; the dusk of his administration marked a turning point from techno-optimism to pessimism after election interference revealed how easily malicious actors could exploit the free flow of information. But whatever blame the White House deserved in 2016 for failing to speak publicly about or retaliate against Moscow’s incursions, Congress and companies have fallen even shorter in the years since by failing to enact reforms — or reform themselves.
That’s where Mr. Obama’s ideas come in. His diagnosis is on target. The Internet has given us access to more people, more opportunities and more knowledge. This has helped activists drum up attention for overlooked causes. It has also enabled the nation’s adversaries to play on our preexisting prejudices and divisions to sow discord. On top of that, “an instant, 24/7 global information stream,” from which audiences can pick and choose material that confirms their biases, has deepened the social divides that bad actors seek to exploit.
The prescription is more complicated. Mr. Obama starts where most lawmakers are stuck: Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which gives platforms immunity from legal liability for most third-party posts. He suggested a “higher standard of care” for ads than for so-called organic content that everyday users post. This would strike a sensible balance between eviscerating Section 230, making sites accountable for everything they host, and doing nothing. Yet Congress would have to act with care: Any government rule that would encourage private corporations to punish harmful but legal speech treads on tricky First Amendment territory.
Mr. Obama identified another problem with the Section 230 talk: homing in on what material platforms do and don’t take down risks missing how the “very design” of these sites privileges polarizing, inflammatory posts. With this, Mr. Obama adds something vital to the mainstream debate over social media regulation, shifting attention away from a debate about whack-a-mole content removal and toward the sites’ underlying structures. […] slowing down viral material to imposing transparency obligations that would subject social media companies’ algorithms to scrutiny from researchers and regulators.
Mr. Obama calls this “democratic oversight.” But the material companies reveal could be highly technical. Ideally, it would get translated into layman’s terms so that everyday people, too, can understand how decisions so significant in their daily lives and the life of the country are made. Then, they could demand something better.
Oleg Y. Tinkov was worth more than $9 billion in November, renowned as one of Russia’s few self-made business tycoons after building his fortune outside the energy and minerals industries that were the playgrounds of Russian kleptocracy.
Then, last month, Mr. Tinkov, the founder of one of Russia’s biggest banks, criticized the war in Ukraine in a post on Instagram. The next day, he said, President Vladimir V. Putin’s administration contacted his executives and threatened to nationalize his bank if it did not cut ties with him. Last week, he sold his 35 percent stake to a Russian mining billionaire in what he describes as a “desperate sale, a fire sale” that was forced on him by the Kremlin.
“I couldn’t discuss the price,” Mr. Tinkov said. “It was like a hostage — you take what you are offered. I couldn’t negotiate.”
Mr. Tinkov, 54, spoke to The New York Times by phone on Sunday, from a location he would not disclose, in his first interview since Mr. Putin invaded Ukraine. He said he had hired bodyguards after friends with contacts in the Russian security services told him he should fear for his life, and quipped that while he had survived leukemia, perhaps “the Kremlin will kill me.”
It was a swift and jarring turn of fortune for a longtime billionaire who for years had avoided running afoul of Mr. Putin while portraying himself as independent of the Kremlin. His downfall underscores the consequences facing those in the Russian elite who dare to cross their president, and helps explain why there has been little but silence from business leaders who, according to Mr. Tinkov, are worried about the impact of the war on their lifestyles and their wallets.
Indeed, Mr. Tinkov claimed that many of his acquaintances in the business and government elite told him privately that they agreed with him, “but they are all afraid.”
In the interview, Mr. Tinkov spoke out more forcefully against the war than has any other major Russian business leader.
“I’ve realized that Russia, as a country, no longer exists,” Mr. Tinkov said, predicting that Mr. Putin would stay in power a long time. “I believed that the Putin regime was bad. But of course, I had no idea that it would take on such catastrophic scale.”
[…] unlike Russian tycoons who years ago broke with Mr. Putin and now live in exile, such as the former oil magnate Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky or the tech entrepreneur Pavel Durov, Mr. Tinkov found a way to coexist with the Kremlin and make billions — at least until April 19.
That is when Mr. Tinkov published an emotional antiwar post on Instagram, calling the invasion “crazy” and deriding Russia’s military: “Why would we have a good army,” he asked, if everything else in the country is dysfunctional “and mired in nepotism, servility and subservience?”
[…] “I don’t believe in Russia’s future,” he said. “Most importantly, I am not prepared to associate my brand and my name with a country that attacks its neighbors without any reason at all.”
[…] Mr. Tinkov said that no one from the Kremlin had ever contacted him directly, but that in addition to the pressure on his company, he heard from friends with security service contacts that he could be in physical danger.
“They told me: ‘The decision regarding you has been made,’” he said. “Whether that means that on top of everything they’re going to kill me, I don’t know. I don’t rule it out.”
Staryy Saltov, sometimes translated as Stariy Saltiv, [in eastern Ukraine] has been in Russian hands for much of the war. [map available at the link]
The city lies on the eastern bank of a long bridge over the Pechenihy Reservoir, created by a dam over the Donets river. […] Today, it was announced liberated by … the Twitter account of a purported local. Translation:
Old Saltov is ours! Ours control the territory right up to the Rubezhansky bridge. The orcs completely blew up the bridge during the retreat. Behind the dam, in the direction of Volchansk, they burned a bunch of orc equipment, but the territory is still behind them. An armored personnel carrier of the Horde drove through my apiary during the retreat, there are losses in evidence
I don’t know why, but the detail about the apiary makes it more believable! Staryy Saltov is around 15 kilometers from yesterday’s front lines, which would suggest a collapse in Russia’s lines (and likely a strategic retreat). But of course, no one is hanging their hats on this one tweet. Ukrainian general staff announced yesterday:
Russian occupiers suffered losses near the settlement of Stary Saltiv – General Staff of the Armed Forces
“Suffered losses” isn’t the same as “liberated.” Nor is another report from Ukrainian General Staff that the town was “fired upon.” Meanwhile, this Russian video, recorded at least several days ago, shows the bridge already destroyed. It would’ve been impossible for anything to retreat through that bridge, so that tweet above isn’t correct that the bridge was blown during the retreat. It’s got clear previous combat damage (artillery/rocket craters), and a significant segment seems long-blown. That local tweeter is, at best, a little confused. Fog of war and all. Meanwhile, a pro-Russia Telegram channel posted the following (run through translator): [image of translated text is available at the link]
Again, all of this is unconfirmed. I’m just giving you guys a taste of what it’s like sifting through the fog of war, looking through both pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian sources, trying to find video of the area, and attempting to parse official proclamations from official channels. What we do know for sure is that Ukraine was targeting the town as part of its broad-based offensive in the region. We’ll know within the next 24 hours if it has been officially liberated. And if it has been? Woah.
The city of Vovchansk to the northeast is one of just two major railways from Russia toward Kupiansk, the logistical hub of the entire Izyum effort in the northern Donbas region. Even more importantly, it is the major rail and highway line from Belgorod, the Russian logistical hub for the entire war effort.
Staryy Saltov is around 30 kilometers away, or 19 miles from Vovchansk. The range of M777 artillery, currently en route to the front? For regular dumb rounds, it is 30 kilometers.
It also gives Ukraine some options as they continue to roll up Russian forces around Kharkiv: They can push toward Vovchansk itself, or with their northern flank secured, head toward Kupiansk. Either one would deal a severe logistical blow to the war effort in the eastern Donbas front, which has already ground to a halt because of severe attrition of Russia’s forces and logistical woes.
Russia has to respond, right? Ukraine is pushing closer to the international border. Vovchansk is only around 30 kilometers (19 miles) from Belgorod—at the end-range of dumb artillery, but well within range of smart rounds, which can hit up to 40 kilometers (24 miles). […]
Right now, Russia is stuck in Donbas, with zero territorial gains in the last three days. Down in the south, near Kherson, they are inexplicably trying to push toward Mykolaiv and Kryvyi Rih. They are losing ground around Kharkiv, putting their own city of Belgorod at risk of Ukrainian artillery. Mariupol still stands. And despite all that, they’re going to invade another country [Moldova], far from their supply lines, and with no broader strategic value to the Ukraine war effort?
Russia is stupid enough to want to do it, especially if Vladimir Putin is calling the shots with incomplete information (no one is telling him the truth on the ground). But do they have the means and troops to actually pull it off? I’m not buying it.
Israel has summoned the Russian ambassador and demanded an apology over remarks by the Kremlin foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, that Adolf Hitler “had Jewish blood” and that the “most rabid antisemites tend to be Jews”.
The remarks were part of Lavrov’s defence of Russia’s policy of “denazification” in Ukraine, the Kremlin’s term for a sweeping purge that Ukraine says is a pretext for “mass murder.”
In an interview with Italian TV, Lavrov was asked to address how Russia could say it needed to “denazify” the country when its president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is Jewish.
“As to [Zelenskiy’s] argument of what kind of nazification can we have if I’m Jewish, if I remember correctly, and I may be wrong, Hitler also had Jewish blood,” Lavrov said during an interview with Italian television channel Mediaset. “It doesn’t mean anything at all.”
“We have for a long time listened to the wise Jewish people who say that the most rabid antisemites tend to be Jews,” Lavrov continued. “There is no family without a monster.”
The remarks have sparked a diplomatic row with Israel, one of the few western countries that has yet to impose sanctions on Russia over its invasion and has not provided military aid to Ukraine.
“His words are untrue and their intentions are wrong,” said the Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett. “Using the Holocaust of the Jewish people as a political tool must cease immediately.”
Yair Lapid, Israel’s foreign minister, said Israel made “every effort” to have good relations with Russia “but there is a limit and this limit has been crossed this time. The government of Russia needs to apologise to us and the Jewish people.”
He said: “Foreign Minister Lavrov’s remarks are both an unforgivable and outrageous statement as well as a terrible historical error. Jews did not murder themselves in the Holocaust. The lowest level of racism against Jews is to accuse Jews themselves of antisemitism.”
Israeli officials confirmed Russia’s ambassador, Anatoly Viktorov, had been summoned to the foreign ministry and Israel had “stated its position”.
…
Italy’s Mediaset TV channel also came under fire for giving space to Lavrov, with Enrico Letta, the leader of the centre-left Democratic party, describing the exclusive interview on the current affairs programme Zona bianca as “a propaganda advert”.
Laura Garavani, a senator with the small Italia Via party, said the interview, conducted by Giuseppe Brindisi, “was an offensive spectacle for a democracy like ours. The network acted as a sounding board for Russian propaganda by letting Lavrov speak undisturbed, denying the crimes he is committing without any cross-examination”.
Ruth Dureghello, the president of the Jewish Community of Rome, said Lavrov’s statements were “delusional and dangerous”, and that their most serious aspect was that they were made “on Italian television, without any cross-examination and without the presenter opposing the lies that were uttered”. “This is unacceptable and cannot be allowed to pass by in silence,” she added.
Leading antiabortion groups and their allies in Congress have been meeting behind the scenes to plan a national strategy that would kick in if the Supreme Court rolls back abortion rights this summer, including a push for a strict nationwide ban on the procedure if Republicans retake power in Washington.
The effort, activists say, is designed to bring a fight that has been playing out largely in the courts and state legislatures to the national political stage — rallying conservatives around the issue in the midterms and pressuring potential 2024 GOP presidential candidates to take a stand.
The discussions reflect what activists describe as an emerging consensus in some corners of the antiabortion movement to push for hard-line measures that will truly end a practice they see as murder while rejecting any proposals seen as half-measures.
Activists say their confidence stems from progress on two fronts: At the Supreme Court, a conservative majority appears ready to weaken or overturn the Roe v. Wade decision that has protected abortion rights for nearly 50 years. And activists argue that in Texas, Republicans have paid no apparent political price for banning abortion after cardiac activity is detected, around six weeks of pregnancy.
While a number of states have recently approved laws to ban abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy — the limit established in the Mississippi legislation at the heart of the case pending before the high court — some activists and Republican lawmakers now say those laws are not ambitious enough for the next phase of the antiabortion movement. Instead, they now see the six-week limit — which they call “heartbeat” legislation — as the preferred strategy because it would prevent far more abortions.
[…]
A group of Republican senators has discussed at multiple meetings the possibility of banning abortion at around six weeks, said Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, who was in attendance and said he would support the legislation. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) will introduce the legislation in the Senate, according to an antiabortion advocate with knowledge of the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy. Ernst did not respond to a request for comment.
[…]
The discussions in Washington show how dramatically the political landscape around abortion has shifted in just a few years.
Washington Post-ABC News polls show that about 6 in 10 Americans oppose overturning Roe, a number that has hardly changed in the past two decades.
But Trump reshaped the Supreme Court during his time in office, appointing three justices to create a 6-to-3 conservative majority. While considering Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban during oral arguments in December, justices appeared open to overturning Roe. The court has also passed up three opportunities to overturn the Texas law, a clear violation of long-standing precedent.
[…]
Now, on the brink of a potential Supreme Court victory that has been a decades-long goal for the antiabortion movement, activists see federal legislation as a new way to energize core conservative voters over the next two national election cycles.
Denmark is facing fresh claims of racism after MPs changed the country’s controversial anti-ghetto law to allow Ukrainian refugees to move into social housing emptied of “non-westerners”.
For three years, the government has sought to restrict immigrants from moving into what are described as disadvantaged neighbourhoods in an attempt to avoid so-called “parallel societies”.
Access to social housing, some of which has been earmarked for demolition, has been shut off to “non-westerners”, defined as being people from outside the EU, eight associated European countries, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
People born in Denmark but who have a single “non-western” parent have also been included in the category of people subject to the restrictions.
However, after the Danish government’s decision to take in 100,000 refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine, a majority of the Danish parliament voted on Thursday to amend the law to exempt Ukrainians from such restrictions. Plans to demolish social housing in the targeted areas have also been put on hold to free up accommodation for Ukrainians….
Russia’s Bolshoi theatre has upset opera and ballet fans by abruptly cancelling shows this week by directors who have spoken out against the war in Ukraine.
The theatre gave no reason for dropping Timofey Kulyabin’s production of the opera Don Pasquale and Kirill Serebrennikov’s ballet Nureyev, which will be replaced by productions of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville and Aram Khachaturian’s ballet Spartacus.
Serebrennikov, 52, was allowed in March to leave Russia, where he was found guilty in 2020 of embezzling funds at Moscow’s Gogol Centre theatre.
His supporters say the conviction was revenge for his criticism of authoritarianism and homophobia under the country’s president, Vladimir Putin.
Serebrennikov said he was not surprised by the Bolshoi’s cancellation of Nureyev, which is based on the life of the Russian ballet superstar Rudolf Nureyev, who defected to the west in 1961. The work, which includes a tender scene with his gay lover that tested the Kremlin’s stance towards what it calls “homosexual propaganda”, has caused outrage among Russian conservatives.
“This ballet is about man’s yearning for freedom. Freedom to create and freedom to live,” Serebrennikov told Agence France-Presse.
“These days Nureyev is inappropriate and impossible on the Bolshoi stage. They are afraid of unnecessary associations and uncomfortable artists,” Serebrennikov added.
He called the cancellation a throwback to the Soviet era. “Nureyev was cancelled at the Bolshoi theatre. Cancellation of Russian culture in Europe, you say? In Russia, they themselves are cancelling culture.”
Kulyabin, who has also left Russia, used his Instagram account to express solidarity with Ukraine and ridicule Russia’s description of its actions there.
In one post, he showed a mocked-up version of the cover of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, replacing the first word of the title with “Special Operation”, the term the Kremlin has used to describe the invasion.
“It’s quite obvious that Russia started the war,” Serebrennikov told France 24 in an interview last month and said it was breaking his heart.
…
The cancellation of the two shows drew hundreds of mostly critical online comments from ticket holders. Many demanded in vain to know the reason….
Much of misunderstanding regarding the composition of forces fighting for Russia in Ukraine results from perceiving Russia as a monolith
We can classify Russian forces into three main categories:
1. Russians
2. Chechens
3. Donbass
Russian army is an authority-based bureaucratic organisation run through formal procedures. Cadres are interchangeable and don’t matter much, while procedures and formal rank mean everything. Interchangeability of cadres makes army easier to control and minimises political risks
Chechen forces are run by the informal power of Kadyrov through his personal network. On paper it’s merely a collection of Russian regulars from the various branches of army, National Guard, FSB etc. But in a power-based structure these badges mean nothing as it is run informally
Donbass armies were originally power-based and run by pro-Russian warlords through their personal networks. However, later Russians assassinated those warlords one by one, establishing formal authority-based rule that serves as a model which may be later scaled up all over Russia
How is the Russian regular army composed? The key element is draft. Theoretically every young man between 18-27 y.o. has to serve in the army for a year. In practice however, everyone who can, dodges. So the quotas are filled by the most disadvantaged who didn’t or couldn’t dodge
Some argue that the Russian army is not that different in this regard from the US army, which also heavily recruits from the poor classes. I disagree. In the US recruitment is voluntary. In Russia it’s compulsory and dodgeable which makes it effectively the blood tax on the poor
Consider the following. In the US people go to the army to pay for the college. In Russia it’s the other way around: people go to the college to avoid the army. You can fund it either by winning a government-funded place (бюджет) or simply by paying tuition fees out of the pocket
Draft absolutely distorts the education market. You won’t be drafted while you study. So you have to get into uni to avoid the draft. That makes much of university industry in Russia the draft dodging industry….
…
It’s well-reflected in the art like a movie “Elena”. Elena is married to an old rich man. Her 17 y.o. grandson will be drafted, unless he gets into the college. She asks her husband to pay for the tuition, he refuses. So she kills him. It’s a very understandable plot for Russians
Draft plays the key role in the Russian army recruitment….
Theoretically decision to sign the contract is totally free. You don’t even have to serve a compulsory (unpaid) year to sign it. In practice recruiters are giving draftees a choice. You must either serve a year as a conscript for free or sign a contract for longer and get paid
Furthermore, those already serving their compulsory year as conscripts can make a decision to transfer to the ranks of contractors. It’s supposed to be free. In practice though, draftees are pretty much defenceless and can be tricked, threatened or simply commanded to sign it
Status of contractors differs from the status of conscripts. Contractors are professional soldiers and sending them to foreign operations is legal (sending conscripts is not). And yet, almost all contractors were initially selected through the social filter of draft
Almost all Siloviki structures require or strongly prefer candidates who have served as conscripts. Thus social filter of draft plays a huge role in comprising the National Guard, police and other agencies. Draft makes sure they’re recruited from the poor and uneducated
In theory it sounds kinda fair. Serve your compulsory year as a conscript and get an entrance ticket to Siloviki careers. And yet, that creates a problem. Army is for peasants, while some Siloviki careers especially in state security lure golden kids who won’t serve with peasants
We have a contradiction. Elite jobs in FSB, FSO, etc must be filled by golden kids who won’t serve in army. And yet, this jobs require to have served in the army. That’s why studying in FSB and FSO academies is counted as the military service….
This loophole with counting studying in the elite state security academies as the compulsory military service reflects the class structure of Russia. While theoretically state ideology glorifies military service, in practice everyone knows it’s for peasants. Army isn’t classy
Another branch of the Russian military heavily involved in Ukraine is Wagner mercenary company. While supposed to be “private”, Wagner was created by Putin’s henchman Prigozhin to fight for Russian interests in Syria, Africa and now in Ukraine
[gruesome images of Wagner mercenary crimes at the link]
Anyway, most of the army regulars, National guard and Wagner fighting in Ukraine first had to go through the social filter of draft and then choose (or accept) military, cop or mercenary career which are unpopular among those with *any* form of capital be it economic or cultural
That doesn’t mean that everyone who signed a contract is a victim. Most signed it voluntarily, for financial reasons. Notice that volunteers in Russian army are called contractors. Which implies they enlisted for money rather than because of the patriotism. They’re mercenaries
Still, even those who signed the contract voluntarily usually had to go through the social filter of draft and then view military service as lucrative. Which means they had no better options, coming from the bottom of socioeconomic ladder and having accumulated no form of capital
That explains heavy geographic and ethnic asymmetry in casualties. Mediazona aggregated data on 1744 casualties among the Russian regulars in Ukraine and found a clear negative correlation between a median salary in the region and the number of casualties. It’s the poor who fight
Consider this map with casualties by each Russian region. Two most heavily affected ones are Dagestan and Buryatia: both being poor ethnic backcountry. Moscow and St Petersburg have almost no casualties despite being officially 12% of Russian population (much more in reality)
Majority of the Russian soldiers KIA are young. Some of them must be contractors who signed a contract during their compulsory service or straight after it. Some are conscripts who were sent to Ukraine illegally. You can find this study here [link at the link; it was posted in the previous chapter of the thread]
This is a map with casualties in Ukraine on 100 000 of male population by region, based on Mediazona figures. We see that the most affected regions lie in two ethnic clusters: South Siberia and North Caucasus. There are only two truly Russian regions here: Pskov & Kostroma. Why?
Apart from being poor and ethnic Russian, Pskov and Kostroma have one common denominator. They are both home to huge VDV bases. And it was the VDV airborne who had disproportionate losses in Ukraine. They attacked airports expecting no resistance like in 1968 and were massacred
South Siberia and especially Buryatia is the region who lost the most people per capita in Ukraine. As you see, already published casualties in Ukraine (red) increased mortality among Buryatian males quite substantially. The burden of war on this Mongol Buddhist republic is huge
You see a lama blessing a Buryat soldier in Ukraine. According to activists from the Free Buryatia, Buryats comprise 2,8% of total Russian casualties despite being just 0,3% of population. The war in Ukraine is turning out to be a national catastrophe for this Siberian minority
See Buryats commenting on their disproportionate casualties. A woman speculates that “elite troops” from Moscow and St Petersburg are kept in reserve while “provincials” (notice chuckling) are sent forward. That basically means that “provincials” serve as the cannon fodder
[video with subtitles at the link]
Indeed, that could explain a strange asymmetry with huge cities as St Petersburg and especially Moscow having so few casualties. It’s not only that they are underrepresented in the army. It’s probably also that higher-ups don’t send them to Ukraine fearing unrests in two capitals
Moscow and St Petersburg are crucial centres of power, thus discontent in these cities must be avoided at any cost. Meanwhile, poor rural population from remote regions is disposable. Discontent among remote bumpkins doesn’t present political problem in such a centralised country
There may be another consideration here. Russia is a quickly depopulating country, but it is depopulating unevenly. Fertility among minorities, especially in North Caucasus and Siberia is much higher than among ethnic Russians which may change the demographic balance in Russia
…What if Kremlin mobilises minorities for Z-war to solve two problems at once: destroying Ukraine and maintaining the current demographic balance in Russia?
It’s difficult to say how much discontent there is in Buryatia. But anecdotally some Buryats in social media support vandalising Z-monuments. Expressing this discontent in Russia is risky though: you can be jailed for 15 years for distributing fake news about Z-war
Minorities’ participation in Z-war is ironic regarding that it’s a Russian ethnonationalist war. Z-ideology is an expression of Russian ethnonationalism which is deeply hostile to minorities. Russian victory manifesting Russian ethnonationalist triumph is against their interests
While most of Z-forces are unmotivated mercenaries and conscripts, their activist core is far-right. Consider this interview with a de-Nazifier broadcasted (=lowkey endorsed) by the Russia Today:
“All children are equal to us if they’re born white-skinned and on the Slavic land”
While far-right involvement in Ukrainian army is hugely exagerrated, participation of Nazis in Russian forces is almost ignored. Consider this post where Z-fighters celebrate birthday of their “long-gone comrade” who “taught them how to fight for their historic land” on April 20
The core of Russian irredentists who went to fight in Ukraine back in 2014 was recruited from the far right like the Sputnik and Pogrom fanbase who would assert their racial superiority over Ukrainians by comparing them with “lower races” such as Blacks, Arabs or Native Americans
Consider this poster which makes a parallel between the British Defence of Rorke’s Drift during the Anglo-Zulu War and the Russian defence of Slavyansk during the Donbass war. Russians are portrayed as the British and Ukrainians as Zulu. Notice Ukrainian flag on a warrior’s cheek
This poster compares the Crimean city of Sevastopol with Texas and “Ukrainian tribes” with Native Americans who “should be shot at sight”. From perspective of the Russian far-right, they are the truly White European people, while the whiteness of Ukrainians is very questionable
Russian far-rights who heavily participated in manufacturing the conflict in Ukraine tend to believe in their racial superiority over Ukrainians who have too many steppe admixtures, making them less Slavic and less white
Russia is a White supremacist country. It’s not that some random extremists like Dmitry Rogozin share racist ideas. It’s that White vs Asian dichotomy with a perceived superiority of the former over the latter, is the axiom of the Russian public discourse
First, white supremacy serves as a justification of Russian ethnic supremacy over minorities or neighbouring nations such as Ukrainians who are supposedly not white enough. Second, it legitimises the rule of Russian metropoly over the racially and culturally inferior periphery
Russian iconography traditionally demonises anything “Asiatic” including Asian facial features….
Russian nationalists criticise modern Russia for not being White enough and allowing lower races up. Consider how they portrayed mayor of Moscow Sobyanin: Chuckcha, Japanese, Mongol. The lack of consistency is telling. His facial features make him an Asiatic savage: that’s enough
How could Sobyanin raise to power then? Well, by totally assimilating. He bears a Russian name and a patronymic which is very important. He doesn’t speak (publicly) on a minority language. He’s diligently showing up on church services. He embraced the Russian cultural memes
Russia being White supremacist doesn’t mean it’s really obsessed with the purity of blood. Rejecting your cultural memes and embracing Russian ones is usually enough, especially if you are white-passing. In fact much of Russian cultural policy is about extirpating the wrong memes
Consider the Putin’s crackdown on minorities’ cultural infrastructure. In July 2017 Putin declared: “It is unacceptable to force a man to learn a language that is not his own”. That was a signal for a crackdown on compulsory courses of minority languages in ethnic republics
In September 2017, Russia’s government started to enforce Putin’s instructions and push regional governments into abolishing language courses. Most didn’t put much of a fight. Only Tatarstan government pretended they didn’t understand what Putin meant and didn’t abolish anything
Kremlin resorted to force. In October prosecutors started investigating local schools to determine whether they had retained compulsory courses on Tatar and to pressure school directors to abolish them. Eventually, all directors abided except for Pavel Shmakov – an ethnic Russian
In the end Tatarstan surrendered. On November 29, 2017 a prosecutor Nafikov (= a man of Moscow) paid a visit to the regional parliament and a speaker suggested “to listen to the prosecutor’s information and accept the bill without opening discussion and without asking questions”
The prosecutor Nafikov presented a new education bill which would make Tatarstan curricula align with the new instructions from the Moscow Ministry for Education, abolishing the compulsory courses of a local language. The bill, of course, passed unanimously.
MPs openly admitted they passed the bill under pressure. When a journalist asked the head of the parliament’s committee for education, Rasil Valeev, whether he was content with the bill he just voted for, Valeev replied “Of course not!” adding that he “intends this issue again”
[link to his full War on the Rocks article on the subject, “Fear and Loathing in Russia’s Catalonia,” at the link]
The entire story of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict becomes more understandable if we consider that from the perspective of Moscow Ukrainians are just a rebellious minority who won’t come into their senses and abandon their inferior Nazi cultural memes do non-Nazi Russian ones
Despite Z-war being waged in Russian ethnonational interests, the ethnic periphery is heavily overrepresented on Ukrainian battlefields. They have less resources to dodge a draft, they are easier bribed by the army wages and they’re probably more disposable in the eyes of Kremlin
Being overrepresented on the battlefields, minorities fight against their own interests. If Russia wins, they’ll lose the last remnants of their autonomy (I’ll discuss Klishas-Krasheninnikov law later) and earn only the right for the full assimilation
From the Russian imperial perspective, every ethic republic is just another Ukraine. Russian public opinion considers Ukraine as a rebellious province, but that works both ways. Every province which demands some sort of autonomy becomes a Ukraine and gonna share the same fate
The potential regime change and a “liberal” takeover won’t change anything. In fact, it might make the situation worse. Despite being actively whitewashed by the Western media Russian liberals fundamentally share the same ideology as Putin and are just as racist and imperialist
Since the rule of metropoly over colonies is largely based on its supposed moral & cultural superiority, Russian liberals will shift responsibility for Putinism and Z-war on minorities. Consider London-based journalist Kashin: supporting Putin is “sucking an Armeno-Chechen dick”
Kashin is not some sort of extremist. He is a part of the Russian liberal establishment and published his articles in Kommersant, Republic, Sputnik and Pogrom [?], New York Times and so on. As I told, Western media will go to the great length to whitewash Russian “liberal opposition”
Heavy participation of periphery in the Z-war will allow Russian liberals to shift all the blame on minorities:
“Only three [of participators in Bucha massacre] are from Moscow, so they aren’t Muscovites, but just common nonhumans (нелюди) from the toiletless-villages”
Russian ethnic periphery is trapped between the Putin and the “liberal opposition”, both of whom view periphery as nonhumans to be punished, disciplined and exploited. It has no interest in either side winning. It has an interest in dismantlement of the Russian imperial system
Dismantlement of the Russian empire will secure a peace by undermining any further attempts of the imperial restoration. Unable to recruit the cannon fodder in periphery (as it is doing it now), Russia won’t have manpower to act as the “menace of the world” as it is used to
As a general rule, the ethic periphery is hugely overrepresented on the Ukrainian battlefields and on the casualty lists. And yet, we have a strange anomaly – Chechnya. While a neighbouring Dagestan has 125 confirmed casualties, the neighbouring Chechnya has only 3. How come?
To answer this question, we’ll need to discuss the place of Chechnya within the Russian empire and the specific role of an MP Adam Delimkhanov who’s been heavily present on the videos from Ukraine. I’m planning to cover it in the Part 2 of this cycle.
Every (or virtually every) tweet in the thread – which I viewed in a private window – has an illustrative photo, graph, map, screenshot, video, or link.
A Christian group called “Camp Constitution”, which promote the view that the United States is a Christian nation founded on Judeo-Christian values, wanted to fly their flag at the MA Capitol on Constitution Day. The city refused, they sued and the Supreme Court found in their favor, with the justification that there were no limits placed on other requests to fly a flag.
I disagree with the Supreme Court here, since flying a flag on the national holiday celebrating the creation of our country sends an implicit message conflating the two.
“FIFA President Gianni Infantino asked at a business conference in California about migrant worker abuses in Qatar said in part: ‘My parents emigrated from Italy to Switzerland. When you give work to someone, even in hard conditions. you give him dignity and pride’.”
Wonkette: “Georgia ‘Jesus, Guns, Babies’ Candidate Shares Plan To Take Down ‘Luciferian Cabal'”
Kandiss Taylor, who hopes to be the Republican nominee for Georgia governor and has been running on a campaign platform of “Jesus, Guns and Babies,” teased us all over the weekend, building up anticipation for a plan she calls “Executive Order 10.” This plan, she promised, would “rock the nation” and take down the Satanic Elite/Luciferian Cabal. [Tweet and image available at the link.]
Today, she made good on that promise, releasing a video announcing her plan to tear down the Georgia Guidestones, a large Stonehenge-esque monument in Georgia with the following tenets inscribed on it in eight different languages.
– Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
– Guide reproduction wisely — improving fitness and diversity.
– Unite humanity with a living new language.
– Rule passion — faith — tradition — and all things with tempered reason.
– Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
– Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
– Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
– Balance personal rights with social duties.
– Prize truth — beauty — love — seeking harmony with the infinite.
– Be not a cancer on the Earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.
The monument was erected in 1980 by some anonymous eccentric dude who probably thought the world was going to end because of the Cold War, but conspiracy theorists like Taylor believe it is an evil Satanic monument that is used for human sacrifice and which reveals the secret evil depopulation plans of the New World Order. “I am the ONLY candidate bold enough to stand up to the Luciferian Cabal,” Taylor tweeted in her announcement. “Elect me Governor of Georgia, and I will bring the Satanic Regime to its knees— and DEMOLISH the Georgia Guidestones.” [Tweet and video available at the link]
She says:
They told us what they wanted to do. Some might even say they had to get our permission. To at least tell us ahead of time, even if we didn’t believe them.
Over 4 billion people had been injected with something that took just 9 months to create.
Ask yourself “why?”
Back in Biblical times, human sacrifice was a form of demonic worship. We’re still doing it, in present day, by killing our unborn. It’s the same demons, it’s the same sacrifices, the same sin. It’s just a different time.
If we don’t call things out and we don’t acknowledge them and we don’t take authority and take dominion over what God’s given us, then we are no better than the evil ones that put [the Guidestones] up.
We’ve watched as people have destroyed our history and monuments. In their place, they have erected statues to their own gods. The New World Order is here, and they told us it was coming. It’s a battle far greater than what we see in the [unintelligible].
It is a war between good and evil.
If it seems like Kandiss thinks the US is supposed to be a theocracy, that’s because she does. She also seems to be generally very unclear about what non-Christians, or even Christians who don’t practice Christianity the way she practices Christianity, are into.
Part of the way the conspiracy-mongering works is that it always has to involve the evil Luciferian Cabal or whomever having to drop hints of some kind, in order for their Satanic magic to work. One of the favorite sayings of the QAnon set is “Symbolism will be their downfall” — implying that these evil elites really, really love symbolism, and that there is a secret meaning behind everything they do and say, ie: “It’s not that someone woke up in the morning and decided to put on a pair of red shoes because they went with their outfit, it’s that they need to tell the world they like to eat babies.”
This way, it’s a whole lot easier to just make shit up and claim it is true.
Taylor’s insinuation here is that the Luciferian cabal had to tell people about their secret evil plans to depopulate the earth and make everyone learn Esperanto, for reasons, and that’s why the monument was put up. Thus, taking it down makes it so the Cabal can’t do that anymore, or at least throws a wrench into their nefarious plans for world domination — which is, of course, very different from Taylor’s plan to “take dominion over what God’s given us.” At least in the respect that only one person in this equation has announced their desire to do that.
Right now, Taylor is polling at about five percent, though she explained in last night’s Republican primary debate that “The people in Georgia don’t think I’m polling that low.” So she could be polling as high as 95 percent, if we’re just making shit up now. Still, odds are she is not going to win and do her Executive Order 10 (or her Executive Orders 1-9, though no one knows what they are), which either means that the Satanists will maintain control of Georgia or that absolutely nothing will happen.
Watch out for Donald Trump Junior … he is an up and coming evil guy:
It’s a chilly, drizzly evening, but Donald Trump Jr. is putting on a red-hot show at Lori’s Roadhouse, a bar and music joint in a strip mall on the outskirts of Cincinnati. Pretending to be a befuddled, senile President Biden, Don Jr. staggers around the low stage, eyes unfocused, making confused gestures and blundering into the giant red-white-and-blue backdrop.
The crowd, a couple of hundred MAGA fans and local Republican players, laps up the wickedness. This is Don Jr.’s last public appearance of the day on behalf of J.D. Vance, whose Senate candidacy was recently endorsed by Trump Sr. As at earlier stops, the audience whoops and laughs and hollers “Amen!” as Trump the Younger slashes at a series of targets: Democrats, the media, RINOs (Senator Mitt Romney is taking a serious beating), Big Tech, America’s “stupid” military leaders and so on.
Don Jr. clearly inherited the family flair for showmanship. (Democrats would do well to keep an eye on his political development. In particular, the ladies here are gaga over him.) He deploys funny voices and goofy faces, his comic timing is spot on, and he has a vicious streak untempered by decency or accuracy. “The other side has literally taken the stance that it’s OK to be a groomer,” he charges, promoting the MAGAworld calumny that Democrats are pro-pedophile. Even on this dark topic he draws laughs by marveling that, in his younger days, “being antipedophile was something that we could all agree on!”
Off to the side, chuckling awkwardly, hands jammed into his jeans pockets, stands Mr. Vance. Tall and burly, with carefully manicured facial hair, the candidate has already done his quick opening act and faded into the background like a good sidekick. He gazes attentively at the former president’s son, nodding appreciatively, clapping and grinning at all the appropriate (or, rather, inappropriate) moments. He takes out his phone to snap the occasional photo. Once or twice, he shoots a glance at the audience, as if to see how this show is playing. (Answer: very well.) Distinctly overshadowed, Mr. Vance is aware that, while his name may be on the yard signs and stickers spread around the bar, he is not who most folks have come to see. […]
No, this is not Dr. Evil’s lair, just another day on Russian state TV. They are plotting to cut off Ukraine’s supply to its own crops and sending their corn to China, and scheming to covertly identify America’s vulnerable spots, forcing us to negotiate with Russia on their terms….
Taking their cue from the incoming tide of far-right fearmongering about “grooming” and an “LGBTQ agenda” in schools and libraries, a group of Idaho biker militiamen are planning to show up to confront people celebrating a Pride event in a downtown Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, park next month.
Two men from the leadership of Panhandle Patriots, a militia-oriented bikers club based in northern Idaho—Justin Allen, the group’s vice president, and Jeff White, its “sergeant at arms”—told a recent gathering at a church hosted by Republican state House member Heather Scott that they planned to have a gun-driven event next month in Coeur d’Alene the same day as the city’s Pride Celebration at a park less than a mile away, and that they planned a confrontation: “We actually intend to go head to head with these people. A line has to be drawn in the sand. Good people need to stand up,” White told the audience. [video available at the link]
The meeting, titled “Gameplan to Remove Inappropriate Materials in Our Schools and Libraries,” was held at Regeneration Calvary Chapel in Kootenai, a small town north of Sandpoint. Scott—who has a long history of associations and identification with the far-right Patriot movement […]
Ironically, the event being planned that day by Panhandle Patriots, dubbed “Gun d’Alene,” is being billed as an anniversary of the day in 2020 that armed “Patriots” flooded the streets of Coeur d’Alene in response to hoax rumors of the impending arrival of buses full of evil black-clad “antifa” vandals who mysteriously never showed up anywhere they were rumored to be going.
[…] Of course it didn’t happen, because it was never going to happen in the first place. The event next month is essentially celebrating the Patriots’ lethal gullibility. But that’s not how White described it, of course:
Our event is advertised as “Gun d’Alene,” because it’s an anniversary of when we stood to protect our community. We’re standing again to protect our community. We shifted our date to be able to go head-to-head with these people. They are trying to take your children.
Considering that the flagrant brandishing of weapons is part of the event’s entire raison d’être, his words also took on ominous overtones as he urged the audience members to come support them […]
Another flier posted by the Panhandle Patriots advertising their planned confrontation with the Pride event shows a drag queen reading at a public library, and urges people to join them “in standing up against the indoctrination and grooming of our children.” Among its slogans: “If you don’t protect children, you are part of the problem.”
[…] The Panhandle Patriots have been harassing members of the LGBT community in northern Idaho for awhile now. Last November, in conjunction with a local evangelical Christian church, they organized a protest in Post Falls outside the city library on the night it was hosting a program called the “Rainbow Squad,” an LGBTQ-friendly reading-discussion program.
Among the signs they carried, police body-camera footage shows, were slogans like “Flee From Sexual Immorality,” […] and “The Solution is Jesus Christ.”
On Facebook, Panhandle Patriots shared a post with its members calling out the library network’s upcoming meeting and urging others to attend:
The perversion that is becoming so pervasive in these libraries needs to be called out and CAST OUT.
We need people to show up and speak out, demand the removal of pro-LGBT books like the following:
[Links to such books as Auntie Uncle: Drag Queen Hero and Be Amazing: A History of Pride.]
A Post Falls native named Michelle White told the Coeur d’Alene Press that she and her two children had been participating for several months in Rainbow Squad events, saying she had always thought of the library as a “safe space” without judgment.
“These people are making it not a safe place for kids to gather by picketing and yelling at them as they go inside,” she told the Press. “Creating an environment that is not safe is not OK.”
Jessica Mahuron, the North Idaho Pride Alliance outreach coordinator, attended the November Rainbow Squad event and observed how the protesters’ intentions were to eliminate that safe space—and they succeeded.
“There were some people who felt intimidated from entering the building, others left because they were feeling so terrible, and for some, this is nothing new to them, so they stood strong,” Mahuron said. “The program is supposed to provide a safe, inclusive space for fun and friendship. What they experienced coming into that meeting was the exact opposite.”
[…] Panhandle Patriots is closely associated with the so-called “American Redoubt” movement that is trying to organize a secessionist 51st state in the interior Northwest as a homeland for “Patriots.” And they’ve been increasingly busy the past few years: teaming up with anti-immigration vigilantes at the border (which involved confiscating drinking water left for migrants), leading anti-vaccination rallies, and swarming libraries to demand the removal books they say promote “an LGBTQ agenda.”
Their leader—a man named Mike Birdsong, who uses the nickname “Viper”—was present at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., during the Jan. 6 insurrection, and was photographed engaging the police in battle at barricades outside the building, though he has not been charged with any crimes from that day. Birdsong also has been photographed alongside well-known Proud Boys who have been charged with conspiracy at the insurrection.
Video at the (Twitter) link. Joy Reid interviewed Nick Confessore earlier about his new piece in the NYT talking about Tucker Carlson as a white nationalist extremist. I’ll try to remember to get the original link and video clip. It’s interesting that this clip could seamlessly be part of the montage she shows.
KGsays
Foreign Minister Lavrov’s remarks are both an unforgivable and outrageous statement as well as a terrible historical error. Jews did not murder themselves in the Holocaust. The lowest level of racism against Jews is to accuse Jews themselves of antisemitism. – SC quoting the Guardian quoting Yair Lapid, Israeli Foreign Minister@138, my bolding
“Right now: Barricades are up around the Supreme Court building, just minutes after reports from Politico were leaked indicating SCOTUS has voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.”
A draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito shows that the Supreme Court could overturn abortion rights in the U.S., essentially nullifying the landmark Roe v. Wade, which Alito called “egregiously wrong from the start.” The document, obtained by Politico, spans 98 pages and was apparently drafted in February. It marks an unprecedented leak for the nation’s highest court. Per Politico, “no draft decision in the modern history of the court has been disclosed publicly while a case was still pending.”
A source told Politico that Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, all voted in agreement with Alito in a conference following oral arguments in December. The conservative justices have found zero support from their liberal counterparts. That conference and those oral arguments stem from a Mississippi case brought before the Supreme Court challenging the state’s law that would ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has yet to be decided — and this window into some of the Justices’ thinking is absolutely alarming.
The mainstream media establishment isn’t really reporting this yet, so more confirmation is needed before we can be sure, but according to the Telegram channel General SVR, per Business Standard News, an anonymous “former high-ranking Kremlin military figure” says that Russian dictator and war criminal Vladimir Putin is about to give up power temporarily so as to undergo surgery for abdominal cancer.
But he has other problems as well, the source says:
He also suffers from “Parkinson’s disease and schizoaffective disorder”, which carries symptoms of schizophrenia including hallucinations and mania.
CNN POLL CONDUCTED BY SSRS
Jan. 13-18
Support SCOTUS Overturning
Roe vs. Wade?
Yes 30%
No 69%
Margin of error: +/-4.0% pts
CNN POLL CONDUCTED BY SSRS
Jan. 13-18
Prefer SCOTUS Not
Overturn Roe vs. Wade
Democrats 86%
Independents 72%
Republicans 44%
Akira MacKenziesays
The right looses an election or are even asked to wear a damn mask to help fight off a plague, they throw an armed revolt.
Reproductive rights are stripped from women and the left does… nothing. Instead of rioting in the streets, they sit in front of a keyboard and gripe online.
But in a move that is unprecedented in the Supreme Court’s modern history, a secret draft ruling written by one of the judges was leaked to a US media outlet.
The document, published by Politico, suggests five of the nine judges on the bench privately voted to strike down a 49-year-old decision that makes abortion legal at a national level.
Also from there :
The source of the leak is unknown.
But giving the document to the media weeks before the decision was set to be made public may have been a last-ditch attempt to pressure some justices to switch sides.
Here’s hoping that that idea is correct and that tactic works.
It seems the draft judgement was written by Alito with Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — supporting him.
StevoRsays
@ Akira MacKenzie : So what do you suggest people do?
Those in power and those in the general public?
What good will defeatism do and if you don’t think we (who exactly?) can win then what?
What measures do you recommend we take?
Personally, I think maybe Lysistrata (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysistrata ) was on to something and maybe the most massive public backlash and, ideally, the Democractic party taking immediate action to change SCOTUS perhaps including the arrests of Kavanaugh – for rape – and Handmaiden Comey OfBarrett for perjuy (Contempt of Congress if that’s a crime?) and consirpacy to pervert the Course of Justice along with the Federalist society members might be some possible steps for starters?
I’d love to know what lawyer and youtuber Legal Eagle makes of this.
Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper charges in a memoir out May 10 that former President Trump said when demonstrators were filling the streets around the White House following the death of George Floyd: “Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?”
…
…Esper enraged Trump by publicly stating in June 2020 that he opposed invoking the Insurrection Act — an 1807 law that permits the president to use active-duty troops on U.S. soil — in order to quell protests against racial injustice.
…Michael Bender — then with The Wall Street Journal, now with the N.Y. Times — reported last year in his book, “Frankly, We Did Win This Election,” that Trump repeatedly called for law enforcement to shoot protesters during heated meetings inside the Oval Office.
“Russia doubled down Tuesday on its ever-wilder claims about Jews, neo-Nazis and Ukraine, accusing Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid of making ‘anti-historical statements’ when he said Jews didn’t murder themselves in the Holocaust”
“BREAKING: Brittney Griner is now classified as ‘wrongfully detained’ by Russia, U.S. State Department says. Major shift in her case. Means officials will try to negotiate her release rather than let Russian legal system [LOL] play out.”
A swing senator whose vote was crucial in confirming Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court has gone viral for a compilation of old footage in which she repeatedly insisted Kavanaugh would not vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.
In footage posted by progressive political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) is shown on five different occasions ahead of Kavanaugh’s confirmation saying that the justice assured her that he would not vote to overturn Roe — as he now appears poised to do.
“I do not believe Brett Kavanaugh will overturn Roe v. Wade,” Collins told CNN’s Dana Bash in 2018. She added, “He noted that Roe had been reaffirmed 19 years later by Planned Parenthood vs. Casey. And that it was precedent on precedent. He said it should be extremely rare that it should be overturned.”
“And you have, obviously, full confidence?” Bash asked.
“I do,” Collins replied.
In an appearance on 60 Minutes in October 2018, Collins went even further — saying that Kavanaugh’s position on Roe was a potential dealbreaker for her.
“I could not vote for a judge who had demonstrated hostility to Roe v. Wade because it would indicate a lack of respect for precedent,” Collins said. “What Judge Kavanaugh told me — and he’s the first Supreme Court nominee that I’ve interviewed, out of six, who has told me this — is that he views precedent not just as a legal doctrine, but as rooted in our constitution.”
…
The viral clip has been viewed well over two million times as of this writing, and as a result, the senator has drawn intense blowback from progressives:…
She’s now saying the opinion is “completely inconsistent” with what Gorsuch and Kavanaugh told her and said in hearings. Her arrogant speech announcing she would be voting to confirm Kavanaugh was so infuriating to me my blood pressure is rising just remembering it.
Biden: government must protect a woman’s right to choose
The White House has just released this statement from Joe Biden:
We do not know whether this draft is genuine, or whether it reflects the final decision of the Court.
With that critical caveat, I want to be clear on three points about the cases before the Supreme Court.
First, my administration argued strongly before the Court in defense of Roe v. Wade. We said that Roe is based on ‘a long line of precedent recognizing ‘the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty’… against government interference with intensely personal decisions.’ I believe that a woman’s right to choose is fundamental, Roe has been the law of the land for almost fifty years, and basic fairness and the stability of our law demand that it not be overturned.
Second, shortly after the enactment of Texas law SB 8 and other laws restricting women’s reproductive rights, I directed my Gender Policy Council and White House Counsel’s Office to prepare options for an Administration response to the continued attack on abortion and reproductive rights, under a variety of possible outcomes in the cases pending before the Supreme Court. We will be ready when any ruling is issued.
Third, if the Court does overturn Roe, it will fall on our nation’s elected officials at all levels of government to protect a woman’s right to choose. And it will fall on voters to elect pro-choice officials this November. At the federal level, we will need more pro-choice Senators and a pro-choice majority in the House to adopt legislation that codifies Roe, which I will work to pass and sign into law.
Supporters of abortion rights reacted with outrage to the leak on Monday night of a supreme court decision overturning Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling which has safeguarded the right till now.
According to Politico, the draft ruling, written by Samuel Alito, is supported by Clarence Thomas and the three conservative justices appointed by Donald Trump: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
It would also overturn Planned Parenthood v Casey, a 1992 decision which upheld Roe.
Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House, said: “If the report is accurate, the supreme court is poised to inflict the greatest restriction of rights in the past 50 years – not just on women but on all Americans.
“The Republican-appointed justices’ reported votes to overturn Roe v Wade would go down as an abomination, one of the worst and most damaging decisions in modern history,” Pelosi said.
“Several of these conservative justices, who are in no way accountable to the American people, have lied to the US Senate, ripped up the constitution and defiled both precedent and the supreme court’s reputation.”
Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts senator and former candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, said an “extremist supreme court” was poised to “impose its far-right, unpopular views on the entire country.
“It’s time for the millions who support the constitution and abortion rights to stand up and make their voices heard,” she said. “We’re not going back – not ever.”
If confirmed, the ruling would make abortion rights a state matter. As many as 26 Republican-run states are poised to end or restrict access.
Congress could codify Roe into law but it would require scrapping the filibuster, the Senate rule that requires a 60-vote majority for most legislation. That seems unlikely, given the 50-50 split in the chamber and opposition from moderate Democrats such as Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
Republican senators including Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who have expressed concern over abortion rights, were slower to react to the Politico report than their Democratic counterparts. Their support would be needed for filibuster reform.
Among progressives, outrage was fierce.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York congresswoman, tied her outrage to calls for Senate reform and to impeach Thomas, the senior conservative on the court, over the political activities of his wife around the January 6 insurrection.
Ocasio-Cortez also warned of possible court moves on other hitherto protected rights.
“[The court] isn’t just coming for abortion – they’re coming for the right to privacy Roe rests on, which includes gay marriage and civil rights.
“Manchin is blocking Congress codifying Roe. House has seemingly forgotten about Clarence Thomas. These two points must change.”
Ocasio-Cortez also took aim at Joe Biden, calling for the use of executive actions.
“People elected Democrats precisely so we could lead in perilous moments like these – to codify Roe, hold corruption accountable and have a president who uses his legal authority to break through congressional gridlock on items from student debt to climate. It’s high time we do it.
“If we don’t, what message does that send? We can’t sit around, finger-point and hand-wring as people’s futures and equality are on the line. It’s time to be decisive, lead with confidence, fight for a prosperous future for all and protect the vulnerable. Leave it all on the field.”
…We noticed that people’s true feelings weren’t expressed in parroted narratives, but in their offhand remarks, misstatements, threats, evasions, contradictions, intonations, glances, and gestures.
…
Ukrainians are constantly asking, “Do Russians really not know what is going on?” The answer is no, most of them don’t. But they understand anyway. Fifteen minutes into every conversation, supporters would casually mention that yes, we were probably bombing the cities, people were dying, and everyone in Ukraine hates us. On some level, they understood everything — only they didn’t know it. And they refused to know, even when being confronted with direct evidence from their loved ones.
…
Russia has been afflicted with a mythical image of itself as the vanquisher of forces of evil and chaos for a very long time now; it triumphed over the 1990s, terrorism, the West. This mythic image gives us a reason to live. Putin’s decision to finally defeat this “evil” once and for all makes it especially hard for people to start questioning it now. Because if they do, it will destroy their entire worldview.
…
“Everybody humiliates us, when it comes down to it,” a boots and pants seller told me with a smile on his face at a market in the Kaluga region. “Everybody who isn’t Russian is always poking fun at us: when we were kids, always. The past several wars have just been Russians killing other Russians. All those Englishmen and Americans have been laughing their heads off at us, thumbing their noses. I’d launch a missile at England. And at America. So that they’d stop messing with us. No, I am not for the war. But I am sick and tired of them walking all over us!”
The theme of inexplicable humiliation was a very common thread among the supporters of the war, especially older folks.
…
“What are you feeling right now?”
“There’s nothing to feel here! You have to wrap things up with a victory for our side. There’s no other option. And there shouldn’t be.”
It was clear that his desire for a victory was a direct response to the many years of indignity and humiliation he’d felt.
“No one cares about what Russia thinks,” the beekeeper continued. “There’s nothing but blame all around. We’re the biggest villains in history now.”
I’d already heard this lament many times, that nobody likes us. It’s some mixture of an inferiority complex and a victim complex. I could see that he, like many others, wanted to picture some external accuser and argue with him. Why? Maybe to feel self-righteous. Or just to exist for somebody else.
“I’m happy my president finally went through with it! Enough, you guys! If you don’t want to respect us, you’ll have to fear us!”
“Are we bombing Kharkiv so that the people in the West will be afraid of us?” I ask him to clarify.
I saw a frightened comprehension in the beekeeper’s eyes. He wasn’t a chump or a bad guy.
“We shouldn’t discuss what the president does while my country is fighting! If the Russian people don’t agree with my president, my country will lose, and I can’t allow that to happen.”
I can more or less guess at what he was hoping for. This is our big chance to prove how badass we are and no one will judge the victors.
For many years, people have run from this feeling of humiliation toward a reality where we have accomplished something magnificent. The sanctity of our Great Victory, the fact that we saved the world from fascism, make it feel like our government, and, by extension, all of us, are all right. The war unites people, it gives them a sense of being part of something. It’s a response to the crisis of purpose, of loneliness.
…
The easiest method for protecting yourself from anxiety is narrowing down the number of things you’re responsible for. You just tell yourself that nothing you do can change anything and then you don’t have to think about anything because you’ve accepted it all as a given. It’s like the way we all know that car exhaust pollutes the environment and yet we keep driving. People have already accepted the war as a given.
…
“We don’t know anything” was a thesis put forth by many. Women would say that they were praying for somebody in particular but trying not to have an opinion about the situation overall. It felt like the whole population had chosen to be like children who didn’t want to understand anything.
…
We saw that the war really worried them, but kept hearing people repeat the empty phrase, “It will all turn out fine.” At first, I didn’t understand how understanding the developing tragedy went hand in hand with a refusal to think about it.
“What are the most basic responses to danger? Fight, flight, or freezing,” a psychologist explained to me. “Those who could, fled. Fighting meant joining the aggressor. Freezing, playing dead, is a form of internal emigration. To avoid making any public reaction in order to survive.”
This freezing response was exactly what we were seeing: people refused to take any action, come to any conclusions, and tried to blend in with everyone else. These people only supported the war on paper.
…
One friend told us about her dentist, who she had been going to for many years. When the war started, the friend asked everyone who supported the war to unfollow her on Facebook. Her dentist sent her this message:
As an honest person, I unfollowed you on Facebook. But I am also really upset. I read about it every day, I listen to the news. I am not for this war, of course, I am against people and children dying. But I cannot support your position. I believe that there was no other way for us to proceed. That most likely, this war would have come to our territory. That coming to an agreement with them [the Ukrainians] was unrealistic. I have a ton of patients from there, and my teachers. This is my position, it’s how I feel, and how I live. I don’t want anybody to try to change my mind. I support an authoritarian state, I want there to be a Tsar. I don’t believe in freedom of speech, freedom of the press, or anything else you’re so eager for.
My friend, who’d known this woman as good and thoughtful, was flabbergasted.
“We’d talked so much. She’s a really meticulous doctor. But she thinks that she is incapable of getting anything good done on her own. That’s her conviction, that Russians can’t do anything of their own volition, they’ll always need to be forced to work, live, and study. They need a strong hand; Putin picked up this country’s pieces and put them back together. She said, ‘What do I need freedom of speech for? What would it change for me, in my life?’ All of this seems infused with exhaustion.”
I have this paradoxical thought: could it be that many Putin supporters actually have a much more pessimistic perspective than those of us who don’t support any of this? I think that the picture my friend painted for me can be captioned “learned helplessness.”
…
There was an assumption that once the coffins start arriving in Russian towns, people will start to wonder.
An artist I know tells me, “I’m from the Urals. I called my brother a few days ago. He’s in a small town, everybody there knows each other. And they got six coffins [of Russian soldiers] sent to them in one day. My brother says, ‘The fact is, we should’ve [finished off] that Ukraine a long time ago… Stalin, now, he kept all those fascists, all those enemies of the people, in camps. But Khrushchev let all the Banderites and Chechens out; Gorbachev destroyed a major world power; Yeltsin armed Ukraine and gave Crimea away. And now Putin’s having to deal with the consequences of all that.”
The majority of my friends in Moscow felt that in a single day they lost the things that gave their lives meaning. Everything we’d been holding on to broke. An enormous number of people left, because of that, not just because they were afraid.
But for many people, it was the opposite: everything filled with meaning and hope. Losing their former, pre-war lives wasn’t that big a deal for them. Because what they gained was a powerful conviction of their rightness, a conviction that can’t be broken now, no matter how many train stations are bombed. Maybe life did get harder in some ways, but now there’s hope: we’re going to come together, defeat the evil enemy, get everything back on track.
…
Children in preschools stand in the shape of a “Z.” Zs are drawn on the doors of dissenters who need a good scare. The letter has a rude, fascist charisma. It’s a sign of power and will that breaks down borders and conventions. It’s semiotically identical to the lightning bolts of the SS.
Yet all of Russia, from Putin to the grocery-store check-out clerk, believes that it’s fighting fascism. Is this why 20-year-old kids are killing thousands of guys just like them, guys who speak the exact same language? Is this why we are destroying Russian-speaking cities and millions of their inhabitants are fleeing to Europe?
People in Russia are accustomed to seeing war as a sacred experience, one that can wash everything away and return them to some true meaning, restoring them to themselves. They think war will release them from what they ended up living in. The entire country’s repeating words about “denazification,” “demilitarization,” and “liberation.” You can’t help but notice that these words didn’t come out of nowhere. This really is what people want, subconsciously, but they can’t have it. So they vent their frustration by being aggressive to the people they think are most like them. Russia is doing to Ukraine what it wants to do to itself….
Joe Biden has just spoken to reporters about the staggering abortion news, while on his way from the White House to take a flight to Alabama to review the making of heavy weapons destined for Ukraine.
The US president said of the leaked provisional decision, essentially, that: “If this decision holds, it’s really quite a radical decision… it’s a fundamental shift in American jurisprudence.”
…
…Biden said: “It basically says all the decisions you make in your private life, who you marry, whether or not you decide to conceive a child, whether or not you can have an abortion, and a range of other decisions…how you raise your child. Does this mean that in Florida they can decide to pass a law saying that same sex marriage is not permissible, it’s against the law in Florida? It’s a fundamental shift in American jurisprudence.”…
Chief justice John Roberts said moments ago that the supreme court’s marshal will investigate the source of the leak of the draft opinion on abortion, which is genuine and was published late Monday, and slammed the “egregious breach of trust”….
The draft decision striking down Roe should refocus everyone’s attention on the gubernatorial races in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. They all have GOP legislatures, and GOP gov candidates in all three have vowed to act against abortion:…
Again and again and again, Democratic governors in PA, WI and MI have vetoed anti-abortion bills passed by GOP legislatures.
Now imagine those states with Republican governors, after a SCOTUS decision overturning Roe:…
Ominous:
Democrats involved in the Virginia gubernatorial race tell me data showed high negatives for Glenn Youngkin’s anti-abortion stance.
BUT it was a struggle to get voters to connect this to the threat posed by SCOTUS.
Alito’s draft argues that rights protected by the Constitution but not explicitly mentioned in it — so-called unenumerated rights — must be strongly rooted in U.S. history and tradition. That form of analysis seems at odds with several of the court’s recent decisions, including many of its rulings backing gay rights. Liberal justices seem likely to take issue with Alito’s assertion in the draft opinion that overturning Roe would not jeopardize other rights the courts have grounded in privacy, such as the right to … marry someone of the same sex.
Commentary:
[…] As Alito argued, abortion rights aren’t referenced in the Constitution, so in order for the rights to be worthy of judicial recognition, they need deep roots in the history of the American experience. Abortion, the Republican-appointed justice concluded in his draft, falls short.
But the right of Americans to marry whom they please also isn’t in the Constitution, and also doesn’t have roots in U.S. history.
“We emphasize that our decision concerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right,” Alito added in his draft. “Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.”
That’s nice, but as the jurist really ought to know, politico-legal dynamics don’t work this way in the United States. The Supreme Court can’t make a bold declaration about the nature of rights and their legitimacy, but then add some caveats intended to make vague reassurances about some rights that might survive scrutiny.
Indeed, none of this is happening in a vacuum. Last week, the Maine Republican Party adopted a platform that opposes, among other things, same-sex marriage. This came seven years after the Supreme Court approved marriage equality for the entire country.
A few weeks earlier, as the Senate moved toward confirming Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court nomination, Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas invested a surprising amount of time criticizing Obergefell v. Hodges, the case that legalized gay marriage.
As we discussed soon after, in the wake of Obergefell, the fight over same-sex marriage appeared to be over. Given public support for marriage equality, even some Republicans were pleased the issue was off the table.
But what about those who want to put it back on the table? Why, years later, are state GOP officials still denouncing the civil right?
In the months that followed the Supreme Court’s Obergefell ruling in 2015, Sen. Marco Rubio was one of the most prominent Republicans who not only said he disagreed with the justices’ decision, the Floridian also vowed to look for ways to “change the law” in order to stop same-sex couples from getting married.
The GOP senator ended up with allies on the high court. In October 2020, Justices Alito and Clarence Thomas complained in a dissent about the “victims” of the court’s marriage equality ruling, and a month later, Alito delivered an unusually political speech to the Federalist Society in which he whined about social pressure surrounding anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments.
“You can’t say that marriage is a union between one man and one woman” anymore, the conservative justice whined, as if he were a candidate seeking social conservatives’ votes. “Until very recently, that’s what the vast majority of Americans thought. Now it’s considered bigotry.”
A year later, Kevin Roberts, the new president of the Heritage Foundation, argued that if you support marriage equality, “it means you’re not a movement conservative.”
I’d love to say the debate over marriage equality ran its course. Too many on the right clearly don’t see it that way.
You might have expected that Republican lawmakers would have been giddy last night with the leaked news that the newly far-right Supreme Court is on the cusp of granting their half-century-old dream, the dream of erasing abortion rights that was the very reason the party began putting forth those new archconservative nominees to begin with. Nope. Republican lawmakers were and continue to be absolutely furious, alleging that the rare (but hardly unprecedented) leak from the court is an outrage that must not be allowed to stand.
And so a parade of willing seditionists, defenders of corruption, and those who keep voting to block investigations into any of it in order to advance Republican power have spent the last 24 hours screaming about the norms while saying little to nothing about the raw cruelty of Alito’s leaked far-far-right opinion, or its hints that the Trump-packed court intends to use the Alito framework to undo rights ranging from LGBT marriage to contraception to anti-“sodomy” laws.
No, the Republican Party that both mounted an attempted coup and is still working, to this day, to block the investigations into who organized the effort and who they had help from—they’re very mad about the Alito-written draft opinion getting leaked. It didn’t even take an hour for that to become [the Republican and conservative media talking point].
The Senate’s two most visible insurrection backers weighed in, of course. Sen. Ted Cruz was outraged by the “blatant attempt to intimidate the Court through public pressure rather than reasoned argument,” which you know is bullshit because insurrection. At the same time, Sen. Josh Hawley immediately went weird conspiracy crank because apparently not even history-shaking reality is as exciting as the theories in his own head.
Given the apparently coordinated nature of this hit on the Court, I certainly hope every Democrat Senator is ready to answer whether they saw the opinion before Politico published it, and if they know who leaker is
There’s no part of that that makes sense, which is how you know Josh Hawley wrote it himself. He also has a solution: The Libs Made Me Fascist Harder!
The Court should not abide this coordinated assault by the Left. Issue the decision now
Elsewhere in Team Active Sedition, we find that same “intimidating,” coupled with a “radical left.” It’s not attempting to overthrow the U.S. government or packing the courts with unqualified hardliners that’s radical; it’s some clerk or technical worker inside the Supreme Court leaking the end of abortion rights in this nation before Team Sedition’s justices have fully crossed the t’s and dotted the i’s.
The goal of this unprecedented breach is to intimidate sitting Supreme Court justices. This is yet another example of how the radical left intends to “fundamentally transform” America.
The man who broke the court himself, Mitch McConnell, repeats the notion that the real “mob rule” is a random leaker inside the Supreme Court. “Escalation,” “radical left,” “attack,” and “intimidate” are all used, giving the impression of coordinated violence akin to, say, insurrection to describe reporters getting a leaked document from an unknown government source.
Last night’s stunning breach was an attack on the independence of the Supreme Court. By every indication, this was yet another escalation in the radical left’s ongoing campaign to bully and intimidate federal judges and substitute mob rule for the rule of law.
What’s important here, however, is to remember that McConnell is the most prolific liar in all of government now that Trump is gone. He literally gives speeches like this on a daily basis, all explaining that “the left” are the real radicals and that he is a man of high principle who would never do the things he just did. Mitch McConnell invented new rule after new rule to make sure the Supreme Court slid to the current archconservative dismantlers even as America continued to vote for Democratic presidents to undo it. There’s nobody who’s been more radical; a press leak may be embarrassing, but it’s neither an insurrection nor a spate of new laws blocking Americans from their ballots.
[…] Alito’s hyper-cruel opinion must be hidden from the public lest Alito feel vulnerable about it. Every theocratic fascist is secretly a wilting flower, which is why we’re getting all these new laws banning books that make people like Sam Freaking Alito feel bad.
[…] OH MY GOD I’m just going to start filtering out any tweets or news stories that so much as mention Susan Collins’ name. Susan Collins could be replaced with a potted plant and it would make absolutely no difference in anyone’s lives, ever. Imagine basing a whole political career on the theme of being the single most gullible person in America—and getting reelected for it.
But the talking point is the talking point, and it’s still going.
[Aaron Rupar] Mentions on Fox News/Business so far today:
Abortion: 40
Leak: 49
[snipped Mitt Romney’s “it’s a decision I support” and “fully investigate the leak” tweet]
Also Sen. Lindsey Graham said something, and I don’t even care. Lindsey saved his top career meltdown for the purpose of railroading a serial sex predator through the confirmation process rather than abide testimony against him. […]
[…] the notion that “a Supreme Court leak is the real insurrection” has gotten a lot of traction among the people who … don’t think actual insurrections are bad.
[Matt Walsh] The SCOTUS leak is an actual insurrection. An attempt to completely upend and delegitimize the rule of law, incite violence and chaos, and potentially plunge the nation into civil war. January 6th ws a stroll in the park compared to this. It’s not even close.
[…] There is a distinct link between the curtailing of abortion rights and rising fascism, by the way.
There are two things to note that make Team Sedition’s posturing here even more grotesque than it first appears—aside from the uncanny link between restricting reproductive justice and authoritarianism/fascism. The first is that we sincerely don’t know who could have leaked this opinion or why, and we probably won’t know for a long time. There’s just as much reason to expect a conservative abortion opponent inside the court leaked the document to blame a secret liberal inside the court; if conservative justices were feeling uneasy about the sheer magnitude of what Alito intends to unravel, leaking the document would paint a target on whichever conservative justices were threatening to back out.
So it’s yet again the case that the Republicans insisting that their enemy, “the left,” are responsible for the latest crimes against Washington decency are basing those claims on fictions inside their own heads. They don’t know who leaked any more than the rest of us do, and they don’t know why.
The other detail that Republican outrage is conveniently ignoring is that while Supreme Court leaks are rare, they’re far from unprecedented. And leaking about Roe, in particular, is quite precedented!
In 1973, the result in Roe leaked to Time magazine. Justice Burger wanted all clerks to undergo lie detector tests, but Rehnquist and Brennan objected
Unlike an attempt by House and Senate Republicans to nullify an American presidential election based on false claims and party-pushed hoaxes, leaks from the Supreme Court are not, in fact, unprecedented assaults on our democracy.
One can even make the case that our Supreme Court justices might behave a bit better if there were more leaks into how they arrive at their decisions, given this new court’s unwillingness to even issue written explanations of some of their most radical orders. Perhaps we would learn more about why the wife of a Supreme Court justice felt so confident about her own role in an attempted pro-Trump coup, and why that justice voted to block further evidence from coming to light. Perhaps we would learn why the court is currently pretending, very very hard, to be confused over whether constitutionally protected rights can be scrubbed out by any state willing to hire private bounty hunters to do it for them.
Perhaps we’d learn why Alito’s opinion leans so heavily into arguments that not just abortion rights need to be erased, but that civil rights legislation needs to be rolled back by several generations—back to the days when American women couldn’t open bank accounts without their husband’s permission, much less have control over their own human selves. Perhaps, though, we’d just learn that the current Supreme Court is just as devoted to forcing Republican rule onto the rest of us as the Josh Hawleys of the party are. They just don’t have to explain themselves when they do it.
The big story today is that something not small happened over the last week. Since Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine moved to what is being called the Battle of the Donbas, most actions seem to have taken place at a rate that roughly approximates the growth of fingernails. Here and there Russian forces have managed to advance, but far more often attempts to dislodge Ukrainian forces from towns and villages have been repulsed.
Sadly, because the area of the battle is close to the Russian border, Russia is able to defend the airspace with both planes and anti-aircraft systems working from across the border. That makes it difficult for Ukrainian aircraft to operate in the area and give Ukraine the kind of air support that would allow them to make large-scale counter attacks. So Russia keeps shelling, then tries to move forward. Then it shells some more. Russian losses are terrible. Ukrainian losses are also painfully high. But Ukraine has multiple prepared positions against just this kind of attack, and Russia has nothing like the ratio of forces necessary to overwhelm Ukrainian positions.
So, in most of eastern Ukraine, the fields are getting heavily fertilized with blood, and the muddy roads are getting heavily strewn with wreckage, but not much else is happening that looks like progress for either side.
Which only serves to make what’s happening north of Kharkiv more exciting. [map available at the link]
Over the last week, Ukraine has mounted a steady counteroffensive directed at troops north of Kharkiv and west of the Siverskyi Donets River. Starting with Russian forces right on the doorstep of the battered city, Ukraine has pushed back through the suburbs, then into outlying towns and villages along multiple roadways. On the west, they’ve pressed in to take the town of Udy, less than 5 miles from the Russian border.
In what may be one of the most impressive moves of the second phase of the war, Ukrainian forces bypassed Russian forces in multiple villages, took a series of small roads, and entered the town of Staryi Saltiv on Sunday—a move so unexpected that when I first got reports of Ukrainian forces in the town, I disregarded them. […]
But the Ukrainian move into Staryi Saltiv was real, and though fighting in the town continues, it seems that Russian forces that were south of that location, but on the west bank of the Donets, have gone missing. In other words, they’ve withdrawn north or south before they could be cut off and chopped up in an isolated position. As a result, a whole chain of villages appears to have come back into Ukrainian-controlled territory without the need for a step-by-step fight.
[…] it’s not clear that this will continue. Russian forces may be falling back in chaos, with Ukrainian forces chasing them to the border. On the other hand, they may be falling back behind lines being held by more stalwart troops, where they can get their act together and be plugged back into the line.
[…] All the men and material coming in from Belgorod (20 miles northwest) passes through this point. As it stands, occupying Staryi Saltiv puts Ukrainian forces within artillery range of Russia’s major entry point.
These actions seem improbable. Even laughable. But then, so did the possibility of Ukraine suddenly showing up in Staryi Saltiv in the first place. Right now, pro-Ukraine Twitter is full of tweets like this one:
Just yesterday morning there were no RU in the whole Staryi Saltiv and right up to the bridge in Rubizhne at the North (the bridge was blown up by retreating RU). On the other side of the Siversky Donets, a lot of RU equipment was burned […].
Meanwhile, pro-Russian Twitter is full of claims that the territory taken by Ukraine had “no military value,” [LOL]
[…] If Ukraine continues to advance along those other roads moving north of Kharkiv, it may signal a general Russian withdrawal from the area west of the Donets. If Ukraine reports that it has put forces on the east side of that bridge, it will be a genuinely big deal—one that’s likely to demand Russia turn some force around from other efforts to secure its rear.
One thing to watch for soon: Look for what happens in the town of Shestakove and village of Fredirivka north of Kharkiv. These towns are sitting on a much better roadway between Kharkiv and Staryi Saltiv. If Ukraine really intends to move a lot of force in that direction, expect these towns to become the focus of some attention Real Soon Now.
2 electrical substations damaged by missile attack in Lviv, according to Mayor Andriy Sadovy.
Ukrainian Railways company said that the trains heading to Lviv are being delayed because Russians targeted the substations that are part of the railway infrastructure.
“Politico employees have been advised to be vigilant about who enters elevators with them at the office, and to consider removing any personal details from social media accounts that identify them as Politico staff, according to an internal memo”
Woud be great if the leaker turned out to be Clarence or Ginny Thomas.
blfsays
Apropos of absolutely nothing, last week I went to a shop to order a replacement — under the shop’s extended warranty — for a part for my food processor. No problems, and they said the part would be shipped to me this week. So I was a bit surprised on Saturday to find a txt message on my mobile to the effect I wasn’t home when they tried to deliver, and to contact… blah blah. A “failed delivery” receipt found in the doorway confirmed the message. Well, Ok, just very fast service.
So this afternoon I went to the depot. Everything was working fine… I took the bus, stopped en-route at a shop for a few bits & bobs, then caught the bus for reminder of the journey: Everything exquisitely timed (i.e., literally no waiting for either bus, or in the shop, etc.). Slight glitch at the depot, they explained I was at the wrong place. Nuts. Back to the bus, again with exquisite timing. Like come on, something has to go dreadfully wrong!
At the “real” depot… it was closed for the day. Bummer. As it happens, the “real” depot is a few minutes walk from the lair, so there shouldn’t be any problem in collecting the replacement part… just a bit of a “waste” of multiple brilliant if mostly-accidental coincidences.
Israel is reportedly discussing the supply of military aid to Ukraine
Air defence systems and advanced weaponry are likely off the table right now but defensive systems, personal combat gear and warning systems could be transferred
Israel’s aid will likely be “declarative” as it wants to avoid a major escalation with Russia. Israel’s defence industries want to show that they are responding to Russian war crimes, and this impetus, rather than Lavrov’s comments per se, is driving aid
“New DHS IG report finds that the DHS’ intel division modified a report on Russian interference in the 2020 election to blunt the impact of its finding that Russia was aiding Trump, and that acting Sec Chad Wolf ordered it frozen b/c it would ‘hurt POTUS’.”
Link to the report at the link. This wasn’t just a cover-up for Trump but a cover-up for Putin.
The Supreme Court is a big scam, but nonetheless we keep thinking we can win a round of rightwing Three Card Monte. Maybe we can keep electing Democratic presidents forever, if the Supreme Court permits, and maybe we can pass laws that recognize our human rights, if the Supreme Court’s OK with it.
Senator Susan Collins expressed alarm that Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh might’ve told her a teensy, little fibette when they assured her that they believed Roe v. Wade was “settled law.”
Susan Collins: “If this leaked draft opinion is the final decision and this reporting is accurate, it would be completely inconsistent with what Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh said in their hearings and in our meetings in my office.”
Oh no! Did Gorsuch and Kavanaugh mislead Maine’s favorite concern troll? Guess they’ll have to pack up their offices by the end of the week …. or, you know, laugh in her face because they have lifetime appointments. As Lorraine Hansberry wrote in A Raisin in the Sun, “When a cat take off with your money, he don’t leave you no road maps!” But Hansberry was talking about your common, everyday thief working a more respectable con. These robed gangsters happily leave their forwarding address and dare you to come look for them.
Supreme Court justices serve for life, which is inherently anti-democratic. Republican Rick Perry suggested term limits for the Court during his 2012 presidential campaign, but that was before conservatives started running the table with judicial appointments.
In theory, lifetime appointments ensure the Court remains an impartial, independent branch of government, immune from political pressure. […] In reality, the Supreme Court is often blatantly, defiantly political.
Thomas still haunts the Court when the president who appointed him is long dead. A twice impeached scumbag who lost the popular vote and incited an attack on the US Capitol appointed three of the nine current justices, and that’s apparently fine. His legacy endures, even after the White House was formally fumigated. His awful policies can be rolled back, but who needs to bother passing actual legislation when we’re stuck with Amy Coney Barrett for another 40 years.
You’ll recall how we were told to sit down and shut up about Justice Thomas’s obvious corruption and conflict of interest. Some Democrats demanded Thomas resign or at least recuse himself from cases involving his seditionist spouse, Ginni Thomas. He’s declined, while probably also laughing his ass off. He can do whatever the fuck he wants.
House Democrats could impeach Clarence Thomas tomorrow. All they need a simple majority. While they’re at it, they should impeach Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Barrett for any number of legitimate reasons. However, much like the presidency, impeachment is easy but removal is all but impossible. A two-thirds majority is required and not even the GOP can suppress the vote enough to win 67 Senate seats.
So Supreme Court justices, whom Republicans will soon start nominating before they’re eligible to rent a car, are accountable to no one. Mitch McConnell whined today about the “radical Left” elevating “mob rule” because US citizens are upset that the Court is stripping them of their rights. “Mob rule” is Republican code for “democracy” or “consent of the governed.”
According to a November Quinnipiac poll, 63 percent of Americans agree with the court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade, and 69 percent of respondents in a January CNN poll opposed overturning Roe. This is meaningless, because six rightwing justices have the final say. There’s no electoral remedy for a MAGA Supreme Court, and existing solutions are mere Band-Aids. If vacancies occur from the conservative wing, there’s every reason to believe that an even more radicalized GOP Senate will refuse to let a Democratic president fill them.
These numbers also don’t reflect whether overturning Roe would hurt Republican candidates in Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, or Georgia. That’s the sort of backlash you’d need to even begin repairing the damage. And Democrats would need to remove their white gloves and rain hell on Republicans, not tweet weak warnings about how history will judge them.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse tweeted today: “If the majority Republican justices stay the course, this decision will go down as one of the most supremely political acts in Supreme Court history.” Oh, no! People might think the Supreme Court’s political. That won’t do.
Let’s all wake up to our current reality: Tyrants don’t fret over “history” because they’re too busy ruling over us today.
“Six train stations in Central and Western Ukraine hit by Russian missiles today, head of board of the state railways Ukrzaliznytsia Oleksandr Kamyshyn said. 14 trains are delayed. Damage to infrastructure is significant, he said”
[…] Nationally, there’s likely to be a lot of money going to Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro Choice. They’re really worthy organizations that are fighting at the national level. They’ll also be getting lots of donations in the coming weeks, so we’re suggesting that if you’re only able to help out with a small donation, get your money to an abortion fund instead, to a local abortion nonprofit, or to the Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project (WRRAP), which helps fund abortions directly for those who need help paying for an abortion. (If you can afford to help an abortion fund and one of the big national groups, great, do both!)
[…] Here’s their list of the abortion funds for those 13 states […]
Texas: Fund Texas Choice, West Fund, Texas Equal Access Fund, Stigma Relief Fund, Clinic Access Support Network, Lilith Fund, SYS (Support your Sistah), The Bridge Collective, Jane’s Due Process
West Virginia: Women’s Health Center of West Virginia’s Choice Fund, Holler Health Justice
Kentucky: Kentucky Health Justice Network, A Fund, Inc
Missouri: Missouri Abortion Fund
Arkansas: Arkansas Abortion Support Network
South Dakota: South Dakota Access for Every Woman
Louisiana: New Orleans Abortion Fund
North Dakota: North Dakota Women in Need Abortion Access Fund
Wisconsin: Women’s Medical Fund
Indiana: All-Options Hoosier Abortion Fund
Idaho: Northwest Abortion Access Fund
Utah: Utah Abortion Fund
[Embedded links to all of the above are available in the article posted at the main link.]
If you’d like to make a single donation that will go to several organizations, you might consider a couple of ActBlue campaigns as well. This one supports a total of 29 abortion funds and pro-choice activist groups; you can choose to have your donation divided evenly among them, or specify which of the 29 groups you’d like your money to go to. […]
[…] Yr Wonkette is funded entirely by reader donations. If you can, after you’ve made a donation to an abortion fund, please consider giving $5 or $10 a month so we can help you stay up to date on the unfolding tragedy — and fight it like hell.
Pope Francis on calls for him to visit Ukraine: “Not yet. First, I must go to Moscow, I want to meet Putin first of all. But it in the end I am just a priest, what can I possibly achieve?” Then what good are you, man?
“I spoke with Kirill for forty minutes on Zoom. […] I listened to him and then replied: I don’t understand any of this. Brother, we are not state clerics, we shouldn’t speak the language of politics, but rather the language of Jesus.” Yeah, that’s been such a great help.
This isn’t surprising to anyone who has been paying attention. But it’s still shocking.
For half a century, Roe has protected the right to terminate a pregnancy. By the end of June (the end of SCOTUS opinion season), that will be over.
The draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health comes out and says:
“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled. The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including […] the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
[…] Sorry, women. Hope you weren’t planning on having any rights in the years to come.
Okay, let’s talk about just how bad this fucking thing is.
Written by none other than #WorstJustice Samuel Alito, who has no doubt been dreaming of taking away women’s reproductive rights since he was still in the womb himself, the draft refers to abortion providers as “abortionists,” says Roe was “egregiously wrong,” and talks about medieval notions of a fetus “quickening.” (Yes, really.)
This piece of garbage, I shit you not, goes back to English common law cases from the 1200s to support its conclusion that women aren’t really people with rights. Because obviously nothing has happened in the intervening time that we might want to take into consideration when discussing things like the fundamental human right to bodily autonomy.
Yes, this is just as dystopian, sexist, draconian, and horrifying as it sounds. At one point, Alito compares the right to privacy laid out in Roe to “licens[ing] fundamental rights to illicit drug use, prostitution, and the like.” So that’s the kind of good faith and intellectual honesty we’re dealing with here.
This motherfucker compares Roe to Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 case that upheld segregation – because subjecting African Americans to legalized second-class status and legally guaranteeing bodily autonomy are totally the same thing.
There are so many reasons a person may need or want an abortion. And guess what? Unless you are that woman, those reasons are none of your god damn business.
[…] don’t you worry, he is all too happy to very condescendingly explain why. Because you see, anti-abortion extremists argue:
“that attitudes about the pregnancy of unmarried women have changed drastically; that federal and state laws ban discrimination on the basis of pregnancy; that leave for pregnancy and childbirth are now guaranteed by law in many cases, that the costs of medical care associated with pregnancy are covered by insurance or government assistance; that states have increasingly adopted ‘safe haven’ laws, which generally allow women to drop off babies anonymously; and that a woman who puts her newborn up for adoption today has little reason to fear that the baby will not find a suitable home.”
And that all makes forced pregnancy totally fine and great!
There’s a lot to unpack there, from Alito’s discussion of social welfare programs he and his brethren would love to gut, to his complete ignorance of pregnancy and childbirth in the United States and even his delightful non sequitur about medical care being “guaranteed” “in many cases.” We have the highest maternal mortality rate of any developed nation, a worse racial disparity in maternal mortality than before the Civil War, no paid maternity leave, no universal healthcare, no universal childcare, and more than 11 million children already living in poverty.
At one point, this lovely opinion refers to how states regulated abortion in the 1860s, when the 14th Amendment was adopted, as “the most important historical fact.” Because the fascists on the Supreme Court are pretty open about wanting our country to be limited to the rights conferred on rich white men at our nation’s founding.
“The inescapable conclusion is that a right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions. On the contrary, an unbroken tradition of prohibiting abortion on pain of criminal punishment persisted from the earliest days of the common law until 1973.”
[…] And let’s not let an opportunity to infantilize women pass us by.
“Women are not without electoral or political power. It is noteworthy that the percentage of women who register to vote and cast ballots is consistently higher than the percentage of men who do so.”
Oh, well in THAT case, now that women are legally allowed to vote, it’s totally cool for an unelected body to take away our rights! Please ignore them gutting the right to vote, it’s not important right now.
Alito also goes out of his way to say that Roe has always been wrong, just to really make it clear how much he hates us females having rights.
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division.”
WELL ISN’T THAT JUST A GREAT POINT, SAMMY. I’M SURE THIS ABORTION OF AN OPINION WILL DEFINITELY NOT DEEPEN DIVISION, YOU ABSOLUTE [Gender-based insult that I deleted].
Of course, all of these extremist judges are going to pretend that they are just very serious about doing their jobs and not legislating from the bench, and that is why they are going to overrule precedent that’s half a century old and has changed millions of lives for the better.
“We do not pretend to know how our political system or society will respond to today’s decision overruling Roe and Casey. And even if we could foresee what will happen, we would have no authority to let that knowledge influence our decision. We can only do our job, which is to interpret the law, apply longstanding principles of stare decisis, and decide this case accordingly. We therefore hold that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. Roe and Casey must be overruled, and the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives.”
Where’s that deep-seated concern about “JUDICIAL ACTIVISM” now, FedSoc shitheads?
Any terrible opinion about abortion, obviously, must include something about “potential life,” just to really drive home the point that these people find the idea of “potential life” that much more important than the lives of living, breathing women and pregnant people.
“What sharply distinguishes the abortion right from the rights recognized in the cases on which Roe and Casey rely is something that both those decisions acknowledged: Abortion destroys what those decisions call ‘potential life’ and what the law at issue in this case regards as the life of an ‘unborn human being.'”
You want to talk about “potential life,” Sam? Just wait until I tell you about my proposed ban on male ejaculation except when in furtherance of a notarized agreement to procreate.
Alito also writes that the other due process cases like Loving v. Virginia (legalizing interracial marriage), Skinner v. Oklahoma (no involuntary sterilization), Griswold v. Connecticut (legalizing birth control for married women), and Eisenstadt v. Baird (legalizing birth control for unmarried women) are different because “none of these decisions involved what is distinctive about abortion: its effect on what Roe termed ‘potential life.'”
This, of course, entirely ignores reality, where anti-woman extremists have been happily going after birth control for years, often using the “potential life” bullshit. In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, a less fascist version of this decision, the Court rubber-stamped Hobby Lobby deciding certain forms of birth control were “abortifacients,” despite no medical evidence to back up their claim. Politicians are already excitedly talking about how they want to throw women in prison for using birth control. Oh, and did I mention that the five members of the Court we know are in the majority belong to a religion that says birth control is a sin — and are clearly all too happy to base their judicial opinions on their personal religious beliefs?
But sure. This is just about abortion. Mmm-hmm. I totally believe you. It has nothing to do with controlling women and the female reproductive system.
But wait! It gets worse!
The part that talks about how abortion bans are totally great and fine is also just wonderful — and tells states exactly what kind of bullshit arguments they should invoke when enacting their authoritarian restrictions on women’s bodies.
Because “procuring an abortion is not a fundamental constitutional right[,]” writes Alito, “[i]t follows that the States may regulate abortion for legitimate reasons” and “respect for a legislature’s judgment applies even when the laws at issue concern matters of great social significance and moral substance.”
Women’s lives be damned.
“A law regulating abortion, like other health and welfare laws, is entitled to a strong presumption of validity. It must be sustained if there is a rational basis on which the legislature could have thought that it would serve legitimate state interests.”
We remember how much “presumption of validity” the Court gave to health laws during the pandemic. Because it was this year.
[…] that standard is just as easy to satisfy as it sounds. Abortion restrictions will be nearly impossible to challenge. Particularly given the list of things Alito says are totally justifiable reasons to force little girls to give birth against their will:
“These legitimate interests include respect for and preservation of prenatal life at all stages of development; the protection of maternal health and safety; the elimination of particularly gruesome or barbaric medical procedures; the preservation of the integrity of the medical procession; the mitigation of fetal pain; and the prevention of discrimination on the basis of race, sex, or disability.”
[…] I really can’t stress enough how bad this is.
Let’s be real about what’s actually happening. […] 22 states have abortion bans that will immediately go into effect. (Here in my state of Wisconsin, a pre-Civil War ban will be triggered, so that’s fun.) Forced-birthers are already planning a federal abortion ban after six weeks when the fascists retake power. And that’s before anti-woman extremists in state legislatures all over the country go full-on Handmaid’s Tale, with their pretty new SCOTUS opinion published and in hand.
But even without a federal ban, pregnant women across the country will be endangered — whether the pregnancy is wanted or not. Let’s be clear on what abortion bans really mean. They mean deaths and horrific injuries from unsafe abortions. They mean rape victims — including children — being forced to carry their rapist’s child to term, and sometimes also forced to co-parent with them. And they mean women dying because doctors won’t induce a miscarriage.
Forced-birthers are so extreme, they are all too happy to roll with “pregnant women should just die.” In Missouri, Republican lawmakers want to make it a felony to try to save the life of a woman with an ectopic pregnancy. An ectopic pregnancy is when a fertilized egg implants outside of the uterus, like in the fallopian tube or ovary. There is no chance of an ectopic pregnancy ending in a live birth and a very high chance that the pregnant woman will die without having an abortion.
And if you think that this is only about abortion, you haven’t been paying attention. When abortion is criminalized, […] so are miscarriages. We are already seeing radical extremist prosecutors throwing murder charges at women who miscarry. In states that ban abortion, it will become routine for police to investigate the circumstances of miscarriages.
And meanwhile, women will have fewer rights when they are pregnant than when they are dead.
Sally Rooney writing in 2018 on the Irish abortion ban. “Consent, in the form of a donor card, is required even to remove organs from a dead body…. In the relationship between fetus and woman, the woman is granted fewer rights than a corpse.”
Oh, and hey there, everyone who has rolled their eyes at us and called us hysterical or dramatic when we talked about Roe being in danger: DO YOU FUCKING BELIEVE US NOW?!
Men and boys are among the alleged victims of rape by Russian soldiers in Ukraine, where dozens of cases of sexual violence by the invading forces are already under investigation, UN and Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday.
“I have received reports, not yet verified … about sexual violence cases against men and boys in Ukraine,” said Pramila Patten, UN special representative on sexual violence in war, at a press conference in Kyiv.
Patten added that it can be particularly challenging for male rape survivors to report the crime. “It’s hard for women and girls to report [rape] because of stigma amongst other reasons, but it’s often even harder for men and boys to report … we have to create that safe space for all victims to report cases of sexual violence.”
She warned that dozens of cases of sexual violence that are under investigation so far “only represent the tip of the iceberg”, as she urged survivors to come forward, and the international community to find perpetrators and hold them responsible. “Today’s documentation will be tomorrow’s prosecution,” she said.
Ukraine’s prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova said on Tuesday that her office had collected reports of sexual violence by Russian troops against men and women of all ages, from children to elderly people.
Speaking at a news conference in the shattered Kyiv suburb of Irpin, one of a cluster of small towns whose names have become synonymous with Russian war crimes, Venediktova said Moscow had used rape as a deliberate strategy. “This is, of course, to scare civil society … to do everything to [force Ukraine to] capitulate.”
There have been few public accounts of sexual violence in Ukraine. Some victims have left the country, and others who have stayed are frightened of speaking about their experience, Venediktova said.
However, teams of prosecutors and investigators have been gathering evidence of widespread sexual violence since Russian forces retreated just over a month ago.
Pierce R. Butlersays
SC… @ # 187 – Thanks for posting that incredible anthology of Russian grassroots doublethink.
I found it completely dizzying – like talking to a hardcore False Noise true believer, only more so. The Murdochs probably have teams of analysts reviewing Russian media, to find out how Putin & Co have so thoroughly impregnated a large nation with self-contradictory lies, with more teams in the US working out how to leapfrog their techniques into the bravest possible new world.
Listen up, friends. I’ve lived a long time in this country. I’ve experienced a lot. And I know, and have a deep sense, when things are beginning to spiral.
We are at that point. We’ve been approaching it for some time, but the warning signs were in smaller, discrete pieces.
The problems are systemic: Gerrymandered maps keep extremists in statehouses and Congress. A rigged Senate with an archaic filibuster rule blocks needed reform. Seats on the Supreme Court are stolen through cynical ploys. Money pours in to those who enable the corruption.
Then the attacks begin. Voting rights are denied to minorities in red states in the name of “election security,” with the Big Lie powering the bills. LGBTQ+ kids and families are targeted as scapegoats. And now even a woman’s right to choose is on the chopping block.
We cannot remain complacent. Sure, the economy remains uncertain due to global inflation, a lingering covid pandemic, and a war by Russia in Ukraine. But that does not mean we take our eyes off the ball. The GOP is exploiting and exacerbating all this for political gain.
If we do not vote in November, if we do not HOLD THE LINE NOW, then the spiral of chaos will continue. The Republicans are under the spell of misinformation. They believe an entirely different reality, just as the Russian people do over Ukraine. They can be led to do anything.
And so we must resist, we must defend our democracy and the Republic from those who would take us to a dark place of autocracy, demagoguery, and repression. The stakes are too high, the cost too great. We must mobilize, and we must defeat this scourge. NOW. #Register #Vote
Senator Susan Collins, who had been assured by Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 that he considered Roe v. Wade “settled law,” said today that she was “shocked” that the Supreme Court Justice “would ever lie to a woman.”
“When I met with Justice Kavanaugh before his confirmation hearings, he looked me in the eye and said that he considered Roe v. Wade the law of the land,” she said. “Nothing in his confirmation hearings suggested that he would ever be less than trustworthy with a woman.”
“As I watched his Senate testimony, I felt even more confident that he had told me the truth,” she added. “His utter respect for a woman’s right to make decisions for herself came shining through.”
In the aftermath of the leaked Supreme Court draft ruling and reports that Kavanaugh voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, however, Collins is reassessing her ability to tell whether someone is lying to her. “My conduct in this matter has left me troubled and concerned,” she said.
It’s fair to say that at this point in Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, the reputation of the Russian military has shrunk by, if not 100%, something like 99%. Every film that made Russian forces seem like an unbroken mass of Dolph Lundgren clones marching perfectly along in their smartly tailored coats needs to be updated to represent the combination of sniveling incompetence and thoughtless brutality that seems closer to the truth.
In a purely physical sense, the U.S. Defense Department estimates that Russia has lost about 25% of the force it sent across the Ukraine border. On top of that, the U.K. Ministry of Defense estimates that about 25% of the Battalion Tactical Groups (BTG) that remain are “combat ineffective” due to lacking either personnel or equipment. In recent days, there have been reports of assaults from Russian forces that were far below the supposed scale of a BTG, and there have been translations like this one showing that a BTG with just two remaining tanks deliberately sabotaged one of them to keep from being sent into battle.
“Our tank, we broke it ourselves in the morning as to not go. BTRs went with out us and they have a lot of 200s [killed] and 300s [wounded] in critical condition.”
But losses on the battlefield and a withering loss of reputation aren’t the only ways the Russian military is shrinking. Based on some analysis from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, it seems like the standard BTG was literally not what it was cracked up to be.
Kos has written several times about the nature of Russia’s BTGs and what they’re meant to do.
A brigade combat team (BCT) is the U.S. Army’s basic maneuver unit. That is, the smallest deployable unit able to stand on its own (with intelligence, artillery, support, and other assets). Russia is organized around the much smaller BTG, which is what we see in Ukraine. Problem is, as that report states, it doesn’t take a lot of casualties to knock a BTG out of commission.
Exactly what constitutes a BTG has always been something of a question, but in general it’s supposed to be a somewhat self-sufficient army in the field, like a U.S. brigade combat team (BTC) . Only a BTC includes around 4,500 soldiers. A BTG contains something like 800 soldiers. Or maybe just 700. Or maybe it’s 600.
As it turns out, that last number turns out to be closer to correct, even if it’s still a smidge too high. The Ukrainian military has had a chance to see multiple BTGs in the field, and they’ve now issued a document describing a typical BTG. The document can be a little confusing because it includes numbers from a series of specialist BTGs, and the columns don’t all add up (Russia apparently does not play by U.S. spreadsheet rules). But the numbers at the bottom of the chart give away the game: 588 soldiers and officers. That’s what they’re seeing.
This helps to explain the high degree of BTGs that seem to have been easily knocked off kilter. As kos explained back at the beginning of the fight, the small size of the BTGs means that a single skirmish that takes out a few key elements can render the entire BTG unable to continue as a self-sufficient force—something that’s much less likely to happen with a larger, more robust U.S. BTC.
With that in mind, here’s a map put together by military analyst Henry Schlottman. Using the published positions of Russian BTGs that have been made available by U.S. and Ukrainian intelligence, Schlottman made an estimate of where each of those groups is focused, how much “front” each of them is addressing, and came up ultimately with a “kilometers per BTG” rating that shows where Russia is really putting in the effort. (I recommend that you click on this tweet, then on the map to see the image in its full size).
Quick little force ratio product showing estimated BTGs and frontages by operational direction. Information derived from US government releases and uawardata locations. More notes on image.
The results of looking at it this way show an order of magnitude of difference between the areas Russia seems to be beefing up for a push and those that seem more like efforts to secure any previous gains. For example, the area northeast of Kharkiv, where Ukrainian forces seem to be taking back towns and villages by the day, has a “density” of 20 km/BTG. Meanwhile, next door in the Izyum area, Russia’s big stack of men and material results in a 2.7 km/BTG figure. Poor little Popasnya is similar. Seven BTGs are focused on a very small area there, resulting in 2.9 km/BTG.
[…] Looking at the map this way does seem to provide some kind of information. After all, those least-dense areas are the ones where villages have been changing hands. However, the other end of the scale doesn’t seem to be true so far. Neither Izyum nor Popasna has been the scene of big Russian advances in spite of incredible numbers of BTGs shoved together in a small space.
Why not? Well, that goes back to the other thing kos has written about on a number of occasions: the inability of Russia to coordinate their forces and conduct large-scale combined arms operations. As long as Russia can only send forces down the line one or two BTGs at a time, it doesn’t matter that they have 20 more in theater. In some ways, all those additional forces are more of a problem than a help because they put a strain on—say it with me—logistics, logistics, logistics.
Looking at the kilometer per BTG doesn’t give a very good idea of where Russia is going to be effective. However, it probably is a pretty good idea of where they want to be effective. That alone makes the map worth studying.
Oh, and don’t be too concerned if the Ukrainian forces on the other side of those lines seem puny in comparison. Those Ukrainian numbers are in brigades. Here are the components of a typical Ukrainian brigade—in this case the 24th, which is based in western Ukraine.
Headquarters and Headquarters Company
1st Mechanized Battalion
2nd Mechanized Battalion
3rd Mechanized Battalion
Tank Battalion
3rd Motorized Infantry Battalion, “Volya”
Brigade Artillery Group
Headquarters and Target Acquisition Battery
Self-propelled Artillery Battalion (2S3 Akatsiya)
Self-propelled Artillery Battalion (2S1 Gvozdika)
Rocket Artillery Battalion (BM-21 Grad)
Anti-tank Artillery Battalion (MT-12 Rapira)
Anti-aircraft Missile Artillery Battalion
Engineer Battalion
Maintenance Battalion
Logistic Battalion
Reconnaissance Company
Sniper Company
Electronic Warfare Company
Signal Company
Radar Company
CBRN-defense Company
Medical Company
Each one of those battalions within the brigade is itself about 400 soldiers and 40 to 50 vehicles. In other words, this is a much larger structure than a BTG. And one that’s much harder to take out.
Just as with Russian forces, some of these brigades are going to be patched up and pieced together, with companies and battalions that have suffered heavy losses. Even so, none of them are likely to be “combat incapacitated.”
Pierce R. Butlersays
Lynna @ # 211: Senator Susan Collins… said[:] “Nothing in his confirmation hearings suggested that he would ever be less than trustworthy with a woman.”
Multiple accusations of rape don’t “suggest” that??!? Collins has moved from disingenuous to dysfunctional.
tomhsays
Re: #213
Probably should be made clear that the New Yorker link is satire by Borowitz. There is not much space between satire and reality anymore. Tough times for comedians.
the list of things Alito says are totally justifiable reasons to force little girls to give birth against their will:
These legitimate interests include…the prevention of discrimination on the basis of race, sex [!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!], or disability
I wouldn’t even know where to start with this item (much less the rest of the list), but, as Wonkette notes, we have “the highest maternal mortality rate of any developed [sic] nation” and “a worse racial disparity in maternal mortality than before the Civil War.” In addition, black women are more likely to lack access to the services he lies about all women having access to and more likely to be poor. Abortion bans are extremely racially discriminatory.
Every night more than 3 million people tune in to Tucker Carlson’s show on the Fox News channel – the most-watched cable news show last year. A new analysis from The New York Times explores how Carlson is using his platform. Nick Confessore, a Times’ political and investigative reporter and the author of the assessment, joins Amna Nawaz to discuss.
Fox News’ Tucker Carlson claimed Democrats are supporting Ukraine’s war against Russia’s invading military because they want revenge against Moscow over Donald Trump winning the 2016 election.
In his Monday opening monologue, Carlson scoffed at how Democrats have repeatedly blamed Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton on Russia’s interference with American political institutions. As Carlson claimed there was “no evidence” behind the notion, he proceeded to say “that’s why they are taking us to war with Russia.”
“The core motivation is just that simple,” Carlson said. “We know the war in Ukraine is not about saving democracy. Please. We know it’s not about protecting the sacred borders of a sovereign country. We know the Biden administration doesn’t care about those principles because they run our country and we see how they act.”
Carlson went on to say “we know for dead certain…that the war is not about helping the Ukraine people,” even as he conceded “many more Ukrainian civilians will die.” Blaming this on the Biden administration’s policies, Carlson said “If you want to save Ukraine, its people, its infrastructure, its nation, you would push for a settlement now. You would have done it two months ago, but they are not doing that. They’ve rejected it out of hand, so that’s not their goal.”
Instead of noting how peace talks between Ukraine and Russia have repeatedly fallen apart, Carlson claimed “the war in Ukraine is designed to cause regime change in Moscow.”
“They want to topple the Russian government,” Carlson exclaimed. “That would be payback for the 2016 election. So this is the logical, maybe the inevitable end stage of Russiagate.”…
Officials in Putin’s administration are “concerned” about popular musicians, actors, directors, and comedians making anti-war statements, three sources close to the Kremlin told Meduza. “Artists are opinion leaders, they influence the fragile minds of their audience,” one of these sources said, ironically.
The list of Russian celebrities who have directly criticized Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine includes television host Maxim Galkin, the rapper Face, singer Monetochka, and stand-up comedians Alexander Dolgopolov and Danila Poperechny, among others.
According to Meduza’s sources, the domestic policy bloc of Putin’s administration is now working to counteract these “opinion leaders.” Sergey Novikov, who heads the Presidential Directorate for Social Projects, and his deputy Alexey Zharich have been tasked with overseeing this work….
The Kremlin’s efforts to “counteract” these opinion makers are being organized through Russia’s regional administrations. According to Meduza’s sources, Putin’s administration is “recommending” suitable “campaigns” for regional officials to carry out. In late April, for example, bus stops in Krasnoyarsk were papered with “promotional posters” depicting comedians, actors, and singers who had spoken out against the war.
One of the posters alleged that comedian Danila Poperechny would be performing in London, Paris, and “Talin” (an apparent misspelling of Estonia’s capital, Tallinn) as part of a purported tour called “Across the Border of Patriotism,” where he would allegedly “talk about dangerous topics at a safe distance.”
Another poster depicted members of the popular band Little Big above the phrase “Little Patriotism Big Idiocy.” Little Big members Ilya Prusikin and Sofya Tayurskaya have both spoken out against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
…
Another option Putin’s administration gave to regional officials was to personally condemn celebrities who had denounced the war. Primorsky Krai Culture Minister Elena Bronnikova, for example, openly announced that authorities in the region wouldn’t allow such artists to perform at local venues. “Entertainers who took an openly anti-Russian position after the start of the military operation in Ukraine have no place in Primorye,” she said.
…
One Meduza source close to Putin’s administration explained that these “campaigns” are designed to reach a national audience through the news media and Telegram channels. The source even cited the “poster” campaign in Krasnoyarsk as an example. “The main thing was for the idea to be creative. It’s clear that the Krasnoyarsk pensioners sitting at the bus stops won’t appreciate it — they don’t know who [the rapper] Face is. But the media wrote about the posters, including opposition media. A very broad audience saw them, one that uses the Internet and knows about these artists,” the source explained.
At the same time, another source pointed out that so far, the campaign against the artists who condemned the war hasn’t been “deployed at full force, far from it.” Indeed, federal-level politicians and state media are “passively” taking part because they don’t want to show their audiences how many famous Russians have condemned Moscow’s actions.
With this in mind, RT head Margarita Simonyan publicly smearing television presenter Maxim Galkin is more the exception than the rule. After Galkin condemned Russia for killing civilians in Ukraine, Simonyan — speaking on air on the state-owned television channel Russia-1 — accused him of “hypocrisy” and alleged that he married an “elderly woman” (pop megastar Alla Pugacheva) to advance his career and “divert attention” because “everyone knows that he’s gay.”
Some State Duma lawmakers have also “passively” spoken out. For example, the head of the parliament’s Culture Committee Elena Yampolskaya (a United Russia lawmaker) proposed banning those who condemned the invasion of Ukraine from performing in Russia….
ravensays
There has been some disturbing reports of Russian war crimes and atrocities coming out of Ukraine. (This is an understatement.) It is genocide.
One of the things they are doing is forcing the population in occupied territory into Russian concentration camps. The numbers are huge, around 800,000 including 200,000 children. They screen them through what they call “Filtration camps”. To screen out Ukrainians I guess. In this area, most of the population are actually Russian ethnics speaking Russian living as Ukrainian citizens.
So what do they do to the people who fail “Filtration”. According to the Russian soldiers, they just shoot them. These are BTW, all civilians.
r/UkraineWarVideoReport
“I will never forget two soldiers talking: “What did you do to people who didn’t pass filtration?” – “I shot 10, and then lost interest in counting”, – tells 17 year old Maria Vdovychenko from #Mariupol.
I’m putting the link below.
It goes to an interview with a 17 year Russian girl who went through the process.
I’ll warn everyone that you probably don’t want to read her statement if you want to sleep tonight.
Subreddit Icon
r/UkraineWarVideoReport
5 hours ago May 3, 2022
News of the federal Russian TV channels: “Opponents of the letter Z must understand that they will not be spared. We mean business: there’ll be concentration camps, re-training and sterilization!”
This is what they are saying on Russian TV every day now.
When they are not talking about slave labor camps, sterilizing people, or disappearing them, they are talking about their nuclear weapons and how could they could destroy the UK or the USA.
This is what a country looks like when it is run by their version of Fox NoNews.
Human life is cheap in Russia and Rule of Law is nonexistent.
You can be killed or disappear any day if the state decides that is what they want.
That is why there is very little opposition to the war, at least openly in Russia.
It won’t stop the war, but it might well get you killed or sent to a slave labor camp in Siberia for a decade or two.
These are monsters.
Russia is a failed state.
Pierce R. Butlersays
tomh @ # 214 & SC… @ # 217 – Oops, thanks for the straightening-out.
First time I’ve fallen for a Borowitz parody; satirists do indeed face a Red Queen challenge accelerating daily.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Ursula von der Leyen announces sixth package of EU sanctions against Russia
The EU is proposing to ban all Russian oil imports in a sixth package of sanctions aimed at Russian president Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine.
President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen announced the proposals in a speech in the European parliament.
On the crucial issue of energy imports, Von der Leyen said:
This will be a complete import ban on all Russian oil, seaborne and pipeline, crude and refined. We will make sure that we phase out Russian oil in an orderly fashion, in a way that allows us and our partners to secure alternative supply routes and minimises the impact on global markets. This is why we will phase out Russian supply of crude oil within six months and refined products by the end of the year.
The sanctions will require unanimous support among the 27 EU nations – with Slovakia having already indicated they will require an exemption, and Hungary suggesting sanctions on energy supplies are a “red line” for them.
Other measures proposed include:
– Listing high-ranking military officers and other individuals who are accused of committing war crimes in Bucha and those responsible for the siege of Mariupol.
– Banning three Russian state-owned broadcasters from EU airwaves.
– Expelling SberBank – by far Russia’s largest bank – from the Swift payment system, along with two other major banks.
She said Europe has a special responsibility towards Ukraine, and also proposed an “ambitious recovery package” for the country.
What does invoking Lend-Lease really imply for the direction of US policy?
Presumably, the narrative is sustained by the promise that a good war fought against an evil regime will be won through the generous sponsorship of the United States. But to complete that narrative arc you have to keep winding the clock forward from Lend-Lease in March to the Atlantic charter in August 1941 and, by December, to Pearl Harbor and the US entry into the war. Providing aid to both China and the British empire, Lend-Lease was a crucial step in turning what was originally a separate Japanese war on China and a German war in Europe into a world war.
If the US Congress is now launching a new Lend-Lease programme, the question of whether escalation is part of the plan must come into consideration.
The Anti-Comintern Pact between Japan and Germany was signed in November of 1936. The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was formally announced by Japan in August of 1940, after a decade of Japanese imperialist actions.
With the European powers focused on the war in Europe, Japan sought to acquire their colonies. In 1940 Japan responded to the German invasion of France by occupying northern French Indochina. The Vichy France regime, a de facto ally of Germany, accepted the takeover. The allied forces did not respond with war. However, the United States instituted an embargo against Japan in 1941 because of the continuing war in China. This cut off Japan’s supply of scrap metal and oil needed for industry, trade, and the war effort.
The Italy-Germany-Japan Tripartite Pact was signed in September of 1940 and had been joined by several other countries by early 1941.
The Governments of Japan, Germany, and Italy consider it as the condition precedent of any lasting peace that all nations in the world be given each its own proper place, have decided to stand by and co-operate with one another in their efforts in Greater East Asia and the regions of Europe respectively wherein it is their prime purpose to establish and maintain a new order of things, calculated to promote the mutual prosperity and welfare of the peoples concerned. It is, furthermore, the desire of the three Governments to extend cooperation to nations in other spheres of the world that are inclined to direct their efforts along lines similar to their own for the purpose of realizing their ultimate object, world peace. Accordingly, the Governments of Japan, Germany and Italy have agreed as follows:
ARTICLE 1. Japan recognizes and respects the leadership of Germany and Italy in the establishment of a new order in Europe.
ARTICLE 2. Germany and Italy recognize and respect the leadership of Japan in the establishment of a new order in Greater East Asia.
ARTICLE 3. Japan, Germany, and Italy agree to cooperate in their efforts on aforesaid lines. They further undertake to assist one another with all political, economic and military means if one of the Contracting Powers is attacked by a Power at present not involved in the European War or in the Japanese-Chinese conflict….
The Lend-Lease Act was enacted in March of 1941, with the vast majority of supplies going to Britain, a smaller fraction to the Soviet Union, and a much smaller amount to other countries including China. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was prompted primarily by the US oil embargo and the need for raw materials, but of a piece with Japanese imperial ambitions, which were egged on by the Nazis (who wanted Japan to take on Britain and totally underestimated the US) throughout 1941.
So Japan was already working to grow its empire (and coming up against British/French/US imperial power in Asia) and formally aligned with an aggressive and expansionist Germany and Italy long before Lend-Lease. This led to their attack on the US, which was followed by Hitler declaring war on the US a few days later. But we’re somehow to believe that it was Lend-Lease that not only itself constituted escalation but was a “crucial step” in bringing about the world war? And that the current Lend-Lease Act – in completely different circumstances – is not only similarly escalatory but designed to be so – “the question of whether escalation is part of the plan must come into consideration”? Come the fuck on.
(Tangentially, but interestingly, Tooze’s grandfather was Soviet spy Arthur Wynn.)
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 215
These legitimate interests include…the prevention of discrimination on the basis of race, sex [!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!], or disability
The right has long made the argument that legal abortion is just like the eugenics projects of the late 19th-early 20th century or that shallow parents will abort because they find out that the baby isn’t the desired sex or other “selfish” criteria. It’s just another attempt to use left-ish sounding arguments to advance a reactionary agenda.
Britain has banned all service exports to Russia as new sanctions against 63 individuals and organisations have been announced.
The measures, announced by Britain’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, would cut off Russia’s access to the UK’s accounting, management consulting and PR services.
According to the UK government, Russia is “heavily reliant” on service companies in Western countries, and cutting off UK services will account for 10% of Russian imports in the sectors affected.
In a statement, Truss said:
Doing business with Putin’s regime is morally bankrupt and helps fund a war machine that is causing untold suffering across Ukraine.
Cutting Russia’s access to British services will put more pressure on the Kremlin and ultimately help ensure Putin fails in Ukraine.
The government has also announced 63 new sanctions, including travel bans and assets freezes for individuals linked to Russian broadcasters and newspapers, and sanctions against mainstream media organisations.
Those sanctioned today include employees of Channel One, a major state-owned outlet in Russia, as well as war correspondents embedded with Russian forces in Ukraine. Organisations including state-owned broadcaster, All Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting, will also face sanctions.
Other media companies sanctioned include InfoRos, a news agency spreading “destabilising disinformation about Ukraine”; SouthFront, a disinformation website; and the Strategic Culture Foundation, an online journal spreading disinformation about the invasion.
Akira MacKenzie @ #224, I’m aware of the history. It’s the inclusion of this as a helpfully suggested pretext in the blueprint provided for states to join in the largest attack on women’s rights – and especially black women’s rights – in our lifetimes enshrined in this document, the brazenness of it, that pushed me over the exclamation-point edge.
A Russian state TV report that simulated a nuclear attack launched off the coast of County Donegal has caused consternation in Ireland.
Dmitry Kiselyov, a pro-Kremlin presenter on Channel One known as “Vladimir Putin’s mouthpiece”, on Monday showed a video of an underwater missile wreaking apocalypse on Ireland and the UK.
Russia could “plunge Britain into the depths of the sea” using an unmanned underwater vehicle called Poseidon, he said. “The explosion of this thermonuclear torpedo by Britain’s coastline will cause a gigantic tsunami wave up to 500 metres high. Such a barrage alone also carries extreme doses of radiation. Having passed over the British Isles, it will turn what might be left of them into a radioactive desert.”
The report did not name Ireland but the simulation showed its destruction along with Britain, which has angered the Kremlin by supplying weapons to Ukraine.
Irish politicians condemned the report. Neale Richmond, a legislator with the ruling Fine Gael party, called for the expulsion of Russia’s ambassador to Ireland, Yury Filatov….
[…] Yesterday’s Republican Senate primary in Ohio confirmed Trump’s influence. J.D. Vance — the author of the 2016 book “Hillbilly Elegy” — won the nomination, with 32 percent of the vote in a primary that included four other major candidates.
Vance trailed in the polls only a few weeks ago, running an uneven campaign that suffered from his past negative comments about Trump. But after apologizing for them, Vance received Trump’s endorsement two and a half weeks ago. Vance quickly surged in the polls and will now face Representative Tim Ryan, a moderate Democrat, in the general election this fall. […]
Trump seems to really like it when a former critic turns into a groveling sycophant.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 288
As do Ohio Republicans.
rorschachsays
“The explosion of this thermonuclear torpedo by Britain’s coastline will cause a gigantic tsunami wave up to 500 metres high. Such a barrage alone also carries extreme doses of radiation. Having passed over the British Isles, it will turn what might be left of them into a radioactive desert.”
Noone tell Kim Jong Un. What goes on on Russian state TV is seriously worrisome. They are all insane. I don’t think this is similar to FoxNews disinformation at all. Just listen to Lawrow’s ramblings about Israelis supporting Nazis, they actually believe this stuff. And the patriarch of their state church supports this drivel. I did note that the catholic pope apparently said today that the patriarch should not be Putin’s Altar boy. A somewhat unfortunate statement.
raven @219, after information like that becomes public, some people still complain that the USA is escalating the war. That seems to me to be a misguided and petty point of view. Some people are still banging on about how we have to be careful in what we do and say so as to avoid upsetting Putin. No, just no. There is good reason, there are many good reasons, to slow Putin down and to eventually stop him. How many Ukrainians like that 17 year old girl must be put in Russian concentration camps, or killed, before people decide that it is okay to fight back/
The bodies of 20 more civilians were found in the past 24 hours in the Kyiv region, according to Kyiv regional police chief, Andriy Nebytov.
The latest discoveries, found in the town of Borodianka and the surrounding villages, raise the total number of bodies found in the region so far to 1,235.
Of the 1,235 bodies found by authorities, “more than 800 bodies were examined by experts. Unfortunately, most of them are people who died from gunshots”, Nebytov said in a video released by Ukraine’s interior ministry.
Experts have yet to identify 282 bodies, he added.
Hungary will not support EU ban on Russian oil, says foreign minister
Hungary will not support the EU’s proposal to ban Russian oil imports over the next six months, the country’s foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, said.
In a video posted on Facebook, Szijjarto said Hungary’s energy supply “would be completely destroyed” by an EU embargo of Russian oil, which he said would make it “impossible for Hungary to obtain the oil necessary for the functioning of the Hungarian economy”.
Earlier today, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen said Russian supply of crude oil would be prohibited within six months and refined products would be banned by the end of the year, while she acknowledged the demands from countries such as Slovakia and Hungary for additional flexibility.
Szijjarto said that, even with a lag, Hungary could only agree to the measures if crude oil imports from Russia via pipeline were exempt from the sanctions.
Hungary received more than half of its crude oil and oil products imports from Russia last year, according to the International Energy Agency.
Pierce R. Butlersays
SC… @ # 216: … “Tucker Carlson’s influence and his increasingly extreme views”…
“Acknowledge the reality of evolutionary biology,” he demanded, sliding into the evening news buzzwords that every white supremacist in America instantly recognized. “It is real.”
Actually, of course, Carlson promotes the white nationalist pseudo-science of crude racism, but his misuse of scientific terminology does require notice. No doubt the creationists (will?) respond that this “proves” racism comes from “Darwinism”, and will non-sequitur as fast as they can away from a direct confrontation with their wingnut fellow-traveler, but it does reveal an interesting minor wrinkle in the culture-wars fabric.
It was about a year ago when The New York Times described Sen. Ron Johnson as “the Republican Party’s foremost amplifier of conspiracy theories and disinformation.”
[…] Johnson has spent the past few years becoming a far-right caricature who’s increasingly seen as more of a partisan clown than a serious policymaker. The editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has said he’s “unfit” for office and called him “the most irresponsible representative of Wisconsin citizens since the infamous Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy in the 1950s.”
[…] I continue to believe Johnson’s most dangerous rhetoric has focused on Covid-19 and vaccines. The Washington Post reported:
[A] video obtained by the site Heartland Signal demonstrates some ways in which Johnson’s outreach differs from other candidates. For one, he participated in a video conference that included attorney Todd Callender, a fervent anti-vaccination commentator who is part of a lawsuit against the Defense Department. For another, Johnson expressed openness to Callender’s idea that maybe the coronavirus vaccines are a conduit for deliberately giving people AIDS.
Callender shared a rather unusual perspective with the senator, including the idea that physicians who’ve promoted Covid vaccines “purposefully gave people AIDS.” (In case this isn’t obvious, let’s note for the record that such a claim has no basis in reality.) All of this, Callender added, should be examined “from a criminal point of view.”
Elected officials, regardless of party or ideology, often hear from voters with unusual ideas, and they tend to have a standard response: Officials thank these folks for their interest and wish them the best before moving on.
That is not, however, what Johnson did in this situation.
The Post’s report quoted [Johnson] telling the anti-vaccination commentator, “You got to do one step at a time. Everything you say may be true, but right now the public views the vaccines as largely safe and effective, that vaccine injuries are rare and mild. That is the narrative. That’s what the vast majority of the public accepts. So until we get a larger percentage of the population with their eyes open, to: Whoa, these vaccine injuries are real. Why? You’ve got to do step by step.” […]
[Last year] Johnson tried to argue that breakthrough infections prove there’s no “point” to getting vaccinated. A few weeks earlier, he suggested that people should use mouthwash as a coronavirus treatment.
Indeed, the senator’s rhetoric has been a mess since the pandemic began. In mid-March 2020, as the scope of the coronavirus crisis was just coming into view, the Wisconsin Republican went further than most in downplaying the importance of mitigation efforts. As part of his case, the senator told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “[W]e don’t shut down our economy because tens of thousands of people die on the highways. It’s a risk we accept so we can move about.” This was a tragically bad argument, for reasons he didn’t seem to fully grasp.
[…] In July 2020, Johnson argued that the United States “overreacted“ in response to the coronavirus pandemic, which was unfortunate at the time, and which is a perspective that looks much worse now.
In late 2020, Johnson sank lower, holding multiple Senate hearings to promote pseudo-science and conspiracy theories. Dr. Ashish Jha, dean at Brown University School of Public Health, appeared as a witness at one of the Senate hearings and was amazed by the Wisconsin senator’s apparent suspicion that there’s a “coordinated effort by America’s doctors” to deny patients hydroxychloroquine because of a corrupt scheme involving physicians and the pharmaceutical industry. […]
[Johnson] who actually led the Senate committee responsible for domestic security policy for six long years — keeps pushing false information about public health during a deadly pandemic. But the bigger problem is that many Americans won’t necessarily know that Johnson has no idea what he’s talking about.
In an upset win Tuesday, Democrat Carol Glanville defeated Republican Robert “RJ” Regan in a special election for a Michigan House seat that had only ever been held by a Republican. Results remain unofficial, but with all precincts in the district reporting, Glanville led Regan by more than 1,500 votes as of 10:30 p.m. She topped 51% of the total votes cast; Regan garnered 40% and 7.9% went to write-ins.
Commentary:
On the surface, this race was interesting because it offered such an unusual result: Michigan’s state House’s 74th District, in the Grand Rapids area, is a Republican stronghold. According to the Free Press’ report, no Democrat has ever represented this district in the state legislature.
And yet, Glanville appears to have prevailed over the GOP nominee by double digits. That, in and of itself, is enough to raise eyebrows, especially given the fact that the prevailing political winds are at the Republicans’ backs.
But what makes this even more notable is why the GOP candidate lost this seemingly unlosable race. Who’s Robert “RJ” Regan? I’m glad you asked. The Washington Post reported two months ago:
A Republican candidate favored to win a seat in the Michigan House said he tells his daughters to “just lie back and enjoy it” if raped, as he attempted to make an analogy about abandoning efforts to decertify the results of the 2020 election. Robert Regan, who is running to represent Michigan’s District 74 in the state legislature, made the comments during a Facebook live stream Sunday.
Regan’s rhetorical record also includes claims that feminism is a “Jewish program to degrade and subjugate white men,” and his apparent belief that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a “fake war just like the fake pandemic.” [JFC]
The Detroit Free Press reported soon after that Michigan GOP leaders denounced Regan’s rhetoric, but state Republican Party Chairman Ron Weiser and others affiliated with the party did not call on Regan to withdraw from the special state House election.
The assumption was that the district was so tilted in the GOP’s favor that Regan would simply win anyway. But he, like some other Republicans known for making indefensible comments about rape, lost.
After a half-century of effort, Republicans finally stand on the precipice of a historic victory. Most of the party has spent decades, fighting tooth and nail to ban reproductive rights, and thanks to a leaked draft ruling, we now know the GOP is poised to succeed.
And yet, they didn’t seem at all happy about it. In fact, Republican leaders seemed unusually eager to change the subject. Politico reported:
Few Republican lawmakers were celebrating Tuesday after the disclosure of a Supreme Court draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade. Instead, they were angrily demanding answers to how the document became public in the first place. GOP leaders trained their fire on the breach of Supreme Court protocol that led to POLITICO’s publication of the draft opinion by the court’s conservative majority, with only a handful of Republicans cheering the substance of the document itself even though they’ve long opposed Roe.
Republicans didn’t just ring their hands a bit about a breach in Supreme Court protocol; they begged the Justice Department to launch a criminal investigation. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham went so far as to suggest the leaker may have done irreparable harm to the United States.
Look, let’s just be adults about this. The leak was obviously provocative and unusual, and I can appreciate why much of the political world enjoys the palace intrigue, but it’s worth pausing to appreciate a couple of obvious truths. First, Justice Samuel Alito’s draft wasn’t sensitive national security information, and its leak probably isn’t going to be prosecuted.
[…] reasonable observers can agree that much of the GOP’s apoplexy yesterday was faux outrage. Republicans didn’t spend the day upset about a leak; they spent the day pretending to be upset about a leak, and there’s no reason to accept their theatrics at face value.
Part of this was fueled by Republicans’ eagerness to play the role of victim — they’re assuming, without proof, that the leak came from the left — as part of a larger effort to suggest that only the right truly cares about the integrity of the judiciary. (It’s quite possible, if not likely, we’ll eventually learn that the leak came from the right, rendering all of this moot.)
But at the heart of yesterday’s public-relations strategy was a more concerted effort to distract attention from the underlying substance: GOP leaders would much rather talk about a shiny object — questions about a leak — than the demise of the Roe v. Wade precedent.
Why? Because when it comes to reproductive rights, Republicans and the American mainstream are clearly at odds.
GOP officials had a simple game plan they intended to stick to for the next several months: Push talking points related to inflation, immigration, and crime, and wait for voters to reward Republicans with power.
The looming decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization obviously matters as a policy and health care matter, but for Republicans, it’s something else: an electoral risk that doesn’t fit into the party’s plans.
It’s why Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell felt the need to tell reporters during a weird, almost somber Capitol Hill press conference, “[Y]ou need, it seems to me, a lecture to concentrate on what the news is today. Not a leaked draft, but the fact that the draft was leaked.” [LOL]
The looming loss of a constitutional right, we were told, just isn’t that important.
For Republicans, there was no celebrating. GOP leaders did not exchange high-fives. Republicans weren’t even willing to crack a smile. A half-century of fighting has brought them to the precipice of a major victory, and the entire party appears overcome — not with joy, but with unease.
A professor I know made the case this morning that the war against abortion rights was never meant to be won, it was simply meant to be fought. The post-policy Republican Party is fueled less by substantive goals and more by the search for grievances and power.
Alito’s draft isn’t a gift for the GOP; it’s an inconvenience.
KGsays
SC@223,
Yes, I usually admire Tooze’s writing (both books and journalism), but that article was all over the place.
[…] KHARKIV AREA
Ukrainian forces entered the area of Staryi Saltiv on Sunday, and fighting in the town continues. Because the bridge over the broad Siverskyi Donets River at Staryi Saltive was blown up by Ukrainian forces early in the war, Ukraine can’t use that bridge now to extend their push to the east bank of the river. On the other hand, Russian forces can’t use that bridge to escape. So instead, Russian forces are moving north while Ukrainian forces clean up and take control of the area to the south of the town.
On Tuesday, that included Ukrainian forces moving into the town of Molodova. Securing that location helps to straighten out what had been a rather crooked path for forces moving between Kharkiv and Staryi Saltiv, and seems a pretty good indicator that there remain little or no Russian forces on the west bank of the river south of the former bridge. However, there remain two settlements on the road running directly west from Staryi Saltiv that on Monday were still in Russian control. Based on Telegram messages […] there are reports that Russian forces have left both of these locations. There are other reports that battles are going on for these locations. Pending any kind of official announcement, I’ve labeled them both as “in dispute.”
On the extreme northwest of the Russian-occupied territory, Ukrainian forces have reportedly moved closer to the town of Kozacha Lopan. However, there seems to have been no real movement along the roads running directly north out of Kharkiv, with no reports of Russian forces being pushed back (or of failed attempts). [map available at the link]
IZYUM AREA
The central part of the line is where Russia has most of its force allocated, with roughly 68 Battalion Tactical Groups squeezed in from Izyum down to Donetsk. The biggest change on the map today is that it more accurately reflects the number of points that are actually in dispute, because—as it has almost since the start of the war—Russia seems to be making a large number of attempted breakthroughs by relatively small forces.
The only one of these to make anything like significant progress in the last two days is that small salient jutting down east of Slovyansk starting at the town of Zarichne. That push has secured Russian forces a series of small villages, and on Monday they seem to have consolidated control of Yampil. They’re now on to the next village in the line, but where they’re going from there is still in question.
Further south, Russia is still trying to capture Popasna. It still doesn’t have it. I swear, when I first wrote about this little town, I had no idea it was going to be the absolute focus of Russian efforts for three solid weeks. [map available at the link]
KHERSON AREA
The only thing I know for sure about activity in the Kherson area over the last 48 hours is that I spent a lot of time reading Twitter and Telegram posts about every single city, town, and village I could find in an effort to understand who currently controls what and where Russia is going.
Honestly, the Russian push toward Kryvyi Rih seems as pointless as ever—more an exercise in trying to taunt Volodomyr Zelenskyy by threatening his hometown than a serious military effort. But there is definitely activity in the area, and several villages under dispute. It can be assumed that Russia occupies a large number of villages and towns on the west bank of the Dnipro in the middle of the highlighted area, but I came up dry on anything indicating the status of any but a handful of locations. That may be related to reports that Russia is now channeling communication in the Kherson area through the Russian internet.
Expect this map to have fewer villages shown next time. It seemed necessary today to tag more locations to get a good definition of the current situation. [map available at the link]
KGsays
SC@187,
That Meduza report is seriously disturbing!
KG @240, I agree. I’m glad that SC posted that, but really it is not only disturbing, it is depressing. So many Russians seem to have completely given up when it comes to having any individual thoughts or initiatives. In addition, they actually want Putin to tell them what to do. Sheesh.
Related, from Mark Sumner:
In case you missed it, earlier this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared that Hitler “had Jewish blood” in an effort to directly blame Jews for the Holocaust. It’s kind of the ultimate expression of Russia’s propaganda in which they’ve claimed that the government of Jewish president Volodomyr Zelenskyy is actually a “Nazi junta.”
This, as might be expected, angered Jewish communities around the world, and seemed directly connected to Israel’s recent announcement that it is planning to send some military assistance to Ukraine.
Naturally, pro-Russian social media took this as a challenge. They are now not just insisting that among those fighting inside the Azovstal plant are “Israeli mercenaries,” but that “Ukrainian Nazis” have been secretly trained and supplied by the Israeli military all along.
To back up this wild conspiracy theory, Russian propaganda is using an old video from 2019 that shows an Azov fighter holding a Tavor style rifle. The video is not from the current war. Israel does not supply rifles directly to the Azov Battalion. Russian propaganda is spreading a many-layered lie. It’s a sickness.
In his draft opinion striking down the constitutional right to an abortion, Justice Samuel Alito says a lot of things about pregnancy, women, and fetuses. As someone who has recently given birth, it was easy for me to spot several places where he was wrong. If Alito is going to set back the rights of people who can become pregnant by 50 years, he could at least do us the courtesy of getting the science right.
Alito Fallacy No. 1: “Quickening” Time
We begin with the common law, under which abortion was a crime at least after “quickening”—i.e., the first felt movement of the fetus in the womb, which usually occurs between the 16th and 18th week of pregnancy.
As someone who just had a baby, I can tell you that people in early pregnancy Google “when will I feel my baby move?” every damn day and the answer is not somewhere between 16 and 18 weeks. There’s no source in Alito’s footnotes except the long-dead British authors of common law he is taking inspiration from, including Sir Matthew Hale, a 17th century judge who sentenced two women to death for witchcraft and defended marital rape. Most sources suggest that those first sensations are most common between 18 and 22 weeks of pregnancy. The UK’s National Health Service pegs the normal range at 16–24 weeks, broader and later than Alito’s claim. His numbers allow Alito to contend that, under common law, it “suffices for present purposes to show that abortion was criminal by at least the 16th or 18th week of pregnancy.” Maybe 17th century fetuses did more kicking earlier?
Alito Fallacy No. 2: Early Heart Beat
The legislature then found that at five or six weeks’ gestational age an “unborn human being’s heart begins beating;”
The case at hand, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, asks whether a Mississippi law banning most abortions after 15 weeks gestation is constitutional. In tearing up Roe and upholding Mississippi’s ban, Alito summarizes what he calls the Mississippi legislature’s “factual findings,” including the assertion that an embryo’s heart begins beating at five or six weeks of pregnancy. This is false. What anti-abortion activists call a fetal heartbeat is in fact electrical activity—no heart has developed at this time. In fact, the fetus is so underdeveloped at this stage that it is not even called a fetus—it’s an embryo.
Alito Fallacy No. 3: Abortions after 15 Weeks Are Dangerous
The legislature also found that abortions performed after fifteen weeks typically use the dilation and evacuation procedure, and the legislature found the use of this procedure “for nontherapeutic or elective reasons [to be] a barbaric practice, dangerous for the maternal patient, and demeaning to the medical profession.”
There’s a lot going on there, but let’s zero in on the medical BS. Alito is once again citing the Mississippi legislature’s so-called facts, including their finding that abortion is “dangerous for the maternal patient.” At another point in his opinion, he adopts the notion himself, by noting that states have an interest in limiting abortion for “the protection of maternal health and safety.” But the truth is that abortion care in the United States is very safe. What makes the procedure riskier, according to a landmark 2018 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, is states interfering by instituting arbitrary rules that drag out the process.
Pregnancy and childbirth, however, can have lasting health consequences and even cause death. At a time when global maternal mortality rates are decreasing, the United States’ rate is rising, with black people are nearly three times more likely to die than their white counterparts. Evidence shows that forced birth also impacts the health of the mother; according to the Turnaway Study from the University of California, San Francisco:
– Women who were denied an abortion and gave birth reported more life-threatening complications like eclampsia and postpartum hemorrhage compared to those who received wanted abortions.
– Women who were denied an abortion and gave birth instead reported more chronic headaches or migraines, joint pain, and gestational hypertension compared to those who had an abortion.
– The higher risks of childbirth were tragically demonstrated by two women who were denied an abortion and died following delivery. No women died from an abortion.
Of course, none of these facts are in Alito’s opinion.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) is facing backlash after questioning how many “over-educated, under-loved” women have participated in protests supporting abortion rights after a draft ruling from the Supreme Court showed that the bench is poised to rollback Roe v. Wade.
“How many of the women rallying against overturning Roe are over-educated, under-loved millennials who sadly return from protests to a lonely microwave dinner with their cats, and no bumble matches?” Gaetz wrote on Twitter Wednesday morning.
The tweet came two days after Politico published a draft majority opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, that said the rulings in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey “must be overturned.” The Supreme Court said the leaked draft ruling is “authentic,” but stressed that it does not reflect the final decision from the bench.
[…] Gaetz is now drawing scrutiny for his tweet about some protesters.
Bill Kristol, the editor-at-large of The Bulwark, wrote on Twitter Tuesday that Gaetz’s comment illustrated “witless and vulgar misogyny.”
Jessica Valenti, who dubs herself a “feminist author” on Twitter, quoted Gaetz’s mention of “over-educated” women before writing “If you think this kind of language is just a gaffe, you’re wrong.”
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) used his response to Gaetz’s tweet as a way to galvanize voters ahead of the November midterm elections. “Republicans like Matt Gaetz are for government-mandated pregnancy, against education, and against cats. You can help on campaigns to decide whether or not he is in the majority this November (assuming he isn’t indicted by the DOJ who is investigating him for sex crimes),” the congressman wrote on Twitter.
A number of tweets criticizing the congressman referenced the sex trafficking investigation that is examining the 39-year-old congressman. Investigators are probing to see if Gaetz paid for sex, engaged in a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old and if he paid women to cross over state lines to have sex with him, according to The Washington Post.
The congressman has denied the allegations, contending that he has not paid for sex nor had sex with a minor while he was an adult, the Post noted. The investigation into Gaetz stemmed from a federal probe into former Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg, who in June pled guilty to sex trafficking of a minor, among other federal crimes.
“How many of the Republican politicians trying to control women and restrict their fundamental rights are currently under criminal investigation for sex crimes?” Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) wrote on Twitter.
Meena Harris, the niece of Vice President Kamala Harris and the founder of Phenomenal Woman Action Campaign, sounded a similar note, writing on Twitter “How many of the right wing members of Congress rallying against Roe are under investigation for sex trafficking a minor? Just you?”
Jemele Hill, a contributing writer for The Atlantic, wrote on Twitter “How many Florida politicians are out here using a tax collector as a personal pimp to procure sex with a 17 year old girl because they’re a predator and gross?” “Hypothetically speaking, of course,” she added. […]
Lynna @ #242, I haven’t read the draft, but it seems like even if he wasn’t wrong about “quickening,” he’s acknowledging that abortion was legal in common law up to four months into a pregnancy. I don’t see how this is a point in favor of his so-called argument. What am I missing?
Good news, as reported by Wonkette: “Democrat Carol Glanville Defeats Gross Nazi Rape Comic In Michigan State House Race!”
Here’s some good news during an awful week: Democrat Carol Glanville won the 74th Michigan House District special election. Her victory’s considered quite the upset because well, she’s a Democrat in 2022 but more specifically, her district is hardcore Republican. In 2020, Donald Trump carried the area by 16 percentage points, and state Rep. Mark Huizenga won the seat by more than 26. The GOP likely considered the 74th a safe hold when Huizenga moved on up to the 28th state Senate seat.
Glanville tweeted Tuesday night:
West Michigan values of integrity, decency, and care for the common good won tonight. The people of the 74th District have spoken, and I hear you. We are united in fundamental ways, and I will take our values and concerns to the Capitol to affect (sic) positive change. Thank you!
[…] Glanville’s Republican opponent was Robert Regan, who won just 40 percent of the vote to Glanville’s 51. Wha’ happened? Well, Regan is a racist Big Lie promoter. That’s normally not enough to budge the needle these days, but Regan is so awful his own daughter issued an anti-endorsement for his previous failed campaign in 2020. Stephanie Regan tweeted: “If you’re in Michigan and 18+ pls for the love of god do not vote for my dad for state rep. Tell everyone.”
Ever the concerned father, Regan claimed Stephanie had gotten “sucked into this Marxist, communist ideology” at the University of Colorado in Boulder. […]
Back in May, during a Facebook Live discussion hosted by the rightwing Rescue Michigan Coalition, Regan brought up his daughters as part of some twisted rape analogy: “I tell my daughters, ‘Well, if rape is inevitable, you should just lie back and enjoy it.’”
Yes, that’s what he said. Here’s the video: [video available at the link]
The Michigan GOP denounced Regan, who’d won his party’s primary by just 81 votes.
Glanville, a Walker city commissioner, easily raised more money than Regan, who mostly self-funded the campaign he set on fire with inappropriate rape analogies. He’s also said some crazy things about COVID-19 and Jewish people.
From Salon:
In May 2021, Regan claimed over social media that “feminism is only applied against white men, because it has absolutely nothing to do with protecting women as a sex or defending the feelings of individual women. It is a Jewish program to degrade and subjugate white men.”
On his Facebook page, he shared an image of this quote with the logo of Smoloko News, a now-defunct antisemitic website. He’s also shared gross libels about the Rothschild family, who are at the center of antisemitic conspiracies claiming Jews control the banks and not just the buildings but all the money kept inside. He posted a QAnon meme that called “(((Them)))” the “real virus.” Assholes use the triple parentheses to quickly identify themselves as repulsive antisemites.
In another post, Regan called billionaire philanthropist George Soros a “Jewish communist investor” and “pure evil.” Republicans like to smear Soros as a destructive force without actually calling out that he’s Jewish. This gives them plausible deniability, but Regan’s not one for subtlety. It’s why his daughter plausibly denies him.
Despite everything, Regan was still a favorite to win the special election, so thank God Glanville helped us dodge that bullet. Her term is set to expire at the end of the year, when new district lines go into effect. She’s already filed to run again in the 84th House District (it’s redistricted) this fall. She’ll face off against Regan the Nazi election denier and Mike Milanowski, a slightly less loathsome Republican.
I just filled out my mail-in ballot for politicians running in Idaho. For some of the state-level positions there were no Democratic Party candidates. It can be hard to get Democrats to run in Idaho. I was so glad to see Carol Glanville successfully take on the Republicans in Michigan.
Almost as soon as Politico published its explosive story on Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s leaked draft opinion, which strongly suggests the court is about to overturn Roe v. Wade, conservatives responded by focusing not on the content of the news, but how it was obtained. Online Monday night, there were nearly immediate calls to find and punish the leaker….
Also on Tuesday afternoon, Operation Rescue, the notorious anti-abortion activist group responsible for some of the movement’s most outrageous tactics, joined the fray, issuing a press release declaring that the leak had most likely come from the office of Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
That claim traced back to pretty thin sourcing: a Twitter thread posted by a Republican political strategist who, about an hour after Politico published its story Monday night, suggested he’d solved the mystery: One of Sotomayor’s staffers had joined hundreds of classmates in opposing the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh and, at an earlier point, had been quoted in Politico regarding a case on which he’d assisted.
Within hours, the staffer’s name had become a hashtag and his picture was plastered across Twitter, along with abundant calls for the individual’s disbarment, incarceration for life or prosecution for treason.
On Tuesday, Operation Rescue took it a step further, repeating the unfounded allegations in a press release along with the claim that the leak had been designed to “foment social unrest that would apply pressure and intimidate the conservative justices to the point of changing their support for overturning Roe and Casey.” The group’s president, Troy Newman, went on to charge that if the claims proved true — which is quite an “if” — Sotomayor should be impeached or forced to resign; anyone else involved, he continued, should be “arrested immediately for sedition and fomenting an insurrection against the Judicial Branch.”
There’s abundant irony here — now the right cares about “insurrection”? — as well as, apparently, some basic confusion about how journalism works. But there’s also the more troubling prospect that Operation Rescue, which has long treaded a fine line between vitriolic advocacy and anti-abortion terrorism, and was deeply implicated in the 2009 murder of Dr. George Tiller, an abortion provider in Kansas, could again be stoking vigilante violence against its political enemies.
Cheryl Sullenger, the author of Tuesday’s Operation Rescue press release, served two years in prison for conspiring to blow up an abortion clinic in California in 1988. In its campaigns against various abortion providers, the group has blockaded clinics; commissioned raucous and graphic “Truth Trucks” to drive through neighborhoods where abortion-clinic staffers live; threatened clinic employees that unless they quit they will be subjected to “campaigns of exposure,” including vigils outside their homes; and posted “WANTED” posters with abortion providers’ photos — a tactic that, in Florida, preceded the murder of two other abortion providers and a clinic volunteer, and has since been ruled in court to be tantamount to a death threat.
For seven years before Tiller was murdered in his church, the group conducted a wide-ranging campaign against him, including mobilizing state legislators to try to bring bogus criminal charges against him and round-the-clock harassment. After Scott Roeder — who donated to and organized alongside Operation Rescue, and claims he discussed “justifiable homicide” over lunch with Troy Newman — killed Tiller, Sullenger’s phone number was found on his car dashboard. It would later emerge that Sullenger had supplied Roeder with information about Tiller’s whereabouts and schedule.
In many ways, Operation Rescue’s campaign against Tiller lines up with a phrase that became popularized during the Trump era: “stochastic terrorism,” meaning the public demonization of a person or group that leads, almost inevitably, to violence. In 2009, that pattern was still rare enough to be notable; today, it’s the air we all breathe.
“The vilification of abortion rights supporters generally and even the Supreme Court has contributed to a one-way history of harassment, violence and threats of violence over time,” said Frederick Clarkson, a senior research analyst at Political Research Associates as well as author of “Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy,” which focuses extensively on anti-abortion violence. In 1985, Clarkson pointed out, someone shot out a window in the home of Justice Harry Blackmun, author of the 1973 majority opinion in Roe v. Wade. Before the attack, Blackmun had received numerous violent and graphic threats from anti-abortion activists, and over the previous year, seven abortion clinics and related facilities in and around Washington, D.C., had been bombed.
“Beyond this, the history of bombings, arsons, assassinations and more always lurk in the background of the politics of abortion,” continued Clarkson. “In today’s environment, when violent mobs storm the Capitol and other governmental institutions across the country, unproven claims like this add volatility. Cheryl Sullenger served prison time for her involvement in an attempted clinic arson. So she is certainly familiar with what it means to add fuel to the fire.”
SC @244, I think Alito has blithely jettisoned not just precedent, the law, and the constitution, but logic as well. He just spouting whatever he pleases with the knowledge that he will probably get away with it.
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) used his response to Gaetz’s tweet as a way to galvanize voters ahead of the November midterm elections. “Republicans like Matt Gaetz are for government-mandated pregnancy, against education, and against cats. You can help on campaigns to decide whether or not he is in the majority this November (assuming he isn’t indicted by the DOJ who is investigating him for sex crimes),” the congressman wrote on Twitter.
This grain, which burned in just one of the russian-bombed elevators in Ukraine’s Rubizhne, could have fed 300,000 people for a year. The actions of russians are a crime not only against Ukraine, but also against the food security of all mankind [sic].
[video at the link]
At least 400,000 tons of grain were stolen by russia in the occupied south of Ukraine. That’s over 6,000 hoppers. russian thieves are bringing death and famine to the world. Only #ArmUkraineNow can stop them.
“Why There Are No Women in the Constitution,” by Jill Lepore, writing for The New Yorker
Within a matter of months, women in about half of the United States may be breaking the law if they decide to end a pregnancy. This will be, in large part, because Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is surprised that there is so little written about abortion in a four-thousand-word document crafted by fifty-five men in 1787. As it happens, there is also nothing at all in that document, which sets out fundamental law, about pregnancy, uteruses, vaginas, fetuses, placentas, menstrual blood, breasts, or breast milk. There is nothing in that document about women at all. Most consequentially, there is nothing in that document—or in the circumstances under which it was written—that suggests its authors imagined women as part of the political community embraced by the phrase “We the People.” There were no women among the delegates to the Constitutional Convention. There were no women among the hundreds of people who participated in ratifying conventions in the states. There were no women judges. There were no women legislators. At the time, women could neither hold office nor run for office, and, except in New Jersey, and then only fleetingly, women could not vote. Legally, most women did not exist as persons.
Because these facts appear to surprise Alito, abortion is likely to become a crime in at least twenty states this spring. “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision,” Alito wrote, in a leaked draft of the Supreme Court’s majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The draft decision, which Politico published on Monday night, would overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision legalizing abortion. Chief Justice John Roberts, promising an investigation, has not denied its authenticity. Five Justices have reportedly voted in accordance with the draft: Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch. Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan are sure to dissent. Roberts is not likely to concur. […]
Alito’s opinion rests almost exclusively on a bizarre and impoverished historical analysis. “The Constitution makes no express reference to a right to obtain an abortion, and therefore those who claim that it protects such a right must show that the right is somehow implicit in the constitutional text,” he argues, making this observation repeatedly. Roe, he writes, was “remarkably loose in its treatment of the constitutional text” and suffers from one error above all: “it held that the abortion right, which is not mentioned in the Constitution, is part of a right to privacy, which is also not mentioned.”
Women are indeed missing from the Constitution. That’s a problem to remedy, not a precedent to honor.
Alito cites a number of eighteenth-century texts; he does not cite anything written by a woman, and not because there’s nothing available. “The laws respecting woman,” Mary Wollstonecraft wrote in “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” in 1791, “make an absurd unit of a man and his wife, and then, by the easy transition of only considering him as responsible, she is reduced to a mere cypher.” She is but a part of him. She herself does not exist but is instead, as Wollstonecraft wrote, a “non-entity.”
If a right isn’t mentioned explicitly in the Constitution, Alito argues, following a mode of reasoning known as the history test, then it can only become a right if it can be shown to be “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.” As I have argued, the history test disadvantages people who were not enfranchised at the time the Constitution was written, or who have been poorly enfranchised since then. […]
He might have consulted the records of the U.S. Senate from the debate over the Fourteenth Amendment, when Jacob Howard, a Republican senator from Michigan, got into an argument with Reverdy Johnson, a Democrat from Maryland. Howard quoted James Madison, who had written that “those who are to be bound by laws, ought to have a voice in making them.” This got Johnson terribly worried, because the Fourteenth Amendment uses the word “person.” He wanted to know: Did Howard mean to suggest that women could be construed as persons, too?
mr. johnson: Females as well as males?
mr. howard: Mr. Madison does not say anything about females.
mr. johnson: “Persons.”
mr. howard: I believe Mr. Madison was old enough and wise enough to take it for granted that there was such a thing as the law of nature which has a certain influence even in political affairs, and that by that law women and children are not regarded as the equals of men.
Alito, shocked—shocked—to discover so little in the law books of the eighteen-sixties guaranteeing a right to abortion, has missed the point: hardly anything in the law books of the eighteen-sixties guaranteed women anything. Because, usually, they still weren’t persons. Nor, for that matter, were fetuses.
I don’t happen to think Roe was well argued. I agree with Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s early analysis—that grounding the right in equality rather than privacy might have been a sounder approach. I’m not even a hard-liner on the question of abortion; I find it morally thorny. But, when Samuel Alito says that people who believe abortion is a constitutional right “have no persuasive answer to this historical evidence,” he displays nothing so much as the limits of his own evidence. […] To use a history of discrimination to deny people their constitutional rights is a perversion of logic and a betrayal of justice. […]
At the close of the opinion, Alito congratulates both himself and the Court that, with this ruling, they are enfranchising women. “Our decision . . . allows women on both sides of the abortion issue to seek to affect the legislative process by influencing public opinion, lobbying legislators, voting, and running for office,” he writes. “Women are not without electoral or political power.” True, women are no longer without electoral power. But they were without it for almost the entirety of the history on which Alito grounds his analysis of the Constitution and its provisions. You don’t need a leaked document to learn that.
At this morning’s press event at the U.S. Department of Defense, Brig. Gen. Joseph E. Hilbert quoted Ukrainian sources in saying that, “The worst thing the Russians did was give us eight years to prepare.” During that time, Ukrainian forces worked closely with the American military, including seeing numerous National Guard forces who spent extensive time in Ukraine training and working with the military there.
Through that association, the Ukrainian military took the U.S. focus on training (and training, and more training) “strongly to heart.” Ukrainian forces also saw something in the way U.S. forces were structured—especially something that kos has talked about several times, the value of non-commissioned officers.
Russia continued a top heavy command layout, based their strategy around an army of untrained conscripts, and reshaped their military structure around small, fragile battalion tactical groups. Ukraine implemented a program to insert and retain NCOs, doubled down on training that included training on complex strategies, and beefed up their brigade structure to improve redundancy and strength in depth.
All of that took time, which is why Ukrainian officials are glad that this invasion, if it had to come, came in 2022, not 2016, or 2018. […]
At the afternoon session, reporters expressed concern about the missiles that Russia has been firing into western Ukraine, including at cities that had previously been spared bombardment. Many of those missiles have been directed at electrical substations, at rail infrastructure, and at factories connected with Ukraine’s defense. The Pentagon agrees that the intention of these missiles is to disrupt the flow of weapons entering the country and decrease Ukraine’s ability to “replenish and reinforce” their positions. On Tuesday, two of the missiles fired were reportedly the high speed Kalibr missiles launched from a Russian ship in the Black Sea.
The missile attacks are continuing on Wednesday. The total number of missiles Russia has launched since the invasion began is now over 2,300.
[Dmytro Kuleba] Another night in Ukraine, another barrage of Russian missiles raining down on peaceful Ukrainian cities. They want to break us down with their missile terrorism. But the only thing that will break down in the end is Russia and its capacity to invade, bomb, murder, loot, and rape.
However, the U.S. notes that Russia still has a poor record when it comes to precisely hitting targets, that Russia’s “ability to target with precision has been less than advertised”, and they’ve had a lack of accuracy over the last 70 days. Without giving details, the spokesperson hinted that Russia may still not be making contact with the targets it really wants to hit.
Though they would not give any numbers to tie it down, the DOD insists that Ukraine is still seeing new weapons and supplies come into the country at “an incredible pace” and that those weapons are still reaching the front on a timely basis. The Pentagon also indicated that some of the U.S. M777 howitzers sent to Ukraine are now in use.
Also in the afternoon session, the Pentagon noted that both Army and National Guard units were involved with training Ukrainian forces in Germany (along with possible use of Air Force units to train on the new Phoenix Ghost, details of which are still obscure). While discussing this, the Pentagon stated that Ukrainian forces had also been trained on the use of “unmanned surface vessels” — in other words, drone ships.
Finally, while assessing that Russia is not making the progress that they want, the Pentagon said it believes Russia is still having problems with command, unit coordination, unit cohesion, and morale. Even so, Russia still has “a lot of firepower left to them to continue this fight. This could be a prolonged battle in the Donbas.” […]
KHARKIV
For the last week, Ukrainian forces have been conducting a steady counterattack in the area north and east of Kharkiv. At the start of this offensive, Russian forces were right on the boundaries of the city, but Ukraine pushed those forces out of the suburbs, out of the nearby towns, and back through a series of villages to open a 40 km (25 mile) corridor around the battered city. The Ukrainian counterattack took them into Staryi Saltiv earlier in the week and has largely cleared forces east of the city to the Siverskyi Donets River.
[…] it seems, as of Wednesday evening, Ukraine has succeeded in driving Russian forces completely from Staryi Saltiv. There are also some statements that Ukraine has taken the town of Shestakove, which would go a long way to clear the main road between Staryi Saltiv and Kharkiv, but this is currently unconfirmed.
However, also on Wednesday, Russia apparently attempted to counter-counterattack. The location isn’t clear, though it seems to be back at the northwest end of the area, once again near that town of Kozacha Lopan, where Ukrainian forces were pushed back earlier. However, Russia’s attempt to recapture territory from Ukraine in this area has reportedly failed. […]
HOW RUSSIAN TANKS ARE DICTATED BY RUSSIAN STRATEGY, AND VICE VERSA
As of Wednesday, Oryx is reporting more than 3,400 pieces of Russian equipment that have been lost. Over 600 of those are lost tanks, and a huge chunk of those is some form of T-72. Just as with the structure of their army, the nature of their tanks is defined by the expectation of Russian leaderships. And then the nature of what the army can do, is defined by those tanks.
“The biggest advantage with the T-72 is also its biggest weakness. Because this vehicle was designed to be used by a conscript army. So it’s easy to operate. But that’s also its biggest weakness, because a conscript army cannot pull off sophisticated tank tactics. It’s supposed to be easy to maintain, but that’s not the case if all of your corrupt generals are stealing the funds that are meant to be used for maintaining the vehicles.”
Unlike other former presidents after leaving office, Donald J. Trump has remained in the middle of the political stage — raising more money than the Republican Party itself and doling out coveted endorsements.
Who has Mr. Trump backed in the midterms? And to what lengths have candidates gone to secure his favor?
Guest: Shane Goldmacher, a national political reporter for The New York Times….
The descriptions of the candidates groveling and performing for his attention and support are unbearably creepy and depressing. It’s a democratic country and these people prefer an authoritarian cult of personality around a corrupt, criminal buffoon, while Trump humiliates and exploits them to feed his insatiable greed and vanity.
The Ukrainian president said he believes Ukraine will again see peace despite Russia’s war in an address to Denmark on Wednesday, the anniversary of the country’s liberation from Nazi occupation during the second world war.
“The Russian state is not ready to stop the war. They’re dreaming of capturing Ukraine and other European countries. They’re still dreaming that the freedom of Europe will disappear. But their dreams will not come true. The dream of peace shall come true,” he said, according to CNN, “Just like it happened 77 years ago.”
Zelenskiy, whose remarks were broadcast in public squares, warned that what happens in Ukraine will have important consequences for the rest of Europe. He urged people to remember the 220 Ukrainian children killed in the war, and that “Europe is capable of putting an end to the extension of this”.
“It is now in Ukraine that the future of our continent is decided. Whether not only we but our neighbors will have peace,” he said, “No one can tell how many more days this war will go on. But I do believe our day of liberation is coming close.”
1973, 49 years ago:
-I was on the State Champion swimming team, decided on paper because girls didn’t have State Championships back then
-a senior girl had an illegal abortion & lost her uterus at 18 yo
-a junior girl left HS to have a baby & give it up
The United States on Wednesday surpassed 1 million Covid-19 deaths, according to data compiled by NBC News — a once unthinkable scale of loss even for the country with the world’s highest recorded toll from the virus.
The number — equivalent to the population of San Jose, California, the 10th largest city in the U.S. — was reached at stunning speed: 27 months after the country confirmed its first case of the virus.
“Each of those people touched hundreds of other people,” said Diana Ordonez, whose husband, Juan Ordonez, died in April 2020 at age 40, five days before their daughter Mia’s fifth birthday. “It’s an exponential number of other people that are walking around with a small hole in their heart.”
While deaths from Covid have slowed in recent weeks, about 360 people have still been dying every day. The casualty count is far higher than what most people could have imagined in the early days of the pandemic, particularly because then-President Donald Trump repeatedly downplayed the virus while in office.
“This is their new hoax,” Trump said of Democrats in front of a cheering crowd at a rally in North Charleston, South Carolina, on Feb. 28, 2020. “So far we have lost nobody to coronavirus.”
A day later, health officials in Washington made the inevitable announcement: a coronavirus patient in their state had died.
Now, more than two years and 999,999 fatalities later, the U.S. death toll is the world’s highest total by a significant margin, figures show. In a distant second is Brazil, which has recorded just over 660,000 confirmed Covid deaths.
Dr. Christopher Murray, who heads the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington School of Medicine, said although this milestone has been looming, “the fact that so many have died is still appalling.”
And the toll continues to mount.
“This is far from over,” Murray said.
Each death causes a ripple of lasting pain….
…
Per capita, the U.S. ranks 18th worldwide in Covid deaths, while Peru has the highest number. Still, many see the staggering death toll as evidence of America’s inadequate response to the crisis.
“We had the opportunity to be a shining example to the rest of the world about how to deal with the pandemic, and we didn’t do that,” said Nico Montero, a 17-year-old in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Montero made headlines earlier this year when he traveled to Philadelphia, where children ages 11 or older can be vaccinated without parental consent, to receive his shot at age 16.
Dr. Robert Murphy, executive director of the Havey Institute for Global Health at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, said many expected the U.S. to better control the virus’s spread.
“We were very encouraged by the rapid development of the vaccines, and everybody really thought we were going to vaccinate our way out of this,” he said. “But then we had people that wouldn’t even take the damn vaccine.”
…
More than half of U.S. Covid deaths have occurred since President Joe Biden was inaugurated in January 2021.
Most of those deaths — more than 80 percent from April to December 2021, for instance — were unvaccinated Americans, according to the CDC. As of February, the risk of death from Covid was 20 times higher for unvaccinated people than for those who were vaccinated and boosted, the CDC data showed.
“We know vaccines work. We know masks work. We know social distancing works, and we know crowd control, limiting crowded spaces, works. This is like a no-brainer, but we cannot seem to do it,” Murphy said….
In Justice Alito’s draft opinion reversing Roe, he writes about “an unbroken tradition of prohibiting abortion on pain of criminal punishment,” up until Roe in 1973.
He cites, as historical authority, Sir Matthew Hale.
Let me tell you about Hale & his views toward women.
The Alito draft says Hale “described abortion of a quick child who died in the womb as a ‘great crime’ and a ‘great misprision.’”
Hale became Lord Chief Justice of England in 1671. In his views of women, he was not a forward-thinking fellow — *even* by the abysmally low standards of his era.
(Here’s an illustration of Hale, from the National Portrait Gallery in London.)
To Hale, English gentlewomen were “the ruin of families.” Young women were a particular source of despair. They “learn to be bold,” he complained, and “talk loud.”
[Taking this opportunity to once more recommend Silvia Federici’s Caliban and the Witch and her chapter “On the Meaning of ‘Gossip'” in Witches, Witch-Hunting, and Women.]
I researched Hale while writing, with @txtianmiller, the book “Unbelievable.” The book was an extension of a story we wrote for @propublica and @MarshallProj called “An Unbelievable Story of Rape.”
Hale believed that for women, it was easy to accuse a man of rape. He believed that for men, such accusations were hard to defend, even if innocent. He advised that jurors be warned — explicitly, and at length — about the threat of the false accuser.
He came up with quite the list of factors for jurors to weigh. Jurors, he wrote, should consider: Is the woman claiming rape of “good fame” — or “evil fame?” Did she cry out? Try to flee? Make immediate complaint afterward? Does she stand supported by others?
Hale’s words became a standard feature of criminal trials in the U.S.
As long as 300 years after Hale’s death in 1676, many an American jury would be cautioned with what courts called the “Hale Warning”: an instruction to be especially wary of false accusations of rape.
But that wasn’t Hale’s only legacy.
In 1662, at Bury St. Edmunds, Hale presided at the trial of two women accused of witchcraft. Hale instructed the jury that witches were real, saying Scripture affirmed as much.
The jury convicted Amy Denny and Rose Cullender, after which Hale sentenced both women to hang.
Thirty years later, Hale’s handling of this trial, preserved in written record, served as model in Salem, Massachusetts, in the infamous witch trials of 1692. [I don’t think I’ve come across him in my reading, but I’ll look more…]
Hale is known for his legal treatises. But just as revealing is a letter he wrote to his granddaughters, dispensing individually tailored advice.
Granddaughter Mary, he wrote, needed to “govern the greatness of her spirit,” lest she become “proud, imperious and revengeful.”
Granddaughter Frances could make a good housewife, Hale wrote, provided she be “kept in some awe, especially in relation to lying and deceiving.”
As for granddaughter Ann, Hale perceived a “soft nature,” and therefore forbade plays, ballads or melancholic books, “for they will make too deep an impression upon her mind.”
This letter was 182 pages long. When it came to advice, Sir Matthew Hale was full of it.
Young women, Hale wrote, “make it their business to paint or patch their faces, to curl their locks, and to find out the newest and costliest of fashions.” …
“If they rise in the morning before ten of the clock, the morning is spent between the comb, and the glass, and the box of patches; though they know not how to make provision for it themselves, they must have choice diet provided for them…”
The letter reveals a man about as cheerful as his portrait suggests.
Wrote Hale: “The whole constitution of the people of this kingdom is corrupted into debauchery, drunkenness, gluttony, whoring, gaming, profuseness, and the most foolish, sottish prodigality imaginable.”
Chase Strangio: “If you are out here saying ‘marriage equality is next’ please do keep in mind that at least one state has made care for trans youth a felony right now and is currently in court defending that law. There is no ‘next’ – the horror is NOW.”
In an interview with TIME, Brazilian ex-president Lula da Silva, who will likely challenge the fascist Bolsonaro in the next presidential elections, has claimed that Zelensky is as responsible as Putin for the war in Ukraine and that he just didn’t negotiate hard enough.
And now, sometimes I sit and watch the President of Ukraine speaking on television, being applauded, getting a standing ovation by all the [European] parliamentarians. This guy is as responsible as Putin for the war. Because in the war, there’s not just one person guilty. Saddam Hussein was as guilty as Bush [for the outbreak of the 2003 Iraq war]. Because Saddam Hussein could have said, “You can come here and check and I will prove that I do not have mass destruction weapons.” But he lied to his people. And now, this President of Ukraine could have said, “Come on, let’s stop talking about this NATO business, about joining the E.U. for a while. Let’s discuss a bit more first.”
So Volodomyr Zelensky should have talked to Putin more, even with 100,000 Russian troops at his border?
I don’t know the President of Ukraine. But his behavior is a bit weird. It seems like he’s part of the spectacle. He is on television morning, noon, and night. He is in the U.K. parliament, the German parliament, the French parliament, the Italian parliament, as if he were waging a political campaign. He should be at the negotiating table.
Can you really say that to Zelensky? He didn’t want a war, it came to him.
He did want war. If he didn’t want war, he would have negotiated a little more. That’s it. I criticized Putin when I was in Mexico City [in March], saying that it was a mistake to invade. But I don’t think anyone is trying to help create peace. People are stimulating hate against Putin. That won’t solve things! We need to reach an agreement. But people are encouraging [the war]. You are encouraging this guy [Zelensky], and then he thinks he is the cherry on your cake. We should be having a serious conversation: “OK, you were a nice comedian. But let us not make war for you to show up on TV.” And we should say to Putin: “You have a lot of weapons, but you don’t need to use them on Ukraine. Let’s talk!”
Washington, D.C., and former President Donald Trump reached a settlement Tuesday in a lawsuit the city brought accusing his business and inaugural committee of improperly spending nonprofit funds. The eight-page filing in D.C. Superior Court says Trump has agreed to pay the city government $750,000.
KGsays
An illuminating article on the history of NATO.
tl/dr: It’s always been about maintaining capitalism and US hegemony, not defending democracy or human rights (although it has occasionally, as now, done the latter incidentally). For a start, consider the past membership of Salazar’s Portugal and the Colonels’ Greece, as well as the current membership of Turkey, Hungary and Poland.
StevoRsays
The Forced Birther’s in Oz are following the Repugliklan lead see this excellent essay by Lucy Hamilton :
Whilst in locally under-reported news that’s getting a lot less coverage than it deserves the Ben Roberts-Smith (BRS) war crimes, sorry, defamation trial* is continuing :
.* A defamation action that BRS brought himself bankrolled by major commercial TV station (c7) owner Kerry Stokes claiming to have been defamed by journos telling what – its increasingly clear – is the truth about him. Some horrific events uncovered. Hopefully, after the defamation trial an actual war crimes one might ensue.
PS. Our Opposition (ALP) leader and candidate to become PM Anthony Albanese is on ABC TV’s Q&A tonight from 8.30 pm c2. Bad news is the host is rather very LNP biased “journo” David Speers.. Most of the media here are appalling and very pro-LNP to their eternal disgrace. :-(
StevoR @ #264/5, re your first two links, yikes – sympathy and solidarity from the US.
(Reading these and feeling closer than ever to Australians, and then I click on a link and come upon “why doesn’t Morrison ‘get it’ — in 2021 — about violence against women? Is it because he’s a bit of a daggy dad who goes to the footy?” and suddenly I need a translator.)
In November 2020, an investigation by Justice Paul Brereton into allegations of war crimes found that SAS troops had been involved in the murder of 39 Afghan civilians, with prisoners being killed to “blood” new troops, and weapons and radios planted to disguise the crimes. None of the killings were “in the heat of battle”. The Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force Afghanistan Inquiry Report was published in November 2020. The report stated that some of the incidents the inquiry uncovered constituted “possibly the most disgraceful episode in Australia’s military history, and the commanders at troop, squadron and task group level bear moral command responsibility for what happened under their command, regardless of personal fault”, though no information on these incidents was published on legal grounds. 36 incidents have been referred to the Australian Federal Police for prosecution, and the 2nd squadron will be disbanded in the wake of the findings and be replaced with a new sub-unit. The Chief of the ADF considered disbanding the SASR as a whole, but decided to pursue improvements to its culture instead.
Several serving members of the SASR have spoken in Roberts-Smith’s ongoing defamation trial regarding alleged bullying and threats made by Roberts-Smith during his service both within Australia and Afghanistan. “Person 1”, a serving SASR member, alleged that Roberts-Smith had stated to him he would “put a bullet in the back of his head” if he didn’t improve his performance. Following this, Person 1 was advised by other members to report Roberts-Smith’s threat which he did, leading to Roberts-Smith allegedly threatening him again, stating “If you’re going to make accusations [c—], you’d better have some fucking proof.” Claims regarding Roberts-Smith’s bullying were also reiterated by Person 43 and Person 10, other serving members of the SASR.
In October 2017, actions involving Roberts-Smith came under question again. One notable controversy concerned the killing of an alleged Taliban spotter during the 2006 battle of Chora Pass….
…
Following the publication of No Front Line in October 2017, Fairfax Media’s Nick McKenzie and the ABC’s Dan Oakes covered the story—linking the case to an ongoing Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force inquiry into criminal misconduct on the battlefield by Australian special forces. Responding to the coverage in an interview with The Australian, Roberts-Smith described the scrutiny as “un-Australian”. Oakes wrote “It’s not ‘un-Australian’ to investigate the actions of special forces in Afghanistan”.
Since 2018, Roberts-Smith has been under investigation by the Australian Federal Police for war crimes during his tours of Afghanistan. In April 2021, the AFP confirmed it was also conducting a probe into allegations that Roberts-Smith had destroyed or buried evidence directly related to the ongoing investigation.
A colleague of Roberts-Smith, referred to as Person 16 (identity legally protected as part of proceedings), told the court in 2022 that Roberts-Smith had shot dead an Afghan teenage prisoner, and bragged about it.
It was alleged in February 2022 during defamation proceedings that Robert[s]-Smith had employed a private investigator, John McLeod, to pose as a barman during a Seven Queensland work event in order to listen to staffers at the event and discern their opinions on Roberts-Smith.
Roberts-Smith met Emma Groom in 1998 at Holsworthy Barracks, Sydney. She came from a military family. On 6 December 2003, the couple married at the University of Western Australia. In December 2020, their divorce was finalised. Their twin daughters were born in 2010. Roberts-Smith was named 2013 Australian Father of the Year by The Shepherd Centre, a not-for-profit charitable organisation.
In 2017-2018, Roberts-Smith had a 6-month affair with “Person 17” (identity legally protected in current court proceedings). During this period, Person 17 became pregnant. Roberts-Smith hired a private investigator to monitor Person 17 and confirm her attendance at an abortion clinic. Person 17 has accused Roberts-Smith of punching her in the face after a dinner at Parliament House in 2018. Roberts-Smith denies ever striking her. Person 17 also accused Roberts-Smith of coaching her on how to explain a black eye resulting from the alleged assault.
In January 2022, Roberts-Smith was ordered to pay the legal costs of his ex-wife after unsuccessfully trying to sue her in the Federal Court over allegations she accessed confidential emails.
The photo of him from 2011 and the fact that he was awarded the Medal for Gallantry are so over the top.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
The European Union plans to impose sanctions on the head of the Russian Orthodox church, Patriarch Kirill, a long-serving Kremlin ally who has given his blessing to the war in Ukraine, according to a draft document seen by the Guardian.
Kirill, who used a sermon to support Russia’s “special peacekeeping operation” days after the invasion, now faces being added to the EU sanctions list, which already includes more than 1,000 powerful Russians, according to the draft.
He is one of 57 people who would face an EU travel ban and asset freeze under new listings being discussed by member states.
EU officials are also targeting the immediate family of Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, who was sanctioned in a previous round. Peskov’s wife, Tatiana Navka, would be added to the list through her marriage, but also because of her co-ownership of property in Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014, according to the EU. Nikolay Peskov, 31, is said by the EU to use his father’s money, while Elizaveta Peskova, 24, is said to have acquired “lucrative positions and has been living a luxurious lifestyle thanks to her father’s connections”.
The day after the Russian invasion, Peskova posted “No to war” on her Instagram account, according to Russian media. The post was later removed.
Also expected to be added to the list is Marina Mordashova, the wife of Russia’s richest man, Alexei Mordashov, because she is said to benefit from her husband’s assets. He is a majority shareholder of Severstal, Russia’s biggest steel company, and during the pandemic rescued Tui, Europe’s largest tour operator. After Mordashov was added to the EU sanctions list in March, German authorities reported that he had transferred €1.5bn worth of shares in Tui and the gold company Nordgold to his wife via various offshore companies.
Peter Brimelow is a former editor at the conservative National Review (a relatively mainstream publication!) who now runs a white nationalist website called VDare; the site’s tagline is “we inform the fight to keep America American.” Brimelow shared the story about the leak on Gab, per extremism reporter Nick Martin, and seemed excited about the prospect of legal public segregation: “Next stop Brown vs. Board!”
Peter Brimelow, a former National Review editor who now runs the racist website VDARE, celebrated the Roe news by posting on the alt social media site Gab: “Next stop Brown vs. Board!” pic.twitter.com/nYpfErOaVI
— Nick Martin (@nickmartin) May 3, 2022
Yes, “Centrists” and “Classical Liberals.” Please tell us once again that we are “over-reacting” to the agenda of the Republican Party and American conservatives.
“The new Reuters investigation into the soldiers who were in Bucha is great, with the best part being how one guy painted his Instagram handle onto a civilian’s wall….”
At the end of March, when Russian troops retreated from Bucha, a leafy suburb near Ukraine’s capital, they left reminders of their deadly occupation for all the world to see. Bodies were strewn in the streets. Quaint houses were reduced to rubble. A field near the town’s church had become a mass grave.
Now, as Ukrainian and international prosecutors begin the work of identifying those responsible for the alleged atrocities, Reuters has examined the aftermath of Russia’s hasty retreat – and found vital clues to the identities of individual Russian soldiers and military units present during the bloody occupation.
Among them: An elite paramilitary force that reports up to a former bodyguard of President Vladimir Putin. A paratroop division decorated for its role in Moscow’s long secret war in east Ukraine. Chechen troops linked to the strongman leader of the Russian region. And a paratrooper who was traced thanks to a love letter found in the ruins.
Reuters journalists spent three weeks in Bucha interviewing more than 90 residents, reviewing photographic and video evidence these locals shared and examining documents left behind by the Russians. Much of the evidence and testimony focused on Yablunska Street, a 4.5-km thoroughfare whose name means Apple Tree Street. It was here on Bucha’s southern edge that bodies of civilians were left in the open. Many details about the occupying force and the chain of command are reported here for the first time.
…
Servicemen from Russia’s Vityaz security force were among the occupying troops, an identity document found at the scene showed. Vityaz, whose presence in Bucha is revealed here for the first time, is under the command of the National Guard, Rosgvardiya. Its boss, Viktor Zolotov, who didn’t comment for this article, is a former Putin bodyguard and reports directly to the Russian president.
Other documents, including a love letter found in one house that was occupied by Russian soldiers, helped place in Bucha the 76th Guards Air Assault Division, a paratrooper force from Pskov in north-west Russia. Reuters reporting has for the first time independently linked this division to acts of violence against unarmed men.
Earlier, in 2014, Putin decorated the 76th for carrying out combat missions when Russia was fighting a clandestine war in eastern Ukraine. On a visit to the division’s base in 2020, Putin told them: “Our people are proud of you.” The division comes under Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, a close Putin ally who has vacationed with the president. Neither the Defence Ministry nor Shoigu responded to Reuters questions.
By interviewing dozens of witnesses, analysing social media posts, and using open-source intelligence techniques to match video to the locations where it was shot, Reuters discovered that at least three Chechen units allied to Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, another fervent Putin supporter, were operating in the vicinity of Bucha during March. Witnesses said they saw Chechen troops inside Bucha itself. Chechen authorities didn’t respond to questions about their forces’ activities in the area.
…
Ukrainian prosecutors say they are investigating more than 9,000 potential war crimes by Russian forces in the conflict and pursuing hundreds of suspects. The International Criminal Court is also examining potential human rights abuses in the war….
As Donald Trump sees it, whenever someone is accused of racism, that means the person is “winning.” He really hasn’t thought this one through.
Donald Trump sat down this week for another interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, and while the former president and David Brody covered a lot of ground, it was the Republican’s comments about allegations of racism that stood out for me.
“They say it about people that are less racist than any people anywhere in the world. OK? ‘You’re a racist.’ And whenever you hear that term, that means you’re winning because what they’re doing is, that’s their last card. And they’ve used it with me, and it’s failed very badly.”
Let’s just briefly review some of the more obvious flaws. Right off the bat, Trump isn’t “winning.” He left office last year as an unpopular president after losing badly.
Also, Trump has been accused of racism, not as some kind of desperate political ploy, but because of the many instances in which he has engaged in overt and indefensible racism.
As for the idea that accusations of racism against him have “failed very badly,” there’s ample evidence to the contrary. National polling has found that a narrow majority of Americans agrees that Trump is, in fact, racist.
But as important as these facts are, there’s another dimension to this that’s worth appreciating. As Trump put it in the CBN interview, whenever someone is accused of racism, that means that person is “winning.”
Well, in recent months, Trump has accused New York Attorney General Letitia James and MSNBC host Joy Reid of being “racist.” He’s also suggested the same about Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
The fact that his targets are Black women is, I’m sure, just a remarkable coincidence.
All of which leaves us with an obvious follow-up question: Does Trump believe James, Reid, and Willis are all “winning,” since he baselessly accused them of “racism”? Were his allegations evidence of the former president playing his “last card”?
Democrats under increasing pressure on abortion rights as midterms loom
Since the only possible path to reversing the expected vicious attack on women from the fascist majority on the Supreme Court is through electing lots of Democrats, and that attack is highly unpopular, it would seem that: “Republicans under increasing pressure on abortion rights as midterms loom” would be a more accurate headline. But at present, the Graun seems to interpret absolutely any event as bad for the Democrats in the midterms.
The image above is from Russia’s practice for the upcoming May 9 parade. [Photo available at the link.] For weeks, Russian troops have been marching around the town, showing off their parade uniforms and driving some cleaned up, and hopefully decently maintained, vehicles along the streets, prepared to bring Moscow some of that military pomp so beloved of Soviet leaders and Donald Trump. This particular group is being lead by a new T-90M tank. It’s a 2017 update of Russia’s latest in-production tank.
The most notable upgrade to the T-90M is that it carries a new generation of Explosive Reactive Armor (ERA) that’s designed to stop incoming missiles and shells in their tracks. Its armor was specifically designed with the promise that it would stop anti-tank weapons, and even survive multiple incoming weapons striking at the same time. And you can see exactly how well that worked in practice by checking out the T-90M below. [Tweet and image available at the link. “I mean, who could guess that the first Russian T-90M would be hunted down within days after their much-advertised deployment to Ukraine’s Kharkiv Oblast. […]”]
As far as anyone is aware, the number of T-90Ms sent to Ukraine so far would be one. The number still in operation would be zero. Overall, Russia has managed to roll out about 20 of the T-90M upgrades, but the remaining ones are apparently being held close to Moscow at the moment. After all, they’re needed for critical parade duty.
The same goes for Russia’s T-14 Armata. This angular next generation tank has been appearing in Moscow’s May 9 parades since 2015. However, to date it seems that fewer than a dozen have actually rolled off the line, with changes still being made and reported issues with multiple systems. A couple of them have at least been allowed to get dirty. [Photo at the link]
If a T-14 shows up in Ukraine, don’t take it as a sign that Russia has confidence in its super tank. Take it as a sign of desperation.
After all, Russia is just four days away from a parade where it expected to celebrate its easy victory over Ukraine. Vladimir Putin fully believed that he would be standing in the bleachers, saluting the victors of the in Battle of Kyiv, maybe with a few acolytes from his new Ukrainian puppet government looking on for good measure. Even when it became clear that the parade was not going to feature Volodomyr Zelenskyy being dragged along in chains, there was still the hope that sticking all of Russia’s forces into the Donbas would allow them to overwhelm Ukraine, and push to the borders of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in time for the parade to start. Only … nope.
That’s okay. They could always bring in Belarus to drag Ukrainian forces to the west. Or how about a referendum in Kherson that would form a new “people’s republic?” Or an attack from Transnistria? Or Azovstal! They could at least finish off Azovstal and celebrate May 9 by declaring that Mariupol, so beautifully remodeled by Russian artillery, was eager to join up. Azovstal, yes! [Video available at the link]
On Monday, Russian forces resumed hitting the Azovstal complex with both artillery and hundreds of dumb bombs dropped by strategic bombers. Russian ships in the Sea of Azov joined in, blasting the site with massive shells.
Before the smoke had even cleared, Russian forces attempted to storm the Azovstal complex, entering its maze of tunnels and chambers to root out the unknown number of remaining Ukrainian fighters from their positions deep underground. Throughout the day, there were reports of hand to hand fighting, and “bloody conflict.” On the surface, structures were blasted with explosives and set on fire in an attempt to burn every building remaining on the site to the ground.
For three days now, that fight has continued above ground and underground. Russian sources insisted on Monday that Azovstal was in “its final hours.” But they’ve said that before.[Tweet and video of “Ukrainian defenders in Azovstal having a singalong yesterday”]
With four more days remaining, it’s entirely possible that Putin will get the only peace he wants in Mariupol in time for his parade: the peace of the grave. […] If Putin wants everyone in the complex dead—including the forces that are not part of the Azov regiment, including the wounded who were not allowed to leave the hospital on the site, and including the civilians still trapped there—he can almost certainly have it.
On May 9, it’s almost certain that some selected “victors of Mariupol”—or some nice, tall, appropriately photogenic roleplayers—are going to join Putin’s parade. And that really would be appropriate. They can celebrate the butchery of Bucha, the 600 women and children who died in the basement of Mariupol’s theater, the thousands of civilians buried in still-undiscovered mass graves, and the tens of thousands of Ukrainians being enslaved in Russian labor camps a continent away from their homes. They can celebrate the destruction. They can celebrate rape. They can celebrate a second Holodomor.
Weird how that’s the same exact argument Stop The War, Greenwald, Tracey, Scahill and Grim are making. The war would simply end if Ukraine just stops defending itself from extermination by a fascist dictatorship! Weird how often the Kremlin agrees with them almost verbatim.
Kremlin says Western arms supplies to Ukraine prevent ‘quick’ end to conflict
—————–
When anyone complains that western arms “prolong the conflict” what they are really trying to say is “prevent Russia from winning the conflict”, they simply lack the courage of their convictions.
The history repeats itself. Those who say today that helping Ukraine prolongs war repeat the same words from 1941. Why not peace with Hitler, indeed? [Photos included.]
More apropos of absolutely nothing: Some time ago I acquired the recent (2021) version of Around the World in 80 Days starring Ibrahim Koma (Passepartout), David Tennant (Phileas Fogg), and Leonie Benesch (reporter Abigail Fix, a character I don’t recall from the novel (which I have read (in translation))). Last “night” I finally (binge-)watched it.
First impressions, moderated by some decent port: Rather good, albeit didn’t follow the novel too closely. Nowheres near as stupid as the 1956 movie (with Cantinflas and David Niven).
I could, of course, change my mind — depends on the port, the cheese, and a certain penguin (who was complaining throughout I was eating the cheese and drinking the port) but also seemed otherwise engrossed.
Republicans in the Louisiana House advanced a bill Wednesday that would classify abortion as homicide and allow prosecutors to criminally charge patients, with supporters citing a draft opinion leaked this week showing the Supreme Court ready to overturn Roe v. Wade.
….Experts say the bill could also restrict in vitro fertilization and emergency contraception because it would grant constitutional rights to a person “from the moment of fertilization.”
[…]
“For legislators in the movement, their agenda is to stop abortion,” said Mary Ziegler, a visiting professor at Harvard Law School specializing in the history of abortion law. “When there is a conflict between punishing pregnant people and stopping abortion, it’s clear what they’re going to do.”
[…]
Louisiana is one of 13 states that has a “trigger law,” which would make abortion illegal as soon as Roe is overturned. But antiabortion advocates on Wednesday said legislation did not go far enough….
[…]
At the committee hearing, several abortion rights advocates tried to sound the alarm.
“I just want to sort of level-set here first: This is a homicide statute,” said Ellie Schilling, a New Orleans-based attorney who represents abortion rights groups. “What this bill does is to specifically amend the crime of homicide and the crime of criminal battery to enable the state to charge people, including the pregnant mother, at any stage of fertilization.”
n the standard image displayed at the top of a Daily Kos story, on an average browser, there are fewer than 500,000 pixels. The image used for this story contains exactly 1 million pixels, but you’ll have to open it in another page if you want to see them all. And of course, even then you can’t see them all, not really. They’re just a sea of sameness. Just a mass of dark where there could be light. Just points that show nothing where there could be something.
Like the one million people missing from the United States at this moment due to COVID-19.
There is really no way to show you what that loss looks like. No doubt there are, right at this moment, people making a valiant effort to do so. Somewhere shoes or cups or caps or some other items of everyday life are being arranged carefully on a field. Somewhere signs are being made with a scale and resolution that can genuinely provide some sense of what this number looks like when measured in human beings. Those efforts are, of course, symbolic, but that doesn’t mean they are worthless. Done well, such efforts can deliver a profundity and a physicality that the words “one million” simply don’t deliver.
This is a number so large that it falls into that the same well as those we use when describing the universe. These dinosaur fossils are 65 million years old. This galaxy is 10 million light years away. We nod along when told such things, but we don’t grasp them. Not really. Just like we can’t begin to grasp what it means to have one million people absent from the life of the nation. One million voices lost to the conversation. One million … one million.
This doesn’t seem the time to review the awful decisions that brought us here. Everyone is far too aware of the lies, the distortion, and the sheer indifference. The downplaying of the threat. The false promises of a miracle cure. The long, deliberate effort to undermine the advice of those who saw what was coming.
Instead, try another form of memorial. Spend one minute and imagine it was you. If you’re young, imagine what impact your loss would have to your parents, your siblings, your friends, your coworkers. If you’re older, imagine your absence in the lives of your children or what it would mean to your partner. Take one minute and imagine a you-shaped hole, not just in the events of today, but every day to come. Forever.
It’s not at all bizarre when you remember how feckless, craven, and duplicitous Dems can be. The Republicans are united behind banning abortion while the Dems pride themselves at being a “Big Tent” that will just let anyone in.
Greg Lopez embodies much of what the modern Republican Party is about.
The Colorado gubernatorial candidate wants to ban voting by mail, even though he has voted by mail in every election since 2013, when Colorado began mail-in voting. He has no qualms about using anti-LGBTQ dog whistles to score political points, but denies he’s homophobic.
And he calls himself “pro-life without exceptions,” but fails to understand how him having been arrested in 1993 for assaulting his pregnant wife undercuts the sincerity of that message.
We know all of these things because of a breathtaking interview he sat for with 9News Denver’s Kyle Clark that aired Tuesday night.
This doesn’t seem the time to review the awful decisions that brought us here. Everyone is far too aware of the lies, the distortion, and the sheer indifference. The downplaying of the threat. The false promises of a miracle cure. The long, deliberate effort to undermine the advice of those who saw what was coming.
In Georgia’s gubernatorial race, Democratic hopeful Stacey Abrams this week paused fundraising for her own candidacy in order to help raise money for abortion rights organizations.
ravensays
from Reddit Ukraine Poll: Almost 90% of Ukrainians consider the actions of Russian troops genocide
Translation:
89% of Ukrainians support the recognition of the actions of Russian troops in Ukraine as genocide of the Ukrainian people. This is evidenced by the results of the Tenth nationwide poll: “Ideological markers of war (April 27, 2022)”, conducted by the sociological group “Rating” , reports Ukrinform.
According to the poll, the vast majority of respondents – 89% – support the recognition of the actions of Russian troops in Ukraine as genocide of the Ukrainian people. 76% of respondents were in favor of banning the use of Z and V symbols used on Russian military equipment, 74% – in favor of banning the “St. George’s” ribbon in Ukraine . And over the past 5 years, support for the latest initiative has increased from 45 to 74%. sociologists note. According to them, dictatorship (41%) and fascism (37%) are the main characteristics used by Ukrainians to describe the current political regime in Russia. Another 10% describe the Russian regime as Nazism.
The poll was conducted on April 27, 2022 among the population of Ukraine aged 18 and older in all oblasts, except for the temporarily occupied territories of Crimea and Donbas. The sample is representative by age, sex and type of settlement. Sample population: 1000 respondents. Survey method: CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone Interviews). Error of representativeness of the study with a confidence level of 0.95: not more than 3.1%.
The word genocide gets thrown around a lot.
In the case of this war, it fits.
The Russians claim that Ukraine was never and isn’t a real country. They are trying to get rid of the Ukrainian language and replace it with Russian. Now they are starting to write Ukraine out of their history books. They have been sending Ukrainians, especially children, from their occupied territories to reeducation camps and also, just simply killing a lot of Ukrainian civilians.
No wonder the Ukrainians are fighting so hard. What choice do they have?
PS I could put a link to the poll but not going to bother. It’s in Ukrainian with Cyrillic letters.
ravensays
I’m sure there are multiple definitions for genocide.
Here is one.
What’s the Difference Between ‘Crimes Against Humanity’ and ‘Genocide?’
By Robert Coalson The Atlantic MARCH 19, 2013
The basic difference between crimes against humanity and genocide is as follows: Crimes against humanity focuses on the killing of large numbers of individuals. The systematic, mass killing of a very large number of individuals will constitute a crime against humanity. Genocide has a different focus. Genocide focuses not on the killing of individuals, but on the destruction of groups. In other words, a large number of individuals who form part of a single group. And the two concepts in this way have different objectives. One aims at protecting the individual; the other aims at protecting the group.
The Russians are guilty of crimes against humanity, terrorism, and genocide.
Two are methods, the other is the goal.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 283
It shouldn’t really have surprised anyone. There is a huge portion of the American population who are paranoid of government action beyond police and the military, disdainful of science as challenge to their Christian superstations, and selfish to the point of sociopathy. Throw in a President who cheered their outrages on, et voilà! One million dead out of what should have been an easily controlled public health emergency.
So I’m watching “Under the Banner of Heaven,” a seven-part limited series on Hulu based on the book of the same name by Jon Krakauer. I think it’s pretty solid, and I’ve read a few reviews that generally agree (most think it’s not as good as the book, which I haven’t read, but I imagine they’re right). An ex-Mormon commenter at the AV Club review linked to two local articles about it suggesting they’re fairly entertaining reading, and, well, they’re right:
From the Deseret News – “Perspective: Under the Banner of Hollywood”: “Too much real-life anger comes out of Tinseltown. It’s time for Dustin Lance Black and company to let go of the angst toward Latter-day Saints…”
This latter one has a fine quote from writer-producer Black:
Black said that in the decade he spent working to bring “Under the Banner of Heaven” to the screen, he “became something that is far more dangerous than anger in our faith. I became curious. I am not angry. I am asking questions.”
President Joe Biden on Thursday named Karine Jean-Pierre as the new White House press secretary, succeeding Jen Psaki. Jean-Pierre will be the first black woman and the first openly gay person to hold the position.
Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached the highest levels on record for any calendar month during April, averaging 420 parts per million (ppm) for the first time since observations began in 1958, according to new data.
The news that Twitter has a new emperor got people riled up. But what will Elon Musk’s takeover really mean for the platform? Game designer Brianna Wu describes how she worked with Twitter to prevent the kind of violent harassment she got during #GamerGate. But with Musk in charge, she says, the most rabid trolls seem to be on their way back.
ravensays
Russians steal vast amounts of Ukrainian grain and equipment, threatening this year’s harvest
By Tim Lister and Sanyo Fylyppov, CNN Updated 12:54 PM ET, Thu May 5, 2022 edited for length
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said Thursday an estimated 400,000 tons of grain had been stolen to date.
Farmers and others in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia have provided CNN with details of multiple thefts.
Much of what they’ve not stolen has been destroyed. CNN spoke to Anatoliy Detochka, owner of Golden Agro, whose grain storage complex near Rubizhne was destroyed on April 14. It burned for two weeks.
The theft of grain on such a huge scale — combined with the dislocation of war — could affect world markets. Fedorov, the mayor of Melitopol, said: “If we do not harvest (the) next crop, the effect of hunger can be significant. And the main export route is ports which are currently blocked.”
One of the main methods of genocide is created hunger and famines.
The Russians are stealing all the Ukrainian grain they can. It’s 400,000 tons or so now. They are also attacking and destroying grain storage buildings wherever they can. There is no point to destroying grain elevators except to create food shortages.
The Ukrainians have been here before. During the Stalin famine of the 1930s, the Holodomor, 4 million Ukrainians died from starvation.
It is also clear that a lot of Ukrainian farmland isn’t going to be planted or harvested this year because of the war.
Ironically, a lot of the people going hungry and/or paying more for food this year and the next are going to be in the Third World, the countries that bought Ukrainian grain.
ravensays
The video is in Russian but has English subtitles.
Meanwhile on Russian state TV: lawmaker Aleksey Zhuravlyov is arguing that Russia might use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine and get away with it.
The future was overrated.
This morning I get up, and some Russian politician on their state TV is threatening to nuke Ukraine.
Then on my home tonight, I risk my life (avoiding the Covid-19 virus) to buy cat food at Safeway.
The Russians are now threatening to nuke someone with something over something…every day now.
Well, I started worrying about the Russians and the upcoming nuclear war when I was 5 years old in the 1950s.
So what else is new?
It looks like the Russian leadership is starting to realize they might well lose their war with Ukraine. They are starting to panic.
ravensays
Reuters:
Louisiana legislators advance bill classifying abortion as homicide
I didn’t even read it.
Nothing new about this.
Similar bills have been introduced in Texas and Idaho.
If an embryo or fetus is a person, then abortion is first degree murder.
The fundie xians are eagerly awaiting the first women to get life in prison or the death penalty.
StevoRsays
India now, how much of the rest of the world how soon the way we’re heading?
Seems likely to me that Musk’s plans to charge for Twitter may actually kill it off pretty quickly though I could be wrong.
StevoRsays
I’m not going to knock Albo before the election is over, I really don’t want to, he’s vastly preferable to the alternative and the media has been extremely unfair to him and totally against him and all but FUCK he is uninspiring and piss-weak!
Echoes of Biden in the States. Which Iguess ended up for the less bad so there’;s that..
Rob Grigjanissays
StevoR @298: I wish we, as a species, were mature enough to appreciate ‘uninspiring’ leaders. I want them to be boring and professional. The ‘inspiring’ ones are too often grifters.
tuatarasays
StevoR @ 298. I sincerely hope that Scummo and the rest of the LNP gang don’t get back in. The very real prospect of the roasted potato-head Dutton rolling him to become PM should terrify all voters here into electing the ALP into power. I am not sure what I will do if the present loosely-termed ‘government’ get back in but it might involve me emigrating to NZ.
And as for One Nation or Clive Palmers bunch of kleptocrats, fuck me if it isn’t a mess.
It is possibly not well known, but are you aware that an Australian citizen can live, work, claim unemployment benefits, get free hospital care, and even vote (after living there continuously for 12 months or more) in NZ should they so choose. No visa is required for an Australian to enjoy all the rights and privileges of a subject or citizen of NZ.
Soooo, section 44 of the Australian constitution theoretically bars all Australian citizens from running for Federal parliament. My bolding below.
44. Any person who –
(i.) Is under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or citizen of a foreign power: or
(ii.) Is attainted of treason, or has been convicted and is under sentence, or subject to be sentenced, for any offence punishable under the law of the Commonwealth or of a State by imprisonment for one year or longer: or
(iii.) Is an undischarged bankrupt or insolvent: or
(iv.) Holds any office of profit under the Crown, or any pension payable during the pleasure of the Crown out of any of the revenues of the Commonwealth: or
(v.) Has any direct or indirect pecuniary interest in any agreement with the Public Service of the Commonwealth otherwise than as a member and in common with the other members of an incorporated company consisting of more than twenty-five persons:
shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or a member of the House of Representatives.
Ilove where Ilive and my fmailyare allthere who I rely on so, no, couldn’t really contemplate moving although ..yeah. If the LNP which should have been thrown out in disgrace last election yet cheated their way into staying in undeserved illegitimate power manage to cheat their way back again, well, Ithink quiote seriously that we cannot call our nation a democracy anymore.
As Lucy Hamilton wrote here we’re pretty much already a “compeditive authoritarian” kakistocracy where Murdoch’s evil words hold near total sway :
I fear its already too late given the appalling media traetment of the ALP and worse our third largest and main progressive political party, the Australian Greens. Really is infuriating and depressing beyond words.
If the untrustworthy polls are wrong again this time and the LNP does somehow cheat and lie their way back, I don’t know, I really don’t.
tuatarasays
StevoR @ 302.
Yeah. Murdoch…..where and how well does that all end?
We used to have a nice local rag here where I live, funded by local advertising and delivered free to every home. It was bought up by Murdoch, turned into a subscription only service, and now our only recourse to local news is faceache or twitshit, neither of which I can stomach.
The monopoly on news that the Murdoch reich holds (in 2016 Murdoch controlled 65% of newspapers in Australia – a share that continues to grow) needs to be broken into jagged chunks and shoved up Ruperts arse.
Oh well. So much for my wishful thinking.
StevoRsays
Via friend on fb :
Thanks to Simon Stevens:
OVERTURNING ROE V. WADE – AN HISTORICAL ANALYSIS
Here’s a Twitter thread by a professor of history of the early modern era, @Literature_Lady, on the overturning of Roe v Wade. The decision of the US Supreme Court is much worse than most people realise.
Justice Alito’s invocation of Sir Matthew Hale in his leaked majority opinion is so, so much more fucked up than people realize. I’m a professor with a PhD, and my area of expertise happens to be women and gender in the early modern era (1500-1700). Here is what you need to know.
Sir Matthew Hale was a huge advocate for marital rape. Like many early modern men, he believed that women’s bodies belonged to men, first their father when they were born and then their husband when they were married. WOMEN WERE NOT SEEN AS AUTONOMOUS BEINGS.
Early modern law was based on a combination of roman law, common law, and biblical law. There wasn’t a separation of church and state. The 1632 manual The Lawes Resolutions of Women’s Rights, for instance, cited the Bible as the basis of a lot of laws pertaining to women.
Hale, just like a lot of Christian extremists today, believed that women were made from Adam’s rib. God did not make her as an autonomous being with rights. She was a physical extension of his body, made to be his “helpmeet,” namely to exist to help him to whatever he wants.
The writings of the apostle Paul were also used as a basis of law during Hale’s life. The man was “the head of the woman” and it was inarguable to suggest otherwise. Many Christian sects still quote this passage as a basis for patriarchal rule in the home and in the church.
Hale therefore wrote in his posthumously published book Historia Placitorum Coronæ (1713) that marital rape was totally legal. In fact, because a man owned a woman’s body as it was an extension of his own to do with whatever he willed, he was incapable of marital rape.
The logic was that you can’t rape something that isn’t considered an independent human being. Your wife’s body is yours and you can’t rape yourself. This is the logic Alito is upholding when he invokes Hale. But it gets worse.
Let’s say a woman vocalized her opinion and it ran contrary to her husband’s. She didn’t want sex. Hale believed that this put her in violation of her marital vows. She was literally breaking the law. Women who denied men sex needed to be punished.
There was a whole set of laws at the time specifically on the punishment of women who spoke up against the men in their lives. They didn’t have the legal authority to say no to sex because they were not legally independent human beings.
Beating your wife was not only permissible by law but also encouraged as a corrective tool. Hale, like many other legal writers of his day, subscribed to the “rule of thumb” – namely, you could beat your wife with an object was not thicker than a man’s thumb.
Men were encouraged in law manuals, however, to beat their wives in a reflective manner, understanding that it was necessary for the salvation of their wife’s soul and done out of love rather than anger. It was advised to never beat a woman in rage.
Court records, however, were filled with incidents of extreme physical violence against women by their husbands so this advice was rarely followed. Women who were beaten nearly to death rarely saw justice. The courts almost always sided with the husband. He was doing his job.
Keep in mind that Hale and others also viewed a father’s role in a similar way. The daughter had no bodily autonomy, and it was a father’s duty to “correct” his children as long as he did so within the law. Daughters were groomed from an early age to be obedient to future husbands.
It should be no surprise that Hale was responsible for the trial and execution of women for witchcraft and that his legal opinion would be used as a base for the execution of women and children by the state both in England and the Americas.
The big witch trial Hale was known for was the 1662 trial of Rose Cullender and Amy Duny. It followed many of the trial conventions of the day with bonkers stories of toads, vomiting pins, etc. Both women were widows and found guilty.
Women who were executed by the state for witchcraft were overwhelmingly poor and single. Most were widows. Hale & his contemporaries found independent women to be a serious threat in society. She was not owned by father or husband, which meant that she was an unnatural presence.
Women without a man to tightly control their behaviors were viewed ad extremely susceptible to immorality and becoming a Satanic force in the community. Hale believed it was in society’s best interest for men of the state to step in and control these women.
During this time, women could be declared legally independent, such as when a woman without a father became old enough to be freed from being another man’s ward. However, these legal declarations of independence were uncommon, and the assumption is that it would be temporary.
A woman’s primary purpose in adulthood was to be married, be obedient to a man, and to have children. Alito invoking Hale in his opinion made it clear that he also thinks this too. It’s his duty as a man to put the bodily fate of women in the hands of states run by white men.
Keep in mind that Hale was only talking about white Christian women. Women who didn’t fall into this category were debated as even being women. They were viewed as less than human with even less rights. The rule of thumb didn’t apply; they weren’t worthy of such restraint.
Are you starting to see why Alito’s invocation of Hale is so deeply, deeply fucked up on so many insane levels that there isn’t a way to possibly overreact to how shitty his legal standing is here? Rage, horror, disgust, etc. are not deep enough reactions to his legal opinion.
And if you think Hale being invoked by Alito was something out of left field, think again. Hale is all over our legal system. The easiest application to find was the Salem Witch Trials, but his influence on our laws is much more insidious than that.
Marital rape was not completely outlawed in the United States until 1993. Let that sink in. Hale’s Historia was being invoked in our American legal system all the way up until that point to justify rape by a husband. Alito is well aware of Hale’s lasting influence in our laws.
So when he talks about going back to what the founding fathers meant, he is talking about all of this shit. Women’s bodies being legally owned and controlled by men. He knows many Christian white women are groomed theologically to agree and will vote for this patriarchal control.
Alito knows that by kicking reproductive control back to the states that he is putting an incredible amount of power in the hands of the men who control these communities. He knows that white men are disproportionately in charge of these places.
Alito knows how much power and influence local churches have on local leadership. He knows most of these institutions are controlled by men. He is counting on it. He knows the biggest threat to women are the men in their homes and communities.
Justice Alito and men like him do not see women as independent human beings with their own human rights. They see us as incapable of making our own decisions. They consider men to be divinely appointed to rule over women. This is not an exaggeration.
If they think of white Christian women this way, imagine what they think about women of color, women of non-Christian groups, or trans women and men. The utter disdain towards them is deep, disturbing, incomprehensible, and violent.
Collectively we need to condemn Alito’s opinion and understand it for what it is: a deeply flawed rant by a misogynist zealot who puts his own sexist beliefs before his duty as a Supreme Court justice and the welfare of the American people.
PS – If you want to look up Sir Matthew Hale on Wikipedia, take that article with a grain of salt. Some Hale apologists have added some deeply biased wording and minimized his legal standing on women. If you want to know about him, look up what the experts are saying.
This thread is taking off so I am going to mute it. I’m leaving you with some books [see comments] that talk about what Hale and folks like him thought about women legally and theologically (and legal punishments). The further you go down this rabbit hole, the worse Alito’s invocation of Hale gets.
KGsays
Yesterday was local election day in Scotland, Wales, and parts of England, and the Northern Ireland Assembly is also being elected. Results so far (all from England) indicate bad losses for the Tories, gains but considerably less than they hoped for Labour, LibDems and Greens doing well. Scotland uses STV in multi-member wards for local elections, and didn’t start counting until this morning, but the first few first preference counts suggested a similar pattern to England, with the SNP about where they were in 2017. In Northern Ireland the headline question is whether Sinn Fein will get more seats than the “Democratic” Unionist Party, whic hwould enable them to nominate the First Minister for the first time (although the First Minister and Deputy First Minister actually have equal power, so this would be of symbolic rther than practical significance – but as we know, symbols matter a lot in NI, and there’s speculation the DUP might take their ball home, leading to a collapse of the NI Executive and direct rule from London)..
This week, OTM presents a story from our colleagues at The Experiment. There’s a common story about abortion in this country, that people have only two options to intentionally end a pregnancy: the clinic or the coat hanger. They can choose the safe route that’s protected by Roe v. Wade—a doctor in a legal clinic—or, if Roe is overturned, endure a dangerous back-alley abortion, symbolized by the coat hanger. But a close look at the history of abortion in this country shows that there’s much more to this story. As a draft of the majority opinion overruling Roe v. Wade was leaked to the media this week, activists are once again preparing to take abortion into their own hands.
Reporter Jessica Bruder explores the abortion underground to learn about the movement’s origins, and reveals how activists today are mobilizing around effective and medically safe abortion methods that can be done at home.
Present-day relations between ‘the West’ and each of China, Russia and North Korea are often fractious to say the least, yet today’s global atmosphere of menace or crisis just as often has to do with history as it does with contemporary disagreements. All states of course seek ‘usable pasts’ which may or may not be in conflict with one another, but as Katie Stallard shows in Dancing on Bones, leaders in each of Beijing, Moscow and Pyongyang have of late gone to particularly great lengths to shape historical narratives which justify their grip on power.
Drawing on years of on-the-ground reporting and research in each of these three critically important countries, Stallard mixes analysis of political and historical events with first-hand interviews and reportage to offer a vivid sense of how history is put to ever-changing uses and why this matters. Accessibly written and richly referenced, Dancing on Bones: History and Power in China, Russia and North Korea (Oxford UP, 2022), sheds compelling light on often-under-considered connections between three countries which share much beyond their status as perceived ‘revisionist’ powers.
The history of Victory Day and its commemoration is especially relevant.
In cities across Russia on Monday morning, tanks and missile trucks will growl their way along the main streets. Soldiers will march across central squares. Fighter jets will roar overhead.
Victory Day, when Russians celebrate the 1945 endpoint of what they still call the “great patriotic war”, has gradually become the centrepiece of Vladimir Putin’s concept of Russian identity over his two decades in charge.
This year, as the Russian army’s gruesome assault on Ukraine grinds on, the day has particular resonance, with some expecting a dramatic announcement from Putin, either declaring victory in Ukraine or raising the stakes further.
Across Russia, some families will quietly remember the ancestors who gave their lives in the fight against Nazism, or toast the few veterans still alive. Others will take a more bombastic approach in line with the official messaging, perhaps adding a papier maché turret to their child’s pushchair to make it look like a tank, or daubing “To Berlin” on their cars.
A more sinister slogan that has gained popularity on Victory Day in recent years is “We can do it again”.
According to Russian state messaging, this is exactly what Russia has been doing in Ukraine since the full-scale invasion on 24 February. Since the start, the Kremlin has used the language and imagery of the second world war to describe the attack on its neighbour.
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Of course, it takes a particular mindset to look at Russia’s expansionist war, with the executions, targeting of civilians, filtration camps and harassment of dissidents at home, and come to the conclusion that it is the Ukrainians who are the Nazis.
But already for some years, the victory cult has been referred to by critics as pobedobesie, a derogatory play on the Russian words for victory and obscurantism – “victorymania” is an approximate English translation.
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These days, almost any interview with a Russian official about current events will contain references to the second world war. The foreign ministry tweets about the conflict almost daily. Putin’s influential, hawkish confidant Nikolai Patrushev recently blamed the west for the rise of Hitler, and suggested today’s western world (and their Ukrainian “puppets”) are the true heirs to the Nazis.
“You should not be fooled by Anglo-Saxon respectability. Even a sharply tailored suit cannot hide hatred, anger and inhumanity,” he raged.
In modern Russian accounts of the Soviet war effort, inconvenient elements, such as the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact of 1939 and subsequent carving-up of Europe, or the internal deportation of whole ethnic groups by Stalin’s regime during the war, are quietly ignored.
The image of “Nazis” has also become increasingly blurred. Russian history textbooks talk little about Hitler’s politics, his rise to power, his antisemitism or the Holocaust. Instead, the main characteristic of “Nazis” is that they attacked the Soviet Union.
By this logic, all those who threaten modern Russia are also Nazis.
This process has evolved gradually during Putin’s long years in charge….
There was barely a family in Russia that did not have relatives who fought in the war, and the tremendous losses the Soviet Union suffered in the victory over Germany dwarf the losses of the other allies combined. But the legacy of the war victory and Putin’s talk of being “winners” was also a rare historical bright spot for a population that was traumatised by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the economic chaos of the 1990s.
Of course, Russia is not the only country trapped in its narratives about the second world war….
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But both the level of distortion and the pervasiveness of the discourse in Russia are unmatched anywhere else in modern Europe. Gradually, Victory Day has become less about remembering the past and more about projecting the might of Putin’s new Russia.…
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In the absence of other firm ideological underpinnings to the Putin regime, the victory in 1945 and its twin in 2014 became the regime’s raison d’être, with both events marked by the orange-black ribbons.
Victory became Russia’s new religion….
This concept came to life with the consecration of a vast Cathedral of the Armed Forces outside Moscow two years ago….
“Only Russians are capable of sacrificing themselves to save humanity, just like Jesus did,” said an altar server during a tour of the cathedral in 2020.
Next to the cathedral is a brand new second world war museum. A guide named Viktoria moved swiftly through the rooms, talking about Soviet feats and sacrifices. Immersive graphic displays and loud booms created an impressive effect, but the feeling was more akin to being inside a computer game than to an educational experience.
There was an almost total lack of context about both the unsavoury elements of the Stalinist political system, and about the Nazis. The Holocaust was barely mentioned, and when it was, it was lumped in with the general Soviet war effort.
“Hitler wanted to destroy two-thirds of all the Slavs using concentration camps, and the most famous of these was at Auschwitz,” said Viktoria. Asked why there was no specific mention of the Holocaust, she said: “We decided to put it all together, because you shouldn’t separate victims by ethnicity.”
By this point, the concept of “Nazis” in the Russian discourse had been stripped of all context except for the 1941 attack on the Soviet Union. And with Russian television peddling an endless diet of scare stories about western designs on Russia, it is not a huge leap of the imagination for many to transpose the same narrative on to today’s events.
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If Russia holds a victory parade in the charred ruins of Mariupol on Monday, many watching at home on television may indeed buy into the idea that the city has been “liberated” by Russia from Ukrainian “Nazis” and their American backers. But few outside the country will agree, even among those who were sympathetic to Kremlin messaging before February.
For their part, the Ukrainians have responded to Russia’s cries of “Nazis” by holding up a mirror. Zelenskiy, rather than denying the significance or importance of the Soviet victory, has sought to wrest control of its symbols and legends from the Russians, calling today’s Kremlin “the ideological heirs of the Nazis”.
Through his aggression, Putin has helped create a unified national pride in Ukraine, a country that for three decades had many competing ideas of national identity and history. Now, Ukrainians have rallied around their flag just as many Soviet citizens fought to the death to defend their country even if they had previously had their doubts about their leaders.
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In short, the Russians have become the Nazis in their own narrative.
The claims Russia makes about how it is fighting Nazis in Ukraine become more illogical by the week, as evidenced by this week’s claim by the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, that Adolf Hitler had Jewish roots, when asked how Ukraine could be a Nazi state when its president is Jewish.
The foreign ministry then doubled down by releasing a statement detailing “tragic examples of cooperation between Jews and Nazis”, in the process infuriating Israel, which up to this point has been largely neutral in the conflict. Several days later Putin apologised to the Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett.
“I have no words … The Russian leadership has forgotten all the lessons of the second world war,” said Zelenskiy, commenting on Lavrov’s words in his nightly video message. “Or perhaps they never learned them.”
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Amnesty International said there was compelling evidence that Russian troops had committed war crimes, including extrajudicial executions of civilians, in the Kyiv area in February and March.
Civilians also suffered abuses such as “reckless shootings and torture” at the hands of Russian forces when they occupied an area outside Ukraine’s capital, including the town of Bucha, in the early stages of the invasion, the rights group said in a report.
These are not isolated incidents. These are very much part of a pattern wherever Russian forces were in control of a town or a village.
The report concluded that Russian troops had committed a “host of apparent war crimes” in Bucha, including “numerous unlawful killings”, most of them near the intersection of Yablunska and Vodoprovidna streets.
It said it had documented 22 cases of unlawful killing by Russian forces – “most of which were apparent extrajudicial executions” – in Bucha and nearby areas….
Germany will send seven self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine, on top of five artillery systems the Dutch government has already pledged, the German defence minister, Christine Lambrecht, said.
The seven Panzerhaubitze 2000 howitzers, described by their manufacturer as “the most powerful tube artillery system in the world”, will be delivered over the next few weeks, Lambrecht told reporters. The PzH 2000 is one of the most powerful artillery weapons in the Bundeswehr inventories and can hit targets at a distance of 40km (25 miles).
Twenty Ukrainian troops will be given training on the howitzers next week in Germany, Lambrecht’s defence chief, Gen Eberhard Zorn, said. These troops have experience in operating Soviet-built howitzers, he said.
Berlin will also supply a first ammunition package for the howitzers built by German defence company KMW, Zorn said, with further ammunition purchases to be handled directly between Kyiv and the company.
Last week, Germany reversed its long-held policy of not sending heavy weapons to war zones following pressure from European allies and at home for being slow to help Ukraine in its defence against Russian forces.
Some 3.8m people left Russia in the first quarter of 2022, official statistics show, with most people going to Georgia, Turkey, Kazakhstan and Finland.
Journalist Alex Luhn writes that the figure of 3.8m includes most of the pro-Western, opposition-minded people in Russia.
Nearly 25m tonnes of grains are stuck in Ukraine and unable to leave the country, because of infrastructure challenges and blocked Black Sea ports including Mariupol, a UN food agency said.
The blockages are seen as a factor behind the record-high food prices in March; Ukraine had been the world’s fourth largest exporter of maize (corn) and sixth largest wheat exporter, according to International Grains Council data.
The full silos could result in storage shortages during the next harvest in July and August, Josef Schmidhuber, a deputy director at Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said…
Addressing Chatham House, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy says the devastated southern port city of Mariupol is “an example of torture and starvation used as a weapon of war”, adding that no international organisations can enter the city.
Zelenskiy says:
This inhumanity [sic] and cruelty is how the Russian military treats people.
Death is not caused by war. This is not a military event. This is torturing to death. This is terrorism and hatred.
Asked what would be the minimum he would accept in a peace deal with Russia, Zelenskiy replies:
I was elected by the people of Ukraine as the president of Ukraine, not as president of a mini-Ukraine.
Russian troops must fall back and withdraw so that Ukraine can reclaim all o[f] its territories as of before Russia’s invasion, he says.
In the heated summer of 2020, thwarted in his desire for a violent crackdown on protesters for racial justice, Donald Trump included his vice-president in a complaint that senior advisers were “losers”.
Trump’s second defense secretary, Mark Esper, details the Oval Office outburst in a new book. A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Defense Secretary in Extraordinary Times, will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.
Esper’s account of an extraordinary presidential question in the same meeting – “Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something” – has already been reported. Pence’s inclusion in Trump’s invective has not.
Amid such revelations from the book, the New York Times related Esper’s claim that Trump once proposed launching “missiles into Mexico to destroy the drug labs”.
According to Esper, Trump said “no one would know it was us”, because he would simply deny responsibility. Esper said he would have thought Trump was joking, had he not been looking at the president as he said it.
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Esper writes that he helped block other such ideas from the president and his aides, among them proposals from the policy adviser Stephen Miller that the US should send 250,000 troops to the Mexico border.
Miller is also alleged to have suggested severing the head of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, an Islamic State leader killed by the US, dipping it in pig’s blood and parading it as a warning to other terrorists.
Esper says he told Miller that would be a “war crime”. To the New York Times, Miller denied the episode and called Esper a “moron”.
The former defense secretary’s full account of the meeting at which Trump suggested shooting protesters, as Washington and other US cities were convulsed by protests inspired by the police murder of George Floyd in late May 2020, is equally remarkable….
KGsays
Update on UK local elections: overall picture much as before, but SNP also winning extra seats. Overall in Britain (NI isn’t having local council elections, just the Assembly) Greens are up 57 seats (having won 105 so far – so more than doubling their previous tally), Scottish Greens have won 21 so far and are up 10 according to BBC – but I know they are lagging in their count and it must be nearing 30 from results I’ve seen on the party slack workspace. We had a total of 19 at the last local elections.
Republican talking points … and how those those talking points are disingenuous:
[…] the National Republican Senatorial Committee advised incumbents and candidates to tell voters, among other things, “Republicans DO NOT want to throw doctors and women in jail.”
The point was hardly subtle: Democrats will eagerly paint Republicans as extremists who will push radical prosecutorial ideas, which is why it’s important for GOP incumbents and candidates to reassure the electorate that the party’s goals are reasonable and mainstream.
It would be an important point — if it were true.
But it’s not. Politico reported today, for example, that Republicans in state legislatures have “already enacted mandatory minimum sentences that would go into effect if Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion is handed down.” Those policies include the prospect of felony charges against physicians.
Related measures that would open the door to prosecuting women are advancing right now. The New York Times reported this morning:
The State Legislature in Louisiana advanced a proposal this week that would classify abortion as homicide, going further than anti-abortion measures in other states by making it possible for prosecutors to bring criminal cases against women who end a pregnancy…. In addition to punishing women who obtain abortions, opponents said the bill would arguably criminalize in vitro fertilization and forms of birth control.
[…] This Louisiana measure is being taken quite seriously: It passed a state House committee this week, and is advancing to the legislature’s floor.
In other words, Louisiana is moving forward with a proposal in which women could be charged with murder for terminating an unwanted pregnancy.
According to a Washington Post report, the Rev. Brian Gunter, a Baptist pastor, “helped draft the bill.” He told the Post that Louisiana already has a “trigger law,” which would make abortion illegal as soon as Roe is overturned, but he and his allies saw it as “woefully insufficient.”
I don’t doubt that many Republicans will take the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s advice and tell voters, “Republicans DO NOT want to throw doctors and women in jail.” But reality will continue to point in the opposite direction.
For the first time on record, the U.S. economy has now had 12 straight months with jobs gains above 400,000.
Expectations heading into this morning showed projections of about 400,000 new jobs added in the United States in April. As it turns out, according to the new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the preliminary tally suggests the domestic job market did a little better than that. CNBC News reported this morning:
The U.S. economy added slightly more jobs than expected in April amid an increasingly tight labor market and despite surging inflation and fears of a growth slowdown, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. Nonfarm payrolls grew by 428,000 for the month, a bit above the Dow Jones estimate of 400,000. The unemployment rate was 3.6%, slightly higher than the estimate for 3.5%.
Note, the U.S. economy has now had 12 straight monthly jobs gains above 400,000. According to a Wall Street Journal report, that’s never happened since the government started maintaining national jobs records in 1939.
That said, the news wasn’t all great: Job totals from February and March were both revised down. That said, the overall picture is still worth celebrating: So far in 2022, the economy has created over 2 million jobs, and that’s after just four months. By any fair measure, that’s an extraordinary total, which is nearly identical to the total of jobs created in all of 2019. […]
n recent months, Republicans have responded to these developments by pretending not to notice them. […]
The entire premise of Russian propaganda behind their illegal, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is that they are there to fight against “Ukrainian Nazis” and the “genocide perpetrated by the Kyiv regime.” That theme of fighting against the “Nazi junta in Kyiv” has been repeated in every speech by Vladimir Putin, on the floor of the U.N. by Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya, and especially in the endless television appearances of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
This week, Lavrov elaborated on this theme. After it was pointed out that Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy is himself Jewish, the foreign minister made a slightly controversial statement. “Zelenskyy is a Jew?” said Lavrov with mock surprise. “Hitler also had Jewish origins. The greatest antisemites are precisely the Jews.”
That claim generated immediate outrage around the world, where it was recognized as a not at all subtle variant on the idea that Jews were themselves the agents of their own destruction, both during the Holocaust and today. It stirred an immediate furor in Israel which, for the first time since the invasion began, announced that it would send not just humanitarian, but military assistance to Ukraine. That, in turn, led to Putin getting on the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to apologize for Lavrov’s remarks.
At the same time, Russian media continued to claim that the Jewish president of Ukraine was the leader of a Nazi regime intent on committing genocide. Which seemed awkward.
To clear this up, Russia’s top Tucker Carlsons got on the job and went back to something Putin said in the speech he gave to initially justify the invasion. In that speech, Putin tied together a charge of “neo-Nazism and Russophobia.” Now Russia has gone one step further and simply redefined Nazi to better fit their needs.
[Julia David tweet] After Lavrov’s hideous antisemitic Nazi remarks, for which Putin had to apologize to Israel, new directives apparently landed at the state TV studios. Now they claim that Nazism doesn’t have to be antisemitic and in its new iteration it is [drumroll] anti-Slavic and anti-Russian.
Anyone who opposes Russia is now, by Russia’s definition, a Nazi. So Zelenskyy is a Nazi. Biden is a Nazi. Chances are good you’re also a Nazi. It’s a very handy thing to be able to use the most vile label in at least the last two centuries against anyone who opposes your will. It allows any action to be justified, and for Russian soldiers to feel good about torturing and killing children in dark basements. Because, after all, Nazi children.
Threaten someone, and if they don’t surrender, you can kill them. Because resisting makes them a Nazi. So handy.
Of course, by removing all context from the word “Nazi” and turning it simply into a synonym for anyone who opposes Russia, Putin and company have also destroyed even the pretext for justification in their propaganda. If Nazi is simply a term for someone who refuses to do what you say, it hardly justifies starting a bloody war and engaging in actual genocide, complete with industrial-scale murder, mass burials, and tens of thousands being shipped across borders to labor camps.
Perhaps the word Putin is looking for isn’t Nazi, but untermensch. Because that certainly fits better with how it’s being applied. And now, with that terminology problem under control, Putin can get back to finding someone to make a film about his upcoming parade. Wouldn’t want to miss a goosestep.
On Friday morning, we’re still getting claims that Ukraine conducted “successful counteroffensive operations” near both Kharkiv and Izyum, but there still doesn’t seem to be any detailed results that can be pinned to a map. This could be because the results were not all that spectacular. [Euromaidan Press tweet and map available at the link]
On the other hand, it could easily be that Ukraine isn’t ready for every move they made in the last 24 hours to be diagramed by the army of Telegram and Twitter analysts who constantly search for a long list of place names, hoping to get some confirmation of troop movements so they can change the pins on their map and … yes, I am completely guilty of this.
There do seem to be indicators that in another area, down near Kherson, Ukrainian forces captured a series of villages. From the indications given so far, those villages seem likely to be at the southwest edge of the line, and could include some of those known to be in dispute (yellow markers) before Thursday. [Map available at the link.]
Russia is busy in Kherson putting up Russian-language signs, blocking the entry or exit of anyone from the city, and making declarations like this:
Russian official to Kherson residents: Russia is here forever
Andrey Turchak, Secretary of the General Council of the United Russia (#Russia’s ruling party) said that “Russia is here forever” in his address to the residents of temporary occupied #Kherson region.
Meanwhile Ukrainian soldiers in the area are trying to get messages to those in the city that they are working to drive Russia out of the area.
Kherson – you have not been forgotten.
Wait a little longer, our soldiers are close❤️
[video available at the link] The shout at the end of that message is “Kherson is Ukraine!” But right now, the nearest Ukrainian forces are at least 15 kilometers outside the city, and it’s genuinely unclear whether Russia is on the offense or defense in this region.
One Ukrainian account has a more explicit response to the idea of Russia being in Kherson forever.
#Russian deputy said that “#Russia has come to #Kherson forever.”
“There should be no doubts about this, there will be no return to the past.”
I agree but little remark – you fucking thugs will stay in form of fertilizer of our soil! 🤬🤬🤬
Oh, and a translation of her profile clears up something for Putin. “I’m not a Russophobe,” it says. “I don’t fear them. I hate them.”
POPASNA
Using NASA’s FIRMS data requires a little caution, because sometimes a fire is just a fire. Someone burning off a field for spring, a smoldering trash pile, or a plain old house fire can look no different than conflagrations raised by artillery strikes. With that in mind, there does seem to be something worth noting in these images from Popasna.
Looking back across the last month, Russia has genuinely pounded the town over and over. [Image available at the link.] When reducing the data to show only the last week, there is an expected drop in the overall number of strikes, but there is also a change in the locations that Russia is targeting. [Image available at the link.]
Russia no longer seems to be firing into the southeast section of the town. Instead the fire is restricted to the western edge and northern parts of Popasna.
Over the last month, there have been numerous reports that Russian forces have “reached Popasna” and even videos of fighting within residential streets of the town. This data would seem to indicate that Russia feels it has either cleared, or more likely simply reduced, the southern and eastern half of Popasna, and is now fighting against Ukrainian positions that are in a [smaller] area of the town.
Popasna, home of a deadly cycle where Russian forces are drawn in, then put under artillery fire, seems to be getting gradually reduced. But it also doesn’t look as if Russia is likely to be announcing any victory there in the next few days. […]
Link, with quoted text above beginning at the subhead “UKRAINIAN COUNTEROFFENSIVE?”
BTW, the article from which I quoted in comment 314 is accompanied by a photo of “Patron, world famous mine-sniffing pup,” which is adorable, but with a scary background.
Here’s who you want on your side in an election and in a fight as big as the one we’re having over abortion rights right now: Elizabeth Warren. She’s backing Jessica Cisneros in her bid to oust the last anti-abortion Democrat in the House, Henry Cuellar.
“Henry Cuellar is on the wrong side of every issue. He holds an ‘A’ rating from the NRA. He voted with Donald Trump 69% of the time during Trump’s first two years in office. He even voted to build Donald Trump’s stupid wall,” Warren tells voters. “But when it comes to reproductive rights, Henry’s got a record that makes my blood boil. Henry Cuellar supported restrictive bans on abortion.”
“He stuck with the Texas Republicans as they passed abortion bans and as they criminalized doctors.” Warren continues. “Henry Cuellar voted to defund Planned Parenthood’s lifesaving work providing cancer screenings and birth control and women’s health care for low-income women.”
“And after Texas enacted the most restrictive anti-abortion law in the country, Henry Cuellar was the only congressional Democrat to vote against passing a bill that would codify the constitutional rights laid out in Roe v. Wade. Henry Cuellar is bad for Texas, and he’s bad for America.” That’s the bad part.
It’s also all true. And when Cuellar took that lone Democratic vote against protecting abortion rights, Cuellar wasn’t just defiant. He was obnoxious, as highlighted here by David Nir. “By the way, when people frame this as ‘women’s health’ … if you want to call it abortion, call it abortion. It’s not a health issue.” How’s that for a misogynist, arrogant man who has absolutely no place calling himself a Democrat. He lives in Texas, the epicenter of the abortion debate. Where life has been entirely upended for thousands of women, including his constituents since the procedure was all but banned last fall, and still he shows that level of contempt for the people of his district. […]
The Latino civil rights organization that helped secure the historic 1982 Supreme Court victory guaranteeing a public school education for all children regardless of immigration status condemned Greg Abbott “as one of our most irresponsible and desperate politicians.” The right-wing Texas governor, invigorated by the Supreme Court’s draft forced birth decision, has threatened to challenge the Plyler v. Doe decision. [!!!]
Justices from 1982’s decision “recognized the folly in excluding certain kids from school,” Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) President Thomas A. Saenz said in a statement received by Daily Kos. “Abbott now seeks to inflict by intention the harms that nine justices agreed should be avoided 40 years ago.” Yes, this fits in with the GOP’s overall goal to decimate all public school education. But it’s also undeniably part of Texas’ effort to use the courts to make life for immigrants as hellish as possible.
“When it comes to immigration, Abbott has helped build the Texas segment of the anti-immigrant judicial pipeline, running from the courtrooms of like-minded federal judges through the Fifth Circuit appeals court and straight into the Supreme Court of the United States,” said America’s Voice legal advisor David Leopold.
Just days ago, corrupt Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed the state’s 11th immigration-related lawsuit against the Biden administration. The lawsuits have not been filed because the administration has acted unlawfully, but because corrupt Ken Paxton can file them on the flimsiest of grounds and still win. “It should come as no surprise that Abbott can now confidently broaden his war on immigrants to a brazen attack on undocumented children,” Leopold continued. “Abbott knows his judicial challenge to Plyler will land in the courtroom of one of his Republican political allies.”
[…] Stephen Miller […] the noted white supremacist, reportedly sought to block undocumented kids from public education during the insurrectionist administration. “Ultimately, they abandoned the idea after being told repeatedly that any such effort ran afoul of a 1982 Supreme Court case guaranteeing access to public schools,” Time reported in 2019. The right-wing didn’t have a 6-3 court then. It has one now. […]
MALDEF said that the Supreme Court’s historic 1982 decision came after nearly five years of litigation. “The landmark case, Plyler v. Doe, grew out of a 1977 attempt by the Tyler Independent School District in Texas to oust the children of undocumented workers—farmhands, for the most part—from the school system by imposing tuition of as much as $1,000 per student to attend what were, for everyone else, free public schools.” MALDEF said. Justice William J. Brennan Jr. wrote that “Education provides the basic tools by which individuals might lead economically productive lives to the benefit of us all.”
Abbott really has the gall to pretend that he’s concerned about education “expenses” when he’s spending billions in taxpayer funds on his racist Operation Lone Star border scheme. Texas in fact recently ballooned the stunt by another $500 million, raiding federal coronavirus money in the process. Rest assured Abbott is prepared to waste millions more, and perhaps billions more, in the name of continued political power and racist animus, including denying brown children an education.
“After Lavrov’s hideous antisemitic Nazi remarks, for which Putin had to apologize to Israel, new directives apparently landed at the state TV studios. Now they claim that Nazism doesn’t have to be antisemitic and in its new iteration it is [drumroll] anti-Slavic and anti-Russian….”
Video with subtitles at the (Twitter) link.
blfsays
Nasa/JPL’s Mars helicopter Ingenuity completed its 27th flight about a week ago, surveying “‘Fortun Ridge’ [named] after a parish in Norway, is a geologic feature of interest because data collected from orbit, and at a distance by Perseverance, indicates it is the boundary between the two major rock units on the crater floor. Previous images suggest tilted layers of rock in this area of Mars are uncommon (unlike on Earth, where plate tectonics and earthquakes cause tilting)”, from NASA’s Mars Helicopter Scouts Ridgeline for Perseverance Science Team.
The right-wing extremists—Proud Boys and white nationalists and far-right populists, some of them associated with Trumpist Kari Lake’s GOP gubernatorial campaign—who turned out to counter-protest abortion rights protesters in Phoenix on Tuesday were not just there to cause violence and threaten women and “leftists,” though they succeeded well enough at that. They were also packing heat.
One of the men—Michael Merritt Graham, 34—was carrying a .45 caliber Glock 36 pistol when state troopers arrested him after observing him punch two protesters. Arizona Mirror reporter Jerod MacDonald-Evoy reported that Graham had tucked the pistol into the waistband of his pants, out of view, but also witnessed other counter-protesters “openly carrying firearms.”
This was not an anomaly, but rather fits a growing pattern of violent and threatening authoritarian aggression directed at women’s rights activists—along with an increased animus directed at the LGBTQ community—that has broken into the open since the news this week that the Supreme Court is preparing to gut abortion rights in the U.S. Right-wing extremists not only are avidly celebrating the news, they are openly planning violence in response to the predictable protests in defense of abortion rights. [video available at the link]
Graham was wearing an InfoWars T-shirt with the slogan “Baby Lives Matter” on it. Before the violent confrontations, he and an anti-LGBTQ/anti-masking provocateur named Ethan Schmidt-Crockett had brandished bullhorns to harass the protesters, who had turned out by the thousands to protest the imminent demise of the 50-year-old Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion. They were joined by a cluster of about 20 other young men who mocked the protesters from the edge of the crowd.
[…] The men had attempted to provoke violence throughout the evening; at one point, Schmidt walked straight into the crowd while recording video and mocking the protest in a blatant attempt to create a confrontation. Eventually, they succeeded when Graham ripped a protester’s sign out of his hands and threw it to the ground; according to state troopers, when the protester reached down to retrieve it, Graham punched the man in the face and bloodied him.
As he attempted to leave, Graham “sucker-punched” another protester named Jace Robert Denis, 20, who responded by chasing after Graham. The troopers then arrested both men. Schmidt was also briefly arrested but then released with no charges.
Nick Martin reports that Schmidt-Crockett has developed a social media following as a far-right provocateur, primarily for harassing people in various public settings for wearing masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. He has filmed himself harassing cancer patients—who he describes as his favorite targets, since they are “weak and vulnerable and easy targets.” [JFC]
[…] He was arrested last June for extreme drunken driving and posted video showing his ankle monitor and telling the audience, “I drive better when I’m drunk.”
Schmidt-Crockett proudly promotes his antics in online videos. In one he can be seen throwing up a Nazi salute while confronting Black lawmaker wearing a mask, telling him it’s a “slave muzzle.” In another, he rants at length about his support for Russia in its war on Ukraine, calling for the assassination of Ukrainian President Volodomir Zelenskyy. At the end, he throws up another Nazi salute and shouts, “Heil Putin!” [Definitely one of the Best People.]
[…] He’s also posted videos and texts saying he’s “going hunting for LGBT pedophiles” and “non binaries,” saying ominously: “We’re hunting for you.”
Joining Schmidt-Crocket and Graham in the crowd of counter-protesters were members of the American Populist Union (APU), a white nationalist group closely aligned with Nick Fuentes’ America First and its “Groyper army.” Kyle Clifton, who posts white nationalist propaganda on Instagram, was one of the APU members present.
According to MacDonald-Evoy, Clifton arrived with a group of staffers from far-right GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s campaign, some of whom handed out Lake campaign signs. Matthew Martinez, Lake’s field manager, was among them.
The APU’s Twitter account has recently embraced the Supreme Court’s imminent ruling with typically ominous rhetoric:
Roe v Wade must be overturned, but let’s stop pretending that abortion is a “states’ issue.”
Abortion is murder, and it should be federally illegal in all 50 states.
Overturning Roe v Wade is just the beginning, not the end.
[…] Outside the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., Proud Boys were spotted trolling protesters who had arrived to voice their anger, but no violence erupted.
These same violent neofascist elements have exploded with joy and anticipation online, as Tess Owen reports for Vice—eagerly awaiting fresh opportunities to target their “leftist” enemies. Most of them, unsurprisingly, are dipping into the usual cesspool of misogynist and violent language about women and sex, particularly on Telegram.
“Hahahaha fuck you whores,” wrote Tulsa’s Proud Boy chapter.
“BEGIN PREEMPTIVELY ROASTING HOES NOW,” Nick Ochs, who founded Hawaii’s Proud Boy chapter, posted.
“Happy ‘whores on suicide watch’ day, boys!!!!” wrote someone in a white nationalist channel.
At other extremist platforms like Gab, the story was the same. “The same people who openly want vaccine mandates are the same people who want to normalize pedophilia, are the same people who want to legalize baby murder,” wrote one verified Gab user. “Leftism is literally satanism.” [OMFG]
[…] The appearance not merely of Christian Nationalist beliefs within the ranks of the online far right, but of Christian Identity—the bigoted theological movement claiming that white people are the true “Children of Israel,” that Jews are the literal descendants of Satan, and that all nonwhite people are soulless “mud people”—has been a building trend in the past couple of years, and now appears poised to break out in far-right civil violence over abortion.
[…] We have known for some time that violent street groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers have shifted their post-Jan. 6 strategy from a focus on large national events to small, mostly local opportunities to attach themselves to various right-wing causes. These events are generally organized as right-wing protests related to COVID-19 restrictions, or the supposed infiltration of critical race theory (CRT) into school curricula, or abortion rights—generally any cause will suffice. Once attached, the thuggish elements bring threats, intimidation, and actual violence.
One of their chief avenues for this strategy is to hook up with Christian-nationalist groups organizing religious events of various kinds, [Well, that figures … and it is very scary.]
[…] The threatening language now emanating from the “Patriot” movement and its acolytes in places like Coeur d’Alene, Idaho—where a militia-oriented biker group’s members have vowed to “go head to head” with the city’s Pride event in June, though a spokesman recently tried to backpedal on the threat—reflects how widespread this kind of anti-abortion extremism has become, primarily through neofascist movements like the Proud Boys and the Groypers whose racial and ethnic animus have often been considered defining features, but for whom in reality misogyny and a reflexive loathing of women is even more foundational.
Misogyny has always been a central component of fascist politics [snipped details]
As Helen Lewis explained in The Atlantic in 2019, the realm of online misogynists is in many regards the beating heart of the radical right, since they generate many of the core ideas of white nationalism and other extremist belief systems, including the belief that “feminization” is destroying Western civilization and that women need to be subservient to men in order to create a strong society. They also all promote the idea that the world can only be saved by strong men committing acts of violence. [Shades of Tucker Carlson]
This is why, as they prepare to take to the streets in protest of the loss of abortion rights, progressive factions need to make careful preparations for the likelihood they will be targeted by these neofascists. […]
The U.S. is trying to lure Russian scientists in particular, but a leaked State Department cable indicates many others need help after fleeing the Kremlin’s rule.
Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine has led a growing number of Russians to abandon their country and seek entry to America — leaving U.S. officials scrambling at embassies worldwide and even along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a State Department cable obtained by POLITICO and interviews with U.S. officials, lawmakers and advocates.
Some lawmakers and activists are urging President Joe Biden to seize the moment and roll out a welcome mat for fleeing Russians. They argue that would send a powerful signal of U.S. generosity to ordinary Russians — some of whom could be threatened with treason for opposing the war — and undermine Vladimir Putin’s oppressive regime by accelerating brain drain from his country.
[…] But the issue is politically sensitive, and — with the exception of one notable proposal aimed at Russian scientists — the Biden administration has yet to take any major steps to ease Russians’ path to the United States.
[…] Hundreds of thousands of Russians — among them journalists, political dissidents and LGBTQ activists — are believed to have fled in recent months. Many have left because Putin has coupled his latest invasion of Ukraine, which he first attacked in 2014, with draconian new rules barring anti-war protests, censoring news media and limiting the work of civil society groups. Others are departing because they see no future in a country likely to be isolated and economically deprived for years due to international sanctions.
Many Russians who’ve left are unlikely to be able to return home while Putin is in power. At the same time, there’s a recognition among those Russians and their supporters that Ukrainians, whose cities are being leveled by the Kremlin’s airstrikes, face more dire straits.
“Not only do the Russians who left oppose Putin’s war and an increasingly authoritarian Russia, they have also been crystal clear that their sympathies are with the Ukrainian people, and they don’t for a second pretend that their plight is anything like theirs,” said Matthew Rojansky, president and CEO of The U.S. Russia Foundation. […]
Wonkette: “Douthat: Men Can’t Succeed Unless Women Are Forced To Have Babies Against Their Will”
There have been a lot of bad takes since a draft of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked. Endless, endless bad takes. So it takes a lot to stand out — but Ross Douthat has managed.
On Wednesday, feminist Jill Filipovic tweeted a thread about the ways in which men have benefited from Roe. “There are millions of men whose lives would have been much worse without abortion.” she wrote. “Men who wouldn’t have found their big loves, wouldn’t have their kids, wouldn’t have been as successful, wouldn’t have taken big risks. Many of them don’t think about it. Some don’t even know it.” She went on to list some of the opportunities that men might not have had if they had been forced to become fathers before they were ready.
This is true. Also it feels important to note that trans men have benefited from Roe in the exact same way that cisgender women have, but yes, cisgender men have benefitted as well.
Today, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat responded to that thread with a set of assertions gleaned directly from your local incel message board.
“Worth noting that in the 50 yrs since Roe,” he tweeted, “men have become less likely to find a spouse, less likely father kids or live with the kids they father, and less likely to participate in the workforce.” […]
If we’re speaking factually here, there is nothing to indicate that any of this has anything at all to do with Roe. As many were quick to point out in the responses to his tweet, there are myriad other factors here and correlation is not causation. […]
I am once again begging people to learn the difference between correlation and causation. Begging.
Note the decline in men’s participation in the labor force actually *slows down* right after Roe, almost levelling off for about 15 years. And then starts dropping again for what is probably a super-complicate bunch of interconnected reasons, because that’s how Earth works. https://twitter.com/jonrog1/status/1522591497358495744
That being said, even if it were true that Roe led to a decline in men’s participation in the labor force and made it less likely for them to marry and have children, it would be beyond grotesque to point to those things as a knock against it.
The implication here is that men had jobs that were rightfully theirs taken away by women and others assigned female at birth who should have been at home taking care of babies they didn’t want to have.
The implication here is that he would prefer that those women be married to men they wouldn’t have chosen to marry were it not for reasons of survival. Or for reasons of “shotgun wedding.” That he would prefer it be more difficult to leave an abusive situation.
That is, what is the word, evil. It’s also insulting to cis men — suggesting that they are giant losers who can’t compete in the workforce unless women are taken out of it, they won’t have kids without forcing someone to have them against their will, and that they won’t get married unless their prospective wife has no other option for survival.
It would be easy to consider this a one-off if this wasn’t the same argument frequently used by those seeking to limit the social safety net. Just last week, Marjorie Taylor Greene argued that women will not get married if they can get welfare. Granted, she also argued in that same breath that no one would have any reason to go to work if they were paid a living wage and didn’t have to pay out the wazoo for someone to take care of their child while they were at work.
Via Raw Story:
“And they’re moving further into those programs of socialism,” she said of Democrats. “They want to pay for child care. They want to have a living wage. And these are things that are never going to solve problems actually. No one will have any reason to go to work.”
“I am opposed to all of that,” the lawmaker continued. “Yes, welfare does have a purpose and a place and there are times the people have really hard times in life and definitely need it. But we need to have a program in place where they get moved off generational welfare.”
Greene added: “Why does a woman need to be married if she can be married to the government and keep getting a government check?”
Ah yes, no foundation better to build a marriage on besides “Because otherwise I would starve to death.”
Lots of men, of course, have managed to succeed in life without needing to hamstring women in order to make it happen. Shockingly enough, many women have even gotten married, voluntarily, to men, without the looming threat of poverty and a child they can’t afford to care for hanging over their head.
[…] no one should get married to anyone unless that is what they actually want. One would hope that would be the vast majority of people who are not Ross Douthat, Marjorie Taylor Greene, or an incel planning an upcoming mass murder — but sadly that is not the kind of thing we can count on anymore.
But it is one reason why we really, really, really need to hold on to the right to have a legal abortion. Because while Roe did not actually hinder the ability of cisgender men to participate in the workforce, it would certainly hinder the economic prospects of those who were forced to have a baby against their will or put them in a situation where they have to stay in relationships that are not good for them in order to survive. And that, contrary to what Ross Douthat thinks, would actually be a terrible thing.
Glasgow’s first trans councillor said she hopes her election will demonstrate that transgender people are “not a threat”.
Elaine Gallagher said she was “absolutely delighted” at having been elected as a councillor for the Scottish Greens in the Southside Central ward, but said she felt “a little bit apprehensive”.
She told PA News:
I have put my head above the parapet and I’m going to be a target.
She said that she had recently discussed the issue of abuse towards women in politics with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, and voiced her fears of what that could be like as a trans woman.
Gallagher said:
It’s not oppression bingo. But I’m going to have to be very careful to not let it get to me.
The people who are objecting to me in office are very often conservative people who will get used to the fact, and also, the people who object to people in office who’s not (like) them will also just have to lump it.
[…] Trump demanded that the military recall two retired four-star officers who criticized him so they could be court-martialed, a new book says.
According to a copy of ex-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper’s memoir, A Sacred Oath, obtained by TPM, Trump demanded that former Gen. Stan McChrystal and former Navy Admiral William H. McRaven be recalled into active duty so that they could be court-martialed for criticizing the President.
“So disloyal,” the book recounts Trump complaining to Esper and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley.
The effort began in May 2020, the book says, after articles appeared in various right-wing news outlets claiming that McChrystal was advising the Democratic Party on ways to use artificial intelligence to damage Trump’s re-election effort. One Breitbart article from the time accused McChrystal of participating in an effort to “track down and counter Trump supporters on social media.”
“This spun the president up,” Esper wrote.
McChrystal was working as an adviser for Defeat Disinfo, a Democratic Party-aligned PAC that planned on using technology to counter false talking points about COVID-19.
“Everyone wishes the Pandora’s box was closed and none of this existed, but it does,” McChrystal told the Washington Post in May 2020, referring to the problem of disinformation.
McChrystal resigned from the military in 2010 following a Rolling Stone article in which he and his staff were quoted speaking disparagingly about senior White House officials, including then-Vice President Biden. […]
In the memoir, Esper recounts a May 2020 meeting between himself, Milley, and Trump, to address the then-President’s anger toward the two retired officers.
“The next thing I knew, Mark Milley and I were sitting in front of the president trying to talk him out of recalling McChrystal to active duty,” Esper wrote.
Trump also purportedly contemplated adding McRaven to the court-martial plan. McRaven was an outspoken critic of Trump during his administration, writing in an October 2019 op-ed in the New York Times that the U.S. was “under attack” by Trump.
“The president told Milley and me that he ‘want[ed] to call them [McChrystal and McRaven] back to active duty and court-martial them’ for what they said,” the book reads.
Esper wrote that he and Milley tried to dissuade Trump from going through with the plan, telling him that the plan would backfire.
But, per Esper, Trump only relented after Milley “promis[ed] that he would personally call the officers and ask them to dial it back.”
McChrystal, reached by email, told TPM that “there was no call I remember — and I would have remembered that.”
He also wrote that it was the first he had heard of the matter, and declined to comment further. McRaven could not be reached for comment.
Scottish Labour has become the closest challenger to Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP after the Scottish Conservatives plunged to their worst electoral result in a decade.
Labour enjoyed an unexpected win in West Dunbartonshire, taking overall control of the council, and won a swathe of seats elsewhere as it took the second largest share of the vote overall.
In another surprise, it fell one seat short of beating the SNP in Glasgow, Sturgeon’s home city, raising the prospect that the SNP may form a formal coalition there with the Greens….
SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon has hailed a “resounding victory” as her party celebrates its best ever Scottish council election result.
The first minister said:
The people of this country clearly trust the SNP nationally and locally.
This election has once again confirmed the SNP is – by any measure – Scotland’s dominant political force and our resounding victory is even more remarkable given my party has been in government at Holyrood for 15 years.
She said the party would now turn its efforts to the task of reaching agreement on forming administrations with other parties who “share our progressive principles”.
She said:
While this result is yet another resounding endorsement of the SNP – and for pro-independence parties – it has yet again confirmed that Scotland utterly rejects the corruption, sleaze and law-breaking of the Tories….
Did TFG think he would order the Court Martial Judges to convict, then hold a trial?
That is not how it works.
Idiot. (but we knew that)
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“Donald Trump is a weak man’s idea of a strong man.” – George Will
While I agree with that, I would only add that he is a committed fascist and wannabe reckless, immoral, unethical, authoritarian who holds the U.S. Constitution in contempt.
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Maybe he could have had these guys fired into a Mexican drug lab?
Just spitballing here.
——————————-
“And if the Four Stars don’t show up for trial, we send the Gazpacho after them!”
That’s cold.
—————————–
This is the sort of bullpucky you can expect from a moron who doesn’t understand that a pledge to Country and Constitution isn’t a pledge to the POTUS personally.
I keep thinking I can no longer be surprised by the sheer depth of his stupidity…and then he proves me wrong once again.
———————————
OT good news.
Chuck Todd’s MTP Daily is being moved to the streaming service. Freeing up an hour a day for followup questions.
The state of Tennessee just turned its clocks back to a time before clocks, apparently, as the governor signed a law making it a Class E felony with a $50,000 fine for anyone to get an abortion pill through the mail, the Tennessean reports.
According to HB 2416, abortion pills may only be given to a patient in a doctor’s office by a physician. A doctor “must examine the patient in-person” and “inform the patient that the patient may see the remains of the unborn child in the process of completing the abortion.”
A medicated abortion has become the most common method in the U.S. in terminating early-term pregnancies up to 10 weeks. According to The New York Times, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) permanently approved abortion pills by mail and through telehealth consultation in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The new law states: “A manufacturer, supplier, pharmacy, physician, qualified physician, or other person may not provide an abortion-inducing drug via courier, delivery, or mail service.”
Lee’s signature comes just days after a draft opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court indicating a ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked to Politico.
The bill additionally reads that all patients receiving abortion pills are required to return for a two-week follow-up visit with the provider.
The original bill would have come with a 20-year prison sentence, but has since been amended.
One of the line items in the bill also covers “informed consent counseling services” about “abortion pill reversal,” a myth that has been widely dismissed as false.
“Anti-abortion advocates and lawmakers insist that abortion reversal should be offered to any pregnant person seeking a medical abortion; however, offering this procedure is extremely problematic. Studies supporting this procedure are not backed by an institutional review board or ethical review committee, raising concern for the protection of human subjects in these hormonal experiments,” according to Planned Parenthood.
“Mifepristone alone does not terminate pregnancies – in fact, as many as half of women who take only mifepristone continue their pregnancies. Therefore, there is no data to support that the injection of progesterone is what is “reversing” abortions. Forcing doctors to share this information supports the narrative that people often regret their abortion, which is not the reality,” the Planned Parenthood website reads
.
In 2019, Tennessee passed a “trigger law” bill banning all abortions in the state 30 days after the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. Including Tennessee, there are 13 states across the nation that have signaled their readiness to ban abortions in the same way.
…The photograph sent to RFE/RL’s Siberia[dot]Realities by an aunt of one of the sailors on board, Sergei Grudinin, 21, is some of the strongest evidence suggesting that the video is not what the Russian military made it out to be, but rather footage shot at some point before the sinking….
From the Meduza liveblog:
Gone missing in nobody’s waters: Dmitry Shkrebets (whose son “went missing” aboard the Moskva guided missile cruiser when it sank on April 14, 2022) revealed on social media that Russian military prosecutors claimed in a letter that the warship never entered Ukraine’s territorial waters and wasn’t part of Russia’s “special operation.” His son is still unaccounted for. “What kind of scum do you have to be to send us something like this?” Shkrebets wrote on Vkontakte.
Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade obviously doesn’t understand the law when it comes to discriminating against people who are pregnant. Well… this is Fox News we’re talking about.
HuffPost reports that Kilmeade, a Fox & Friends host, babbled on Thursday about the recent hire to a new advisory board of the Homeland Security Department—the Disinformation Governance Board, Nina Jankowicz, who apparently is (brace yourself) pregnant. Kilmeade just couldn’t seem to wrap his head around the complexity of that fact.
In addition to being pregnant, Jankowicz, is a disinformation expert, a Fulbright-Clinton Public Policy fellow, an advisor to the Ukrainian government, and a frequent speaker on issues about Russian and Eastern European disinformation issues. Can’t imagine why she was hired?
“Then, we find out who is in charge of it … Nina Jankowicz, who’s about eight-and-a-half months pregnant, so I’m not sure how you get a job, and then you just, you can’t do a job for three months… I’m not faulting her, but I don’t know why you would give someone a job that you think is so important,” Kilmeade driveled.
Surprisingly, his co-host Ainsley Earhardt challenged Kilmeade on his comments, saying, “Well, I’ll defend her on that one, Brian… She has the right to have a baby and have maternity leave.”
Of course, Kilmeade stood his shaky ground, answering with: “No, I know, but if you really want to have someone head up and organization, this is the face of the organization.”
[…] Kilmeade’s comments only highlight how out of touch conservatives are on the issue of abortion and on maternal rights. The U.S. is the only industrialized nation without a mandated paid family leave policy or paid maternity leave. And according to Paid Leave US, one in four working mothers are forced to return to work within two weeks of childbirth.
The Admiral Makarov, an Admiral Grigorovich-class frigate of the Russian Navy Black Sea Fleet is reportedly on fire near Zmiiny island in the Black Sea. […]
It’s seeming more and more likely that the Claims about the Russian Frigate Admiral Makarov being stuck by Ukrainian Anti-Ship Missiles off the Coast of Odessa is True, multiple Rescue Ships and Aircraft are reportedly in the Area with U.S Surveillance Drones keeping eyes on it. https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1522509777053618176
[Map available at the Twitter link.]
Not the May 9th Victory Day present Putin was looking for. Just as worrying are multiplying incidents of sabotage, fires, and explosions at military-related and strategic facilities across Russia. This is beginning to look like an internal resistance movement rising, maybe with some help from the Ukrainian intelligence services. [Map showing an alarming number of explosions and fires in Russia is available at the link.]
Telegram channel @ostanovivagony reports that, judging by the frequency of incidents on railway tracks, there are at least 20 resistance groups operating in the Russian Federation [Map and tweet in Russian language is available at the link.]
[…] Finally, the heroes of Mariupol continue to hold out against impossible odds in the Azovstal steel plant. British intelligence reports that they have drained Russian resources to the point that it has disrupted Russian plans in Southern Donbas. Russian forces reportedly used an electrician with knowledge of the tunnel system to finally gain entry into the complex but so far it seems, the defenders are still holding out. […]
Putin will not have much to celebrate come May 9th. There is talk that Putin will need to go in for cancer surgery. Probably with a special FSB doctor that will make sure the great leader suffers a tragic end on the operating table. Panic must be setting in, in the Kremlin. Can they afford to keep Putin around when the Ukrainians go on the offensive with their new advanced artillery? Can they salvage whats left of their military before Putin destroys it?
Wonkette: “Nation’s Long Nightmare Over As Chuck Todd’s Daily Wankfest Banished To Streaming”
Trevor Noah gets results!
Less than a week after the comedian and host of The Daily Show scorched Chuck Todd during his monologue at the White House Correspondents Dinner, MSNBC is moving the anchor’s Meet The Press Daily off the cable channel and onto its NBC News Now streaming service. Not that we think one had to do with the other. Just that it would be irresponsible not to speculate.
The move leaves us with the burning question of what will now play at lunchtime on the glowing screens of America’s doctor’s offices and nursing home day rooms.
(Chris Jansing. The answer is apparently Chris Jansing, who will be taking over the 1 p.m. timeslot to host MSNBC Reports, big congrats to America’s trapped gastroenterology patients and somewhat sentient elderly on the upgrade.)
Poor Chuck. When in under a year and a half your network moves you to a new time slot so the world can have another hour of Nicolle Wallace, and then out of that time slot to an online streamer, it feels like they are sending a message, and the message is not, “Great work […]”
Anyway, what can yr Wonkette say about Todd that isn’t being said very scornfully on Twitter? The man has been a scourge of the sort of view-from-nowhere bothsidesism and horserace politics [I agree!]
[…] Like, remember when he scolded the first female major party nominee for president for being “overprepared” for a debate? Or the time after time after time when, sweaty and desperate to ignore the fact that the other major party has become an anti-democratic, fascist-happy home for diseased weirdos and head trauma patients, he let Republicans spout crazy lying shit on his airwaves about Ukraine or Russia […] and instead of saying, “Hey, that’s some crazy lying shit, Senator Fucklenuts, would you like to rephrase it in something approaching reality,” he just passed it on to his viewers with nary a counter or a pushback? Because Chuck Todd has done this a lot.
Finally, four years into the Trump presidency, Todd seemed to hit his limit on Republicans coming on his show and lying to his face about everything and started occasionally performing journalism, because the damage was done and performing the bare minimum of journalistic questioning does not suddenly make one into Edward R. Murrow. […]
Wonkette: “Roberts Weeps For Supreme Court, Destroyed Because You Saw That Roe Opinion Six Weeks Early”
Chief Justice John Roberts is big mad. How dare someone violate the sacred body of the nation’s highest court by leaking a draft of the opinion that will force thousands of women and girls to carry their rapists’ babies to term! These are the justices’ private thoughts about the non-existence of a constitutional right to privacy. […]
“A leak of this stature is absolutely appalling,” Roberts told a conference of lawyers and judges from the 11th Circuit, CNN reported. “If the person behind it thinks that it will affect our work, that’s just foolish.”
And perhaps he’s right. It certainly appears that the Republican appointees are about to lay waste to women’s civil liberties, blissfully unbothered by the effect it will have on half the population. […]
But the leak will affect women’s work.
Because they’ll have to leave their states to access abortion care. Or miss out on educational and professional opportunities if they are forced to carry children they don’t want and cannot take care of. Or are stuck in hospitals while doctors debate if they are really sick enough to deserve an abortion, or if they have to get just that much closer to dying before the “life and health of the mother” exception kicks in. Or are forced to carry non-viable fetuses to term, only to watch them die in pain. Or can’t access IVF or common birth control methods like IUDs because pig ignorant legislators are ramming through gobbledygook legislation without consulting anyone with a rudimentary understanding of female anatomy, much less a gynecologist.
It will affect my work, because I’ll be taking off the morning of May 17 for the Jewish Rally for Abortion Justice in DC. Hope to see you there, wherever there is. See, they’re not sharing the location because anti-choice protesters tend to get pretty darn confrontational about people exercising their rights to speech, much less health care. And thanks to the Supreme Court holding that a 35-foot buffer zone around abortion clinics violates protesters’ free speech right to scream “Baby killer!” at every woman walking in the door, they’ve been able get right up close and personal when they do it.
But sometimes people in this lunatic country, where it’s legal to regulate uteruses but not guns, get more than confrontational. Sometimes they call in bomb threats. Sometimes they blow up clinics. Sometimes they shoot doctors.
You know who doesn’t do those things? Team Choice.
And yet, when the Synagogue Sisterhood shows up in DC, we’ll be met by an eight-foot, non-scalable barrier outside the Supreme Court, […] And that buffer zone is a whole lot more than 35 feet, because the justices deserve protection from the mob, unlike those whores trying to get a Pap smear at Planned Parenthood.
Meanwhile conservatives are tying themselves into a knot trying to turn the leaked opinion into a threat of violence against the Court.
“The leak was terrible,” tweeted “mainstream” conservative Rich Lowry. “Arguably worse has been the unwillingness of pretty much any Democrat to condemn a destructive act that may well put the safety of Supreme Court justices at risk, toward the end of distorting their deliberations on a highly sensitive legal question.”
Lowry fails to explain exactly what this “destructive act” is destroying. Nor does he refer to any credible threats to the justices. Again, it isn’t our side that waged a 50-year campaign of violence under the banner of “protecting babies.”
Presumably they mean that the leak damages the Court’s legitimacy, because if it leaks just like every other organization in DC, if it’s not a hallowed body of jurists calling balls and strikes from within an ivory tower, then we have to admit it’s a political body just like every other. And we have to admit that the harm it is about to inflict on the bodies of American women is a political act.
Which it is.
This is the culmination of a decades-long Republican project, and Mitch McConnell blew up the Senate for just this reason. The Supreme Court has become a tool for Republicans to exert political power in ways they never could if they had to get consent from the American people. And that is the real destruction of legitimacy.
The only effect of this leak of a document that was going to become public in six or eight weeks is to make people mad sooner. We were all going to find out that Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Barrett were willing to shitcan 50 years of precedent to make sure that women are forced to give birth to unwanted babies. The streets were always going to be filled with furious protesters. The leak just deprives the Justices of the ability to drop this bomb in June or July and then hightail it out of town. They have to sit here for the rest of the term and face the anger of the people who have to live with the consequences of this decision. And it sucks to be shamed and have your hypocrisy pointed out by the majority of Americans who do not support this decision and think that you’re an illegitimate body composed of partisan hacks.
But not as much as it sucks to be forced to carry a baby you do not want.
An outright Nazi insurrectionist standing trial over his involvement in the Capitol attack will benefit greatly from a Trump-appointed judge’s decision to bar prosecutors from entering evidence about his extremism. Prior to his involvement in the insurrection, Timothy Hale-Cusanelli was such a blatant Nazi that dozens of coworkers testified about his admiration for Hitler and calls for genocide against Jewish people. Hale-Cusanelli was known for sporting a Hitler-style mustache at times and was such a blatant white supremacist that his own lawyers proposed voir dire questions like, “Do you think someone who impersonates Adolf Hitler, satirical or otherwise, is a person who would want to overthrow the government?”
Questions like that will be notably absent in the trial against Hale-Cusanelli, who faces charges of civil disorder, aiding and abetting, obstruction of an official proceeding, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, impeding ingress and egress in a restricted building, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, and demonstrating in a Capitol building. The Army reservist, who was kicked out of the military following his arrest last year, has pleaded not guilty to all charges. U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden’s logic on preventing jurors from getting to know the real Hale-Cusanelli—an avowed Nazi and white supremacist who flat-out admit he wished that Hitler “finished the job”—is because it may make jurors more inclined to find him guilty. “The visceral reaction to the defendant’s statements is exactly the kind of response that could induce the jury into finding him guilty,” McFadden said during a conference ahead of the trial, which is set to begin on May 23. […]
McFadden, a Trump-appointed judge who’s publicly stated that non-violent insurrectionists shouldn’t get “serious jail time,” has issued some interesting rulings when it comes to folks who stormed the Capitol. He issued the first acquittal of an insurrectionist last month, claiming that video evidence showed police allowed Matthew Martin to enter the Capitol, therefore he was in the clear to go on in and threaten our democracy. “People were streaming by and the officers made no attempt to stop the people,” McFadden said. Martin claimed he was waved into the rotunda by an officer, which—regardless of law enforcement’s perceived gestures—doesn’t negate the fact that it’s illegal to storm the Capitol.
It’s worth noting that, in the case of Hale-Cusanelli, being an outright Nazi absolutely would further indict him. Countless comparisons have been made about the insurrection being the U.S. equivalent of Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch, an attempted coup in which Hitler’s lies fomented an angry mob of supporters who violently pushed for a “national revolution” to advance their anti-Semitic white supremacist agenda. The primary difference in terms of consequences for the Beer Hall Putsch is that Hitler actually faced them: He was found guilty of treason and sentenced to five years in prison. Donald Trump, the ex-president who conned his supporters into storming the Capitol over baseless claims of a rigged election, remains free and has faced few consequences. Given McFadden’s conduct as more and more insurrectionists are tried for their crimes, Hale-Cusanelli and his ilk may not have much to worry about when it comes to being found guilty.
The Conservatives suffered disastrous losses across Wales in the local elections, with the party’s Welsh leadership blaming the crisis in No 10 for their woes, while there were encouraging gains for Labour, Plaid Cymru, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens.
One of the most striking results on Friday came from Denbighshire in the north-east, where the Tories dropped from first to fourth place. They also lost control of their only council, Monmouthshire, in the south-east.
Denbighshire is seen as crucial because the Tories routed Labour in the north-east during the 2019 general election. Boris Johnson visited the seaside town of Rhyl last week to try to shore up support but some party members on the ground believe his presence hindered rather than helped. The Tories had been part of an independent-led administration but Labour became the biggest party in the county and may now try to form a new coalition.
In Monmouthshire, Labour becomes the largest group for the first time since 1995.
Andrew RT Davies, the leader of the Tories at the Welsh parliament, said the party’s candidates had wanted to talk about how they were tackling the cost-of-living crisis locally, but had to answer questions about Johnson….
As Russia’s military casualties in Ukraine continue to mount, Buryatia has emerged as the country’s second-hardest hit region in terms of losses. The only place losing more men is Dagestan. Nevertheless, the speeches at the near daily funerals in Ulan-Ude and other Buryatian cities still resound with support for Russia’s war against “Nazis” and gratitude for the fallen soldiers not being “left behind,” but shipped home for burial. At the end of April, the local magazine People of the Baikal published a report about how Buryatia is burying their dead soldiers, and what their loved ones and the regional authorities think about these losses. With their permission, Meduza has translated their article in full….
Italian authorities have ordered the seizure of a $700 million superyacht that media reports and activists have linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Italian Finance Ministry said in a statement on May 6 that police investigations have indicated the owner of the boat had links to “prominent elements of the Russian government” and with people who have been hit by European Union sanctions.
The 140-meter Scheherazade has been undergoing repairs in the Italian port of Marina di Carrara near the seaside town of Massa for the past six months.
But recent activity suggested the crew of the yacht could be preparing to sail out to sea.
The ownership of the Scheherazade has been the subject of an investigation by financial police in Italy….
We traveled to my beloved hometown of Cahersiveen to see how the people there are welcoming Ukrainian refugees — it’s a story playing out in many parts of rural Ireland….
Boris Johnson’s leadership is facing fresh peril after senior Conservatives blamed him for losing swaths of the party’s southern heartlands to the Liberal Democrats and flagship London boroughs to Labour.
In a punishing set of local elections for the Tories, the party lost about 400 council seats, ceding control of Westminster and Wandsworth in London to Labour for the first time since the 1970s, and plunging to its worst position in Scotland for a decade.
Conservative MPs and council leaders questioned Johnson’s leadership, demanding action to tackle the cost of living crisis and rebuild trust in the wake of the Partygate scandal after a damaging series of losses across the “blue wall” in Somerset, Kent, Oxfordshire and Surrey.
However, the scale of the Tory backlash was tempered by a mixed picture for Labour, which showed progress, but not enough yet to suggest a landslide for Keir Starmer in a general election. A BBC projection for a general election based on Friday’s results put Labour on 291 seats, the Conservatives on 253, the Lib Dems on 31 and others on 75.
Labour had a very strong result in London and took some southern councils such as Worthing, Crawley and Southampton, gaining about 250 seats in total. It pushed the Tories out of control in their only council in Wales, Monmouthshire, and took over as the party with the second largest vote share in Scotland, where the SNP remained dominant.
But in the north of England and the Midlands, Labour struggled to make gains in “red wall” areas it had lost at or since the 2019 election, despite a convincing win on the new Cumberland council….
Sec. Blinken: “I have authorized $150 million in additional U.S. arms, equipment, and supplies for Ukraine to reinforce its defenses to counter Russia’s offensive in the East. We stand #UnitedwithUkraine.”
SC @342, nothing could provide a stronger contrast to what Putin is doing. Ireland is providing an example, (well … many examples), of goodness and light. People there are learning and helping each other. And what the fuck is Putin doing? Murdering children, torturing innocent civilians, bombing the house of a blind grandmother … and, in essence, betraying his own people.
Despite Donald Trump’s early assurances that he beat Chiiiii-na all the time, one of his favorite pastimes as president was losing to the country—while encouraging its worst excesses.
Trump made a big show of acting tough toward China—imposing tariffs that succeeded in punishing our own citizens far more than Xi Jinping’s—but he ultimately lost his trade war, and rather decisively at that. Of course, when it came to issues Trump wasn’t personally interested in—including humans and their silly rights—Trump was even more squishy-soft.
As Pepperidge Farm-looking warmonger John Bolton noted in his 2020 memoir If You Buy a Book from This Piece of Shit, You’re a Fucking Asshole, So I’m Not Even Going to Link to It, Trump had exactly zero interest in defending the rights and liberties of China’s persecuted Uighur minority:
At a summit in Japan in 2019, with only interpreters present, Xi gave Trump an explanation for the Chinese camps for Uighurs, who are ethnically and culturally distinct from the country’s majority Han population and are suspected of harboring separatist tendencies, Bolton wrote.
“According to our interpreter, Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which he thought was exactly the right thing to do,” the book said.
So when it came to China, Trump bellowed and blustered a lot but achieved exactly nothing—unless you count selling out millions of vulnerable ethnic minorities as “something.”
Fast-forward three years to a more enlightened era in which a serious president is now calling the shots. Earlier this year, as Vladimir Putin was still deciding whether to invade Ukraine or cut his own balls off with Play-Doh scissors […], Putin and Chinese President Xi got chummy at the Olympics. Later, after Putin put a gun to his own head and pulled the trigger on his “special military operation,” there was grave concern among many U.S. government officials that China was poised to materially aid Russia’s war effort.
Well, about that …
U.S. officials told Reuters in recent days they remain wary about China’s long-standing support for Russia in general, but that the military and economic support that they worried about has not come to pass, at least for now. The relief comes at a pivotal time.
President Joe Biden is preparing for a trip to Asia later this month dominated by how to deal with the rise of China and his administration is soon to release his first national security strategy about the emergence of China as a great power.
Well, that’s great news for the Ukrainian people, huh? Wonder what Trump would have done, other than withhold arms shipments to Volodymyr Zelenskyy in exchange for a saucy reach-around and a McRib.
Biden, on the other hand? He was unequivocal:
Biden himself has not spoken of China helping Russia since telling reporters in Brussels March 24 that in a phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping, he “made sure he understood the consequences.”
Hmm, a U.S. president who stands up for freedom and justice around the world. How quaint.
Of course, geopolitics is a complicated game, so who knows what the Chinese are actually motivated by? They also couldn’t have helped but notice that Putin’s invasion was a disaster from the start. That said, there’s plenty of reason to suspect U.S. pressure prompted Xi to back off from any plan to militarily aid Russia.
“There has been consistent messaging that if China does so it will face severe consequences,” said Bonnie Glaser, an Asia expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “It appears that so far, the Chinese have not. It is feasible that the Chinese planned to provide military assistance and changed their minds.”
Hmm, another big win for Biden. When will the media start to notice, I wonder?
ravensays
Lynna:
SC @244, I think Alito has blithely jettisoned not just precedent, the law, and the constitution, but logic as well.
Lynna said what I was going to say.
Alito isn’t even trying to make sense and he doesn’t care if he makes sense. This isn’t about logic, law, or morality. It is about power. The power to control, enslave, and subjugate women.
The christofascists have the votes to overturn Roe versus Wade, that is what they will do, and no one can stop them. He doesn’t have to make a coherent arguments.
KGsays
Thanks SC@315! We ended up with 35* councillors (up from 19), with 10 each in the two largest cities, Glasgow (up from 7) and Edinburgh (up from 8), and most of the rest in local authority areas where we’d never had one before. I admit this was far beyond my expectations; I thought we might even lose seats, because:
1) After entering the Scottish government in a semi-coalition with the SNP, I expected fewer people whose first vote went to a unionist party would give us their second vote,
2) Our firm support for trans rights has certainly alienated some members and supporters (although presumably boosting support among young people – but they are least likely to vote, particularly in local elections), and
3) The Russian invasion of Ukraine might be expected to reduce support for independence (there’s some sign of this in polls on that issue), and hence for pro-independence parties.
I didn’t canvass this time (I’m still doing my best to avoid Covid), but in delivering posters to local members I came across examples of both (1) and (2). An amateur psephologist I consult at election times, Allan Faulds, who also happens to be a Green, thought 25 seats would be a good result.
The STV electoral system (very clearly explained here by Faulds) should provide a lot of data for psephologists, because the number of transfers after each round of counting is public information. So it should be possible to see if (1) occurred to any marked extent, and whether increased transfer votes from those who voted SNP as first preference outweighed it. However, if you don’t have enough first preference votes, your candidate will be eliminated before they can benefit from transfers. According to Wikipedia our share of first preference votes increased from 4.2% to 6% (but there are two errors in what that article says just about our party, and also we stood in more wards, so I’m taking that figure as provisional).
I’m off to Edinburgh’s Mayday march – more on other results later.
*In some places you’ll see the figure as 34, but that’s the number who were elected in actual contests; in one ward in the Highlands, surprisingly, the only candidate was a Green and so was elected unopposed.
StevoRsays
Meme / tweet going around on fb and originating on twitter :
Yassmin / (Arabic characters)
@ philyptian
“This is like shariah law” wait till y’all find out that in shariah law abortion is allowed in the first trimester and always if it endangers the health of the mother.
1.46 pm. 04 May 22
That awkward moment when Sharia law literally gives women more rights and power and value than the Supreme Court of the United States of America.
This past Monday, a local Telegram account gave us the first inkling something was happening near Kharkiv, in Ukraine’s northeast. The account claimed that Ukraine had pushed Russians out of Staryi Saltiv, well east of the last known Ukrainian positions around Kharkiv […]. It’s as if Ukraine had leap-frogged a whole string of villages en route to the key city on the Donets. Today, we finally got confirmation from Ukraine General Staff that they had, indeed, taken all the towns between Kharkiv and Staryi Saltiv. [Map available at the link]
Ukraine General Staff’s territorial claims have always been extremely conservative, usually lagging early reports by days. In this case, four to five days. They don’t just want to take the town, they want to be sure they can hold it. Perhaps Russia doesn’t even know what’s happening, given the poor state of their communications equipment and systems. Waiting also keeps Russia’s general staff guessing.
Ukraine is also gaining ground west of Izyum, the territory Russia won by pushing in the exact opposite direction from their main objective—the cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk to Izyum’s southeast. [map available at the link]
Russia’s Izyum salient has been frozen since last … Friday or so, about a week, despite being the most heavily reinforced axis of the entire war with around 22 battalion tactical groups (BTG). [map available at the link]
Why has Russia stopped advancing, and is now losing ground, in its most heavily reinforced part of Ukraine? Because, here we go again, they can’t manage long supply lines. Look how long the Izyum supply lines are: [map available at the link]
Directly north of Izyum, that entire stretch of major highway is in range of Ukrainian artillery, and just like they did around Sumy earlier in the war, Ukraine has feasted on Russian equipment. [Tweet and images available at the link.]
Meanwhile, see all that white on the map above? That’s territory recaptured by Ukraine in recent days. That means even more of that supply line is exposed to indirect Ukrainian artillery fire, and so is the town of Volchansk, on the Russian border—the primary road and rail supply line from the key Russian city of Belgorod.
Indeed, the collapse of Russian lines around Kharkiv has become so dire that Russia’s border is at risk, with Belgorod within range of Ukrainian artillery. Russia seemingly has no choice but to reinforce, but … from where?
Not Izyum, that’s for sure. [Tweet with video of captured/destroyed Russian equipment.]
In the Severodonetsk direction, Russia picked up one village and crept ever closer to that city. Their problem is that Russia is still fighting for territory on the north side of the Donets river. Ukraine has plenty of room to retreat tactically, trading territory for blood until they hit the river. And for all its troubles, Russia is then stuck on the wrong side of the river, where Ukraine’s defenses are even stronger. […]
In other words, Ukraine isn’t even at its strongest defensive position yet in that corner of the front lines. That’s why Izyum was so important—it’s the first and only place where Russia managed to cross the Donets, thus threatening Ukraine’s rear.
[…] Kherson down south, also under pressure from Ukrainian counter-offensives. The troops pulled out of Mariupol are going to the Donetsk direction, just north of Mariupol, where Russian troops are also stuck. Russia has really made a mess of things!
From the very beginning, Russia had too few troops for such a big country. It diluted those troops across too many axes of attack. It pulled out of the Kyiv area after a bloody debacle, but Russia is still spread too thin, and attacks at random, without consideration of any broader strategic goal like that push west of Izyum. […]
Ukraine has played it smart, playing rope-a-dope with Russia, attriting its forces, pinning them down, and then counter-attacking judiciously, never over-committing, but probing weaknesses in Russia’s lines. It’s no mistake that Ukraine is counterattacking in the two regions (Kharkiv and Kherson) that have the fewest number of committed Russian forces.
Ukraine is still not ready for a true massed counteroffensive—Russia’s advantage in artillery and air support make that too risky. But the balance shifts slowly toward Ukraine every single day, with every tank and artillery gun destroyed, with every warplane and helicopter shot down, and with every Russian and proxy soldier taken off the field.
Brian Taylor Cohen captures and edits Pete Buttigieg thinking through and doing his normal amazing job of putting extremely complex concepts and ideas into everyday language and experience. I mean this guy would not even exist in Alito’s world, and how does that make any sense? How does it make sense that a guy like Alito gets to “cancel” the ability for Pete Buttigieges (yes that spelling is plural) to fulfill their potential careers and gifts of service to our nation? And for what? Because some people are too cowardly to explore differences in good people? F**k fear. F**k Alito and everyone who “preyed” to stay cowed in the dark corners of their conspiracy riddled minds…
Anyway, thanks for listening to my rant, but check out the video its worth it.
Consider this the bad news sector of the war today. In eastern Ukraine, Russia has taken several suburbs around Severodonetsk that had been heavily fought over until today. Reports also indicate that Russian forces have captured more (though not all) of neighboring Rubzihne and some forces have entered Severodonetsk itself. [map available at the link, scroll down to the 10:22:03 AM post]
And, sadly, Popasna seems to have finally fallen. They will polka no more. For now.
Where Ukrainian forces withdrawing from Popasna to the west and north set up next isn’t clear. The loss of the town, with its many trenches and well-constructed fortifications prepared over the last eight years, is a big loss. Whether Russia is capable of exploiting that loss is another question.
More than any other area, this section of the map is due for some updates, as the focus in the last few days has been on Kharkiv and Izyum.
Ray Epps was always something of an odd choice for a right-wing scapegoat in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, considering that you’d have trouble finding a more dedicated Donald Trump supporter and Oath Keepers member prior to that event. But then, the conspiracy theory concocted by far-right apologists for the riot claiming that Epps was secretly in cahoots with the FBI to make the Capitol siege happen as a way to entrap “Patriots” shows how readily these fanatics will eat their own.
And now the theory—promoted by Tucker Carlson and Glenn Greenwald and the whole “1/6 Truther” crowd, and largely discredited already because of its afactual premises—has crumbled completely. Freshly revealed information from the FBI’s investigation shows that Epps—contrary to the theory—had nothing to do with inspiring the initial breach of police barricades, and that moreover he had no connection with the FBI’s informants program.
[…] Epps called an FBI tipline two days after the riot, when he saw his name on a list of suspects, and cooperated with authorities immediately. He told investigators he had actually tried to calm Samsel down, telling him the police outside the building were merely doing their jobs.
When investigators spoke to Samsel, he told them the same thing: a man he did not know had come up to him at the barricades and urged him to chill out. “He came up to me and he said, ‘Dude’—his entire words were, ‘Relax, the cops are doing their job,’” Samsel said.
The person who finally triggered him to attack the police lines, in fact, was national Proud Boys leader Joe Biggs, who had led the phalanx of men around the Capitol to that barricade. Samsel later told the FBI that Biggs encouraged him to go push on the barricades and challenge the police, and when he hesitated, Biggs flashed a gun and questioned his manhood, urging him again to attack the barricades—all of which Biggs’ attorneys adamantly deny.
Biggs remains imprisoned in the D.C. jail along with other key Jan. 6 insurrectionists, including his fellow Proud Boys. He and others still face charges of seditious conspiracy and multiple other felonies. They also face a civil lawsuit filed by the D.C. district attorney.
The conspiracy theory blaming the FBI for the insurrection by fingering Epps as a key player in the riot was concocted by the far-right propaganda organ Revolver News and its white-nationalist editor/writer Darren Beattie. This reportage, as we’ve explored in depth, was misbegotten pseudo-journalistic babble built around a simple miscomprehension of both how the federal informants’ program works and how federal prosecutors’ use of cooperating witnesses function. Beattie fumbles basic facts and then multiplies it with baseless speculation about Epps—who in fact was a well-known Trump supporter and Oath Keepers figure in Arizona in before the insurrection.
This didn’t matter to the gaslighting brigade led by Tucker Carlson and his cohorts, who paraded Beattie’s reportage to the nation as though it had legitimacy, and built a propaganda campaign for Fox News’ audience of millions to gobble up readily. At one point, Carlson even had Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas eagerly pushing the Epps conspiracy theory.
[…] “Ms. Sanborn [senior FBI official, Jill Sanborn] a lot of Americans are concerned that the federal government deliberately encouraged illegal violent conduct on Jan. 6,” Cruz said, demanding to know if that was true. Sanborn said it was not.
Amid the furor, the House Jan. 6 committee’s Twitter account posted a response to the theories about Epps:
The Committee has interviewed Epps. Epps informed us that he was not employed by, working with, or acting at the direction of any law enforcement agency on Jan 5th or 6th or at any other time, & that he has never been an informant for the FBI or any other law enforcement agency.
Nonetheless, Carlson went on his Fox show Wednesday night and claimed that Sanborn’s stony answers to Cruz’s questions were evidence that, in fact, “DOJ had some role in the events of Jan. 6,” [JFC] and then speculated baselessly about the Jan. 6 committee’s tweet:
When exactly and under what circumstances did the committee talk to Ray Epps? Supposedly this interview was conducted in secret last November. If that is true—we don’t know that it is, but let’s say it is—then why did the committee wait months to tell us today in a tweet? When the committee got its hands on Mark Meadows’ text messages, we seem to remember they leaked those to the media within hours. And by the way, was this Ray Epps interview conducted under oath? Did Democrats subpoena his electronic communications as they did with Meadows and so many others? Will the information Epps revealed to the committee be available to the many January 6 defendants who are now awaiting trial? Can their lawyers see a transcript of the interview? Can we see a transcript of this interview? If not, why not?
Carlson went on to claim that even though “Epps is a longtime right-wing activist” who “urged protesters to riot,” Democrats on the committee have become “protective” of him. “So what’s going on here? Something is, that’s for sure,” he concluded.
As Politifact explains, Beattie never even confirmed that Epps is an FBI informant, but rather speculated broadly that he is. His actions on Jan. 6 videos are wholly consistent with those of the outspoken Trump supporter he has been for years (notably as a spokesman for the Arizona Oath Keepers). And as with all of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who had informant relationships with the FBI, if Epps was also himself an informant, the information he was providing was intelligence on their “leftist” opponents, not on their own organization.
This, of course, completely misapprehends and mischaracterizes the nature of the relationship of the FBI to the right-wing groups involved in the insurrection—because we have known for awhile that figures like Biggs and his Proud Boys cohort, national chairman Enrique Tarrio (arrested on Jan. 3 in D.C.), as well as a number of Oath Keepers, acted as informants for the FBI—all directed not at those right-wing groups, but at “antifa,” Black Lives Matter, and various leftist groups. […]
German, himself a former FBI agent, has a more realistic view of the agency than Greenwald’s caricatured vision of a relentlessly oppressive monster who journalists should routinely repudiate and attack. Like any such operation endowed with phenomenal powers that are easily abused, the FBI indeed has a long history both of horrifying atrocities and impressive work safeguarding the American public.
And a major portion of the former involves the way that federal law enforcement has historically targeted left-wing activists while routinely ignoring far-right extremist violence and giving its perpetrators the kid-glove treatment—the latter of which, apparently, is just fine with Carlson, Greenwald and company.
Republicans are more and more fully the party of insurrection and efforts to undermine faith in democracy. A scan of their would-be members of Congress across the country finds candidate after candidate who was there in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, protesting the certification of President Joe Biden’s election—but wants us to believe they left rather than joining the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol.
That’s true in Iowa, where Gary Leffler, one of the Republicans in the primary to challenge Democratic Rep. Cindy Axne, insists he didn’t go into the Capitol. It’s true in Ohio, where J.R. Majewski won a House primary this week after having raised $20,000 to bring dozens of people along with him to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, but—you’ve got it—claims he didn’t go inside. Annie Black, a member of the state Assembly and a congressional candidate in Nevada, tells the same story. Truly, having been there on Jan. 6 but not entered the Capitol is the “but I didn’t inhale” of 2022.
But while not every Republican running for Congress traveled to Washington, D.C., to rally against the peaceful transition of power on Jan. 6, downplaying the seriousness of what happened that day, or even actively supporting the mob that did it, is extremely common.
Leffler, for instance, is one of three people in his primary, which also includes state Sen. Zach Nunn and businesswoman Nicole Hasso. A Leffler loss, though, doesn’t mean a candidate who’s ready to condemn the Capitol insurrection. At a forum last week, […] Nunn criticized the criminal prosecutions of insurrectionists and said, “We have a Nancy Pelosi committee determined to find someone that they can hang a noose around.”
“A noose,” he says, in defense of the people who brought an actual noose to the U.S. Capitol and roamed the halls chanting “Hang Mike Pence.” This is a sitting state senator running for Congress in a district currently held by a Democrat.
Black, in Nevada, is likewise a state lawmaker, and her Republican primary opponent has embraced conspiracy theories about the 2020 elections, claiming there had been “vote switching on live TV.”
In New Hampshire’s 1st District, Republican primary voters can choose between a candidate who’s said Trump won in 2020, a candidate who wants election audits in every state, a candidate who wants new voter fraud laws even as he himself voted in two states in the 2016 primary season, and a candidate who has shown herself to be the moderate of the bunch by just talking about “irregularities.”
This is how pervasive conspiracy theories, denials that Donald Trump lost, efforts to rig the next election, and support for the Jan. 6 insurrectionists are in the Republican Party. They’re showing up in significant ways even in the primaries that should matter most to top Republicans: the ones in swing districts. Even as a recent poll shows just a small minority of Republicans approving of the actions of the “Trump supporters who broke into the Capitol,” at the candidate level, this is a party taken over by Trump’s sore-loserdom and his determination to overturn the election he lost and rewrite the rules so it can’t happen again.
And while that may cost Republicans some districts in the November elections, if they nominate candidates who are too extreme, it also likely means that Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Madison Cawthorn and Paul Gosar and Lauren Boebert will be getting way too much company in the House next year.
[…] That draft [the leaked Supreme Court draft] woke the left the ^&%$ up. And as evil as it is, and as much as I wish that it did not exist, I feel like I just welcomed millions and millions of Americans to the fight to keep power out of more Republican hands. THIS IS WHO THEY ARE. THIS IS WHAT THEY DO.
What can you do to fight for our rights?
First, remember who the real enemy is here: Republican elected officials did this.
This was done by Republicans. They nominated these judges. They installed them. They did this.
This was done by the Republicans.
Hard stop.
Any other focus is only benefiting Republicans.
Are you furious? Good.
Turn that to action. What we need to do is mobilize for the midterms. More Democrats is the only solution to fight this.
What can you do?
DONATE! I set up a place where we can donate and the funds will be distributed evenly between the tossup House and Senate races. Think of it as a one stop shop for using your $$$ to save democracy. Here is the link: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/goodnewsaction
[…]
A high-ranking Ukrainian official said Saturday that all women, children and the elderly had been evacuated from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, where hundreds of civilians were trapped for weeks amid an intense Russian assault.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a Telegram post that “this part of the Mariupol humanitarian operation has been completed.” Ukrainian fighters are still holed up at the sprawling plant complex — and a regional police leader told The Washington Post that three were killed Friday during the civilian evacuation.
The development comes as Russia aims to capture the plant — the last sliver of Mariupol still under Ukrainian control — and pressures the soldiers there to surrender. Control of Mariupol would allow Russia to establish a land bridge with annexed Crimea.
Meanwhile, fighting continued in Ukraine’s eastern region, with Kyiv accusing Russian forces Saturday of blowing up three bridges northeast of Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, to prevent counterattacks. In the south, Russian forces launched cruise missiles at the Black Sea port of Odessa on Saturday, hitting a civilian target, according to the Ukrainian military.
First lady Jill Biden, who is in Romania as part of a four-day trip to Eastern Europe, met Ukrainian refugee students and their mothers Saturday at a school in Bucharest. The first lady, who often appeared to be on the verge of tears as she heard harrowing stories of how they fled the war in Ukraine, emphasized her concern over a refugee crisis that “keeps going on and on.”
The entire state of New Mexico is under a red-flag warning for dangerous fire conditions.
Critical-to-extreme wildfire conditions are about to take hold of the southwestern United States and parts of Colorado, leading into what could be a lengthy, multiday and memorable outbreak of wildfires and/or wildfire conditions. Warm to locally scorching temperatures, bone-dry air and strong mountain gusts are set to overlap for several days, part of a summer-like weather pattern that comes without the chance of any meaningful rainfall.
The National Weather Service in Albuquerque is calling it a “dangerous, long duration and potentially historic critical fire weather event.” Tinderbox conditions conducive to the rapid spread of blazes are expected to persist well into next week. Sunday may present the most extreme combination of high winds and hot, dry air.
“New Mexico is facing 100 straight hours of the worst possible set of fire conditions, with high temperatures & extreme winds,” tweeted Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) on Friday. “It is critically important to abide by evacuation orders. Your life & safety is top priority.”
She added: “I ask every New Mexican to do everything you can to prevent any additional fire incident, anything that could cause a spark. No open flames, no campfires, no open grills, no welding, no tossing cigarette butts — please work with us to prevent fires and preserve resources.”
As it is, a number of ongoing fires will continue to burn and be made worse by this weekend’s weather. New ignitions are also anticipated, which could rapidly grow out of control.
Earlier this week, the Calf Canyon fire became New Mexico’s second-largest on record. In late April, it merged with the Hermit’s Peak fire just to the east, a prescribed burn that crews lost control of amid strong winds. The cause of the Calf Canyon blaze is under investigation. [map available at the link]
Located in the higher terrain east of Santa Fe in Mora and San Miguel counties, the Calf Canyon fire has already torched 170,665 acres and is 21 percent contained. More than 1,400 personnel from three states are actively involved in combating the blaze, which has destroyed at least 276 structures and forced an estimated 4,000-plus evacuations.
[…] The Calf Canyon fire is among six large blazes burning in New Mexico. The fires prompted President Biden to declare a major disaster for parts of the state Wednesday so that federal assistance can reach affected residents.
Red-flag warnings, for dangerous fire weather conditions, cover all of New Mexico, as well as west Texas, eastern and northern Arizona, southern Nevada, the Inland Empire and deserts of California and much of southern and eastern Colorado.
[…] In addition to fanning flames, the high winds are also projected to stir up areas of blowing dust, limiting visibility. And the dust and smoke will degrade air quality.
The turbulent weather pattern is the result of a large dip in the jet stream — the river of high altitude winds — in the western United States. This dip will remain entrenched through at least the middle of next week, directing a torrent of winds from the west and southwest over the Southwest and southern Rockies.
The most intense winds through the weekend will rush over the high terrain of Colorado, where gusts topping 70 mph are possible. Elsewhere, widespread 40-to-55 mph winds are likely in the mountains through Monday, slackening some each night but returning in full force during the daylight hours.
[…] The combination of abnormally high temperatures, soaring to 95 to 100 degrees in west Texas and eastern New Mexico, and “downsloping” air rushing down the Rockies will contribute to relative humidity percentages in the single digits. Computer models are suggesting the humidity could dip to just 4 percent in the Permian Basin of Texas.
That’s added atop a Level 4 out of 4 “exceptional” drought already in place, the bull’s eye of which is centered in eastern New Mexico and parts of the Texas Panhandle and Hill Country.
[…] The unusually active season is tied to the persistence of strong winds, the drought and warmer-than-normal temperatures. Several of the blazes are burning in areas where winter snowpack was much below normal.
Across the United States, wildfire activity is running 78 percent above the 10-year average so far this year, according to a fact sheet released by the White House.
Research links rising temperatures and intensifying droughts from human-caused climate change to longer, more severe fire seasons. Hot, arid conditions dry out vegetation quickly, making the land surface more combustible. This year’s conditions may portend a fiery future for not only New Mexico but also much of the Southwest.
blfsays
Lynna@351, One of the comments on the article cited leads to this fascinating read, I Commanded US Army Europe. Here’s What I Saw in the Russian and Ukrainian Armies, by Lieutenant General Mark Hertling (retired). Too long to meaningfully excerpt, albeit as on commentator at the Kos article summarised it, “We thought the Ukrainians were OK but they proved to be much better than we thought; we thought the Russians would suck but we way underestimated how badly they suck.”
[…]
The European Parliament has demanded the return of over 400 aircraft from Russia, many of them belonging to Irish leasing companies, which Moscow has kept in the country after the industry was hit by sanctions.
Under European Union sanctions imposed on Russia due to its invasion of Ukraine, aircraft-leasing companies were obliged to terminate their contracts with Russian carriers by March 28th, sparking a scramble to recover and repossess the aircraft.
Hundreds of aircraft remain in Russia, worth an combined estimated $10 billion. Most are registered in Bermuda and Ireland, which have suspended airworthiness certificates, meaning the planes should technically be grounded.
But the Russian government announced on March 31st that the planes would be kept in the country, and passed a law to allow the aircraft to be entered in the national register, breaking international rules in an apparent attempt to allow airlines to keep using them.
[…]
“Such a theft cannot be tolerated,” the text of the resolution reads […] “The Russian authorities lack the airworthiness safety oversight capacity for the hundreds of re-registered aircraft,” the resolution noted, warning that “the Russian authorities will be solely responsible for putting the lives of their own citizens at risk when putting these stolen aircraft into operation over Russian skies without being able to fulfil the necessary security requirements.”
[…]
Independent Left group MEP Clare Daly criticised the resolution for welcoming sanctions on Russia.
What I found shocking is that there’s not a single sentence in this motion designed to assist in ending {the war}, Ms Da[l]y said, citing EU war fever.
[…]
Good grief. Clare Daly, the Irish “Mélenchon” with similar barmy ideas expressed in a pleasant accent (but fortunately no party of significance (the Irish Independent Left is so new I had to look them up, they are a nothing). Like Mélenchon, she’s basically anti-everything (except maybe the EU (not sure (ironic if she is, being an MEP))), albeit unlike Mélenchon, she’s done some toadying up to Putin (nothing on the scale of hair furor or Le Pen), and has appeared on Russian TV allegedly supporting the invasion (or at least opposing the EU and Nato helping Ukraine). Last I can remember of Ms Daly’s antics, she was trying to blame France for the Bataclan attacks in Paris, albeit I’m not too surprised she’s popped up again. She’s a loon, albeit better educated than (e.g.) Greene.
[…]
Republican US Sen Ron Johnson is at it again, telling a coalition of anti-vaccine individuals that he’s in a guerrilla war against doctors and the medical establishment and suggesting that the dangerous lie that the coronavirus vaccines might be a way to intentionally give people AIDS may be true.
Appearing on a Sunday video panel held by the group Doctors for COVID Ethics — which spread the outrageous lie that vaccine requirements violate the Nuremberg code — Johnson attacked woke doctors who don’t have the courage and compassion to practice medicine.
Johnson accused these doctors of ignoring supposed injuries from COVID-19 vaccines, which he claims are common, but which in reality, are rare and almost always mild.
[… Johnson: blah blah & fecking ludicrous blah…]
Johnson also expressed openness to the conspiracy theory that falsely claims the vaccine causes AIDS and that government regulators approved it anyway. During the video conference, Johnson was being interviewed by Todd Callender, an anti-vaccine lawyer who expressed the lie about the US Food and Drug Administration.
In reality, the COVID-19 vaccines have proven highly effective in preventing severe disease and death, though vaccine-induced immunity has been shown to wane over time.
Johnson later clarified his remarks, tweeting Tuesday: I’ve never stated nor do I believe that the COVID vaccine causes HIV. He also attacked the media for attempting to defame him and distort his words.
Still, Johnson’s comments caused backlash among some in the medical community, as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
“If he had a medical license these would be grounds for malpractice,” Patrick Remington, a professor at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health and a former epidemiologist for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the Sentinel. “But since he’s not trained in medicine, he should stay in his lane and focus on things he knows about.” [I approve of the idea of Johnson saying nothing at all about anything, which is all he knows about everything except collecting roubles –blf]
This isn’t the first time Johnson has hopped into the debate over public health. Johnson — who got rich working for his wife’s family’s plastics company and has no medical background — has spread conspiracy theories about COVID vaccines, suggested that gargling mouthwash could be an effective treatment for COVID, and embraced the use of the veterinary drug ivermectin — a drug that has been shown to have nobenefit for patients with COVID. He has also amplified stories of those who’ve suffered rare, adverse reactions to the vaccine to suggest widespread disease as a result.
blf @359, thanks for highlighting that link. You are right, the entire article deserves to be read. Here is an excerpt:
At the end of the visit, our State Department colleague asked us to record our observations, focusing on what struck us about leadership, equipment, training, facilities, and capabilities. I remember saying the Russian Army was “all show and no go.” While I knew the Russian tankers had experienced battlefield trauma during their final days in Afghanistan and were more recently dealing with the dissolution of the Soviet empire, to include firing a tank round at their own Parliament a year earlier, I came away from my first formal exchange with the Russian Army doubtful they were the ten-foot-tall behemoth we thought them to be.
The basic truth that I came away with after reading the article was that a lot of failures or inadequacies contributed to the “Russian Bear” becoming a mangy, starving beast on its last legs … and those inadequacies were evident at every level of the organization.
Russians don’t see their military’s inadequacies, and that’s an entirely different problem that leads to other errors.
KGsays
So, the local election results in Britain (note: Britain not the UK – see below) can be summarised as: very bad for the Tories, mixed for Labour, very good for the Lib Dems and Greens (Green Party of England and Wales and Scottish Greens), good to very good for the SNP (they didn’t win a lot more seats, but after being in government for 15 years, making any gains is impressive), mixed for Plaid Cymru (they lost a few seats but gained control of three councils, giving them a contiguous area of control across most of west Wales). The number of independents winning seats went up, but there don’t seem to have been any significant wins by other parties (Farage’s “Reform UK” has 2 councillors, his former UKIP Party none) with one exception: in the Tower Hamlets area of London, Labour was ousted by the “Aspire” Party, the personal vehicle of one Lutfur Rahman, who has just finished a five-year disqualification from office for electoral misconduct. A point worth noting on Labour: their vote share was almost exactly the same as when these council seats were last contested in 2018 (some council areas in England had all seats contested, some had none, some had half of them), when Jeremy Corbyn was leader. So the claim that Corbyn was an utter disaster and Starmer’s all-out attack on the left of the party has made it electable again looks pretty feeble.
In Northern Ireland, meanwhile, Sinn Fein won most votes (29% first preference votes) and seats (27 out of 90 – with 2 still to be declared), despite only a small increase in vote-share; the DUP lost several seats and considerable votes, mostly to the even more reactionary Traditional Unionist Voice, which won significantly more votes, but still only has one seat. The biggest gainers were the neither-Unionist-nor-Nationalist Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, soggy centrists in policy (17 seats, up from 8). The SDLP and UUP (once dominant parties among Nationalists and Unionists respectively) lost seats, the Greens (who form part of the all-Ireland Green Party) lost both their seats (they had been lucky to hold two on just 1.9% of first preference votes last time – this time 1.5%). My hunch is that they lost votes mainly to Alliance, but as for the Scottish results, this was an STV election, so there should be plenty of data for psephologists. A couple of independents and one Trot (“People Before Profit”) complete the roster so far. The victory of Sinn Fein is highly significant of course, but a new devolved executive can’t be formed without the participation of the DUP, who have said they won’t take part unless the Northern Ireland Protocol (a key part of the Brexit treaty between UK and EU, which imposes customs checks between Britain and Northern Ireland) is scrapped. Of course this also saves them from the embarassment of losing the symbolic title of First Minister to Sinn Fein. So direct rule from London looks likely, since the Protocol can’t be unilaterally scrapped by the UK, and direct rule in turn will give Sinn Fein a fine issue to campaign on. “Get Brexit Done” – my arse!
Apologies if someone has already posted upthread here.
StevoRsays
^ Clarifying fix : Well , here it very – all too breifly is. (Under a minute long – & really hoping he does a longer, more in-depth analysis of it soon.) Plus Legal Eagle’s take on the leak which actaully seems fine and not a crime or anything here.
Seems to me that it would be good if the SCOTUS became more transparent – and more accountable – and less secretive.
Among other more important and badly needed changes and reforms to it.
tuatarasays
Sorry in advance if this has been posted already here and I didnt see.
Author(s): John J. Donohue III, Steven D. Levitt
Publish Date: November 16, 2020
Publication Title: American Law and Economics Review
Format: Journal Article
Abstract
Donohue and Levitt (2001) presented evidence that the legalization of abortion in the early 1970s played an important role in the crime drop of the 1990s. That paper concluded with a strong out-of-sample prediction regarding the next two decades: “When a steady state is reached roughly twenty years from now, the impact of abortion will be roughly twice as great as the impact felt so far. Our results suggest that all else equal, legalized abortion will account for persistent declines of 1% a year in crime over the next two decades.” Estimating parallel specifications to the original paper, but using the seventeen years of data generated after that paper was written, we find strong support for the prediction and the broad hypothesis, while illuminating some previously unrecognized patterns of crime and arrests. We estimate that overall crime fell 17.5% from 1998 to 2014 due to legalized abortion— a decline of 1% per year. From 1991 to 2014, the violent and property crime rates each fell by 50%. Legalized abortion is estimated to have reduced violent crime by 47% and property crime by 33% over this period, and thus can explain most of the observed crime decline.
Looks like the USA is in for another crime wave in about 20 years.
StevoRsays
Australian “leaders” debate round 2 – live blog here :
● Javi Aznarez, Happy 96th birthday David Attenborough: “Today is David Attenborough’s 96th birthday. This cartoon, based on dialogue from Attenborough’s appearance on Jarvis Cocker’s Sunday Service in 2013, is by Barcelona-based illustrator Javi Aznarez. […]”
Russian state TV May 07, 2022
“5% of population just needs to be killed”. Russian TV propaganda.
Which means to be destroyed, no more.
In total we will get 5% of incrable ones, speaking simply it is 2 million people…
These 2 million people need to leave Ukraine or be denazified
Which means to be destroyed, no more.
Russia is what you get when their version of Fox NoNews controls and runs the country.
Some days their state TV explains why they will have to use nuclear weapons and why it is a good idea. That the West also has nuclear weapons and will nuke them back is a point that they don’t worry about.
For something different, they talk about how Ukraine and Ukrainians must be genocided. This guy claims that they won’t have to kill more than 2 million Ukrainians. He might be right. All they have to do is drive a few millions or tens of millions out as refugees. Already the number of Ukrainian refugees is in the millions. Capture and deport a few millions to Russian slave labor camps to never be heard from again. They already have more than a million captured.
Set off a famine to kill a few more millions. Suppress the Ukrainian language, and culture.
And you are done.
Live updates l TASS: more than 1M Ukrainians taken to Russia https://apnews.com › article › russia-ukraine-putin-zele…
5 days ago — More than 1 million people, including nearly 200000 children, have been taken from Ukraine to Russia in the past two months, …
This is part of the Russian genocide plan.
The Russians have a long history of deporting non-Russians to their Gulag slave labor camps. Most of the time they are never heard from again.
After World War II, they deported tens of thousands of the elite of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, and others to Siberia, most of which never came back.
[…]
Among the comments going most viral on Twitter are unsubstantiated claims that Pfizer lied about everything, that trials on the vaccine should have been shut down for safety concerns, and that the vaccine wasn’t worth a bollix {sic}[sic†]. Inevitably, that last one came with a howl of frustration that you won’t see it on the news. The reason you won’t see it on the news, however, is more prosaic than a mass media, big business, and giant government conspiracy: to put it simply, the documents don’t say what many people on social media seem to think they do.
In many viral posts Twitter users have completely misrepresent what’s actually said in the documents — which aren’t in fact from Pfizer at all. One seemingly definitive a-ha moment captured in a tweet claims that pregnant and breastfeeding women were advised to take the jab while internal documents said it was not recommended for those women. It sounds damning, and would be, if the documents were recent or from Pfizer. Instead, the document dates from 2020, when women were advised not to have the jab because of an absence of safety evidence, and is from the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority (MHRA), not Pfizer. […]
[…] Twitter makes us all armchair experts, willing to pontificate on any topic, and treated with equal value to those who devote their lives to actually understanding a scientific field. The scientist David Robert Grimes put it more prosaically: “A bunch of conspiratorial half-wits with all the scientific, statistical acumen of a particularly inept hamster are, yet again, incapable of understanding {science}.”
[…]
† I have no idea why New Statemans decided to mark “bollix” with a “sic”: That’s a variant spelling of “bollocks”, and can be found in several dictionaries; as one example, Merriam-Webster. Admittedly, substituting “bungle” (essentially what it means) is less colourful and perhaps more meaningless, but the quoted statement seems, to me, to be a typical angry ranting British-style loon.
From 19th-century anti-Semitic caricatures to disinformation linked to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Rothschild international banking dynasty has been a favourite target of conspiracy theorists blaming it for the world’s ills.
Now an exhibition at the Jewish Museum in Vienna seeks to debunk some of the wild rumours and explore why the Rothschild name continues to attract them […].
“We often hear the names of George Soros or Bill Gates, Jewish or non-Jewish people who are responsible for everything,” exhibition curator Tom Juncker told AFP.
“And the name Rothschild keeps coming up, although no specific Rothschild is named, but the name Rothschild is used as a wild card,” he added.
[…]
The Rothschilds “have been made the culprits for certain shortcomings of the system, instead of attributing those to the speculative mechanisms of capitalism,” Juncker added.
[…]
“After the Shoah, open hatred against Jews was taboo,” the Jewish Forum for Democracy and Against Anti-Semitism said.
“So right-wing extremists and other anti-Semites started finding code words for the alleged conspiracy of the Jews.”
At the Vienna exhibition, a large screen reproduces social media posts to highlight how this continues even today.
“Especially now, in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, it is again very current: we always find Rothschild there,” Juncker said.
AFP factcheckers have investigated several posts evoking the Rothschilds and spreading false information.
In one case, posts shared thousands of times on Facebook from late 2020 point to a “Covid scam”, claiming a certain Richard Rothschild filed a patent for a Covid-19 screening test as early as 2015.
A spokeswoman for the financial advisory group Rothschild & Co confirmed to AFP that the man cited had no connection with the group.
In addition, while the patent — which describes techniques for analysing biometric data — is from 2015, it was updated in September 2020 to say the techniques could be applied to Covid.
[…]
Having risen from humble origins, the Rothschilds have made a decisive contribution to Europe thanks to “their very modern management”, said Gabriele Kohlbauer-Fritz, another curator of the exhibition, entitled “The Vienna Rothschilds. A Thriller”.
“It was a family from the Jewish ghetto in Frankfurt. It all started with a small coin dealer who sent each of his five sons to European cities, including Vienna” in 1821, Kohlbauer-Fritz said.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire was then plagued by recurring financial difficulties.
Salomon Rothschild quickly became indispensable to the monarchy and was ennobled, without giving in to assimilation and denying his Jewishness, according to the exhibition.
The Credit-Anstalt bank, state-of-the-art hospitals, a major foundation, sumptuous palaces, a train station, a garden — almost everything he and his descendants built in Vienna before Austria’s annexation by Adolf Hitler has disappeared today.
“The Nazis took practically everything,” Kohlbauer-Fritz said.
[…]
It was not until 2016 that a Rothschild Square was inaugurated in Vienna to honour the family’s contribution.
A group of 30 artistes with the Theatre-Circus Elysium from Kyiv were in northern Italy when Russian forces invaded Ukraine on February 24. The troupe have been unable to return, sparking guilt among some members for escaping the horrors fellow Ukrainians are suffering. But they all see their performance as an act of resistance.
[…]
Thanks to a solidarity network of arts professionals, several Italian theatres have opened their doors to the Ukrainian troupe. “We don’t want to stop,” said the group’s executive director, Oleksandr Sakharov, adding that their job now is to show the world the bravery and fighting spirit of the Ukrainian people.
Maybe Ukraine’s patron saint isn’t actually St. Javelin, but St. Patrick. Whoever is running the show, they don’t seem to like Russians who hang around Snake Island. [Tweet and videos available at the link.]
And when it comes to landing ships, Russia appears to have lost another at … where else. [Tweet and video available at the link.]
This is the fourth landing ship Russia has lost, after one was sunk and two more damaged by an earlier missile strike in the Sea of Azov. Adding a nice bit of irony to this drone takedown is the fact that the ship was in the process of delivering an anti-aircraft system for Russians occupying the island. Russia might have used that when to jets from the Ukrainian Air Force showed up to stroke targets days later. [Tweet and video available at the link.]
And of course the original unwanted visitor to Snake Island, the cruiser Moskva, flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, got promoted to submarine after being on the radio reply that was the best signal of just how the whole war was going to go down for Putin.
However, when it comes to this report, the Black Sea still seems a little… dark.
#Ukraine’s General Staff reported that #Russia has lost another ship. The MP from Odesa and local media outlets claim it is the Russian Navy patrol ship Admiral Makarov, an Admiral Grigorovich-class frigate. Needs to be confirmed.
[…] But there remains no confirmation of this sinking. In fact, Russian sources have claimed the Makrov is “chilling” in the port at Sevastopol. Meanwhile others have insisted that low-resolution video showing a sinking ship is the Makrov settling into the sea. Something seems to have happened, as the time of the ship’s reported disappearance was marked by a lot of overflights from the US and other potentially interested parties. But there’s no clear evidence that Russia lost this ship.
The best guess is that the Makrov did not sink, and probably was never hit. The closest thing to an official statement suggests this was a “misunderstanding.” Or maybe it sank. I genuinely do not know.
But it would probably be advised to stay away from Snake Island.
By all indications, Russian forces will announce the creation of a Kherson People’s Republic or possibly forcibly annex Kherson Oblast in the coming weeks to cement its occupation administration and attempt to permanently strip these territories from Ukraine.
Russian forces continued to target Odesa with cruise missile strikes and conduct false-flag attacks in Transnistria over the past several days.
[…] The Ukrainian counteroffensive northeast of Kharkiv is making significant progress and will likely advance to the Russian border in the coming days or weeks. Russian forces may be conducting a limited withdrawal in the face of successful Ukrainian attacks and reportedly destroyed three bridges to slow the Ukrainian advance. Armies generally only destroy bridges if they have largely decided they will not attempt to cross the river in the other direction anytime soon; Russian forces are therefore unlikely to launch operations to retake the northeast outskirts of Kharkiv liberated by Ukrainian forces in the near future. Russian forces previously destroyed several bridges during their retreat from Chernihiv Oblast—as did Ukrainian forces withdrawing in the face of the Russian offensive in the initial days of the war.
This Ukrainian offensive is likely intended to push Russian forces out of artillery range of Kharkiv city and drive to the border of Russia’s Belgorod Oblast. As ISW previously forecasted, the Ukrainian counteroffensive is forcing Russian units intended for deployment elsewhere to redeploy to the Kharkiv front to halt Ukrainian attacks. Given the current rate of Ukrainian advances, Russian forces may be unable to prevent Ukrainian forces from reaching the Russian border, even with additional reinforcements. Ukrainian forces are not directly threatening Russian lines of communication to Izyum (and ISW cannot verify claims of a separate Ukrainian counteroffensive toward Izyum at this time), but the Ukrainian counteroffensive demonstrates promising Ukrainian capabilities and may set conditions for further offensive operations into northeastern Kharkiv Oblast.
[…] Russian forces are reportedly increasing their security presence in both Kherson and Mariupol, including withdrawing personnel from frontline combat units to protect Russian dignitaries in Mariupol. Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) Leader Denis Pushilin arrived in Kherson on May 6, and local occupation officials stated the region will “strive to become a subject of Russia” and “will resemble something close to Crimea in terms of the pace of development,” echoing longstanding rhetoric used by Russia’s existing proxies in eastern Ukraine. As ISW has previously assessed, the Kremlin will likely form illegal proxy republics or directly annex occupied areas of southern and eastern Ukraine to cement its occupation administration and attempt to permanently strip these territories from Ukraine. […]
StevoR @373: I wish Canada had just the one centre-left party. Unfortunately, we have two (with the NDP currently a bit further left than the Liberals). That means the left-leaning vote is always split, and it’s the only reason Conservatives ever have a chance of winning. Bloody frustrating, especially with the increasing volume of socially conservative, Trumpesque noise (if not numbers) on the right.
The White House announced Sunday that the United States will bar Russian companies and citizens from using U.S. accounting, marketing and consulting services as part of a new package of sanctions designed to further punish Moscow for its war in Ukraine.
The U.S. is also moving to sanction three major Russian-state controlled television stations and impose more export controls on Russia’s industrial sector, according to a White House fact sheet.
And the package includes new visa restrictions on 2,600 Russian and Belarusian officials as well as sanctions on Russian bank executives, among them 27 Gazprombank executives.
“Today’s actions are a continuation of the systematic and methodical removal of Russia from the global financial and economic system,” a senior Biden administration official said on a call with reporters previewing the actions. “The message is there will be no safe haven for the Russian economy if [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s invasion continues.”
President Biden held a call with other Group of Seven (G7) leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday during which the new measures were likely to be a topic of discussion.
The G7 leaders on Sunday are committing “to phasing out or banning the import of Russian oil,” according to the White House fact sheet, which did not include a timeline on that commitment. The U.S. has already banned imports of Russian oil and natural gas, but European nations are far more reliant on Russian energy exports. […]
Justice Samuel Alito, in his leaked opinion overruling Roe v. Wade, went all the way back to the 13th century to make his case that there have always been people in power who opposed abortion, which justifies making it illegal now. Unsurprisingly, this whirlwind tour through history quoted, as experts, at least two men who also had strong opinions on how witches ought to be burned.
While I could probably bore you all to death with my own history lesson about the many, many, many ways in which people have ended their unwanted pregnancies throughout the centuries, it’s probably a lot more fun to watch this SNL cold open imagining the very day that a bunch of medieval dudes created the basis for Alito’s terrible, terrible decision … featuring Benedict Cumberbatch who is of course my boyfriend but apparently only when he is Sherlock. [video is available at the link]
[…] It’s funny because it’s actually extremely accurate and super depressing. And because Kate McKinnon.
Wikipedia is missing one relevant information related to Russian warships. There is currently Year build, draught and lenght etc. but no information about “depth” which would indicate how deep that ship is in the bottom of the black sea.
At which point I so completely lost it überROTFLing the mildly deranged penguin screamed and exited the vicinity, France, Europe, and at the speed she seems to be going, not only the Earth but very probably the Solar System. Don’t worry, besides the Massive Orbital Cheese Vault (MOON (blame poor styluspenguinship)), she did take care to evacuate the cheeseboard. (Fortunately, there is one brie she somehow missed, which I am now munching.)
Hundreds of images of the British Nigerian man who died in Leeds in 1969 are on display across the city in defiance of thieves
Racists who stole a blue plaque commemorating the death of a British-Nigerian man in Leeds have been “taught a lesson” as citizens overwhelmingly came together to display hundreds of images of the plaque on billboards, video screens and stickers across the city.
Leeds was left shaken after the plaque dedicated to David Oluwale, who died in 1969 after being harassed by police, was stolen within hours of being unveiled on Leeds Bridge on Monday.
Leeds Civic Trust, which installed the memorial, said the irony of the crime was that the thieves had hugely amplified Oluwale’s name.
Mel Roberts, development and engagement manager at the trust, said: “Thank God they stole that plaque because it’s really taught them a lesson, and I think it’s teaching the city an important lesson as well.”
She said she had received an outpouring of support on social media and by email, with people asking for stickers and badges to show their support for the #rememberoluwale campaign.
An event to mark the installation of the plaque, attended by more than 200 people including the leader of Leeds city council, was held between 5pm and 7pm on Monday — but by 10pm it had been stolen.
[…]
A new plaque is being made, funded by the council, and will be installed on the bridge, which was chosen because it was close to where 38-year-old Oluwale was last seen alive, being chased by Sgt Kenneth Kitching and Insp Geoffrey Ellerker. His body was found two weeks later, about a mile away, in the River Aire, which flows under the bridge.
In 1971, the two officers were convicted of assault by a jury which had been directed to acquit them of manslaughter.
The council agreed to display an image of the plaque on its digital screens in prominent locations around the city, and the advertising company JCDecaux also volunteered its billboards. Other people and organisations began to run with the idea too, including Leeds Playhouse, which displayed the image on a 2-metre-tall billboard at the front of the theatre, and Hyde Park Picture House, a historic cinema, which will show the plaque before its films.
Other efforts include a skateboard shop making skateboard stickers and a printing company producing full-scale plaque stickers[. …]
Ukraine update, politicians and celebrities version:
The first lady met with the wife of President Volodymyr Zelensky, as Russia’s offensive in eastern Ukraine continued. Officials said they feared dozens of people sheltering in a school building had been killed in a Russian airstrike.
In high-profile display of solidarity with Ukraine on the eve of a key Russian military holiday, Jill Biden, the first lady, made an unannounced visit to western Ukraine on Sunday, hours before President Biden and other Group of 7 leaders were scheduled to meet virtually with President Volodymyr Zelensky. Canada’s leader, Justin Trudeau, also made an unannounced visit, traveling to view the devastation in the Kyiv suburb of Irpin.
“Canada will always stand shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Twitter during a trip to Irpin, a devastated suburb of Kyiv. Thanking him for his visit, Mayor Oleksandr Markushyn said Trudeau “came to Irpin to see with his own eyes all the horror that Russian occupants did to our city.”
The events served to demonstrate the depth of support for Ukraine by the United States and other nations in the face of Russia’s invasion, on a day when officials feared that dozens of people had been killed in a Russian airstrike that leveled a school in a village in eastern Ukraine, where fighting has intensified.
U2 frontman Bono visited the grounds of St. Andrew’s Church in Bucha, where a large communal grave was unearthed in March after Russian troops withdrew from the town just north of Ukraine’s capital. Earlier Sunday, Bono and his bandmate, The Edge, performed in a Kyiv metro station.
A team of senior American diplomats returned to the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv on Sunday for the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine, a move that coincided with Victory in Europe Day and one day ahead of a planned Russian celebration of its military might.
“Just arrived in Kyiv! Delighted to be back on Victory in Europe Day,” the Embassy posted on Twitter with a photo of the chargé d’affaires, Kristina Kvien.
The last Ukrainian defenders of Mariupol vowed to never surrender, offering a defiant image to the world in a virtual news conference on Sunday from a bunker beneath the twisted remains of what was once one of Europe’s largest steel factories.
“Being captured means being dead,” Lieutenant Illya Samoilenko, an officer in the Azov regiment, said via Zoom, in an apparent reference to reports of killings by Russian forces in areas they seized. Occasionally, he turned off his sound to take urgent updates on the fighting. “We here are basically dead men. Most of us know this. This is why we fight.” The last evacuation of civilians, many of whom had been trapped for weeks beneath the sprawling complex, was completed on Saturday. Scores of the soldiers who remain are injured.
lumipunasays
Re 369 (on David Attenborough turning 96):
Apparently, Attenborough is narrating the much-hyped CGI documentary Prehistoric Planet, which comes out this month. If you’d told me 10 or 20 years ago that he’d still be narrating nature documentaries in 2020s, I’d have assumed you meant a posthumous CGI avatar of him…
Televisions in Russia were hacked on Victory Day with messages reading “There is blood on your hands of thousands of Ukrainians and hundreds of murdered children. TV and government are lying — say no to war”.
Good. Wonder if it will have any effect?
StevoRsays
@369 & 386. blf : Thanks for those. Huge respect for and fan of Attenborough here.
.***
Some slight consequences for the Aussie Forced Birther / Female Slaver Bernie Finn :
The signs have been everywhere that women are on the move. First literally, in person, when tens of thousands marched in protest at the treatment of women in the parliament. Then, when independent female candidates showed up to contest inner-city electorates on the issues of climate, accountability and respect for women, an army of volunteers materialised.
The institutional response of the Liberal Party to this onslaught of capable females has been to deploy traditional tactics, suggesting that the women are hypocrites, inexperienced, vengeful, or “groupies” — the puppets of a wealthy man.
On May 3rd the Perseverance rover on Mars lost contact with the Ingenuity helicopter, which failed to “phone home”. Analyzing the situation, the helicopter team decided the batteries hadn’t sufficiently charged due an accumulation of dust, causing power to be automatically shut off to some critical components (as designed). Later, hopefully warmer and with more charge available, the helicopter would power up and eventually attempt to contact Perseverance. However, one of the components powered-off was the clock, so after waking up, Ingenuity would have no idea of the time. Since the communications with Perseverance are on a regular schedule, any attempted communications would to be very lucky indeed to “hit” the window when Perseverance was listening.
So what they did was stop essentially all operations on the rover and listen… and Ingenuity did, eventually phone home, on May 5th, at the wrong time and with a low battery charge. To try and charge up the batteries, the heaters now turn at a much colder temperature than before — meaning the systems (much of which are COTS (commercial off-the-shelf and not space-hardened)) will be subject to both colder temperatures and greater changes in temperature than previously.
According to NASA’s Ingenuity in Contact With Perseverance Rover After Communications Dropout, “Their goal is to help the helicopter’s battery accumulate enough of a charge during the next few sols so that it could support all necessary spacecraft systems during the cold Martian night. […] The Ingenuity engineers hope that after several days of the helicopter’s array soaking in the limited rays, the battery will have reached a point where the spacecraft can return to normal operations.”
The general problem is likely to get worse, as the Martian winter is approaching and Mars gets colder with more dust in the air. Ingenuity now needs all the power it can get, but the dust (some of which may be on the solar panels) is having a noticeable impact on their efficiency.
There was apparently a 28th flight a few days before (April 29th),
blfsays
François Fillon was the French PM whose reelection campaign self-imploded in 2017 when it was revealed he “hired” his wife a fake job, reimbursed by the government. One consequence is the current President, Macron, was elected. A snippet from French court upholds one-year sentence for ex-PM Fillon in ‘fake jobs’ scandal:
Since withdrawing from politics, Fillon had held jobs on the boards of Russian petrochemicals giant Sibur and hydrocarbons firm Zarubezhneft.
Good grief. Kudos to him, however, for resigning from both positions due to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
When I first wrote about the town of Popasna on April 16, I had absolutely no idea that this was an important military stronghold for Ukraine, or that it would become the focus of Russian attention for the following month. I stumbled across the town in a list of locations, looked it up where everyone looks things up—Wikipedia—and realized it had an interesting history. Popasna had been captured by Russian forces in 2014, recaptured by Ukrainian forces just three months later, and stayed in Ukrainian hands when a neighboring town, Pervomaisk, was captured a second time by pro-Russian separatists.
I then took the next step, pulled these two towns up on Google Earth, and started looking at that small strip of land that separated them. Sure enough, what had clearly been unremarkable farmland eight years ago, had since then been crisscrossed by trenches and dotted with bunkers. The images were good enough that you could even see how the short stretch of road separating Popasna and Pervomaisk was dotted by a pattern of mines.
It was easy to imagine a certain tragic romance around these places. Surely there were families who lived in Popasna after leaving behind parents or grandparents in Pervomaisk. There must have been sweethearts severed by the line running between these towns. Friends and business partners could look out a window and see the place they used to meet for coffee on Tuesdays, or go to church on Sundays. Only now that place was on the other side of mines, trenches, and machine gun nests.
Since 2014, the population of Popasna, which had been 20,000 before the first Russian invasion, had declined. There were only a handful of functioning stores remaining in the town and an unknown, but much smaller, population when the second invasion began. However, I had no idea how fortified the town had really become, or what would happen again, and again, and again over the following weeks as Russia and Ukraine engaged in what I cheekily named the Popasna Polka.
Thanks to the deep, heavily fortified bunkers Ukraine had built in and around Popasna, they could draw Russian forces into the city, then attack them with artillery kept well back from the line. That tactic accounted for the repeating pattern in which Russian forces announced they had entered Popasna, then announced that they had entered Popasna, then announced that they had entered Popasna.
But when Russian troops entered Popasna on May 6, there were few Ukrainain forces left to oppose them. You could see this coming. For the better part of a month, Russia had 7 Battalion Tactical Groups concentrating their fire on Popasna. When Russia began withdrawing forces from Mariupol, many of those that left the ruined city came to join these other BTGS in battering this much smaller town.
On NASA’s FIRMS fire map, you could watch Popasna being slowly reduced. At first Russia was firing all around the city. Then it was firing into the west and the north. The last two days before Russia rolled in to Popasna in force, all of the artillery had been directed at just a few remaining blocks on the slightly higher ground at the north end of the town. Reports from evacuees who escaped the town in its last days stated that there was not a single building, anywhere in the town, still standing. [What a waste1]
Though Chechen forces are now engaged in using Popasna for what seems to be their principle role in the war—making propaganda videos in which they chuckle over the idea of how cruel they can be to Ukrainians—indications are that all but a handful of fighters left the ruins of the town on Friday evening as the barrage of shells finally compromised the last bunkers. Surviving Ukrainian forces withdrew to the north and the west of Popasna, to positions that local officials describe as “prepared fallbacks.” However, it’s not clear where those positions might be.
I had no idea when I started writing about it, but the reason Popasna was so important was that, in this part of the field, at least, it held the southern flank. Having turned that flank, Russian forces now threaten forces along the line that runs toward Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, which are already being pressed from the north and east.
Maybe Ukraine does have well-prepared fallback positions that will make Popasna, for all the effort that Russia put into it, just two miles of road won at a very high price. Maybe the increased presence of Western weapons in this part of the battlefield will prevent Russia from being able to exploit this breakthrough. Maybe Russia’s own repeatedly demonstrated incompetence will be enough. [Map available at the link]
There’s not really any evidence that Russia did anything new at Popasna. It didn’t organize a large scale movement or a swift operation using combined arms. It just pounded with artillery until there was nothing left to pound, which has been the Russian tactic going back through decades.
But there are definitely reasons to be concerned about what’s going on in this area, concerns that only increased on Sunday with Russia’s capture of the town of Nyzhnie, about 20 kilometers northeast of Popasna.
KHARKIV
If what’s happening at Popasna is all sad news, what’s happening north of Kharkiv is anything but. Though there have definitely been some reversals — Ukraine lost several vehicles in what seems to have been an ill-considered attempt to drive into first Kozacha Lopan then a couple of miles south near Tsupivka—everything else happening in the area seems to be falling in the direction of the folks waving blue and yellow flags.
Russian forces are reportedly digging in near Kozacha Lopan, which is less than 4km from the Russian border. The intention appears to be to protect the large border crossing just a few kilometers to the east at Nekhoteevka. This crossing became famous early in the war as satellite imagery showed Russian convoys passing through on their way to assault Kharkiv. Now Russia seems to be anxious to keep Ukrainian forces back from the area just in case they get a taste for going the other direction—the Russian base at Belgorod is just 30km up the road. And honestly, that has to be tempting.
In any case, Nekhoteevka has mostly lost its value as a place to bring Russian materiel into Ukraine, as Ukraine now blocks every route coming from that crossing.
What continues to be most puzzling, and interesting, is what’s going on along the western bank of the Siverskyi Donets River. Ukrainian forces raced into position at Staryi Saltiv last week, surprising observers — and the Russians. From there, they shelled the town of Rubiznhe to the north, where a bridge crossed the river. However, that bridge has now been blown, reportedly by Russian forces. Which makes the latest NASA FIRMS data very interesting. [fire map available at the link]
Just for this map, I’ve added some fire icons to denote areas where NASA FIRMS data indicates hot spots on May 6-7. Two of these are west of Staryi Saltiv, where Ukraine appears to be working to clear towns along another highway and potentially cut off Russian forces who still appear to be occupying the area around Petrivka.
But another big area of fire is now in the area east of Starytsya, well to the north of previous activity and quite close to the Russian border. What’s at Starytsya? One of two bridges across the Siverskyi Donets in this whole area of Ukraine still believed to be intact.
Just as it did at Rubiznhe a few days ago, Ukraine appears to be pounding the area around the bridge. Also worth noting, Ukraine no longer seems to be hitting positions around Rubiznhe or the bridge to the east, both of which were shelled earlier in the week.
Does this mean that Ukraine is racing up the west side of the river, and is now closing on Starytsya? That’s completely unknown.
What is clear is that Russia’s main site for moving men and equipment into Ukraine at this point is less than 10km east of Starytsya at Vovchansk. But if Ukraine wants to reach Vovchansk soon, they need to take an intact bridge.
IZYUM
What’s happening at Izyum continues to be fast moving and complex. As was discussed on Friday, Ukraine seems to be operating primarily in the area immediately northwest of the city, where a complex network of roads provides access that’s difficult to cut off and forests provide good cover. Fires within that forest make it difficult to tell where there are areas of fresh firing, and just areas of plain old fire.
In any case, we can hope this is true:
According to many reports, Russian 64th separated motorized brigade, responsible for mass rape, torture and executions in Bucha, promoted by Putin to a Guard brigade, was completely destroyed at Izyum, Kharkiv region. […].
[…] 1. Putin had no issues delivering the speech. No slurring. He coughed a couple of times but I saw nothing to suggest a major issue.
2. He walked around, shook hands and did a lot of stuff where you could look at his hands. I saw no trembling or wild motions. It is possible to take drugs to reduce the effects of neurological diseases so who knows. There was one odd thing about his hands. The right hand was very stiff while the left hand swung unnaturally by a lot as he walked.
3. The speech itself was vapid. He did not call the butchery of Ukraine a war. He did not call for mobilization. He went out of his way to call attention to American and British veterans of WW2 and how Russia honors them. In other words he did not set it up as Russia vs the world.
3a. Aaand they cancelled the air show. This is interesting because there was speculation that the doomsday plane would fly over Red Square and this would be a message of some sort. Now this is moot.
4. The parade was very poorly done. Military could not march in step, soldier faces were not aligned so these young guys looked every which way. Everyone seemed to rather be at the bar. The only person enjoying himself was Lavrov seemingly.
5. Putin was visibly disdainful of the vets he shook hands with. He literally tried to shake off some who wanted to talk to him for too long. It was weird.
6. Speaking of shaking hands… if this dude is willing to get this close with this many people then wtf is going on with long tables? I really started to think about body doubles at that point. I thought he would show up, give a speech from afar and leave or sit back. But no. He shook hands and was close to a lot of people. Something does not add up but I am not sure what.
Rare May wildfires are igniting across Siberia. The regions of Omsk and Tyumen in Western Siberia have had firestorms since late April. The early start to the fire season is worrying as it followed a record-breaking fire season in 2021. Most fires are in the Taiga, the southern forested area of Siberia. But not all – video evidence shows tundra fires as well.
According to reporting from the CBC, the southern forests are abnormally dry and contain a massive amount of fuel-ready vegetation to burn. The CBC notes that the forests burning in Siberia are similar to what North Americans experiences at the end of June. Trees, shrubs, and grasses are the fuel that drives conditions that are difficult to control.
The vast expanse of the Russian steppes is similar to our Great Plains. The fires in the steppes burn out of control […] [map and tweet available at the link]
In 77 out of 83 regions of #Russia, there are wildfires reported. The worst fires are in #Siberia, destroying entire villages.
Yet, Putin does not care about this devastation at home, as he continues his barbaric war against #Ukraine.
Then there are the zombie fires that smolder underground in peat over the winter and reemerge on the surface when conditions are favorable.
The dark smoke of these fires drifts and eventually settles in the Arctic, where snow, sea ice, and glaciers are covered with black aerosols that melt the ice faster by increasing solar absorption in a devasting feedback loop.
Additionally, the fires thaw the permafrost adding yet another feedback to the loop.
Residents and indigenous people have been left to fight the fires by themselves in Russia. The enormous swathes of empty land will be left to burn out of control. Unless Putin’s war ends quickly, the devastation to the climate will only bring us that much closer to the tipping point.
From the CBC:
In North America, we have these […] legions of trained wildland firefighters at provincial levels, at state levels and at federal levels. This is not the case in Russia. In fact, many of the largest fires are fought using military personnel and military equipment.
So the aerial tankers that we would use, say to drop water or fire retardant, in the U.S., those are civilian. And in Canada, they’re civilian planes. In Russia, they’re almost exclusively military.
And oftentimes in Siberia, how that request is made is that the governors of each okrug, of each krai, of each republic, they would request from Moscow that this equipment be sent to fight the fires.
Right now, those requests are not being made. There’s no equipment being sent. The fires are being left to burn. And as we progress into the summer season and the fires move even farther north, the population also gets more sparse and so there’s fewer people on the ground to fight the fires.
[…] Some of these fires are just simply not going to be fought, but they’re going to be left to burn.
More videos are available at the link. Details about other climate-related disasters are also presented.
The Ukrainian SBU (Security Service) reports have intercepted phone conversations of Russian soldiers in Kherson that paint a picture of complete chaos within the ranks of Russian soldiers. Not content with pillaging and murdering Ukrainian civilians the Kadyrovtsy Chechens are now preying on Russian soldiers. Drunken soldiers engage in brawls, knife fights, and gunfights. Ethnic and criminal gangs within the army fight over loot and turf.
Russian conscripts and contract soldiers hate their leaders, officers, and the brutal Kadyrovtsy Chechens. They are totally demoralized and many are suffering from PTSD. They know they are losing and they know they are just cannon fodder for Generals who have zero regard for their lives and no clue how to run a war. It’s not just attrition and loss of equipment and lack of logistics. The total lack of esprit de corps, unit cohesion and a deteriorating mental state of the Russian military is perhaps a worse threat to its effectiveness.
Plus it is probably not lost on the ethnic minorities in the Russian army that they are always at the front, while ethnic Russians and the Kadyrovtsy Chechens take up the rear where they are not only more likely to survive but where they have more time to accumulate loot:
Russia is deliberately using war in Ukraine to bring Russia’s national minorities to decline culling their youth — North Ossetia, Buryatia, Tuva, Dagestan, Ingushetia, Chukotka and the Idel-Ural region have the highest war casualties per thousand inhabitants
Even in peacetime and without the pressure of war, the Russian military is a miserable place to be. Conditions for rank and file soldiers are worse in the army than they are in Russia’s infamous prisons. Their only source for news is state channels that spout QAnon-level nonsense completely divorced from reality. Take that corrupt sad sack delusional force and throw it into the reality of the meatgrinder of Ukraine and it should be no surprise that it is imploding under the pressure.
The 97th Ukrainian infantry battalion issued a thank you letter for the Russian unit which on May 8 opened friendly fire on its own positions. The Russians annihilated their positions with troops & armor with thermobaric flamethrowers TOS-1A Sunblaze in #Zaporizhzhya province.
The shock of the difference between the fantasies spun by Putin and Russian media and their experience in the real world in Ukraine has got to be psychologically devastating. Everything they have been told and believed is a lie. They are suddenly confronted with the reality that their army sucks, their leaders suck, their officers suck and the Ukrainians are not only not rolling over in the face of the Russian invasion — they are terrifyingly deadly opponents. Superior in every way as warriors to the shambolic Russian war machine. Ukrainian civilians are not throwing flowers, they are throwing Molotov cocktails.
The Russian military’s readiness and ability to function seem to be in free fall. Kherson may be on the verge of a tipping point. Once the new American supplied Ukrainian howitzers roll in it could all come unglued in a flash. From the reports that are trickling in this does not look like an army ready to defend against a major well-planned offensive.
Ever since the demise of Roe v. Wade was telegraphed by a Supreme Court draft opinion, GOP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has sought to downplay the substance of the ruling.
McConnell immediately instructed his caucus to focus their outrage on the unprecedented leak, but the reality is that McConnell no longer leads his caucus—he follows it. And after feigning indignation for about a day, Senate Republicans started coming clean about their ultimate destination: a national abortion ban.
In theory, the likely demise of Roe v. Wade would allow states to impose sweeping new restrictions on reproductive rights. In practice, there’s no reason to assume that Republicans would see a patchwork system as their final endpoint.
In a letter to her Democratic colleagues sent this morning, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote, “Republicans have made clear that their goal will be to seek to criminalize abortion nationwide.” As The New York Times reported, it’s a message her party is quickly coalescing around for a reason.
Democrats rang alarm bells on Sunday about the likelihood that Republicans would try to restrict abortion nationwide, two days after an interview was published in which Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, said a ban was “possible” if his party gained control in Washington.
The Senate Republican leader, who is often cagey about his future plans, spoke to USA Today about Justice Samuel Alito’s leaked draft ruling and the future of the larger dispute. Asked if a national abortion ban was “worthy of debate,” McConnell said, “If the leaked opinion became the final opinion, legislative bodies — not only at the state level but at the federal level — certainly could legislate in that area.”
He added, “So yeah, it’s possible.”
[…] The Washington Post reported last week, for example, that groups hoping to ban abortion have already met with their congressional allies about a possible “nationwide ban on the procedure if Republicans retake power in Washington.”
[…] discussions have reportedly advanced to such a stage that specific GOP senators have already sketched out policy details — they’re eyeing a six-week abortion ban […]
NBC News had a related report a couple of days later, quoting Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa conceding that GOP senators are, in fact, debating nationwide abortion restrictions.
At this point, I know what some of you are thinking. “Sure, many in the GOP might want a national abortion ban, but even if Republicans controlled Congress and the White House, the Senate filibuster still exists. It’s why the actual threat of a federal ban remains relatively low.”
And while that may offer some comfort to proponents of reproductive rights, the political dynamic may not be quite that simple.
For one thing, it’s not inconceivable that, in the coming election cycles, Republicans will put together a 60-vote majority — at which point the debate over the filibuster will be largely irrelevant. What’s more, even if the GOP majority fell a little short of the magic number, there are some Democratic opponents of abortion rights that might conceivably help Republicans with a federal policy with new restrictions on reproductive rights.
For another, while McConnell has sworn up and down that he won’t budge on reforming the Senate’s filibuster rules, we don’t know for sure whether he’ll remain his conference’s leader, and even if he does, the Kentuckian tends to follow his members’ lead.
Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy told Greg Sargent this morning, “When the opportunity presents itself, there’s no doubt in my mind that [a Senate Republican majority would] change the rules to pass a bill criminalizing abortion federally.”
Summary from Steve Benen regarding political races in Georgia:
[…] Donald Trump recorded a weird robocall message in support of Rep. Rep. Jody Hice, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s Republican primary rival. The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that the former president “goes on for more than a minute and a half, talking about himself, repeating disproven election conspiracies, and floating a new one.” The new one: Trump said Raffensperger might be “in collusion” with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.
Pressed on his view of Mr. Trump, Mr. Esper [former Defense secretary, Mark Esper] — who strained throughout the book to be fair to the man who fired him while also calling out his increasingly erratic behavior after his first impeachment trial ended in February 2020 — said carefully but bluntly, “He is an unprincipled person who, given his self-interest, should not be in the position of public service.”
Commentary:
[…] Last night, “60 Minutes” released a written statement the show received from the former president, which was rather personal. Esper, according to Trump, was “weak” and a “lightweight.” Trump claimed that he singlehandedly led the U.S. military because of Esper’s ineffectiveness. He twice slammed Esper as a “RINO” (Republican in Name Only).
If the mockery sounds familiar, it’s because Trump has used similar phrasing to deal with many of the other former members of his team who’ve since denounced the former president.
Indeed, it’s an extraordinary list. Former Attorney General William Barr, for example, recently rejected the idea of Trump returning to the White House. Former White House National Security Advisor John Bolton hasn’t just denounced Trump, last week Bolton agreed that the former president would be a national security threat to the United States if given a second term.
John Kelly, meanwhile, served as Trump’s White House chief of staff for 17 months, working side-by-side with the then-president every day in the West Wing. Now, Kelly can barely contain his visceral contempt for Trump.
[…] In June 2020, former Defense Secretary James Mattis, wrote a rather extraordinary rebuke of Trump, condemning the president for being divisive, immature, and cavalier about abusing his powers. […]
Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson shared some uncomplimentary thoughts of his own about Trump. According to the nation’s former chief diplomat, the then-president is “pretty undisciplined,” “doesn’t like to read,” and “often” urged Tillerson to pursue policies that were inconsistent with American laws.
[…] The list grows much longer if we include other federal officials who worked with Trump just below the cabinet level.
[…] now that these men and women have left the administration and had an opportunity to reflect on their time on Team Trump, they’re eager to let the public know that Trump is unsuited for national leadership.
History offers plenty of examples of presidents who’ve clashed with one aide or another, but we’ve never seen anything like this.
Postscript: In his odd written statement to CBS, Trump addressed the controversy surrounding missile strikes against our Mexican neighbors by saying, “No comment.”
Amidst a series of literally unbelievable denials and fabrications, Trump didn’t want to deny the story about striking Mexico, presumably because (a) it’s true; and (b) he sees some political upside to having people believe it’s true.
[Angelika’s] anxiety was laced with nervousness for what lay ahead: “The whole way I was thinking about what it would be like to see my sister and whether she would accept me,” she said.
From her home in Girona, Tatyana tracked Angelika’s every step. She bought her a plane ticket from Warsaw, battling spotty mobile coverage and language barriers to make sure her sister made it on to the flight. “I was going crazy,” said Tatyana. “She had never been on a plane, she didn’t know how to check in or check her baggage.”
They only found each other again in 2019. The sister who grew up in Spain, Tatyana, apparently has lost most of her Ukrainian language, and Angelika does not know Spanish, so they are mostly communicating via an app.
After his radical draft opinion was leaked last week, Justice Samuel Alito apparently thought it’d be best to keep a low profile for a while. The conservative jurist was scheduled to appear at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ judicial conference, for example, but last week, he canceled.
Alito’s most closely aligned ideological ally, however, still has plenty to say. The Washington Post reported:
Justice Clarence Thomas said Friday that the judiciary is threatened if people are unwilling to “live with outcomes we don’t agree with” and that recent events at the Supreme Court might be “one symptom of that.” Thomas, speaking to judges and lawyers at the 11th Circuit Judicial Conference, did not speak directly about the leak of a draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, a colossal breach of the court’s procedures.
The Post’s report added that as part of the same appearance, Thomas said he worried about declining respect for institutions and the rule of law. “It bodes ill for a free society,” the conservative added. The justice went on to say that it can’t be that institutions “give you only the outcome you want, or can be bullied” to do the same.
Oh my.
Right off the bat, Thomas’ concerns about declining respect for institutions is rooted in fact — the Supreme Court’s reputation, in particular, has suffered in recent years — but the conservative jurist seems willfully ignorant of the deliberate developments that created such conditions.
It was Senate Republicans who stole a Supreme Court seat in 2016, as part of a larger effort to politicize the judiciary.
Dana Milbank added in his latest column, “Worse, this McConnell-packed Roberts court has returned the favor by stacking the deck in favor of minority rule by Republicans. It has blessed partisan gerrymandering, giving Republicans representation in the House disproportionate to their share of the electorate. It has allowed elections to be decided by billionaires and corporations spending unlimited sums of untraceable money. It has kneecapped labor unions, co-signed voter-suppression schemes by Republican-run states and eviscerated the civil-rights-era Voting Rights Act, to disastrous effect for Black and brown voters.”
What’s more, the justices have contributed to the problem even while away from the bench. Alito has delivered political speeches in which he practically sounded like a candidate trying to shore up support from the GOP base. Justice Amy Coney Barrett has appeared alongside Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who rushed her onto the bench during a presidential election as part of a brazenly political display.
Thomas has been especially brazen. In fact, as we discussed last fall, the sitting justice appeared with McConnell at the Heritage Foundation, where Thomas’ “jurisprudence on unborn life” was heralded.
[…] just as notable was Thomas’ lack of self-awareness. He specifically marveled — out loud and in public — at those unwilling to “live with outcomes” they disagree with. The justice chided those who expect institutions to give them only the outcomes they want.
Left unacknowledged was the extensive political work his wife, Ginni Thomas. […] her role as a right-wing activist was already controversial, given that she’s worked with political organizations that have a stake in decisions before the Supreme Court, but recent revelations have taken this dynamic to an unprecedented new level.
Ginni Thomas, for example, attended the pre-riot “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6. Separate reports in The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine added that she also played an organizing role in the pro-Trump gathering just south of the White House.
She also had extensive communications with then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, with whom Thomas discussed strategies to overturn the election results, and pressured congressional Republicans to do more to overturn the election, including calling on lawmakers to go “out in the streets.” By some accounts, she even reached out to Jared Kushner about legal options surrounding the larger offensive.
This is not a situation in which the spouse of a sitting justice simply expressed political opinions. As The New York Times explained, the text messages between Thomas and Meadows “demonstrated that she was an active participant in shaping the legal effort to overturn the election.”
Her husband then heard arguments in election-related cases, siding with Team Trump on matters related to disclosing important information to Congress.>/b>
Sure, Justice Thomas, tell us again how awful it is to come across people who are unwilling to live with outcomes they don’t agree with.
For weeks, analysts in the US and across Europe speculated and worried that the May 9th Victory Day parade in Red Square would be Vladimir Putin’s moment to announce a dramatic escalation in his war against Ukraine or issue dire new threats against NATO and the US for arming Ukraine. It’s been the focal point of anxiety, perceived danger, the platform for the next big thing. And yet it all happened today and almost literally nothing happened. They had the parade with the big ICBMs. Putin gave a speech. It was defiant, repeated the basic message we’ve been hearing for months – Ukraine is Nazis, it’s a replay of World War II, Russia’s fate is at stake. But that was it. No announcement of mobilization, no dire nuclear threats.
Of course, thank God, more or less. That’s good news. And yet it’s another dog in this crisis that hasn’t barked. Something’s got to give – either fold or escalate – and yet nothing does.
With the Supreme Court’s conservative majority poised to tear down Roe v. Wade thanks to his state’s 15-week abortion ban, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) signaled on Sunday that a ban on contraceptives wasn’t off the table, telling CNN only that his state wasn’t focused on such a ban “at this time.” […]
The GOP governor similarly hedged later on Sunday when asked if he’d sign a birth control ban, saying during a “Meet the Press” interview that while “I don’t think that’s going to happen in Mississippi,” he refused to say for sure that he wouldn’t.
“I believe that clearly a life begins at conception,” Reeves told “Meet the Press.” […]
Private equity billionaires are looting the country, leaving everyday Americans to clean up the mess—and fight for the scraps.
After 16 years at the helm of Houdaille Industries, CEO Jerry Saltarelli wanted out. Since 1941, he’d poured his heart and soul into the company, starting out as a young lawyer and moving up the executive ranks. As CEO, he’d helped the company transform from a manufacturer of bumpers and shock absorbers into a nationwide construction and machine tools conglomerate.
With the company on solid footing, he was ready to retire, but there was a problem. Houdaille—cash-rich and with minimal debt—was the kind of company in vogue with the corporate raiders of 1970s Wall Street, and the New York Times declared that a takeover might prove “irresistible.” This would likely lead to restructuring and layoffs—bleeding the company of its value and tossing aside its way of doing business. Saltarelli wanted none of that. All he wanted was a way to sell his stake while keeping Houdaille independent, doing right by his colleagues, and protecting his legacy.
As he pondered his predicament, Saltarelli got a phone call from an unfamiliar trio of bankers. Jerome Kohlberg Jr., Henry Kravis, and George Roberts, friends from their time engineering deals at Bear Stearns, had started investment bank KKR just two years prior. They presented Saltarelli with a plan that they said could check all the CEO’s boxes: a leveraged buyout, or LBO. Saltarelli had to admit he’d never heard the term.
KKR arranged a meeting with Houdaille in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where they explained how an LBO would work. Institutional investors would lend them money based on Houdaille’s healthy cash reserve, enabling KKR and partners to buy up all the company’s shares and take it private. Houdaille would easily pay that debt back in four to five years, they said, thanks to the magic of corporate tax write-offs: Through some clever accounting, they could help Houdaille push off paying almost all corporate income tax for years, savings the company could use to pay off the debt it would incur during the buyout. By the time Houdaille had to pay Uncle Sam, the debt would be under control, and KKR would take the company public again, but at a much higher share price. Thanks to this plan, they could immediately offer Saltarelli and investors around $40 per share, about double what Houdaille was trading at. Not only would Saltarelli get his wish, but he’d make a hefty profit.
When Saltarelli agreed to KKR’s terms, it was historic: At the time, leveraged buyouts had only been applied to a few smaller companies worth less than $100 million. The Houdaille deal was worth almost four times that. Both Houdaille executives and the KKR financiers were set to come out of it nicely: According to journalist Max Holland’s 1989 book about LBOs, Saltarelli got around $5 million in cash ($20 million in today’s dollars), plus a retirement package, and new CEO Phil O’Reilly’s salary reportedly almost doubled. Baked into the deal were also annual management fees that Houdaille would pay to KKR (ranging from $646,000 to $1.3 million in today’s dollars), plus 1 percent of the total transaction cost for putting the deal together, and 20 percent of any capital gains accrued by KKR’s partners in the deal, which the industry calls “carried interest.” KKR kicked in as little as $1 million toward the buyout, which cost around $380 million, nearly all of it financed with debt that Houdaille alone would be responsible for repaying.
Within a few years, however, the American machine tool business went south, and Houdaille found itself drowning in its debt. Soon, KKR divested seven divisions of the company, eliminating 2,200 jobs. Then it borrowed even more money, put the debt on Houdaille’s tab, and used it to engineer a handsome buyout for the LBO’s initial investors who now wanted out. A year later, KKR sold Houdaille to a British firm, which sold all but one of Houdaille’s remaining divisions back to KKR, which used them to form a new company, IDEX. Houdaille died, yet the investors who’d killed it walked off with millions and called it a success: […] Just like that, a new kind of financial monstrosity was born.
Houdaille “was a wake-up call,” says Eileen Appelbaum, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Wall Street firms, she says, were giddy at the discovery that they could load companies up with debt they’d never be responsible for paying down themselves and take an ample cut of the proceeds that came from stripping a company bare—and it was all legal.
“The public documents on that deal were grabbed up by every firm on Wall Street,” a principal at an investment firm told the New York Times in 1987. “We all said, ‘Holy mackerel, look at this!’”
In the four decades since, investment firms that execute buyouts like Houdaille’s have expanded their grip on ever more pieces of civic life. Buoyed by LBOs and other forms of financial engineering, they have come to be known as “private equity” because they invest in transactions that are walled off from the public markets. In just a few decades they’ve bought up everything from dental offices to international call centers to Taylor Swift’s sorrowful ballads and mined them all for profit
Private equity’s favored methods for taking over companies have been back in the news this spring, thanks to Elon Musk’s $44 billion LBO of Twitter, where Musk has himself played the role of a private equity firm, securing billions in debt that he plans to load onto the social media company.
Covid-19 did not slow private equity’s rise: In 2020, the private equity sector generated about $1.4 trillion—about 6.5 percent of the United States’ GDP, and a jump from two years prior, when it was 5 percent of GDP. Private equity firms also managed $7.3 trillion in assets in 2020—roughly the value of Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Tesla combined. Nearly 12 million workers—one in every 14 employees in the United States—collect paychecks from companies run by private equity. […]
Much more at the link, including this:
[…] This type of predation is the result of 50 years of policies that have prioritized the profit-making of a few over the wellbeing of many: a corporate world that grew accustomed to valuing shareholders over everyone else, a penchant for siding with executives over unions, and a legislative establishment loath to enact strict regulations on the financiers whose donations fuel their campaigns. In short, a toxic soup of regulatory inertia and corporate greed. […]
“Right now, they can do whatever they want,” Appelbaum says. “And that means quality of life deteriorates for everybody.”
Wonkette: “Sunday Shows On Mother’s Day Got Kind Of Weird, Considering”
It’s been one hell of a week. After Samuel Alito’s medieval opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade leaked, the country has been dealing with it in various ways. But if the Sunday shows are any indication, we have a lot more worries (and lies) ahead than we thought.
Jake Tappe r[interviewed] Mississippi GOP Governor Tate Reeves, whose state brought the case that gave Alito and his fellow partisan hacks the chance to outlaw abortion. [video at the link]
Tapper asked Reeves about Mississippi’s 2007 trigger law, which would automatically ban abortions in Mississippi if Roe is overturned, except in the case of rape or risk to life of the mother, but not incest. Reeves’s answer was not very reassuring:
REEVES: Well, that’s going to be the law because, in 2007, the Mississippi legislature passed it […]
TAPPER: Why is it acceptable to force girls who are victims of incest to carry those child — children to term?
REEVES: Well, as you know, Jake, over 92 percent of all abortions in America are elective procedures. When you look at the number of those that actually — involve incest, it’s less than one percent. And if we need to have that conversation in the future about potential…
TAPPER: This is your law.
REEVES: … exceptions in the trigger law, we can certainly do that. But the reality is that, again, that affects less than one percent of all abortions in America on an annual basis.
TAPPER: OK, but that is going to be the law of Mississippi.
But the GOP will not stop just at banning abortion when it comes to restricting reproductive rights and regulating women’s bodies. Reeves himself hinted at this over on “Meet The Press” when Chuck Todd, of all people, asked a good follow-up question.
CHUCK TODD: If there is legislation brought to you to ban contraception, would you sign it?
GOV. TATE REEVES: I don’t think that’s going to happen in Mississippi.
TODD: You’re not answering the question.
REEVES: Well, there’s so many things that we can talk about.
Jake Tapper took some time to explain to Tate Reeves why nobody in their right mind would believe Tate Reeves or any other conservative on this subject:
TAPPER: So, Governor, you and I have talked about this before, but Mississippi, as you know, has the highest rate of infant mortality in the United States. You have the highest rate of child poverty in the United States. Your state has no guaranteed maternity leave that’s paid. The legislature in Mississippi just rejected extending postpartum Medicaid coverage. Your foster care system is also the subject of a long-running federal lawsuit over its failure to protect children from abuse. […] You say you want to do more to support mothers and children. But you have been in state government since 2004. You were the state treasurer. Then you were the lieutenant governor. Now you’re the governor. Based on the track record of the state of Mississippi, why should any of these girls or moms believe you?
They and we shouldn’t.
The GOP governor of Arkansas was asked about a bill he signed last year banning abortion with no exceptions for rape or incest. [video at the link]
His answer was beyond parody:
HUTCHINSON: Well, first of all, again, that’s where your heart goes out to them. I’ve had to deal with those very difficult circumstances of rape and incest as governor. And it’s difficult. And so you have to understand that. You have to provide services. […] But, secondly, I think to your point, the rape and incest exceptions will continue to be a part of the debate. Right now, we do not have rape and incest as exceptions under the Arkansas trigger law, but there’s — I think that will be a part of the debate.
That’s a lot of words to substitute in place of “thoughts and prayers.” Hutchinson found it so “difficult”, he signed the law anyway.
☦️Holy bystanders
Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, declared on Friday that the church can never take the side of any political force when a confrontation between them arises. Referring to the church as a peacekeeping force, the Patriarch said clergy members should respectfully refuse to take orders from state authorities. Despite the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, Kirill recently claimed that Russia has never attacked anyone.
🤫Shhhhhhhh
“Chinese tech companies are quietly pulling back from doing business in Russia under pressure from US sanctions and suppliers, despite calls by Beijing for companies to resist overseas coercion,” reports The Wall Street Journal. The businesses include PC giant Lenovo Group Ltd and smartphone and gadget maker Xiaomi Corp, though these companies have refrained from making public statements about the war or their gradual withdrawal from Russia.
Akira MacKenziesays
[Angry Rant Mode: ON]
FUCK! This is the administration that is “fighting” for your reproductive rights.
Conservatives are having a meltdown over pro-choice demonstrators who descended on outside the homes of various Supreme Court justices this past weekend in protest of the court’s impending rescission of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 case establishing America’s constitutional right to abortion.
About 100 protesters on Saturday evening appeared outside the homes of conservative Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and John Roberts, hoisting pro-choice signs and chanting various slogans to express outrage over the court’s direction on abortion.
[…]
On Monday, White House Press Secretary Jenn Paski said that President Biden “strongly believes in the Constitutional right to protest. But that should never include violence, threats, or vandalism. Judges perform an incredibly important function in our society, and they must be able to do their jobs without concern for their personal safety.”
“This is wrong, stupid, potentially dangerous, and politically counterproductive,” echoed Democratic commentator Paul Begala.
Once again, the Democrats, with their slavish devotion to “norms” and “civility,” reveal how spineless and useless they really are, even in the face of fascism. Biden and Psaki should be cheering this protestors on as loudly and fervently as Trump goaded his thugs along. Instead, they roll over like a fucking dog the movement the right starts to complain!
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. Their most recent summary:
Vladimir Putin has told Russian soldiers they are “fighting for the same thing their fathers and grandfathers did” as he used his Victory Day speech to justify his invasion of Ukraine. Prior to the speech, foreign officials had said Putin could use it to launch a full mobilisation of Russian troops or formally declare war in Ukraine, but there were no large policy announcements.
As Putin sought to rally his country through the memory of the second world war, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, pushed back in his own address from Kyiv. “We will not allow anyone to annex this victory, we will not allow it to be appropriated,” he said in a recorded address to a piano accompaniment as he walked through central Kyiv past anti-tank barricades.
Ukraine’s defence ministry said Russian forces, backed by tanks and artillery, were conducting “storming operations” on the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, where the southern city’s last defenders are holed up. Petro Andriushchenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, said Russian forces began “storming” the Azovstal plant after a UN convoy left the Donetsk region.
The United States has seen “anecdotal reports” that some Russian troops in Ukraine are not obeying orders, according to a senior US defence official. The US believes that Russian troops and “mid-grade officers at various levels, even up to the battalion level” are refusing to obey orders to move forward in the new Donbas offensive in Ukraine, the official said.
The European Council president, Charles Michel, has made a surprise visit to the Ukrainian port city of Odesa. Michel was forced to break off a meeting with Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, and take shelter when missiles struck the southern Ukrainian city, according to an EU official. Odesa has seen several Russian missile strikes over the past few days.
The European Commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen, is heading to Hungary to meet its prime minister, Viktor Orbán, to discuss issues related to the proposed sixth package of EU sanctions, which would include a ban on Russian oil imports to the EU. Von der Leyen has also said the Commission aims to deliver its opinion on EU membership for Ukraine next month.
France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, said Ukraine’s bid to join the European Union would “take several years indeed, probably several decades”. Speaking to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Macron suggested creating a “parallel European community” for countries who aspired to join the bloc or, in an apparent reference to Britain, countries which had left the union. Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, described Macron’s suggestion as “very interesting”.
Britain would support and provide assistance to Poland or any other central or eastern European country willing to supply Russian-designed jet fighters to Ukraine, the UK’s defence secretary has said. Ben Wallace said the UK would “stand by any country who makes that choice” and would “defend their right to do it” – although it is a step that no country has been willing to take for fear of Russian reprisals.
Russia’s ambassador to Poland was pelted with red paint thrown at him by people protesting against the war in Ukraine as he went to lay flowers at the Soviet military cemetery in Warsaw. Video footage released by Russian news agencies showed Sergey Andreev with paint on his clothes and face surrounded by a crowd, some holding Ukrainian flags. In other videos of the incident circulating online, anti-war activists can be heard chanting “fascists” and “murderers”.
The United Nations human rights council will hold a special session on Thursday to address alleged Russian human rights violations during its war in Ukraine, a UN official said. More than 50 countries, including Britain, Germany, Turkey and the US, backed a request by Ukraine and demanded an extraordinary meeting of the UN’s top rights body to examine “the deteriorating human rights situation in Ukraine stemming from the Russian aggression”.
A mine-sniffing dog credited with detecting more than 200 explosives since the start of the war in Ukraine has been given a medal for his services to the country. Patron, a two-and-a-half-year-old jack russell whose name means “ammo” in Ukrainian, was presented with the award by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, at a ceremony in Kyiv.
KG @ #s 387 and 388, thank you for those links. (I agree about O’Toole!)
From the first:
All of this made the DUP look foolish – admittedly not the most difficult achievement of the Brexit project.
Hee.
From the second:
Vladimir Putin was born seven years after the end of the second world war, and raised on the Brezhnev-era myth of the great victory.
An interesting point Katie Stallard makes in the podcast @ #306 is that Stalin canceled the Victory Day holiday after the original celebration at the end of the war. The victory had come at such a huge cost and people were still struggling, so it was difficult to see as a day of celebration; also, he was very much concerned with sidelining potential rivals like Zhukov. It wasn’t made a holiday until 1965, under Brezhnev.
A University College London scientist has accused lawyers in the US of misusing his groundbreaking work on the brain to justify the dismantling of Roe v Wade, the landmark ruling that legalised abortion nationally in America.
Giandomenico Iannetti said his research, which used imaging to understand the adult brain’s response to pain, had been wrongly interpreted to make an anti-abortion argument.
Last week an unprecedented leak of a draft legal opinion showed a majority of supreme court judges support overturning Roe v Wade and ending federal protections for abortions, in a move that could result in 26 states banning it. The court is considering a case, Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organisation, which challenges Mississippi’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks gestation.
Anti-abortion lawyers in that case argued that scientific understanding has moved on since the court’s 1973 ruling that enshrined the constitutional right to abortion, and it was no longer accurate to say foetuses cannot feel pain before 24 weeks.
Their argument relied heavily on a controversial discussion paper on foetal pain published in the Journal of Medical Ethics in 2020 by Dr Stuart Derbyshire, a British associate professor of psychology at the National University of Singapore.
The paper claims that some of Iannetti’s research results suggest we might not need a cerebral cortex – which remains undeveloped in a foetus of less than 24 weeks – to feel pain.
Iannetti, an Italian professor of neuroscience who now leads a laboratory in Italy but spent the past 16 years researching at UCL and Oxford University, is adamant that this is “an unjustified leap”.
“My results by no means imply that the cortex isn’t necessary to feel pain. I feel they were misinterpreted and used in a very clever way to prove a point. It distresses me that my work was misinterpreted and became one of the pillar arguments they [the lawyers] made,” he said.
Prof Iannetti had no idea the paper was being used to justify the dismantling of Roe v Wade until American colleagues contacted him to say they were “shocked” at the way his findings were being presented. He helped academics in the US to draft a response for the lawyers but says he feels it is out of his control and “there isn’t much more I can do to stop people claiming my work says something it doesn’t”.
Leading pain scientists and academic medical societies on both sides of the Atlantic strongly dispute the anti-abortion legal argument, insisting the international scientific consensus that it is not possible for foetuses to experience pain in the first few weeks of existence remains firm and “irrefutable”….
StevoRsays
Ironically, the idea that a sustainable planet, gender equality and politics free from corruption is “anti-Liberal” is partly why many Liberal seats are under threat.
&
If “teal” independent women can shift the power in politics, imagine the country we could create if we had representatives from intersectional backgrounds, across race, age, disability, class and beyond?
For those who gathered in Moscow for the May 9 parade, there was one big let down on the pomp-and-circumstances front: Reportedly, very few aircraft passed over the city, with none of the low altitude flyovers from fighters, bombers, and support aircraft that marked such occasions in years past. Many planes that were practicing about the city just two days earlier turned out to be no-shows on the day itself.
Maybe most notably — there was no flying ‘Z.’ Despite the effort Russian pilots put in training to fly in a none-too-elegant zed pattern, that flight was absent from the actual event.
There have been two explanations as to why the aerial portion of the day’s events was so limited. The official explanation is that the weather was bad. However, both witnesses and video confirm that the skies in Moscow were a powdery blue. The less official explanation is that Vladimir Putin and the Russian military were concerned Ukrainians infiltrators — or disgruntled Russians — would manage to shoot down a Russian aircraft, on their big day, in the middle of Moscow. Which, admittedly, would put a damper on the party. Of course, there’s also the possibility that Russia no longer has enough operational planes to engage in alphabet-themed activities.
Whatever the reason, reports indicate that the show on the ground was also smaller than in past years. Apparently Russia did manage to get their specialist Main Parade Tank, the Armata T-14, to pass before the reviewing stand without incident. Which is something. […] When first introduced over seven years ago, one stopped working on the parade route and was about to be towed away when last minute repairs apparently got it moving again. Earlier this year, a halted T-14 on a Moscow street was blamed on operator error.
Still, when it comes to the show put on for the obligatory crowd, it was definitely a C+. At best.
What was NOT said, but observed:
-Troop & equipment parade seemed smaller
-No aircraft Z- pattern overflight […]
-No GEN Gerasimov (rumored wounded at Izyum)
-Hammer & sickle flag behind Russian tricolor
What those attending the parade did get was a heapin’ helpin’ of Nazi. According to Vladimir Putin’s speech, Nazi’s are everywhere. Nazis in Ukraine. Nazis in the West. Nazis in all nations but Russia … and now, my friends, let’s watch the jackbooted troops goosestep for the Motherland! Some of which, according to Putin, includes eastern Ukraine.
[…] There was no call for a general mobilization, no threats of a global thermonuclear war, and no claim that anything which has happened so far in Ukraine constitutes a victory. So … everyone else is a Nazi, eastern Ukraine is part of Russia, and that’s about it. Even by Putin standards, not a great speech.
—————
KHARKIV
Things continue to change quickly in the Kharkiv area. Following reports that the last two bridges across the Siverskyi Donets River north of Staryi Saltiv have now been blown up by Russian forces, it seems that Ukraine has stopped shelling sites around Startsya. Instead, the major hot spots identified by the NASA FIRMS data are near the crossroads town of Lyptsi, and to the southeast near the town of Petrivka.
Ukrainian forces have also been moving north along the road from Kharkiv to Lyptsi. On Monday, they captured the town of Borshcova and reports that they have entered Lyptsi, with most of the fighting now happening northwest of the town proper. Russian forces are apparently still occupying Petrivka and Urainske to the southeast, but those forces seem increasingly threatened by Ukrainian movement on both east and west.
On the far west of what remains of Russian-occupied territory north of Kharkiv, Ukrainian forces have recaptured the town of Tsupivka after several days of hard fighting in that area. Ukrainian forces are now closing in from two directions on the border crossing east of Kozacha Lopan, where Russian forces have reportedly dug in defend the border.
Whether Ukrainian forces are continuing to advance to the north along the river remains unclear. [map available at the link]
The blue checks are towns Ukrainian troops have taken in the last few days. The flames are hot spots from FIRMS data, and the yellow markers are towns where active fighting appears to be underway. Some reports have indicated Ukraine has also been engaged in one of those euphemisms—“mopping up” Russians stragglers still around towns and villages closer to Kharkiv.
———————
EASTERN UKRAINE
In the afternoon briefing from the Defense Department, officials noted that while Russia has made progress in the Donbas, that progress continues to be “slow and incremental” with “single kilometer gains.” […]
An artillery strike that hit Ukrainian forces on Monday was geolocated to near the town of Ozerne, southeast of Lyman. It’s worth noting that Russia attacked south from Izyum to Pashkove starting April 24, and is still trying to take that position. Likewise, Ozerne has been at the end of the small salient running down past Rampril for over two weeks. Movement in these areas does not appear to be in any sense rapid.
The Pentagon also reported that 85 of the 90 M777 Howitzer units promised are now in Ukraine. They’ve been seen on the ground near Kyiv and Odessa, and multiple units were seen firing together at an unspecified location in eastern Ukraine. A total of 310 Ukrainian soldiers have been trained on operating the M777.
Overall, the Pentagon continues to assess that, in spite of the loss of Popasna and Nyzhnie, Russia has made “no significant progress” in the Donbas.
Here’s a good reason why.
Russian reported in Donbas, Sladkov, is raging about shelling of Donetsk on 9 May and reveals the reality of the frontline – 1 to 1 assault forces ratio, can’t push away Ukrainian forces, not looking good for the Russian side.
While Russians are complaining about Ukraine shelling their locations on a Russian holiday, it’s worth noting that Russia has by no means reduced their own firing. That includes missile strikes on Odessa that hit a shopping mall.
One possibly significant development on Monday afternoon: Russian forces have reportedly managed to cross the ubiquitous Donets River somewhere near the town of Bilohorivka and apparently moved some forces to the south bank. This appears to have been via a pontoon bridge, and this bridge is now reportedly destroyed. Ukrainian forces appear to have pushed back Russian forces that reached the south bank and destroyed another pontoon bridge in the area before significant forces could cross.
Wonkette: “Blue States Gear Up To Meet Abortion Needs Of Women In Post-Roe Red State Hellscapes”
[…] Nothing will change for me because I live in a blue state where abortion rights will be protected. Also I’m old, and anyway women with money will always be able to get an abortion when we need one. But unlike those rugged psychopaths in the GOP, I actually care about the lives of other people. And for women living in red states, things are about to get much, much worse.
Since Justice Alito’s vile opinion leaked last week, red state legislators have been falling all over themselves to propose bills to criminalize birth control, lock women in so they can’t leave the state to access abortion care, and intrude ever further into Americans’ most private healthcare decisions.
It sucks A LOT. And while the current line is “Abortion won’t be illegal, we’re just sending it back to the states” — when was states’ rights ever the rallying cry for anti-abortion zealots? — Mitch McConnell is already rallying the troops for the next front in the culture war, a nationwide abortion ban passed by Congress.
“It’s possible. It would depend on where the votes were,” he said, leaving no doubt that if he can, he will.
But like Mr. Rogers says, when it’s all going to shit, you gotta look for the helpers. (Well, more or less.) And today the helpers are in New York, California, and Maryland, where lawmakers and healthcare providers are currently stepping up to the plate for women who won’t be able to get their medical needs met in their home states.
Today in New York, Attorney General Letitia James, Democratic State Senator Cordell Cleare, and Democratic Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas announced that they will be backing a bill to establish a Reproductive Freedom and Equity Program to fund abortion care for both New Yorkers and people outside the state who cannot access care at home.
“We know what happens when women are unable to control their own bodies and make their own choices and we will not go back to those dark times,” James said at a press conference this morning, adding that “No matter what happens in the weeks to come, New York will always fight to protect our right to make decisions about our own bodies and expand access to this critical and lifesaving care.”
The bill would allow New Yorkers to contribute to the fund on their tax returns and would support childcare and travel costs for people seeking abortions, which will be substantial. MacKenzie Scott, the billionaire philanthropist recently divorced from Jeff Bezos, recently donated $275 million to Planned Parenthood. As my own nurse-midwife told me, Planned Parenthood will now become a travel agency, arranging passage for women to access safe medical care in blue states when their own state governments are fumbling ever further to find a way back to the dark ages.
Toward that end, the Maryland legislature has now overridden GOP Governor Larry Hogan’s veto to pass a law allowing nurses to perform abortions as of July 1. Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood is training nurses to perform tele-health consultations to prescribe abortion medication to patients across state lines.
In California, where legislators saw this coming in January and proposed 13 bills to make the state a “sanctuary or a refuge for individuals seeking abortions and reproductive health care,” lawmakers are expediting the bills to get them passed by mid-summer in anticipation of a flood of patients from out of state seeking care.
“We really need to shore up our access here to make sure we have enough providers that could perform these services,” Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia, chair of that legislature’s women’s caucus, told ABC, citing the Guttmacher Institute’s finding that the end of Roe would increase the number of women whose nearest provider would be in California from 46,000 to 1.4 million.>/b>
[…] I’ll have to dig a little deeper to put my money where my mouth is and step up donations to Planned Parenthood and the National Network of Abortion Funds to ensure that Americans who are not me get the care they need. […] I do care about people who are not me. And if you’re reading this, I bet you do, too.
The Biden administration announced on Monday that 20 internet companies have agreed to provide discounted service to people with low incomes, a program that could effectively make tens of millions of households eligible for free service through an already existing federal subsidy.
“Biden and Psaki should be cheering this protestors on as loudly and fervently as Trump goaded his thugs along.”
The voice of extreme immaturity. Whatever Biden (or Psaki, who voices policy, she doesn’t originate it) think, that would be a huge strategic blunder, like not voting for and championing Hillary, no matter what you may have thought of her, when 3 SCOTUS seats were at stake. The time for action was in 2016 … protesting now is ineffective.
When it comes to people like Begala, OTOH, he should STFU and sit down, or should point out that these people are NOT judges, they are GOP political operatives who were groomed for these positions of extreme power … and he should talk about how Marbury v. Madison gave the SCOTUS powers never intended by the Founders and it has usurped power ever since, almost always acting against the interests of the people with a short exceptional interlude which has misled people. And even during the Court’s civil rights era, it was consolidating the power of corporations.
Rachel Maddow reports on hackers defacing Russia’s TV schedule grid with an antiwar message, and replacing the content on a major Russian news website with antiwar and anti-Putin content on a day when Vladimir Putin put himself at the center of Russia’s celebration the World War II victory in Europe.
Rachel Maddow reviews the unusually dense concentration of Republican candidates with heavy baggage related to their treatment of women, which is happening at a time when Republicans broadly are attacking women’s reproductive rights.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Avril Haines, the US director of national intelligence, has been testifying to the Senate armed services committee on worldwide threats and has had some interesting things to say about the Ukraine war. It is a pretty grim outlook.
Haines said:
We assess President Putin is preparing for prolonged conflict in Ukraine during which he still intends to achieve goals beyond the Donbas. We assess that Putin’s strategic goals have probably not changed, suggesting he regards the decision in late March to refocus Russian forces on the Donbas is only a temporary shift to regain the initiative.
She said Putin’s short-run military goals are to capture the two oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk plus a buffer zone around them, and encircle Ukrainian forces in that part of the country from the north to consolidate control over a land bridge to Crimea, and to hold Kherson oblast, where Crimea’s water comes from.
US intelligence also sees indications that Putin wants to extend the land bridge all the way over to Transnistria, the Moscow-occupied region of Moldova, thereby controlling all of Ukraine’s Black Sea coast. Haines thinks Putin will face an uphill task to achieve all those objectives, however.
While the Russian forces may be capable of achieving most of these near term goals in the coming months, we believe that they will not be able to extend control over a land bridge that stretches to Transnistria and includes Odesa without launching some form of mobilisation and it is increasingly unlikely that they will be able to establish control over both oblasts [Donetsk and Luhansk] and the buffer zone they desire in the coming weeks.
More from Avril Haines, the US director of national intelligence, who said that the Ukraine war is becoming a war of attrition with no end in sight.
Haines said:
Putin most likely judges that Russia has a greater ability and willingness to endure challenges than his adversaries and he is probably counting on US and EU resolve to weaken as food shortages, inflation and energy prices get worse. Moreover, as both Russia and Ukraine believe they can continue to make progress militarily, we do not see a viable negotiating path forward at least in the short term.
The uncertain nature of the battle which is developing into a war of attrition, combined with the reality that Putin faces a mismatch between his ambitions and Russia’s current conventional military capabilities, likely means the next few months could see us moving along a more unpredictable and potentially escalatory trajectory.
The current trend increases the likelihood that President Putin will turn to more drastic means, including imposing martial law, reorienting industrial production, or potentially escalatory military actions to free up the resources needed to achieve his objectives as the conflict drags on, or if he perceives Russia is losing in Ukraine.
The most likely flashpoint for escalation in the coming weeks is around increasing Russian attempts to intimidate western security assistance, retaliation for western economic sanctions or threats to the regime at home.
Haines also addressed the threat that the war in Ukraine could turn nuclear. In general, US intelligence believes Moscow could make the threats more explicit, but would not use nuclear weapons if he does not believe his regime is at risk.
Haines said:
We believe that Moscow continues to use nuclear rhetoric to deter the United States and the west from increasing lethal aid to Ukraine and to respond to public comments from the US and Nato allies that suggest expanded western goals in the conflict. And if Putin perceives that the United States is ignoring his threats, he may try to signal to Washington the heightened danger of its support to Ukraine by authorising another large nuclear exercise involving a major dispersal of mobile intercontinental missiles, heavy bombers and strategic submarines.
We otherwise continue to believe that President Putin would probably only authorise the use of nuclear weapons if he perceived an existential threat to the Russian state or regime.
But we will remain vigilant and monitor every aspect of Russia’s strategic nuclear forces. With tensions this high, there is always an enhanced potential for miscalculation, unintended escalation, which we hope our intelligence can help to mitigate.
In the question and answer session of the Senate hearing, Haines went into more detail on perceptions on when Putin would go nuclear, and in particular what would constitute an existential threat for the Russian leader. She said that might not just be fear of an attack on Russia, but also fear of defeat in Ukraine.
We do think that could be the case in the event that he perceives that he is losing the war in Ukraine, and that Nato in effect is either intervening or about to intervene in that context, which would obviously contribute to a perception that he is about to lose the war in Ukraine.
But there are a lot of things that he would do in the context of escalation before he would get to nuclear weapons and also that he would be likely to engage in some signaling beyond what he’s done thus far before doing so.
A number of Chinese government-linked media outlets and pro-Russia social media accounts are spreading pro-Kremlin sentiment on the Chinese internet by mistranslating or manipulating international news about the war in Ukraine.
In response, online, anonymous volunteers – such as those under the Twitter account Great Translation Movement – have exposed China’s pro-Russia propaganda by highlighting mistranslations that falsely blame Ukrainian troops for bombings and atrocities perpetrated by Russian forces against civilians.
…
Born shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Great Translation Movement – a Twitter account and a related hashtag that identifies itself as “fourth estate” and “holds muck-rake in hand, wears crown from gutter” – has been a source for English-language speakers to understand how state-linked Chinese social media discuss the war in Ukraine.
The decentralised anonymous group is operated by several hundred volunteers around the world. For security reasons, they say, they do not know geographical locations of fellow contributors. But they were glued together by the same mission: contradicting Beijing’s propaganda and naming and shaming those in China who support Putin’s military adventure in his neighbour.
“To put it simply, the context behind everything is the colossal gulf between the different types of messaging that the Chinese government shapes for the rest of the world, versus that of within China,” they said in a written statement.
Debates about Russia’s invasion do exist in China, but on social media, which is heavily monitored, views similar to those in the western media are often met with censorship. Anti-western commentators of the events toe a Kremlin line, blaming Nato and the US for what they call “special military actions”.
Last month, some Chinese pundits went so far as to question whether the killings in Bucha were a “staged performance”. “[A]fter all, Zelenskiy is an actor doing what actors are trained to do,” said a military commentator on Phoenix TV. A month earlier, the same pundit said Russia’s invasion was “in self-defence” in the face of US pressure.
But as the Great Translation Movement began its crusade against pro-Russian misinformation, Chinese state media also launched their own campaign to discredit it. The nationalist tabloid the Global Times, for example, has since March published a number of articles accusing it of being a part of the “anti-China force”. It even compared the account to the anti-communist McCarthyist crusade in 1950s America.
“Such a despicable ‘movement’ has a large potential audience, mostly in the west,” wrote one piece on 31 March. “Some of them are novelty-seeking and feel superior on a cultural level. In light of China’s rapid rise and the west’s decline, these people need an illusional superiority to feel better.”
[…] Ukraine is on the move around Kharkiv, pushing Russian forces to their side of the international border, while Russia is on the move in Donbas, picking up a stray kilometer here and there. If it sounds like I’m being too glib about Russia’s gains, just know that I’m not alone.
Ukrainian forces continue to push Russia nearly 30 miles east of Kharkiv: senior U.S. defense official
Ukrainian resistance has also held Russia to “single digit” mile advances into the Donbas from Izyum
Ukraine advanced 30 miles in one week, while Russia managed “single digit” miles in the last what, two to three weeks? At this pace, it will only take a few millennia to accomplish their (supposed) strategic goal—to push Ukraine out of the 5,000+ square miles of Ukrainian-held territory inside the administrative boundaries of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts (collectively, the Donbas). Meanwhile, Russia will have to decide what to do about those frisky Ukrainians up north. Heck, the Ukrainians will have to decide what to do up north as well.
As you can see in the map below, there are two potential targets—Vovchansk to the northeast, or Kupiansk to the southeast. [map available at the link]
The purple arrows denote the three rail lines feeding into Kupiansk, which in turn feeds the Russian advance in both the Izyum salient, as well as the approach down the east bank of the Oskil reservoir (directly south of Kupiansk). In an ideal world, Ukraine would hit both targets. In the real world, it’s a wonder Ukraine has managed to get as far as it has. Theirs is still not an army fully built for offensive operations.
Once Ukraine secures the areas around Kharkiv, digging new defensive emplacements and manning them with territorial defense forces, where does Ukraine go? Vovchansk is attractive as it would 1) cut off a major source of resupply to the war front, all the stuff arriving from Belgorod, and 2) place more Ukrainian artillery in range of Belgorod. On the other hand, every bridge over the Donets has been reportedly blown, and it’s doubtful Ukraine has extensive river-fording capabilities. But a Ukrainian presence in Vovchansk would force Russia to reinforce its border, “fixing” Russian troops in a defensive posture inside Russia, rather than gaining inches down in the Donbas front.
What about Kupiansk, then? This strategic city would, by far, be the most impactful of the two, cutting off all the supply lines to the northern edge of Russia’s main war effort, crippling a fatal blow to Russians on the Izyum salient, and severely hampering resupply of Russian forces directly to its east. Easy call, right? Except that Russia reportedly has around 22 battalion tactical groups (BTG) in the region that could pivot and potentially deal substantial losses to any under-resourced Ukrainian approach. ([…] There are also no natural defensive barriers in the way—great for avoiding rivers, but not-so-great for avoiding Russian air power. This is close enough to Russian-held territory that its timid air force could venture out and cause trouble in those wide open fields.
Kupiansk is certainly the bigger prize, but only after securing all Ukrainian territory near Kharkiv west of the Donets, leaving behind some of their old shorter-range Soviet artillery guns to pound Vovchansk’s rail lines and Russian supply convoys into powder. An assault on Kupiansk is risky, but the reward is game-changing.
Sunday was not a good day for Russian forces in Ukraine, and not because of anything on the battlefield. Vladimir Putin’s refusal to declare war and/or a general mobilization means that no help is on the way. Those 130,000 or so conscripts currently training in Russia can’t be legally deployed into Ukraine, and while some might be coerced into signing contracts, it won’t come close to making up the losses Russian and proxy forces are currently suffering. (And Russian mothers are getting increasingly good at working the system to get their boys to safety.)
Bringing those conscripts into Ukraine would further strain Russia’s sorry logistical efforts, and a lack of any functional reserves would leave them with ancient and ineffective gear. They aren’t a panacea for what ails Russia, but it might at least shore up some of Russia’s depleted BTGs. Unlike Ukraine’s army, sitting on hundreds of thousands of reservists eager to join the battle, Russia’s is getting smaller every single day. Given how weak and ineffective it’s proven thus far, there is no scenario, assuming conventional weapons, in which Russia comes out ahead.
The Spanish government has sacked the country’s spy chief, Paz Esteban, as it tries to contain the fallout from a cyber-espionage scandal that has engulfed the ruling coalition and raised further questions about the use of controversial Pegasus spyware in Spain and beyond….
Sensitive Readers, You Are Warned: Someone left a message written in chalk on the sidewalk outside of Sen. Susan Collins’ (R-ME) home in Bangor, Maine on Saturday begging her to pass legislation to enshrine abortion rights into law, so naturally the GOP senator called the police to investigate the “defacement of public property” that can be washed away with a garden hose.
The message read “Susie, please, Mainers want WHPA → vote yes, clean up your mess,” referring to the Women’s Health Protection Act, which will be up for a vote in the Senate on Wednesday as the Supreme Court looks prepared to strike down Roe v. Wade.
The Marcos family, famously driven from power and out of the country in 1986 by Filipinos fed up with 21 years of Ferdinand Marcos’ authoritarian rule, inched ever closer to a remarkable return to power on Tuesday. An unofficial tally showed the son and namesake of the late dictator, who goes by his boyhood nickname “Bongbong,” had garnered a record number of votes in Monday’s presidential election.
With more than twice the ballots of his closest rival, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.’s lead looked insurmountable.
It’s a staggering comeback for one of Asia’s most infamous political families. After six years of populist rule under outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte — who has been accused of authorizing extrajudicial killings of drug dealers — there was huge support for Bongong’s challenger, current Vice President and human rights lawyer Leni Robredo.
But she was no match for the Marcos machine.
The elder Marcos gained infamy as one of the worst plunderers of public money in global history, hoarding and splurging an estimated $5 billion to $10 billion in Philippine government funds. His administration was marked by human rights abuses, too, with some 70,000 people jailed, 34,000 tortured, and more than 3,000 killed according to Amnesty International.
But supporters brushed aside those crimes of the father either as fiction, or actions for which the son could not be held accountable. Like his campaign, they chose to focus instead on the infrastructure built during the first Marcos’ years in power, which they believe has been missing during the successive governments management of the country.
Many clearly headed to the polls hoping that Bongbong would continue that part of his father’s legacy.
…
Analysts said Sara Duterte, the daughter of the current president and the mayor of Davao City, helped garner support for Marcos Jr. by joining him on the ticket as his pick for vice president.
But the Marcos family’s online disinformation and propaganda machine has been around far longer.
“Since their return in 1991, the Marcoses have invested in trying to gloss over the excesses of the Marcos regime, in trying to propagate very positive, sort of mythical notions of the Marcos era,” Sheila Coronel, a veteran Philippine journalist and professor at the Columbia School of Journalism, told CBS News.
…
As the vote tally showed them surging on Tuesday, university students joined older victims of the Martial Law years under Marcos Jr. to stage a protest outside the national election commission’s office in Manila.
…
Like Duterte, who’s drawn scorn from Washington with his harsh actions and rhetoric, Marcos Jr. is seen as a man unlikely to cozy up to the United States. While the U.S. is a treaty ally of the Philippines and Maros’ family was forced into exile there, Bongbong may never even try to set foot on American soil again.
He faces contempt charges in the U.S., along with his mother Imelda, over his family’s bilking of the Philippine’s public wealth decades ago.
If he can’t or won’t try to deepen ties with the U.S., many suspect Marcos Jr. will look elsewhere for powerful allies, and that could have ramifications for Washington as it grapples with a delicate power balance in Asia.
“A Marcos presidency would mean the Philippines being closer to China,” Coronel told CBS News, “and definitely not wanting U.S. or Western criticism.”
If you want to be even more depressed about this news, I recommend the 2019 documentary The Kingmaker.
I’m seeing a lot of commentators saying the bill that Democrats propose to codify Roe will rapidly be rejected by this Supreme Court. If it’s not accompanied by Court expansion there’s no point. While I appreciate that these remarks are proffered in good faith and quite possibly accurate as predictions, it’s still losers’ logic.
There are some technical questions about whether a more narrowly tailored or differently drafted law could be harder to strike down. […] The central issue is that you cannot self-deter. You can never be in a position where you say, “We’d do this thing but then the other side might do that other thing. So we’ll simply do nothing.”
It’s as simple as not negotiating against yourself. It goes beyond the specifics of any particular political question. Inaction drives demoralization; impotence is enervating for any political movement or party. You might as well make sad trombone your personal motto or party theme song.
We live in a fractured political era where judicial corruption, anti-democracy and authoritarianism hover like a specter over our civic life. You can’t wage a struggle against these dangers in the political process without demonstrating their impact. Most people don’t care about abstractions. They care when something becomes concrete, real. A big majority of the country does not want Roe overturned. If the Court overturns Roe and then the protections are codified into law only to see the Court again intervene in the democratic process that is a setback for reproductive rights but it very clearly makes the case that the Court must be reformed. Regardless of what happens you’re better off than if you had just sat on your hands and done nothing. [Good point.]
But again, the concrete real world impacts are not the whole story. This is about having a feel for the score in public life, not just the libretto that coasts along the surface. No political question is settled with a single election. It’s a confusion about democracy to think otherwise. There’s always another election, more possibilities. Nothing is ever truly settled. For a political party or movement to remain vital it must chart out positions and then act on them, even in the face of uncertainty and potential reversal. Otherwise, political power is itself undermined. It’s a basic fact of political life: self-deterring losers’ logic breeds demoralization, policy impotence, coalitional breakdown. All worth avoiding. Morale is critical and to maintain it requires keeping intentions clearly tethered to actions.
Pro-Trump media outlet One America News Network (OAN) put out a legal disclaimer on Monday admitting that a conspiracy theory it peddled about the 2020 election results in Georgia was false.
During a broadcast on Monday evening, OAN host Mike Dinow presented what he called an “updated report from Georgia officials” on their voter fraud investigation, which concluded all the way back in October last year that there was no voter fraud.
The so-called “report” was actually a legal disclaimer from OAN following a defamation lawsuit brought over the right-wing network’s repeated false claim that election workers in Fulton County, Georgia switched votes for then-President Donald Trump to President Joe Biden.
“Georgia officials have concluded that there was no widespread voter fraud by election workers who counted ballots at the State Farm Arena in November 2020,” a voiceover in the disclaimer said. “The results of this investigation indicate that Ruby Freeman and Wandrea ‘Shaye’ Moss did not engage in ballot fraud or criminal misconduct.”
“A legal matter with this network and the two election workers has been resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the parties through a fair and reasonable settlement,” the voiceover added.
[…] OAN’s legal woes that arose from its lies about the 2020 election aren’t over: The outlet is facing a billion-dollar lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems, which was the voting machine company repeatedly at the center of MAGAland’s fake conspiracy theories about voter fraud.
Dominion’s lawsuit came after OAN had apparently tried to fend off that lawsuit in advance with a lengthy disclaimer put before MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s clownish “Absolute Proof” movie about the 2020 election [Tweet and image of disclaimer are available at the link]
So that’s it? They run one 30 second “disclaimer” and that’s supposed to balance out weeks of anti-election propagandizing?
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Not all that significant in the scheme of things, but I was once a marketing director who had to review creative. I always jumped on designers who did white on black (reverse type) or center justified big amounts of text. It’s almost impossible to read. It’s almost like whoever wrote that disclaimer didn’t want anyone to read it
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“Georgia officials have concluded that there was no widespread voter fraud”
Don’t you love it when they say “no widespread voter fraud”, implying that there really was voter fraud (and therefore “something must be done about it!!”) when in fact nearly all actual voter fraud cases we hear about involve republicans.
The ‘liberal’ media falls into this language trap all the time when discussing ‘voter fraud’.
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The way defamation cases operate is not sufficient – the lies in this case had a far greater impact on the population at large than the actual “harmed parties”. We need to build a right of action and the ability to make claims for general audience manipulation
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According to the article, they already reached a settlement last month. The plaintiffs were motivated to settle before OAN was bankrupted by Dominion’s lawsuit.
When Florida’s hard-right Republican government banned a long list of math textbooks for allegedly having “critical race theory” and other sins inside them, notably absent from the justifications for nixing the book were, well, justifications. The world was left to guess just what the hell the reviewers were actually objecting to.
Reporters purchased the books for themselves, combing through them for supposedly objectionable material, but could only guess as to which particular pictures of non-white people or biographies of non-white mathematicians or which proposed group activities caused the state’s textbook policers to declare it unusable. That is now changed … somewhat. Florida has now released thousands of pages of reviewer comments collected during the process, reports The New York Times, allowing reporters to comb through to see specific reviewer complaints.
To absolutely nobody’s surprise, it turns out that Florida’s announced anti-“CRT” and anti-“social-emotional learning” edicts translated into an incomprehensible shitshow when put into practice. All it took to reject a published textbook was a mention of anything any particular volunteer reviewer didn’t personally want to see, and some of the Floridians who signed up as volunteers were— surprise!—hard-right Trumpian crackpots who indeed eagerly leaped onto any mention of race or racism as alleged “critical race theory.” This was always the intent of pro-fascist Republicans using the term as the foundation for their new conspiracy theories; first, claim that any mention of America’s long history of racism is a conspiracy against white conservatives—who are of course not themselves racist, but would prefer that school libraries have no books featuring Black people—and then, set the resulting conspiracy trolls loose to police those nebulous new rules however they see fit.
The Times seizes on one name, a Moms For Liberty activist named Chris Allen, as their interviewed example. Allen was responsible for nixing Thinking Mathematically because it had an exercise in which high school students were asked to examine statistics comparing racial prejudice to age and education levels.
Another objection was to a word problem premised on the lawsuit by soccer player Megan Rapinoe and other National Women’s Soccer League players over wage discrimination—one that asked students to calculate how much women’s league players made per game compared to male players.
Other objections were, says the Times, to references to “divorce and drug and alcohol use,” which Allen believes are “not age-appropriate” for high-schoolers.
[…] The textbook bans were, as with the school library bans still furiously underway, based on any book having any mention of any topic that The Worst Person You Know finds uncomfortable.
You’re not allowed to base math problems on the long-documented wage gap between men and women. You’re not allowed to assert that racial prejudice exists. You’re not allowed to base word problems on divorce rates because high school students are absolutely not allowed to think about divorce rates, which have nothing to do with them or their families because, as everybody knows, nobody’s getting divorced these days and why would anyone even mention that.
We’ve got a Supreme Court willing to cite 17th-century witch hunters on what women’s rights ought to include or not include, and we’ve got the Florida Republican Party outsourcing the task of edjumakating the childfolks to people who consider group projects to be “indoctrinating” grade-school students on how to not be assholes to each other during math class.
[…] What most comes across here, however, is the yet-again discovery that anything conservative Republicans touch becomes a bumbling fiasco. From Texas’ Gov. Greg Abbott’s suicide-provoking and business-withering border stunts to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ crusade against books that mention Having Emotions or The Existence Of Black People, every new conspiracy-premised party shudder trickles down into incompetent buffoonery as competent government workers either leave or try to actually enact the nonsensical new demands while pro-fascism “volunteers” seize the reins, using the incompetent ambiguity of the new edicts as a license to police whatever they, personally, want to.
[…] The only way to solve this is to teach our future American generations basic critical thinking skills—and the Republican Party is dead set against anyone trying.
[…] While the police agreed that the message was “not overtly threatening,” the City of Bangor still sent a sanitation worker out on a weekend to relieve Senator Snowflake of the unpleasant reminder that some 50 million American women and girls will now be stranded in states that deprive them of the right to control their own bodies, thanks to her and the GOP. […]
KGsays
UK politics gets increasingly bizarre. The leader and deputy leader of the main opposition party have now promised to resign if they are issued with fines over an event which may have breached Covid regulations. I think they were in fact right to do so – and in reality, if fined, Starmer at least would have had little choice, having so publicly called for Johnson’s resignation both before and after he was issued a fine for breaching the regulations. But it seems quite clear that the Durham police – who had already decided no rules were broken – would have ignored “fresh evidence” (that the curry take-away the Labour leaders and others ate when working late was preplanned, not impromptu) had they not been pressured by Tory MPs and the right-wing press, in a particularly cynical bout of whataboutery.
Wonkette: “No One Taking Dinesh D’Souza’s Documentary Seriously”
Last week or two weeks ago or who even really knows or cares, Dinesh D’Souza released 2000 Mules, a documentary he claimed would prove for certain that Democrats stole the election from Donald Trump. Trump even hosted a big premiere at Mar-a-Lago.
But it just hasn’t gone over as well as he’d hoped. Tucker Carlson is ignoring him.
I’m sorry to say Tucker Carlson and his team specifically instructed Catherine Engelbrecht of True the Vote NOT to mention the movie.
Even Newsmax won’t let Grant Stinchfield promote it on air, possibly because it’s so easily debunked that even they don’t want to risk it.
BTW @newsmax is also blocking coverage of “2000 Mules.” I was booked on Grant Stinchfield’s Newsmax show and then the network cancelled on me. Criticize the move if you like, but why isn’t this a legitimate news story? How can so-called news networks pretend it doesn’t exist?
Stinchfield did promote it on his own, encouraging FBI agents to “go rogue” and prove D’Souza’s election fraud theory true.
The basic premise of the film is that a bunch of evil nonprofits paid people to stuff ballot boxes full of fake ballots in favor of Joe Biden. The “proof” he has comes from a group called “True The Vote,” which bought a bunch of consumer cell phone data in order to track the incidence of people who walked near nonprofits and then also walked near ballot boxes a few times. This is then “bolstered” by video of people who may or may not be those people dropping off more than one ballot at a time.
You do not have to pay the $30 to see the movie to see the flaws in that reasoning. Starting with the fact that, unless we can find someone with X-ray vision, there is no way to know who those ballots were for. One might imagine D’Souza having some special insight into this kind of thing, in a Hannibal Lecter kind of way, given that he was convicted of a felony for violating the Election Act himself, but no. Literally none of this makes any sense and he hasn’t proven anything.
This has not stopped the worst of the worst — extremists on right-wing social media sites, QAnon weirdos on the Great Awakening message board, and no small number on Twitter — from trying to circulate pictures of those he found video of in hopes of LOCKING THEM UP or even doing “citizen’s arrests.” There is already a lot of anger that law enforcement isn’t doing anything, largely because there is not anything to be done.
And some are predicting that this will end in them killing us or us genociding them, with a universal basic income:
The two thousand mules evidence will be ignored just like all the evidence before it.
This insurrection / take over of the US will end one of three ways. First line of defense the military gets off their asses and puts a stop to it under devolution provisions.
Second line of defense the patriots get sick of waiting and get off their asses and break out all hell on those elites and their allies. Lots of dead people on both sides is the result, but we get the country back and they get executed.
Third option we sit on our asses and get first enslaved and then genocided one group at a time until the globalist get their 500K designated complaint slaves. Genocide likely to be the result of no jobs and no food once they cut off that sweet universal income check.
They are also obsessively circulating pictures of an anti-fascist activist they claim was one of the election stealers, and talking about the many horrifically violent things they would like to do to her. I’m not going to identify her or show those pictures, but I will say that her activist affiliations suggest it’s incredibly unlikely that she would be doing any voter fraud for Joe Biden. That being said, I really hope she is safe, because these people are not well.
Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo has seemingly uncovered Democrats’ sinister plan for retaining power: They will unleash a deadly plague on the nation. Or, more precisely, another variant of the existing plague whose spread Republicans have almost actively encouraged.
Bartiromo, who was once considered a journalist, tweeted Monday, “What a surprise … right on schedule … here comes the ‘midterms variant.’”
She shared the Washington Post article, “Coronavirus Wave This Fall Could Infect 100 million, Administration Warns.” The news is not upbeat:
The Biden administration is warning the United States could see 100 million coronavirus infections and a potentially significant wave of deaths this fall and winter, driven by new omicron subvariants that have shown a remarkable ability to escape immunity.
The projection, made Friday by a senior administration official during a background briefing as the nation approaches a covid death toll of 1 million, is part of a broader push to boost the nation’s readiness and persuade lawmakers to appropriate billions of dollars to purchase a new tranche of vaccines, tests and therapeutics.
[Yes, a new tranche of vaccines, tests and therapeutics is needed. And Congress needs to provide funds for that.]
Bartiromo’s such a savvy political operator she understands that there’s nothing voters love more than a little seasonal COVID. If a genie appeared in the Oval Office, this is just what President Joe Biden would wish for if he was really dumb or just didn’t know how genies worked. Back in observable reality, Biden’s approval ratings dip below freezing whenever COVID-19 cases spike. This is because Americans don’t like COVID-19 — although we do send mixed signals, like ending mask mandates and gathering indoors […] The White House Correspondents’ Dinner, however, was a likely superspreader event.
We can safely assume that what Bartiromo charmingly calls the “midterm variant” will likely “benefit” only Republicans, who won’t hesitate to exploit America’s self-inflicted viral crisis to their advantage. They will either demand insane concessions from the Biden administration, or perhaps more likely let the situation blow up in his face. […]
Reportedly, last month, key Senate lawmakers had agreed to a “bipartisan” deal for $10 billion in COVID aid. The White House originally wanted $22.5 billion, but that’s how the “bipartisan” cookie crumbles. There’s been no further movement on the deal because Republicans are pissed that the administration has relaxed pandemic restrictions at the US border, which is apparently the only place where they believe the pandemic still exists.
White House officials warn that the nation might run through its supply of antivirals and tests as soon as this summer, when a COVID-19 surge is anticipated in the South.
[…] The ghouls at Fox News will naturally blame Biden for the red state surge. Bartiromo is already priming the propaganda pump. If Congress can’t get its act together and approve more COVID-19 funding, then the White House will have to pull funds set aside for more tests and therapeutics to purchase more vaccines. Republicans have previously accused Biden of pushing vaccines on them instead of therapeutics (even the ones that don’t actually work).
No, the “midterm variant” is not good news for […] anyone but repulsive Republicans.
Russia struck key Ukrainian cities in the south and east overnight, including the strategic port of Odessa, as Congress is set to begin debating a nearly $40 billion aid package for Ukraine on Tuesday.
[…] The volley of Russian missiles resulted in casualties in Odessa and included three Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, a Ukrainian official said. But the Pentagon assessed that Russian forces do not have the capability to launch a ground or maritime offensive against the Black Sea gateway.
Russian forces continued to assault the embattled Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, Ukrainian officials said, estimating that about 1,000 of the shattered port city’s last remaining fighters are still holed up there, with hundreds injured.
Russia refused to let the wounded fighters be evacuated.
Some sources dispute the “three Kinzhal hypersonic missiles” and say instead that the missiles were older, Soviet-era missiles. Either way, it is a nightmare to see missiles raining down on Odessa.
Akira MacKenziesays
Well, like the end of Roe, we all knew THIS was going to happen:
May 10 (Reuters) – Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk said Tuesday he would reverse Twitter’s ban on former U.S. President Donald Trump, while speaking at the Financial Times Future of the Car conference.
Musk, who has called himself a “free speech absolutist,” recently inked a $44 billion deal to acquire the social media platform.
The decision to ban Trump from Twitter did not silence the former president’s voice, but rather amplified his views among people on the political right, Musk said, calling the ban “morally wrong and flat-out stupid.”
Not that I really used Twitter for much, but I’m closing down my account right now.
robrosays
Two or three things to share
• A backroom “church” in San Jose, California, The Iglesia Apostoles Y Profetas church, is under investigation for a kidnapping of a 3-month old and the death of three-year-old girl last September from apparent asphyxiation while they performed an exorcism to get the evil out of her.
• Elon Musk has publicly said he will reverse the Chump ban on Twitter. I have deactivated my account although I never used it anyway. That’ll show’em :-)
• The NY Times reports a CDC report saying there was a 35% increase in gun related homicides in 2020 from 2019. Not surprisingly a disproportionate number were Black men.
Belarus will deploy special operations troops in three areas near its southern border with Ukraine in response to a “growing threat” by the US and its allies, the armed forces said. The Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, said Moscow had agreed to help Minsk produce missiles to beef up its military capabilities.
[Gen. Hertling has said when he was responsible in the US for assessing the quality of European countries’ militaries, Belarus (among others he won’t name) received a rating of “poor.”]
The US believes that Russia is about two weeks behind schedule in its invasion of Ukraine’s Donbas region as well as the south of the country, according to a senior US defence official. The US assesses that Putin has not achieved any of his strategic goals so far in the Donbas or in Ukraine, and that his focus remains on the Donbas, the official said.
…
The number of civilians killed in Ukraine since the beginning of the war is “thousands higher” than official figures, the head of the UN’s human rights monitoring mission in the country said. The official UN civilian death toll in Ukraine stands at 3,381, as well as 3,680 injured.
At least 100 civilians remain in Azovstal steelworks under heavy Russian fire in the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, an aide to the city’s mayor has said. Russian forces have not reduced the density of their attacks on the plant, where civilians and the city’s last Ukrainian defenders are holed up, Petro Andryushchenko said.
Ukrainian officials said they found the bodies of 44 civilians in the rubble of a building in the north-east of the country that was destroyed weeks ago. The bodies were found in a five-story building that collapsed in March in Izium, about 120km (75 miles) from the city of Kharkiv.
…
Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, and her Dutch counterpart, Wopke Hoekstra, visited areas around Kyiv devastated by the war on a surprise visit to Ukraine. In a press conference, Baerbock said Ukraine should become a full member of the European Union at some point but that there could be no shortcut to membership.
France has said a deal on a proposed EU ban on Russian oil could be struck this week, despite opposition from the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, who has compared the plans to an atomic bomb. Clément Beaune, an ally of Macron and France’s Europe minister, said he thought “we could strike a deal this week”.
China’s president, Xi Jinping, and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, spoke in a call on Tuesday. The two heads of state “reiterated their commitment to respect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine,” the Élysée said. Chinese state media said Xi warned Macron that confrontation between blocs resulting from the Ukraine crisis could become a bigger and more lasting threat to global peace than the crisis itself.
Russia has been blamed for a massive cyber-attack against a satellite internet network an hour before Vladimir Putin ordered his troops to invade Ukraine. The digital attack on Viasat’s KA-SAT network in late February took thousands of modems offline and helped facilitate Putin’s invasion of the country, the Council of the EU said.
The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, will visit Finland and Sweden on Wednesday, as the two Nordic countries consider whether to apply for Nato membership in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Downing Street said Johnson would have discussions on “broader security issues” during his visit to Finland followed by Sweden.
Ukraine announced its forces had recaptured villages from Russian troops north and northeast of Kharkiv, pressing a counter-offensive that could signal a shift in the war’s momentum and jeopardise Russia’s main advance, Reuters reports on Tuesday.
Tetiana Apatchenko, press officer for the 92nd Separate Mechanized Brigade, the main Ukrainian force in the area, in the country’s east, confirmed that Ukrainian troops had in recent days recaptured the settlements of Cherkaski Tyshky, Ruski Tyshki, Borshchova and Slobozhanske, in a pocket north of Kharkiv.
Defence Ministry adviser Yuriy Saks said the successes were pushing Russian forces out of range of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city and located in the northeast, which has been under perpetual bombardment since the war began.
The military operations of the Ukrainian armed forces around Kharkiv, especially north and northeast of Kharkiv, are sort of a success story. The Ukrainian army was able to push these war criminals to a line beyond the reach of their artillery,” Saks told Reuters.
US officials are now talking about a stalemate. But the counterattack near Kharkiv could signal a new phase, with Ukraine now going on the offensive after weeks in which Russia mounted a massive assault without making a breakthrough.
By pushing back Russian forces who had occupied the outskirts of Kharkiv since the start of the invasion, the Ukrainians are moving into striking distance of the rear supply lines sustaining the main Russian attack force further south.
They’re trying to cut in and behind the Russians to cut off the supply lines, because that’s really one of their (the Russians’) main weaknesses.
Ukrainians are getting close to the Russian border. So all the gains that the Russians made in the early days in the northeast of Ukraine are increasingly slipping away,” said Neil Melvin of the RUSI think-tank in London.
“If there are tweets that are wrong and bad, those should be either deleted or made invisible, and a suspension, a temporary suspension is appropriate but not a permanent ban.”
And:
“If they say something that is illegal or otherwise just destructive to the world … perhaps a timeout, a temporary suspension, or that particular tweet should be made invisible or have very limited traction. But I think perma-bans just fundamentally undermine trust.”
So to recap, Musk’s test for enforcement will be:
– Is the speech illegal? If not, then
– Is the speech “destructive to the world”?
Who gets to decide what that means, and which consequences will apply and when, will be the next big battle.
So is Musk’s “wrong and bad” test a two-pronged test? Must a tweet be both Wrong and Bad to invite enforcement?
Or is it that enforcement will be applied to tweets that are Wrong and also tweets that are Bad?
My earlier tweet was incomplete. Musk’s test for enforcement is in fact more nuanced. It’s actually:
– Is the speech illegal? If not, then
– Is the speech either “destructive to the world” or “wrong and bad”?
Musk is just…such a dipshit. I can’t believe banks are backing this.
Incidentally, I thought this episode of On the Media last August had a good discussion of free speech in the US – ” Constitutionally Speaking” (Twitter handles removed):
“The right to throw a punch ends at the tip of someone’s nose.” It’s the idea that underlies American liberties — but does it still fit in 2021? We look back at our country’s radical — and radically inconsistent — tradition of free speech. Plus, a prophetic philosopher predicts America 75 years after Trump.
1. Andrew Marantz, author of Anti-Social: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation — and our guest host for this hour — explains what he sees as the problem with free speech absolutism.
2. John Powell, law professor at UC Berkeley, P.E. Moskowitz, author of The Case Against Free Speech: The First Amendment, Fascism, and the Future of Dissent, and Susan Benesch, Director of the Dangerous Speech Project, on our complicated legal right to speak.
3. Andrew and Brooke discuss the philosopher Richard Rorty, whose work can teach us much about where the present approach to speech might take us, as a nation.
In Georgia’s Republican gubernatorial primary, former Sen. David Perdue said yesterday that if he’s elected, and Roe v. Wade is overturned, he would “immediately call a special session of the legislature to ban abortion in Georgia.”
I hope that is good news for the Stacey Abrams campaign.
After Florida Republicans approved what some have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” policy, Disney — a major force in the Sunshine State — eventually criticized the GOP’s anti-LGBTQ measure. […] Publicly disagreeing with a regressive Republican policy touched off a new culture war battle.
Gov. Ron DeSantis demanded that the state’s GOP-led legislature retaliate against Disney by scrapping the company’s longstanding special taxing district. State lawmakers did as they were told, and the Republican governor signed the anti-Disney measure soon after.
But there’s no reason to see this as a state or local matter.
National Review, a leading conservative magazine, reported last month that Disney’s copyright on its signature Steamboat Willie Mickey Mouse is set to expire on January 1, 2024, and securing an extension “might be more difficult” as GOP officials turn against the company.
[…] Fox News reported this morning:
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., is introducing legislation that would strip the Walt Disney Company of special copyright protections granted to the corporation by Congress, while also limiting the length of new copyrights. The “Copyright Clause Restoration Act of 2022” would cap the length of copyrights given corporations by Congress to 56 years and retroactively implement this change on companies, including Walt Disney.
The Missouri Republican issued a statement that read in part, “Thanks to special copyright protections from Congress, woke corporations like Disney have earned billions while increasingly pandering to woke activists. It’s time to take away Disney’s special privileges and open up a new era of creativity and innovation.” [Oh, FFS]
[…] Disney’s copyright, dating back to a 1928 short film, has already been extended a couple of times by Congress. In 1998, this was so uncontroversial on Capitol Hill that it cleared both chambers of the Republican-led Congress on voice votes.
But that was before GOP politicians turned against Disney.
As we’ve discussed, this is not a political dynamic in which Republicans have suddenly discovered deeply held concerns over copyright extensions as they relate to intellectual property law. On the contrary, the resistance is the result of the Republicans’ culture war — and the degree to which they see Disney as an opponent in the larger social conflict.
As many Republicans now see it, Disney has an obligation not to criticize anything the GOP does — and because the corporate giant fell out of line, and embraced values at odds with the right’s wishes, it must now be punished.
[…] there continues to be ample room for a spirited debate over how policymakers approach copyright extensions and special corporate benefits. To have concerns about how Republicans are approaching these issues is not to say that Disney or any other private-sector business somehow deserves governmental breaks.
What matters in this instance, however, is the brazen perversion of the GOP’s free-market principles. This is a case in which a political party wants to selectively punish a specific business because it had the audacity to say something unflattering about anti-LGBTQ politicians. Republicans likely would’ve been perfectly content giving Disney what it wanted, but after the corporation hurt GOP officials’ feelings, it’s apparently time for retaliatory measures — in part to punish Disney, and in part to send a message to other corporations that might be tempted to say things Republicans don’t like.
[…] As The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell explained in a recent column, “The GOP no longer argues that free markets, rather than government, should choose ‘winners and losers.’ In today’s Republican Party, the primary economic role of the state is not to get out of the way. It is, instead, to reward friends and crush political enemies.” [Yep. Because Republicans are authoritarians.]
When Sen. Bernie Sanders held a hearing last week on Amazon.com’s business practices, Sen. Lindsey Graham expressed outrage. The South Carolina Republican accused the Vermont independent of using his Senate powers “to get an outcome you want.” Graham called it “very dangerous” for a senator to target a corporation because he’s “determined Amazon is a piece of crap company.”
Will Lindsey Graham raise any related concerns as his partisan allies take on Disney?
In the short term, proposals such as Hawley’s aren’t too relevant: The Democratic-led House and Senate won’t exactly rush to pass his bill. But a prime-time Fox News host recently told viewers that the next time the GOP is in the majority, companies such as Disney should expect the government to retaliate against them.
Since the invasion began, Ukrainian-living-in-London Dmitri has translated hundreds of documents, text messages, and transcripts into English. His translations have helped to reveal disgruntled Russian soldiers who are aware that their leaders are lying to them, soldiers terrified that they are being sent into a meat grinder, and soldiers who have simply had enough and refuse to go when ordered.
Some of Dmitri’s translations have been intensely difficult to read. Not because of an issue with grammar, but because of the content. That includes not just Russian soldiers phoning home to brag about the civilians they’ve killed and the items they’ve stolen from Ukrainian homes, but a Russian wife giving her husband permission to rape Ukrainian women. (That couple has since been identified.) [Link available at the main link.]
Still, none of the translations has been quite this grisly. Trigger warnings are usually reserved for video or images, but one seems appropriate in this case. So … be warned.
From the beginning of the war, we’ve seen claims that Russia had been underreporting their losses. On a few occasions, a number of dead and wounded at least close to what Ukrainian officials and U.S. intelligence have been estimating have made it onto Russian TV or other media outlets, but those numbers have quickly been replaced or walked back, often with numbers an order of magnitude lower. There have also been images of Russian war widows sullenly clutching a few dollars’ worth of compensation, but that compensation has been coming from private institutions, not the government of Vladimir Putin.
Groups in Ukraine have set up “help lines” for Russian families, both with the purpose of helping locate soldiers who have gone silent after crossing into Ukraine, and driving home the point that Russian soldiers are dying in Putin’s illegal invasion in large numbers. Meanwhile, the Kremlin not only continues to report low numbers of casualties overall, but to list large numbers of troops as simply “missing in action,” sometimes with a hint of accusation that those missing are actually AWOL.
In this translation, a woman is looking for her brother, who has been among the missing in Ukraine. After a long search, his sister has found him. Though not in a way that anyone would want to find a family member.
Man: His sister, she went to Donetsk … there was a, basically a dump.
Woman: Oh, fuck.
Man: She paid money [to let them search through the bodies]. They are stacked on top of one another.
Woman: Oh, fuck.
Man: … She paid money, good money, so they moved the bodies around until they found him. … She says it’s a pile there. There’s nowhere else to put them. It’s a dump. I’m telling you in Russian — a dump.
Woman: Oh, fuck. Shit …
Man: She says thousands. Thousands. They are thrown here and there, for them it’s easier to make it look like they are missing in action. … It’s not a morgue. It’s a dump.
The phrase “I’m telling you in Russian” in this exchange means more or less “I’m being serious.”
Recently, Putin has made promises about increasing the compensation for families of those lost in Ukraine, with payments as high as $45,000. Except those new promises also come with caveats. Limitations. Special circumstances. And don’t expect any of that money to go to those who are only “missing in action” at a dump where Russian bodies are stacked like cordwood.
Sunday marks the two-year anniversary of when all this started.
On May 15, 2020, I told my supervisor at the Florida Department of Health that I was going to file a whistleblower complaint. He discouraged me from doing it, suggested I “think about your family,” and told me to take a week to think about it.
They didn’t give me a week. They didn’t even give me a day. They called me on my first day off in five months to tell me I could either resign or I would be fired. They said I had until Thursday at 5:00 PM to decide. To get the more-than one month’s salary I had earned in overtime, I would have to waive my right to sue for anything that happened while I was there.
The next day, Ron DeSantis named me as the whistleblower, defamed me, attacked me personally, and tried to scare me from every coming forward. I had done no interviews, made no official statements in any capacity, and was hiding from the press in a hotel room not far from where I live now in Navarre. I sought help from professors of mine, who put me in touch with an amazing legal team. They asked me: what do you want out of all of this?
I said I wanted my job back and an apology.
They all laughed. I thought it was a reasonable request.
They may give you your job back, they’ll even give you money, but you will never get an apology, they said. They warned me it would take years to go through the process of filing the complaint, getting a determination, filing the civil suit, and eventually getting a settlement, they agreed, for some comfortable amount of money. Two years, maybe.
It’s been two years.
Whistleblower suits, per Florida law, must be resolved within 90 days. You can’t move the suit to civil charges until you get that determination – you must “exhaust all procedural remedies.” When we discussed a timeline, we assumed the state would follow the same process and procedures they always do, and in a few months we’d have a determination and could file in civil court.
It’s been two years. Two years with no determinations. Two years only sporadically getting feedback. It’s been nearly one year since I was granted whistleblower status – which of course came six months too late for me and my family. The firing, the smear campaign… the armed raid on our home without a warrant…. Two years.
We received a draft determination a few months ago. It was a significant breakthrough. We could tell things were going well for us. Finally, we thought, we can move on to the next step once the final determination is issued. The best possible outcome for us, in our minds, was a “no determination.” Meaning the state would throw up its arms and say, “we can’t say whether or not any of this did or did not happen.” The most likely outcome would be that the state would investigate itself and find it did nothing wrong. But any determination would let us file our lawsuit and move on to the next step.
After all, it’s been TWO YEARS.
We were optimistic – the investigator who has had our case since the beginning was the senior investigator at the DOH Inspector General’s Office. He had been working for FCHR and IG for ten years. He asked the right questions, circled around the right answers, and let DOH hang themselves in their many and shockingly varied statements. We were expecting the final version soon, and the evidence indicated a favorable ruling.
This past Friday we received notice that he’s no longer at DOH. A new investigator has been assigned. We have to start over. And it’s been two years.
We expected this to take a few years, but starting over two years in? DeSantis and his cronies are trying to make certain that nothing happens with our case before the election. It would damn his chances of being elected for janitor at the capitol, much less re-elected to his current office, or God forbid, any higher office.
They’ll find a way to throw out everything the original investigator worked on and make a DeSantis approved determination against us, I’m sure.
I’m running for Congress to stop the kinds of corrupt, tyrannical government-sanctioned revenge DeSantis has become synonymous with during these last two years.
What he did to me, especially after the raid on my home, has been called “the first shot of an ascendent dictator testing the limits of his power” by historians who study Mussolini, Goebbels, Hitler.
We must give the power back to people and trust that they will use it responsibility, not continue to entertain candidates who only self-promote, serve as party martyrs with the expectation they’ll be handed party positions when they lose, or make a profit off a campaign that you shouldn’t receive a cent from to begin with.
All I ever wanted was to help people. It’s why I went into emergency response.
My life has come to symbolize something much bigger than that, and I will not stop until our government stops letting people like Ron DeSantis use the full weight of the power of his office to exact violent revenge on any person who speaks against him.
Matt Gaetz is an obstacle in our way to achieving that, and we need to seize the opportunity to widen our lead and secure victory this November.
We’re beating him because I’m the polar opposite of him in every conceivable way. Everyone we meet with sees that. But we need to reach more people — we need tv ads, radio ads, more events, mailings. Those things cost money.
We’re going to win this fight. But we truly need your help.
You’ve been by my side for two years. I would not be here without you. You kept my family fed in a time where I was stuck in a cycle of payday loans and unsure how I would pay my rent.
Two years is a long time. But I owe every minute of my success to you. You’ve been the true power behind my voice.
Any help to my family here or to our campaign helps us widen our lead over Gaetz so that we can stop him and those like him from grabbing and abusing their power.
I need your help on this path. My community and our country need your help.
Great news: The NYT has an interview with Maria Alyokhina of Pussy Riot. She’s managed to escape Russia by posing as a food delivery person when leaving a friend’s apartment where she’d been hiding out, crossing into Belarus, and going on to Lithuania.
Masha Alekhina, a member of Pussy Riot, escaped from Russia by disguising herself as a food courier, the New York Times reports.
Alekhina has been put under house arrest, but as the Kremlin sought to crack down on critics of the Ukraine war, her sentence was ordered to be carred out at a penal colony.
The Times reports:
She decided it was time to leave Russia — at least temporarily — and disguised herself as a food courier to evade the Moscow police who had been staking out the friend’s apartment where she was staying. She left her cellphone behind as a decoy and to avoid being tracked.
A friend drove her to the border with Belarus, and it took her a week to cross into Lithuania. In a studio apartment in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, she agreed to an interview to describe a dissident’s harrowing escape from Mr. Putin’s Russia.
“I was happy that I made it, because it was an unpredictable and big” kiss-off to the Russian authorities, Ms. Alyokhina said, using a less polite term. “I still don’t understand completely what I’ve done,” she admitted, dressed in black except for a fanny pack with a rainbow belt.
Her lawyer told the TASS news agency, “ I don’t know how she managed to do this, given the close surveillance that law enforcement agencies organized for her.” Thousands have fled Russia since the war began, as Russian president Vladimir Putin moved to crack down increasingly on those speaking out against the invasion.
In his address, Zelenskiy also emphasized news that Ukrainian forces have retaken villages in the Kharkiv region, which could signal a new phase in the war.
He said:
The Armed Forces of our state provided us all with good news from the Kharkiv region. The occupiers are gradually being pushed away from Kharkiv.
I am grateful to all our defenders who are holding the line and demonstrating truly superhuman strength to drive out the army of invaders. Once the second most powerful army in the world.
But I also want to urge all our people, and especially those in the rear, not to spread excessive emotions. We shouldn’t create an atmosphere of specific moral pressure, when certain victories are expected weekly and even daily.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine are doing everything to liberate our land and our people. To liberate all our cities – Kherson, Melitopol, Berdyansk, Mariupol and all others.
Brett Kavanaugh blasted protesters outside his home for “callously and cruelly” obstructing the daily keg delivery he has relied upon for the past twenty-two years.
According to the jurist, a truck belonging to Roscoe’s Beer Depot, which has made the regular keg deliveries with no previous interruption, was unable to turn in to Kavanaugh’s driveway and load a keg into the residence’s basement, where it was to be kept at a “cool and frosty temperature” until its contents could be consumed.
“The United States Constitution explicitly protects my right to an uninterrupted flow of beer,” Kavanaugh declared. “This will not stand.”
Kavanaugh said that he has “tried to remain calm” about the beer blockade, but warned protesters that, when he gets down to his final keg, “things could get ugly fast—real fast.”
Last week, the Irish nationalist party Sinn Féin triumphed in the Northern Ireland assembly election. For the first time since the partition of Ireland, they won the majority of seats in Stormont.
As part of the Good Friday Agreement, a power-sharing system was established. For the executive to function, the positions of first minister and deputy first minister must be held by one unionist and one nationalist.
Sinn Féin’s leader, Michelle O’Neill, is poised to become first minister. However, the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) has vowed to stall the power-sharing process, unless the UK government responds to its concerns over the Northern Ireland protocol within the Brexit agreement. Senior DUP figures are offering Boris Johnson the choice between “Stormont or the protocol”.
Hannah Moore speaks to the Guardian’s Ireland correspondent, Rory Carroll, about what this result means for the deadlock in Stormont and the future of the union.
“Meanwhile on Russian state TV: Tucker Carlson, Donald Trump, JD Vance. Kremlin-controlled state media covers American politics with the same obsessive zeal as Ukraine. Ultimately, it’s all connected. The Russians are hoping that the GOP will win in the midterms and Trump in 2024….”
On the face of it, Samuel Alito’s draft decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, published by POLITICO last week, represents a vindication for the Religious Right, the culmination of nearly five decades of working to outlaw abortion. “I don’t know if this report is true,” said evangelist Franklin Graham of the draft opinion overturning abortion rights, “but if it is, it is an answer to many years of prayer.”
The history of that movement, however, is more complicated. White evangelicals in the 1970s did not mobilize against Roe v. Wade, which they considered a Catholic issue. They organized instead to defend racial segregation in evangelical institutions, including Bob Jones University.
[Many kids from my childhood church went to Bob Jones University. – SC]
To suggest otherwise is to perpetrate what I call the abortion myth, the fiction that the genesis of the Religious Right — the powerful evangelical political movement that has reshaped American politics over the past four decades — lay in opposition to abortion.
The historical record is clear. In 1968, Christianity Today, the flagship magazine of evangelicalism, organized a conference with the Christian Medical Society to discuss the morality of abortion. The gathering attracted 26 heavyweight theologians from throughout the evangelical world, who debated the matter over several days and then issued a statement acknowledging the ambiguities surrounding the issue, which, they said, allowed for many different approaches.
“Whether the performance of an induced abortion is sinful we are not agreed,” the statement read, “but about the necessity of it and permissibility for it under certain circumstances we are in accord.”
Two successive editors of Christianity Today took equivocal stands on abortion. Carl F. H. Henry, the magazine’s founder, affirmed that “a woman’s body is not the domain and property of others,” and his successor, Harold Lindsell, allowed that, “if there are compelling psychiatric reasons from a Christian point of view, mercy and prudence may favor a therapeutic abortion.”
Meeting in St. Louis in 1971, the messengers (delegates) to the Southern Baptist Convention, hardly a redoubt of liberalism, passed a resolution calling for the legalization of abortion, a position they reaffirmed in 1974 — a year after Roe — and again in 1976.
When the Roe decision was handed down, W. A. Criswell, pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas and sometime president of the Southern Baptist Convention, issued a statement praising the ruling. “I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person,” Criswell declared, “and it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed.”
When Francis Schaeffer, the intellectual godfather of the Religious Right, tried to enlist Billy Graham in his antiabortion crusade in the late 1970s, Graham, the most famous evangelical of the 20th century, turned him down. Even James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family who later became an implacable foe of abortion, acknowledged in 1973 that the Bible was silent on the matter and therefore it was plausible for an evangelical to believe that “a developing embryo or fetus was not regarded as a full human being.”
Despite this history, the abortion myth persists, stoked repeatedly by the leaders of the Religious Right. If abortion was not the catalyst for this political movement of white evangelicals, however, what was?
According to Paul Weyrich, a conservative activist and architect of the Religious Right, the movement started in the 1970s in response to attempts on the part of the Internal Revenue Service to rescind the tax-exempt status of whites-only segregation academies (many of them church sponsored) and Bob Jones University because of its segregationist policies. Among those affected was Jerry Falwell, who referred to the civil rights movement as “civil wrongs” and who had opened his own segregation academy in 1967. The IRS actions against racially segregated institutions, not abortion, is what mobilized evangelical activists in the 1970s, and they directed their ire against a fellow evangelical, Jimmy Carter, in the run-up to the 1980 presidential election.
Weyrich’s genius, however, lay in his understanding that racism — the defense of racial segregation — was not likely to energize grassroots evangelical voters. So he, Falwell and others deftly flipped the script. Instead of the Religious Right mobilizing in defense of segregation, evangelical leaders in the late 1970s decried government intrusion into their affairs as an assault on religious freedom, thereby writing a page for the modern Republican Party playbook, used shamelessly in the Hobby Lobby and the Masterpiece Cakeshop cases.
…
In any case, “religious freedom” didn’t prove to be the energizing issue that the leaders of the movement hoped, which is how abortion became part of the Religious Right agenda.
…
Opposition to abortion, therefore, was a godsend for leaders of the Religious Right because it allowed them to distract attention from the real genesis of their movement: defense of racial segregation in evangelical institutions. With a cunning diversion, they were able to conjure righteous fury against legalized abortion and thereby lend a veneer of respectability to their political activism.
Alito’s draft makes no mention of this tawdry history.
“Michael Flynn said he was just informed by DOD that they are recouping $40K he received from Russia for a speaking fee in 2015. ‘It’s just another dig, another means to embarrass .. They’re just gonna reach into my retirement and take some money out’.”
The number of civilians killed in Ukraine since the beginning of the war is “thousands higher” than official figures, the head of the UN’s human rights monitoring mission in the country said. The official UN civilian death toll in Ukraine stands at 3,381, as well as 3,680 injured.
That number of 3,381 dead civilians in Ukraine isn’t even in the right order of magnitude.
I’ve read that the best estimates are well over 20,000 and likely much higher, maybe right now 30,000. Wherever the Russians have been, there are mass graves. They’ve been pushed out of a few places around Kharkiv but still hold most of the territory in the east and south that they invaded. We won’t know for a long time but the civilian deaths are going to be high.
ravensays
Man: She says thousands. Thousands. They are thrown here and there, for them it’s easier to make it look like they are missing in action. … It’s not a morgue. It’s a dump.
The Ukrainians are having the same problem.
They have thousands of Russian soldier’s bodies stacked up here and there, many in refrigerated railroad boxcars. They don’t want to bury them in Ukraine because they aren’t too happy with the Russian army right now. The Russians won’t take them back. They don’t want them either. Because it doesn’t look so good when the bodies start coming back to Lower Boondocks Russia where most of their conscripts come from.
The Russian army is mostly ethnic minorities; Chechens, Dagestanis, Buryats (Asian Mongolians), and poor Russians from the hinterlands.
Human life is cheap in Russia. It’s meaningless. No wonder their population is dropping. Who wants to live in a place like that anyway?
tuatarasays
News bulletin just heard on the radio in the car, on the ABC.
Our deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce saying of China that the red menace has a clear policy of “encircling Australia” with military bases. All this over the security deal that China has inked with the government of the Solomon Islands.
Perhaps he has never seen a map of the world before. Last I looked, there is little West of Australia with 6,500km of mostly empty Indian Ocean to Madagascar, South is of course Antarctica some 2,500km from the southern tip of Tasmania, and South East is New Zealand some 2,000km away. Australia is therefore a very difficult nation to encircle.
When asked Mr tomato-face Joyce said that his comments were “not alarmist”.
The only red menace I see is him. It must be an election cycle.
blfsays
tuatara@464, “Perhaps [Ozland’s deputy Prime Minister Barnaby tomato-face Joyce] has never seen a map of the world before.”
He’s probably using one of those Medieval maps showing the world as a flat square or circle with Jerusalem in the centre. None(?) of them included Ozland, proof of “China’s clear policy of encircling Australia” !
StevoRsays
Third & final “leaders” debate in Oz on tonight starting soon – like a few minutes time or so – with a live blog of it here :
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Former Chinese ambassador says Russia ‘has completely lost Ukraine’
A Chinese former ambassador to Ukraine has strongly criticised Russia’s invasion in a recent speech which was reported on by the Chinese press before quickly being taken down, Helen Davidson and Chi Hui Lin report.
Gao Yusheng, who retired over a decade ago after a career spent mostly in Russia and central Asia, told an online Chinese Academy of Social Sciences seminar that Russia’s war is failing.
Gao said Moscow under Putin’s rule had never really accepted the sovereignty and independence of former Soviet states, and his frequent “violations” of their territory were “the greatest threat to peace, security and stability in Eurasia”.
Gao said:
The central and overriding direction of the Putin regime’s foreign policy is to regard the former Soviet Union as its exclusive sphere of influence, and to restore the empire through integration mechanisms in various spheres dominated by Russia.
This had been dramatically changed by the Ukraine war, and Gao suggested that once it was over a new world order would likely emerge that saw Ukraine removed from Russia’s “sphere of influence” and brought further into Europe, and Russia’s political, economic, military and diplomatic power drastically weakened and isolated.
According to a translation by former US state department official, David Cowhig, Gao said:
It can be said that Russia has completely lost Ukraine.
At the same time, the former Soviet Union, with the exception of white Russia, including the members of the Collective Security Treaty and the Eurasian Economic Union, have refused to support Russia. Russia’s defeat would leave it with no hope of rebuilding its old empire.
Gao’s remarks were reported on by Pheonix News, a Chinese media outlet, but later removed from the internet. An archived copy was available.
China’s leader Xi Jinping is a close ally of Putin, and the Chinese Communist Party has refused to condemn the invasion. While Gao is not considered within the CCP’s sphere of influence, analysts suggested his views likely reflected others among the political elite about Xi’s foreign policy regime.
Gao was a diplomatic officer to the Soviet Union and then the Russian Federation from 1984-88 and 1992-96. He served as ambassador to Ukraine from 2005-2007 after stints in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
All anyone has to do is tune into pro-Russian Twitter—or U.S. right-wing media—to discover that Russia’s plans for Ukraine are both simple and brilliant. It works like this: In order to capture the Donbas, Russia invaded everywhere that was not the Donbas. Like the area north of Kyiv, and the border region at Chenihiv, and Sumy, and all the areas around Kharkiv, and in the south around Kherson. And then Russia, simply and brilliantly, went on to lose 20,000 men, dozens of aircraft, hundreds of tanks, and thousands of vehicles while slaughtering villages, dusting off the term “rape and pillage” for a new generation, and in general racking up a list of crimes against humanity that is making Pol Pot spin in his nonexistent grave.
(Author’s note: After he died in prison, Pot’s body was literally put on ice until enough people could view his frozen corpse to make sure there would be no rumors the mass-murdering SOB was still alive. Then he was cremated by throwing his body on a stack of burning tires and trash. There’s no word that anyone bothered to collect what was left. That’s the kind of funeral planning that ought to be kept on file.)
Listening to Russian media, or pro-Russian Twitter, or far-right evangelicals who have suddenly decided to join the Russian Orthodox Church because they like the “traditions”—all that stuff was just a feint designed to distract Ukrainian forces from Russia’s real goals in the Donbas. You have to particularly like the part where Russia had their own troops dig trenches in the “red forest” around Chernobyl, exposing themselves to a few hundred lifetime doses of radiation in a week. That’s real commitment to a role.
Except if all that was a feint designed to distract Ukraine, why are Ukraine’s repeated victories in the area around Kharkiv suddenly causing such concern to Russia that they are shifting forces away from the Donbas?
On Monday, Ukrainian forces reportedly quick-marched northwest from the area of Staryi Slativ to capture the town of Ternova and the surrounding area, putting them right on the border with Russia and dividing Russia’s area of control in Ukraine. This action still has not been confirmed by official sources in the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, but has been repeated by knowledgeable sources on the ground. With the capture of Ternova, and over a dozen other villages and towns in the Kharkiv area in the last two weeks, Russian forces in Kharkiv oblast are reduced to not just a small area north of the hard-hit city, but an area that is difficult to hold and to supply.
That result is generating two statements that seem to be at odds. On Monday, Ukrainian officials stated that Russia was withdrawing some if not all of their troops from the Kharkiv region. Reports had indicated that as of last week, Russia had three Battalion Tactical Groups in the area, and that has proven to be utterly insufficient to hold positions as Ukraine has advanced from town to town. Withdrawing from the area and just ceding the area west of the Siverskyi Donets River seems reasonable.
So why, in addition to reports that Russia is abandoning its small, pointless, and increasingly difficult to support positions north of Kharkiv, are there also reports like this one:
Either option brings offensive operations in the Donbas to a general halt but losing their operational base would be catastrophic. Russia appears to already be shifting forces away from the Izium Axis toward Kharkiv, more forces will more than likely be diverted north.
That Ukrainian actions in Kharkiv are impacting Russian movements from Izyum is also the assessment of U.S. intelligence. But why? Why is Russia dragging forces back to the north, even as it also reportedly tries to withdraw forces from the same area?
It’s probably because of reports like the one in this Telegram message. The message is from Russian sources, and spends most of its time talking about May 9 celebrations, praising the firing of missiles into Odesa, and claiming that Ukraine has lost dozens of UAVs and boats trying to retake Snake Island. However, it also includes this:
“In the northeast of Kharkiv region, we continue to record the enemy’s advance towards our border. Now the enemy is near Vovchansk. But to continue the offensive, he will have to ford the Siverskyi Donets. And it’s not so easy to do. It will be difficult for the enemy to advance further.”
With the rapid movements of Ukrainian forces to take first Staryi Slativ and then Ternova, it’s clear to the Russians that Ukraine is not practicing the Russian technique of spending days pulverizing a town with artillery, then slowly advancing into the ruins. Ukraine is moving quickly, and not always in the direction that analysts might predict.
Russia has blown up the bridges at Staryi Saltiv, Rubiznhe, Starytsya, and Ohirtseve. Which is all of the bridges on the northern Donets. But the river is only 30 meters wide at Ohirtseve, and less than 50 meters wide at Starytsya. These are the kinds of distances that engineering units with pontoon bridges were designed to tackle. Even all the way down at Staryi Saltiv, where the river is dammed into a reservoir over 1,500 meters across, the actual span of bridge that was taken down was much smaller. Ukraine has been directing artillery at the area around the other end of that bridge, which may be a sign that they believe the Staryi Saltiv bridge could be repaired.
In any case, the Russian forces moving north away from Izyum are unlikely to be getting dragged back into Russia, then fed back down the pipeline to hold onto positions like Pertrivka and Kozacha Lopan. Because what do those positions matter anyway? They were important when Russia occupied a ring of villages around Kharkiv because Russian supplies coming down the road from Belgorod through the entry port just east of Kozacha Lopan keep the shells falling on Ukraine’s second largest city. (Note: If you haven’t already seen it, UnHerd reporter David Patrikarakos has a terrific, informative, and heartbreaking piece up about how Kharkiv has suffered after weeks of constant assaults from Russian forces).
But those Russian positions are not allowing them to keep pressure on Kharkiv at this point. Absolutely the only purpose they are serving is to occupy the attention of some Ukrainian forces that are whittling back Russia’s area of control day by day. […] And yes, Russia could put in more forces just to keep Ukraine fighting in the area, but pumping forces into these locations is just another way of throwing them away. [map at the link]
It may be difficult to tell on this slightly 3D-ish map from Google Earth, but Staryi Saltiv is on high ground with woods on two sides and the river on another. This should have made this an extremely difficult area to assault. Ukraine took it. Ukrainian troops have captured multiple points that had both strategic importance in terms of their location in the region, and tactical advantages in terms of the battlefield conditions. This does not appear to be true of Russia’s remaining positions in the area (with the possible exception of the area between Lyptsi and Kozachan Lopan, where Russian forces were reportedly digging into defensive positions).
All this means that the only thing any Russian forces in Kharkiv oblast can do at this point is defend unimportant crossroads in areas where holding those points provides no benefit to Russia. Also, they will likely lose these locations anyway. Putting more forces there wouldn’t be a feint, it would just be stupid.
So when Russia is moving forces out of Izyum, it’s unlikely they’re headed to Lyptsi. Instead, they’ll be defending […] Volchansk and Kupyansk. Because it’s not so much that Russia is going to defend their areas on the western side of the Donets as it is that they don’t trust Ukrainian forces to stay on the western side of the Donets.
The bridges might be blown, but there are a good 25 kilometers of river along which Ukraine could construct some kind of crossing point. Ukrainian forces that moved fast to take Staryi Saltiv, then Rubiznhe, then Ternova might also carve a path east of the river. And they don’t even have to capture a rail hub like Kupyansk to cause damage. Ukraine could just take out rail lines or bridges leading into these critical supply points.
Russia is moving north not to take the area around Kharkiv, but to keep the forces that recaptured that area for Ukraine from doing the same thing to the east. That Russian Telegram message may believe that the Siverskyi Donets represents a real barrier that will keep Ukrainian forces away from their supply lines. Someone in Russia doesn’t agree. […]
…All were among US overdose deaths in 2021, a record year for such fatalities with an estimated 107,622, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Wednesday.
It was an increase of 15% from the previous year, which was also a record.
The US has now passed 1m overdose deaths since the CDC began collecting data about two decades ago.
The surge in deaths in 2021 was fueled primarily by fentanyl, a highly dangerous synthetic opioid that accounted for about 70% of fatalities.
Black American men and boys have the highest fatality rates from drug overdoses, followed closely by American Indian and Alaska Native men and boys – a significant increase among these demographics in recent years.
Overdose deaths among teens have doubled in the past three years, even though drug use is decreasing overall among teens. Teens are more likely to buy pills they think are Adderall, Xanax or Percocet, seeking help in studying for exams, calming anxiety, helping sleep, or treating pain, said Dr Nora D Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (Nida) at the National Institutes of Health.
“They’ve been doing this for decades. What is now different is these prescription drugs that are illicitly manufactured containing fentanyl have increased fiftyfold,” Volkow said.
The almost fiftyfold increase in illicit pills containing fentanyl happened between 2018 and 2021, she said – a “huge proliferation”.
One-time and casual users, including children, are dying.
“They were poisoned by taking a pill that contains something that they did not know was there,” Volkow said.
…
Drug overdoses are particularly tragic because they are entirely preventable, Volkow said. Opioid overdoses can be reversed with naloxone….
A Texas appeals court must reconsider its decision to uphold a five-year conviction for Crystal Mason, the Texas woman sentenced to prison for casting a provisional ballot in the 2016 election, the state’s highest criminal court ruled on Wednesday.
…
A local judge in Tarrant county, where Mason lives, convicted her of illegally voting in 2018 and sentenced her to five years in prison. An appeals court upheld that ruling in 2020.
The Texas court of criminal appeals said the an appellate court had “erred by failing to require proof that the appellant had actual knowledge that it was a crime for her to vote while on supervised release”.
Mason has remained out of prison on an appeal bond during that time. Her appeal to the Texas court of criminal appeals, Texas’ highest criminal court, was her last chance.
The case attracted significant national attention because of the severity of Mason’s sentence.
Boris Johnson has been speaking at a joint news conference with Finland’s president, Sauli Niinisto, after signing a new security agreement that would involve Britain providing military assistance if Finland is attacked.
Niinisto says Finland appreciates the UK’s strong support of Nato’s open-door policy and Finland’s potential to join the alliance….
Finland’s president, Sauli Niinisto, says the Russian invasion of Ukraine has “changed the picture” and “made us think” about its security.
Russia has shown it is “ready to attack a neighbouring country”, he said. As a result, Finland is now considering joining Nato.
On Wednesday afternoon, lawmakers will vote on the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA), which would federally enshrine the right to an abortion. The bill has been up for a vote in the Senate in the past and all Democrats except Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia voted in favor of it. Unsurprisingly, Manchin has indicated once again that he won’t support the WHPA. “We’re going to be voting on a piece of legislation, which I will not vote for today,” Manchin told reporters. “But I would vote for a Roe v. Wade codification if it was today. I was hopeful for that.”
Looking at the text of the bill, it’s easy to see Manchin is just being pedantic at best. Though Roe isn’t mentioned once, it’s crystal clear that the purpose of the WHPA is “to protect a person’s ability to determine whether to continue or end a pregnancy, and to protect a health care provider’s ability to provide abortion services.” Perhaps if Manchin’s fortune came from a lucrative for-profit company that offered reproductive health care, he’d somehow muster the ability to give more of a shit. [video at the link]
Then there’s House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, who represents a state hellbent on passing some of the most archaic, dangerous anti-abortion legislation in the country. Were the state of Louisiana to adopt HB813, known as the “Abolition of Abortion in Louisiana Act of 2022,” those who terminate a pregnancy could be charged with homicide. Scalise has repeatedly expressed his support for outlawing abortions, though he dodged that question recently when asked about whether he supported a federal ban. [video at the link]
Scalise did say he supports the leaked draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade but then fixed his focus onto the type of respectability politics most Republicans care more about than the actual people they represent. He was scandalized by the leak and worried about people protesting outside of Supreme Court justices’ homes—something he recognized as illegal. For people facing the very real threat of a loss of bodily autonomy from a policy that has the capacity to endanger their lives, thinking about the most diplomatic way to address the likes of alleged sex pest Brett Kavanaugh probably isn’t high on their list of actions.
“If you think about where we are, we’re a party who defends life,” Scalise concluded. “And we would celebrate a ruling that allows elected leaders to defend life and debate an open public on what those laws should be in every state and in Washington.” The only thing that will make it even more abundantly clear that the GOP’s defense of life doesn’t extend to the people who actually give birth is their expected votes against the WHPA. As Sen. Elizabeth Warren said yesterday, this is a crucial moment in which voters will immediately know who of their elected officials “will stand by as [people’s] constitutional rights are brazenly stripped away.”
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack fought tooth and nail for access to John Eastman’s post-election emails. The latest reporting from Politico underscores why congressional investigators were so eager to review the materials.
Attorney John Eastman urged Republican legislators in Pennsylvania to retabulate the state’s popular vote — and throw out tens of thousands of absentee ballots — in order to show Donald Trump with a lead, according to newly unearthed emails sent in December 2020, as Trump pressured GOP lawmakers to subvert his defeat. This recalculation, he posited in an exchange with one GOP state lawmaker, “would help provide some cover” for Republicans to replace Joe Biden’s electors from the state with a slate of pro-Trump electors, part of a last-ditch bid to overturn the election results.
Just so we’re all clear, according to the official tally, Joe Biden’s Democratic ticket narrowly won Pennsylvania in 2020, prevailing by nearly 82,000 votes. That included, of course, Keystone State voters who cast absentee ballots.
According to the recommendations Eastman shared with Republican legislators in Pennsylvania, GOP officials had the “authority” to recalculate the vote totals, “discount” some absentee ballots, and claim that the Republican ticket which lost the state actually won, reality be damned.
At that point, again according to a December 2020 email Eastman sent to a Republican legislator, Pennsylvania’s GOP-led legislature could endorse a slate of fake electors.
His use of the word “authority” was especially galling: The desperate attorney effectively made the case, in writing, that Republican legislators were well within their rights — without any meaningful pretext — to ignore thousands of legally cast votes and put aside the results of a free and fair democratic election, on their own say so.
For months, Eastman has insisted that his post-election work was grounded in provocative-but-real legal scholarship. Such claims have now been thrown out the window. A Washington Post analysis explained this morning that the newly released emails “reveal his willingness to simply invent rationales” for Trump to be given electors he didn’t earn.
Worse, the analysis added, those rationales, created out of whole cloth, “are themselves indefensible.”
[…] It was in the summer of 2020 when Eastman published a bizarre piece that argued that Vice President Kamala Harris was ineligible for national office because her parents immigrated to the United States.
Soon after, he began working with Trump — the then-president saw him on Fox News and was impressed — and as part of that work, Eastman filed a brief in December 2020 on Trump’s behalf that asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the 2020 presidential election. (It was filled with factual errors — including an obvious one literally on the first page.)
Soon after, he authored what’s become known as the Eastman Memo, which effectively outlined how Republicans could execute something resembling a post-election coup.
[…] when Eastman sat down with congressional investigators, the Republican lawyer reportedly pleaded the Fifth — by some accounts, nearly 150 times.
The panel proceeded to subpoena Eastman’s records, most notably the emails from his time working with Trump to overturn the election. The Republican lawyer tried to block that effort, claiming the materials were protected by attorney-client privilege.
It led the Jan. 6 committee to argue that communications between attorneys and clients are not protected if they’re discussing committing crimes. In late March, a federal judge agreed, concluding, “Based on the evidence, the Court finds it more likely than not that President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021.”
All of this made Eastman look pretty awful. Politico’s new reporting manages to make him look even worse.
In a glimpse of a favored White House midterm message, Biden sought to contrast his agenda with that of Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla. Scott, who chairs the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, released an 11-point plan in February for GOP candidates to run on in the upcoming midterms. The plan calls for raising federal income taxes on many Americans, banning debt ceiling increases unless America is at war, and requiring all federal programs to expire every five years, unless they are renewed by Congress.
Commentary:
“Republicans in Congress are so deeply committed to protecting big corporations and CEOs that they would rather see taxes on working American families and try to depress their wages than take on inflation, never mind the fact that many of these companies are recording record profit margins even as … they raise prices record amounts,” Biden said, calling the Scott plan an “ultra-MAGA” proposal.
“[I]f I hadn’t seen it in writing, I’d think somebody is making this up,” the Democratic president added yesterday.
Senator Rick Scott’s response:
Let’s be honest here: Joe Biden is unwell. He’s unfit for office. He’s incoherent, incapacitated, and confused. He doesn’t know where he is half the time. He’s incapable of leading and he’s incapable of carrying out his duties.
Commentary:
In other words, the president made a substantive case against the senator’s ridiculous ideas, and Scott responded with a personal attack. (Given the number of retirees in Florida, I’m not sure it’s politically wise to attack septuagenarians as doddering fools.)
If the Republican’s plan had merit, shouldn’t he be able to defend it without slandering Biden?
Wonkette: “Manchin-Endorsed GOP Rep. Got Ass Whooped In West Virginia Primary”
Donald Trump scratched another name off his enemies’ list Tuesday night after GOP Rep. David McKinley lost his primary race to Rep. Alex Mooney, who Trump endorsed because he wasn’t McKinley. West Virginia lost a congressional seat in the 2020 census because a lot of people either moved away or just plain died, and that left McKinley and Mooney fighting it out for the new Second Congressional District.
It also offered an opportunity for Trump to inflict pain on McKinley, who committed heresies against MAGA. He voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which Trump hated because he didn’t sign it himself. Worse, McKinley voted to create a bipartisan January 6 commission like a common RINO who thinks it’s wrong that Trump’s violent mob attacked the Capitol.
McKinley lost Tuesday’s primary so badly he needed hugs […] Mooney crushed him by almost 20 points. Of course, Mooney had Trump’s support in a state the former president carried in 2020 by close to 40 points. McKinley had to settle for a campaign ad from Senator Joe Manchin, who’s not even officially a Republican.
Manchin got testy with Mooney in the ad, calling him a liar who only cares about himself. That’s a consistent character description for most of Trump’s endorsement picks. Manchin talked up McKinley’s opposition to Build Back Better, which Manchin personally tanked last year. This is hardly a MAGA credential because no Republicans supported Joe Biden’s socialist scheme to feed hungry children and keep the planet from catching fire. McKinley was toast because of his infrastructure bill vote. Washington Post columnist James Hohmann wrote yesterday that McKinley’s loss “best illustrates why President Biden’s governing theory has failed.”
Harsh, but here’s his explanation:
When Biden ran for president in 2020, his central rationale was that he could yoke the two parties together and pass bipartisan legislation. He called President Donald Trump an “aberration” whose influence would quickly dissipate, and he believed friendships forged during almost 50 years in Washington would allow him to break the fever in ways President Barack Obama never could. “You will see an epiphany occur among many of my Republican friends,” Biden predicted in New Hampshire.
Last summer, after cutting a deal with Senate Republicans that would lead to passage of a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, Biden claimed vindication. He mocked fellow Democrats who called him naive for believing the two parties could bridge their divides.
The bipartisan infrastructure bill should’ve been a slam dunk for Republicans: Their broke-ass states would receive billions in federal dollars. West Virginia specifically could use that money for its literally crumbling roads and bridges. USA Today framed the primary as a test between Trump’s clout and the importance of infrastructure. GOP voters took the petty path.
McKinley helped bring billions of dollars to West Virginia. Mooney obeyed orders from the mad MAGA king, and now Mooney is on his way back to Washington, DC. The state’s voters have no reason to expect Mooney will do anything constructive for them beyond opposing Biden’s every move. This is what West Virginia Republicans wanted. They have zero interest in “bipartisanship,” and Joe Manchin — Mr. Bipartisanship — has to read today’s election news with some mounting alarm about his own political future.
Yes, Manchin currently enjoys a high approval rating in the state, but his usefulness to Republicans will greatly diminish when he’s not actively obstructing a Democratic Senate. Back in early 2021, Senators Susan Collins, John Thune, and Rob Portman reportedly pleaded with Manchin to switch parties and thus keep the Senate under GOP control. I loathe Manchin but appreciate that this would’ve been a disaster, so good on him for not completely screwing America.
Portman later retired like a coward who knew he couldn’t win a GOP primary. That’s Manchin’s dilemma, so there’s even less reason to fear he’d take a step to the Right and officially join the GOP. He’s as stuck with Democrats as we are with him. […]
The Women’s Health Protection Act, designed to codify Roe v. Wade protections, was derailed today by a Republican filibuster, but the fight isn’t over.
In the wake of Justice Samuel Alito’s leaked draft, as the political world started coming to terms with the looming demise of the Roe v. Wade precedent, President Joe Biden issued a statement arguing the nation “will need more pro-choice senators and a pro-choice majority in the House to adopt legislation that codifies Roe, which I will work to pass and sign into law.”
That, in a nutshell, became the Democratic plan. The governing majority can’t twist Supreme Court jurists’ arms, and they don’t appear ready to expand the number of justices on the high court, but it’s within lawmakers’ power to establish reproductive rights that Republican-appointed justices appear poised to take away.
For now, that legislative vehicle is the Women’s Health Protection Act, passed the House last fall, 218 to 211, overcoming the unanimous opposition of the chamber’s Republican members. In late February, Senate Democrats brought it the chamber floor, where it needed 60 votes. It received 46.
Today, against a backdrop of a looming decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Senate majority tried again. […]
The Senate failed to advance a Democratic-led bill Wednesday that would enshrine broad protections for legal abortion nationwide, a vote triggered by a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion that indicates Roe v. Wade will likely be overturned…. All 50 Republicans and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., voted against proceeding to debate.
The final tally was 49 to 51. (Note, this was a procedural vote to proceed with a debate on the legislation, not a vote on the bill itself. Manchin and every GOP senator in the chamber voted to prevent that debate from happening.)
[…] The past couple of days have proven to be a bit more informative than many observers, including me, expected. For example, Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, a longtime opponent of abortion rights, announced yesterday that he now supports the Women’s Health Protection Act and the effort to codify the status quo in federal law. (The Pennsylvanian previously voted to begin debate on the bill, but opposed the underlying proposal. Now, in “a major shift,” he’s changed his mind.)
[…] The arithmetic is stubborn: 52 is less than 60.
But with Casey backing the bill, and Manchin endorsing the legal status quo, there’s at least something resembling kinetic political activity on the issue in Democratic politics.
What’s more, let’s not forget that legislation to codify Roe had been introduced in every Congress for a decade, but it had never received so much as a vote in committee. In this Congress, however, it passed the House, and received near-unanimous support from Senate Democrats.
There’s no reason to think we’ve heard the last of this.
In an abrupt about-face that has rocked the tech world, Elon Musk has decided to sell Twitter after it failed to make him interesting.
Speaking to reporters, Musk said he was “disappointed” that his purchase of Twitter had done nothing to change the public’s perception of him as a tedious attention hog.
“I really thought that owning Twitter would transform my image as a black hole of neediness,” he said. “Instead, it made me look desperate. And not in an interesting way.”
Musk said that the last straw was when signalling his intention to let Donald J. Trump back on Twitter failed, yet again, to make the Tesla C.E.O. interesting.
“I guess I didn’t realize that you can’t become interesting by associating with someone else who people don’t find interesting,” he said. “This whole thing has been a learning experience.”
The inflation rate was little changed from March to April, a potential sign that the rapid growth in the cost of goods and services may soon taper off.
NBC News:
The White House says the Covid pandemic and Russia’s invasion into Ukraine have contributed to supply chain disruptions, increasing food prices and shortages in the U.S. and abroad.
Yearbooks at a central Florida high school won’t be distributed until images of students holding rainbow flags and a ‘love is love’ sign while protesting the state’s so-called ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law can be covered up. District officials said they don’t want anyone thinking that the school supported the students’ walkout.
House Republicans on Wednesday introduced a bill to defund the recently announced Disinformation Governance Board within the Department of Homeland Security, the latest in a series of GOP actions against the panel that they have deemed an Orwellian “Ministry of Truth”
The brief bill, led by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), prohibits funds from flowing to activities to carry out the Disinformation Governance Board or any “substantially similar” entity.
“The President’s Ministry of Truth is just an un-American abuse of power, which is a scheme conjured up by Washington Democrats to grant themselves the authority to control free speech,” McCarhty said in a press conference on Wednesday.
Reps. Lauren Boebert (Colo.), House GOP Conference Vice Chairman Mike Johnson (La.), August Pfluger (Texas), House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (La.), House GOP Chair Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) and Homeland Security Committee Ranking Member John Katko (N.Y.) are cosponsors of the bill.
DHS has released few details about how the board will work, and a clumsy rollout led to swift attacks. In a fact sheet released last week, the department said that the board was “established with the explicit goal of ensuring these protections are appropriately incorporated across DHS’s disinformation-related work and that rigorous safeguards are in place.”
The department also said that it has dealt with disinformation relating to scammers and smugglers distributing false information about the border and taking advantage of natural disaster victims.
Boebert dismissed the possibility of working with the board to counter disinformation from cartels.
[…] “We have plenty of tools that we can use to go after the cartels,” Boebert said. “It seems like it was created to terrorize the American people rather than to prevent terrorists from engaging in our country. So I would not give any credence to this disinformation governance board, this department of propaganda.”
Republicans are taking other actions to move against the panel, too.
Last week, 170 House Republicans signed a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas seeking answers about the disinformation governance board. The House Judiciary Committee GOP also invited Nina Jankowicz, head of the board, to speak to the committee.
Belarus’ parliament approved a bill on May 4 to amend the country’s criminal code, introducing capital punishment for acts of “attempted terrorism.”
Previously, the death penalty was assigned to those that committed terrorist acts that resulted in casualties.
Belarus’ State Security Committee, or KGB, has a long list of alleged “terrorists,” which include the “guerrillas” that disrupted the country’s national railway earlier in 2022, which means that the new legislation serves to further intimidate those that oppose Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko.
Belarus remains the only country in Europe to impose capital punishment. While human rights activists had hoped for a moratorium on the practice prior to 2020, its application has now broadened.
Actively opposing Belarus’ involvement in Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine may now lead to death.
The amendment to Belarus’ criminal code was likely prompted by the ongoing sabotage attempts on its national railroads, which have been used extensively by the Russian military.
…
Lukashenko’s regime supports Russia’s war, allowing the country to be drawn into the deadly conflict. Russian artillery and missile systems are stationed on Belarusian territory, directly targeting Ukrainian cities.
However, not everyone in Belarus agrees with Lukashenko’s decision to assist Russia in war.
Since the beginning of the war, Belarus’ national railway has reported two cyberattacks targeting its internal networks, which paralyzed its automated operations for two weeks.
Belarus’ Ministry of Internal Affairs has reported at least six diversions on different segments of the railroad.
The “railway guerrillas” burned down relay panels, slowing down the movement of trains loaded with weapons, in some cases stopping them entirely.
Oleksandr Kamyshin, head of Ukraine’s Ukrzaliznytsia state-owned railway company, recognized these acts as significant contributions towards inhibiting the Russian offensive from the north.
Meanwhile, Belarus labeled them acts of terrorism, having arrested nearly 60 citizens, one of which was brutally shot in the knees.
…
In addition to the railroad saboteurs, at least 26 people recognized as political prisoners by various human rights groups have been charged with attempted terrorism.
Furthermore, Belarus’ KGB lists 42 Belarusian citizens and three organizations as being “involved in terrorism activities.”
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and Pavel Latushko, as well as the NEXTA Telegram channel which serves as a mouthpiece for anti-government protests, are among them.
Presenting evidence of attempted terrorism is difficult, especially when it comes to politically-motivated cases such as those in Belarus.
However, this does not seem to be a problem for Belarusian authorities.
“These are such times in which there is no time for laws,” Lukashenko said in Sept. 2020, amid the then-ongoing protests sparked by the strongman’s fraudulent victory of the 2020 Belarusian presidential elections.
Belarusian human rights watchdog Viasna reported 33,000 administrative detentions and arrests in 2020 alone.
Many cases were ruled based on the testimonies of witnesses, many of which were “classified” law enforcement personnel that testified in court with faces covered by balaclavas and their names undisclosed.
The alleged witnesses often made factual errors in their testimonies.
Cases against high-profile opposition leaders, such as Viktor Babariko, remain classified.
Bound by a non-disclosure agreement and unable to expose the terms of the accusation, Dmitriy Layevskiy, one of Babariko’s attorneys, dubbed the process illegitimate.
“These kinds of cases are easy to falsify,” said Mykhail Kyrylyuk, the chief lawyer in charge at NAU, a democratic movement led by Latushko.
“If we open the KGB list of people involved in terrorist activities, it is obvious that these people did not blow anyone up. Not a single completed terrorist act can be presented,” Kyrylyuk told Zerkalo, an independent news outlet.
“But they can falsify an incomplete terrorist act,” he adds. “It has nothing to do with jurisprudence. It is to intimidate people.”
As of May 10, 1,186 political prisoners remain in custody.
The bill has yet to be checked for constitutional compliance by the Constitutional Court and awaits a presidential signature. Very few doubt that Lukashenko will approve it.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 475
Given the number of retirees in Florida, I’m not sure it’s politically wise to attack septuagenarians as doddering fools.
The author doesn’t know elderly right-wingers very well. As long as they promises to send all the blacks to prison, ban the abortions and the gay, and make Jesus president, they’ll vote for any politician.
North Korea has declared a “severe national emergency” after confirming its first outbreak of Covid-19, prompting its leader, Kim Jong-un, to vow to quickly eliminate the virus.
State media reported on Thursday that a sub-variant of the highly transmissible Omicron virus, known as BA.2, had been detected in the capital, Pyongyang.
“There has been the biggest emergency incident in the country, with a hole in our emergency quarantine front, that has been kept safely over the past two years and three months since February 2020,” the official KCNA news agency said.
The report said people in Pyongyang had contracted the Omicron variant, without providing details on case numbers or possible sources of infection.
North Korea had claimed it had not recorded a single case of Covid-19 since it closed its borders at the start of the pandemic more than two years ago.
The discovery of the Omicron variant presents a potentially serious risk to North Korea, which has not vaccinated any of its 25 million people, according to experts, and its poorly resourced healthcare system would also struggle to cope with a major outbreak.
The country so far has shunned vaccines offered by the UN-backed Covax distribution programme, possibly because administering the jabs would require international monitoring.
The Seoul-based NK News reported that areas of Pyongyang had been in lockdown for two days. “Multiple sources have also heard reports of panic buying due to uncertainty of when the lockdown might end,” it said, citing sources in the city.
The KCNA report said samples taken from patients in Pyongyang who had developed fevers were “consistent with” the Omicron variant.
The discovery prompted Kim to call a crisis meeting of the Workers’ party politburo, where officials said they would implement “maximum” emergency measures.
…
Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, said the regime’s public acknowledgment of coronavirus cases meant “the public health situation must be serious”….
A US judge has determined that Elon Musk’s 2018 tweets that funding had been secured to take electric car maker Tesla private was inaccurate and reckless, saying “there was nothing concrete” about financing from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund at that time.
San Francisco-based US district judge Edward Chen’s pre-trial decision represented a major victory for investors in a lawsuit accusing the world’s richest person of inflating stock prices by making false and misleading statements, causing billions of dollars in damages.
Chen granted the shareholders summary judgment on the issue of whether Musk knowingly made false statements but declined to grant them summary judgment on the question of whether these statements actually impacted Tesla’s share prices.
…
“No reasonable jury could find that Mr Musk did not act recklessly given his clear knowledge of the discussions,” the judge added.
…
“It is hugely significant,” shareholder attorney Nicholas Porritt, a partner at Levi & Korsinsky LLP told Reuters.
Porritt said it is rare that a judge decides that a defendant knowingly made false statements in summary judgment before a jury trial begins. The remaining issue is what damages the intentionally false statement has caused to shareholders, Porritt said.
Musk’s lawyer, who has filed motions to undo the court decision, did not immediately respond to a request for comment….
Chen’s ruling was in line with a complaint from the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The securities regulator in 2018 sued Musk for fraud relating to the tweets. Musk then settled with the SEC, stepping down as Tesla chairman, paying fines and agreeing to have a lawyer approve some of his tweets before posting them.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their most recent summary:
Finland must apply to join Nato without delay in the wake of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, its president and prime minister have said, confirming a historic change in the Nordic country’s security policy after decades of military non-alignment.
Sauli Niinistö and Sanna Marin made the call in a joint statement on Thursday, adding: “We hope that the national steps still needed to make this decision will be taken rapidly within the next few days.”
Finland shares an 810-mile (1,300km) border with Russia. Public support for Nato membership has trebled in Finland. The president, prime minister and senior cabinet ministers will meet on Sunday to make the formal decision on submitting the country’s membership application. A positive decision would then be presented to parliament for approval early next week.
Dmitry Peskov said that Finnish entry to Nato is “definitely” a threat to Russia. The Kremlin spokesperson said everybody wants to avoid a direct clash between Russia and Nato, and that Nato expansion will not make the world or Europe more stable.
…
The UN human rights chief has said a thousand bodies had been recovered in the area of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv in recent weeks, adding that many of the violations it is verifying since the Russian invasion may amount to war crimes.
“The scale of unlawful killings, including indicia of summary executions in areas to the north of Kyiv, is shocking,” Michelle Bachelet told the Geneva-based Human Rights Council via a video address.
…
Overnight the Ukrainian defence ministry published photos of what it said were destroyed Russian tanks and other equipment in the village of Bilohorivka, that had been struck when the Russians were attempting to construct a pontoon-bridge over the Siverskyi Donets river.
The Russian-controlled administration in the Ukrainian city of Kherson has said it plans to request annexation by Moscow, a move that would confirm the Kremlin’s permanent occupation of Ukrainian territory captured since February.
The withdrawal of Russian forces from Kharkiv is a tacit recognition of Russia’s inability to capture key Ukrainian cities where they expected limited resistance from the population, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said in its latest intelligence update.
…
Russia “is today the most direct threat to the world order with the barbaric [sic! – JFC] war against Ukraine, and its worrying pact with China,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said after talks with Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson reiterated that a normalisation of relations with Vladimir Putin seemed impossible, accusing the Russian President of having “grossly violated human rights” and international law, saying “He’s guilty of absolutely barbaric [gah!!!] onslaught on a totally innocent country.”
Freelance journalist from Spain Pablo González is spending his 10th week in Polish custody while prosecutors there investigate what they claim is a case of espionage linked to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Also from there:
Russia will be ‘forced to take retaliatory steps’ in response to Finland’s Nato bid
Russia will be forced to respond to Finland’s decision to join the Nato alliance, its foreign ministry said in a statement.
The statement said:
Finland joining Nato is a radical change in the country’s foreign policy.
Russia will be forced to take retaliatory steps, both of a military-technical and other nature, in order to stop threats to its national security arising.
One of the biggest donors to Britain’s Conservative Party is suspected secretly funnelling hundreds of thousands of pounds to the party from a Russian bank account, according to a report filed to the UK’s national crime agency.
The New York Times reports that a donation of £450,000 was made in February 2018 in the name of Ehud Sheleg, who was most recently the Conservative Party’s treasurer. The money went towards propelling Boris Johnson and his party to its victory in the 2019 general elections.
The cash has since been found to originate from a Russian account of Sheleg’s father-in-law, Sergei Kopytov, who was a once a senior politician in Ukraine’s previous pro-Kremlin government and who now owns real estate and businesses in Crimea and Russia.
The donation was flagged by Barclays bank as both suspected money laundering and a potentially illegal campaign donation. It is illegal for UK political parties to accept donations of more than £500 from foreign citizens who are not registered to vote in Britain.
A lawyer for Sheleg said he received millions from his father-in-law before the donation, but said it was “entirely separate” from the campaign contribution. The NYT said there was no indication that the Conservative Party or the prime minister knew about the source of the donation.
The journalist behind the story, Jane Bradley, has a tweeted a thread that usefully provides the key points from her report:…
Scoop: One of the Conservative Party’s biggest donors, and its former treasurer, is suspected of secretly funnelling hundreds of thousands of pounds to the party from a Russian bank account –– according to a report filed to the National Crime Agency.
Last year, Sir Ehud Sheleg’s bank alerted the NCA to a £450,000 donation he had made to the Conservatives –– it said the cash originated from the Russian bank account of his father-in-law, Sergei Kopytov, once a senior politician in Ukraine’s previous pro-Kremlin government.
The ‘suspicious activity report’ flagged the donation as both suspected money laundering and a potentially illegal campaign donation, because it had come from a foreign citizen and an attempt was made to disguise the source, the report said
The donation was made in 2018 and Sheleg was appointed party treasurer shortly after –– even as concerns were raised about his finances and Russian connections by @PrivateEyeNews.
And when [Labour MP Stephen Kinnock] called for an investigation into Sheleg’s donations and his “troubling connections” to Russia, the then-chairman of the Conservative Party said Sheleg should not need to reveal the source of his wealth and raised the threat of libel.
The warnings did nothing to slow Sheleg’s political ascent, or stop the Conservatives from accepting millions more from him.
At the time his donation was reported to the NCA, Sheleg was treasurer of the party and responsible for ensuring it followed political funding rules.
The NCA and Barclays bank declined to comment, and the Conservative Party said that all donations “comply fully with the law.”
A lawyer for Mr. Sheleg acknowledged that he and his wife received millions of dollars from his father-in-law in the weeks before the donation. But they said that was “entirely separate” from the campaign contribution [LOL]. More in the story: [NYT link at the link]
StevoRsays
Seems like there’s a big announcement and some possibly extraordinary images about to be released here :
11 pm is for the Eastern states, (iI’mm ina central one -SA) so probly happening in about half an hour or so’s time from now…
ravensays
Finland’s leaders call for NATO membership ‘without delay’
By JARI TANNER 5/11/2022
Finland appears on the cusp of joining NATO. Sweden could follow suit. By year’s end, they could stand among the alliance’s ranks. Russia’s war in Ukraine has provoked a public about face on membership in the two Nordic countries. They are already NATO’s closest partners, but should Russia respond to their membership moves they might soon need the organization’s military support. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein, Pool, File)
HELSINKI (AP) — Finland’s leaders said Thursday they’re in favor of rapidly applying for NATO membership, paving the way for a historic expansion of the alliance that could deal a serious blow to Russia as its military struggles with its war in Ukraine.
The dramatic move by Finland was announced by President Sauli Niinisto and Prime Minister Sanna Marin. It means that Finland is all but certain to join NATO, though a few steps remain before the application process can begin. Neighboring Sweden is expected to decide on joining NATO in coming days.
“NATO membership would strengthen Finland’s security. As a member of NATO, Finland would strengthen the entire defence alliance,” Niinisto and Marin said in a joint statement.
“Finland must apply for NATO membership without delay,” they said. “We hope that the national steps still needed to make this decision will be taken rapidly within the next few days.”
Russia reacted to the development with a warning. The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that if Finland joins NATO, it will “inflict serious damage to Russian-Finnish relations as well as stability and security in Northern Europe.”
“Russia will be forced to take retaliatory steps of military-technical and other characteristics in order to counter the emerging threats to its national security,” the ministry said.
Well, it happened.
Finland has applied to join NATO.
Putin and the Russians are just dumb.
By invading Ukraine, committing atrocities and war crimes, calling for the genocide of Ukrainians, and almost daily threatening to nuke somebody for something,…have made countries like Finland and Sweden joining NATO not just a good idea but inevitable.
Putin and Russia shot themselves in their own feet here.
Finland lost 11% of its territory, Karelia, to the Russians after the Winter war during World War II. The Russians deported the Fins to Finland and resettled the place with Russians.
ravensays
“Russia will be forced to take retaliatory steps of military-technical and other characteristics in order to counter the emerging threats to its national security,” the ministry said.
Meaningless threats from Russia.
They have already threatened to station nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad, right across the Baltic sea from Finland. They already have nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad so who cares.
Finland: Soviet Annexation Of Karelia Still A Taboo Subject https://www.rferl.org/a/1103688.html
From Radio Free Europe, a US government funded source.
The entire population of the ceded territory — 420,000 men, women, and children — was forcibly resettled to other parts of Finland. That former Finnish territory now constitutes part of Russia’s Republic of Karelia.
and
Reenpaeae also deplores the fact that the once-fertile region of Karelia has degenerated into a wasteland during the past six decades. “Russia and the Soviet Union has achieved nothing during the 60 years they have had Finnish Karelia. The former Finnish Karelia is now a wasteland, and without people, without any activities,” he said.
The claim that Karelia is sparsely populated is not true, however. After the Finnish population was deported, the Soviet leadership resettled some 200,000 people from Belarus and Central Asia to the region. But there has been an outflow of population from the region in recent years, possibly because the economy is predominantly agricultural.
Reports are that the Russians never did much of anything with Karelia except deport or drive out 420,000 Fins.
Today it is a poverty stricken sort of run down place and mostly rural.
AFAICT, that sums up most of Russia outside the cities. Only 77% of Russian houses have indoor plumbing.
“Feb 26, 2022 — Meanwhile, 22.6% of Russians do not have indoor plumbing. In rural Russia, almost 2/3 have no access to indoor toilets, 48.1% use outhouses …”
KGsays
A thought-provoking article from the Guardian, arguing that the terror of nuclear war widely felt throughout the Cold War has faded, and that this is dangerous. While it would be wrong to let that fear prevent Ukraine being assisted, great care should be taken to minimise the risk of a direct Russia-NATO clash, and I am alarmed by some of the gung-ho sentiment (“On to Moscow!!!”) I see in some Daily Kos comments, for example. If Putin is backed into a corner where he sees using nukes as the only alternative to losing power, there can be no certainty he would not use them, or that his subordinates would refuse his orders. Does anyone doubt Hitler would have used nukes (and his subordinates obeyed) in 1945 if he had them, even if the Allies had had them too?
Criminal Minds. Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer. Inside the Criminal Mind. Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez.
Each of these is the title of a series, fictional or otherwise, or documentary that relies on the work of so-called criminal profilers. They’re all premised, more or less, on the same idea: That the ability to venture inside the mind of an individual who’s committed a horrific act of violence–say, serial murder, rape, or kidnapping–is the key to figuring out why that crime happened in the first place. This theory may sound promising at first blush; after all, the highest echelons of law enforcement in the US continue to use criminal profiling tactics to this day.
But the reality is that, despite their prevalence in law enforcement both onscreen and off, criminal profiling techniques are largely ineffective, and in many ways, dangerous. Failing to consider institutional factors such as a culture of violence and easy access to weapons, patriarchy, austerity and other social ills that contribute to and reinforce violent crime, criminal profiling focuses almost exclusively on individual experiences and psychological makeup. Meanwhile, it categorizes “criminals” not as people who’ve been shaped by this social conditioning, but as neuro-deviants whose psychological anatomy is just different from yours or mine.
On this episode, we examine the history of the practice of criminal profiling in the West; how the FBI and entertainment industry work in tandem to glamorize the profession, despite its harms; what the actual effectiveness of profiling is; and how it serves as yet another form of Hollywood copaganda.
Our guests are Thomas MacMillan and Chris Fabricant.
This week, Mike and Aubrey take on a manual for creep behavior masquerading as a diet book. Along the way, we cover shopping guides, journalism salaries and the proper preparation of Cornish game hens. We love our curvy husbands.
Urgent measures to break the Russian blockade of grain exports from Ukraine’s ports, including by trying to open routes through Romanian and Baltic ports, will be discussed by G7 foreign and agriculture ministers at meetings in Germany.
The grain exports blockade is fast becoming one of the most urgent diplomatic and humanitarian crises in Ukraine….
…
By one Ukrainian estimate, only 20% of the exports Ukraine normally sent through the Black Sea ports by ship could ever be transported by rail to the Baltic ports. The cost of road transport has risen five-fold in the past year.
Russia could cut its gas supplies to Finland tomorrow, a day after Finnish leaders said they should apply to join Nato “without delay”, according to the local newspaper Iltalehti.
Key Finnish politicians have been warned that Russia could halt its gas supplies on Friday, the newspaper reports, citing unnamed sources and without specifying where the warning came from.
If Russian gas is cut off, then it would cause major problems for some Finnish industry and food production, Iltalehti reports.
Germany may be able to cope with a boycott of Russian gas imports as soon as the coming winter, its economy minister, Robert Habeck, said….
A Russian ship carrying grain stolen in Ukraine has been seen in the Syrian port of Latakia after being turned away from at least one Mediterranean port, according to reports.
CNN reports that the vessel, Matros Pozynich, weighed anchor off the coast of Crimea on 27 April and turned off its transponder. Photographs and satellite images show the bulk carrier at the port of Sevastopol, the main port in Crimea, the following day.
The Matros Pozynich is one of three ships involved in the trade of stolen grain, according to open-source research and Ukrainian officials.
From Sevastopol, the Matros Pozynich was seen transiting the Bosphorus strait and making its way to the Egyptian port of Alexandria, where it was turned away. The ship was also turned away from the Lebanese capital of Beirut.
The vessel turned off its transponder again on 5 May but satellite imagery showed it travelled to Latakia.
Ukrainian officials said the Matros Pozynich was laden with nearly 30,000 tonnes of Ukrainian wheat. Ukraine’s defence ministry has estimate that at least 400,000 tonnes of grain has been stolen and taken out of Ukraine since Russia’s invasion on 24 February.
The UN’s human rights council has passed a resolution to investigate alleged abuses by Russian troops in parts of Ukraine formerly under their control, with a view to holding those responsible to account.
More than 50 countries backed Kyiv’s request for a special session of the council to examine “the deteriorating human rights situation in Ukraine stemming from the Russian aggression”.
The resolution passed by a strong majority, with 33 members voting in favour and two – China and Eritrea – against. There were 12 abstentions.
Trump officials “collaborated” with the meatpacking industry to downplay the threat of Covid to plant workers and block public health measures which could have saved lives, a damning new investigation has found.
Internal documents reviewed by the congressional select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis reveal how industry representatives lobbied government officials to stifle “pesky” health departments from imposing evidence-based safety measures to curtail the virus spreading – and tried to obscure worker deaths from these authorities.
At least 59,000 workers at five of the largest meatpacking companies – Tyson Foods, JBS USA Holdings, Smithfield Foods, Cargill and National Beef Packing Company which are the subject of the congressional inquiry – contracted Covid in the first year of the pandemic, of whom at least 269 died.
According to internal communications, the companies were warned about workers and their families falling sick within weeks of the virus hitting the US. Despite this, company representatives enlisted industry-friendly Trump appointees at the USDA to fight their battles against Covid regulations and oversight.
In addition, company executives intentionally stoked fears about meat shortages in order to justify continuing to operate the plants under dangerous conditions.
The fears were baseless – there were no meat shortages in the US, while exports to China hit record highs.
Yet in April 2020, Trump issued an executive order invoking the Defense Production Act to keep meat plants open following a flurry of communication between the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, the vice-president’s office, USDA allies and company executives.
The order, which was proposed by Smithfield and Tyson (whose legal department also wrote the draft), was an overt attempt to override health departments and force meat plant workers – who are mostly immigrants, refugees and people of color – to keep working without adequate protections while shielding the industry from lawsuits.
James Clyburn, chairman of the subcommittee, condemned the conduct of the industry executives and their government allies as “shameful”.
…
The meatpacking industry, which includes slaughterhouses and processing plants – is one of the most profitable and dangerous in the US. It is a monopoly business, with just a handful of powerful multinationals dominating the supply chain which, even before Covid, was bad news for farmers, workers, consumers and animal welfare.
…
In late May 2020 – well after the importance of prevention measures such as testing, social distancing and personal protective equipment was widely recognized – an executive told an industry lobbyist that temperature screening was “all we should be doing”. The lobbyist agreed, replying: “Now to get rid of those pesky health departments!”
The report, Now to get rid of those pesky healthy departments!, reveals how USDA Trump appointees did the industry’s bidding in order to carry on with business as usual. The report is based on more than 151,000 pages of documents collected from meatpacking companies and interest groups, as well as interviews with meatpacking workers, former USDA and CDC officials, and state and local health authorities among others.
…
As reports of Covid clusters at meatpacking plants increased, industry officials and the USDA jointly lobbied the White House to dissuade frightened workers from staying home or quitting. For instance in April 2020 the CEOs of JBS, Smithfield and Tyson among other companies asked the secretary of agriculture, Sonny Perdue, during a call to “elevate the need for messaging about the importance of our workforce staying at work to the POTUS or VP level”.
It worked. At a press briefing soon after, Mike Pence told meatpacking workers that “we need you to continue … to show up and do your job”, admonishing recent “incidents of worker absenteeism”.
The report concludes: “Meatpacking companies knew the risk posed by the coronavirus to their workers and knew it wasn’t a risk that the country needed them to take. They nonetheless lobbied aggressively – successfully enlisting USDA as a close collaborator in their efforts – to keep workers on the job in unsafe conditions, to ensure state and local health authorities were powerless to mandate otherwise, and to be protected against legal liability for the harms that would result.”…
lumipunasays
Re 487 (quote from the Russian mfa whining about Finland and Nato):
Finland joining Nato is a radical change in the country’s foreign policy.
Russia will be forced to take retaliatory steps, both of a military-technical and other nature, in order to stop threats to its national security arising.
Response from Finland (a penguin meme; blf might want to check this out):
You have all seen the press – first it was The Villages has the highest STD rate in the state (not true, never was true, easily debunked)
Then the man in the golf cart with his fist raised shouting White Power (true, and came minutes after the end of a George Floyd vigil)
And most recently, the four “double dipping” voters who apparently chose to vote for Trump in the 2020 election both in FL and in their home states. (Allegedly, and all)
I participate in nationwide Facebook groups with a decided Democrat lean and what I read over and over again is that people are crossing Florida off their retirement lists or more specifically The Villages. A few people ask for names of retirement communities in blue sections of Florida.
You should move to The Villages. Let me tell you why:
1. We have the largest Democratic Club in the entire State of Florida (by A LOT) and that is where you will make your friends. We have 1,200 – 1,500 paid members each year and about another 1,000 regulars who haven’t joined but pop in for a particular speaker or topic or event. You can easily golf with only Democrats, enjoy restaurants with only Democrats, play games with only Democrats, dance with only Democrats and virtually anything else you enjoy, with only Democrats. [Well, that’s kind of weird, but I see why he might not want to pary with people who shout, “White Power!”]
2. We are activists. In 2016 we turned out about 72% of the Democratic vote, in 2018 we turned out just under 78% of the Democratic vote and in 2020 we turned out just over 86% of the Democratic vote. Is that enough to make a difference in local elections? No, not without your help. But we add thousands and thousands of votes to the state-wide total for Democrats and to be certain that we remove DeSantis from office, we need you to move here and vote as well.
3. We have a lot of fun. There are over 3,000 different groups and clubs in the Villages, more than 50 golf courses, 100 Recreation Centers and at least that many pools.
4. It doesn’t snow here.
We have hosted some pretty impressive people over the years through the Democratic Club, including Caroline Kennedy, Steny Hoyer, Pam Keith, Andrew Gillum (who enjoyed us so much he frequently would mention us on CNN and MSNBC), Charlie Crist, Nikki Fried, David Jolly, Gwen Graham, Val Demings and more. We explore issues, meet candidates, and host other activists. Joe Biden even stopped here for ice cream in 2008!
If you are looking for a warm retirement with plenty to keep you active The Villages should be on your list. If you are looking for your Democratic vote to really make a difference, The Villages should be on your list. If you want the largest social circle of your life, of all Democrats, The Villages should be on your list. If saving Democracy by removing Ron DeSantis is important to you, The Villages should be on your list. And I can hook you up with a Democratic Realtor, too!
Workers took Donald Trump’s name off his hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC on Wednesday, after the completion of the $375m sale of the lease to investors from Florida.
House Democrats estimate the former president, under legal and financial pressure on multiple fronts, will reportedly gain $100m from the sale, once a loan for the renovations is paid off.
…During Trump’s four years in the White House, the hotel became a magnet for aides, supporters and foreign businesses seeking favour.
Critics and ethics groups were particularly concerned about the situation as Trump did not formally divest himself from the Trump Organization. The presidential historian Michael Beschloss predicted that even after the sale “political ghosts will linger”.
The hotel lost more than $70m in the four years of Trump’s presidency, including losses each year before pandemic shutdowns in 2020. Many hotel brokers, owners and consultants did not expect the 263-room hotel, located close to the White House, to fetch such a high price.
The price of the lease, equivalent to more than $1.4m a room, has drawn scrutiny from Democrats in Congress. The New York Times reported that JLL, a real estate firm, put the average sales price for hotels in Washington in 2020 at $354,000 per room.
CGI Merchant Group, the buyer, reportedly plans to turn the hotel into a branch of the Waldorf Astoria hotel chain. Earlier this month, the House oversight committee requested documents from CGI, listing all investors, which reportedly include the former New York Yankees slugger and confessed drugs cheat Alex Rodriguez.
…
The hotel had long attracted criticism for perceived conflicts of interest. Recently, the Trump Organization and Trump’s 2017 presidential inaugural committee agreed to pay $750,000 to settle a suit brought by the District of Columbia attorney general that claimed the hotel received excessive payments from the committee.
On news of the settlement, Carolyn Maloney, the Democratic chair of the House oversight committee, said her concerns about the sale of the lease “had only increased”.
The building is still owned by the federal government, which approved the sale of the lease in March.
When Trump was in power, claims or lawsuits under the emoluments clause of the constitution, which covers gifts and payments to office holders, could not stick.
In 2019, Kathleen Clark, Washington University Law professor, told the Guardian: “For over a hundred years, the justice department has strictly interpreted the constitution’s anti-corruption emoluments clause to prohibit federal officials from accepting anything of value from foreign governments, absent congressional consent.
“In 2017, the department reversed course, adopting arguments nearly identical to those put forward by Trump’s private sector lawyers. Instead of defending the republic against foreign influence, the department … defend[ed] Trump’s ability to receive money from foreign governments.”
On Wednesday, the advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or Crew, said: “The Trump Hotel in DC is no more. Good riddance to a sinkhole of corruption.”
But it also said: “We still have some questions … namely, whether a ‘premium sale price’ for a hotel that has been losing money is justified and what are the outstanding security risks to the hotel.”
Mark S Zaid, an attorney in Washington who specialises in cases involving the federal government, added: “I still count this as vindication for our legal efforts to remove Trump from this majestic building. We started an effort that contributed. It took longer than it should have.”
The fact that 24 hours later we’re still waiting for confirmation of Ukrainian forces at Ternova is certainly concerning, but then, it took at least that long to confirm that Ukraine had recaptured Staryi Saltiv. It’s almost as if the Ukrainian troops at the vanguard of assaults in the Kharkiv area have been told to not immediately send video clips and photographs—conveniently geolocated—of their every move.
One thing that seems very clear is that there is still fighting going on immediately outside Lyptsi, so Russia is certainly not abandoning all its positions in this area. We can be sure that Russia still has forces just north of this town, because artillery was directed from there toward Ukrainian positions closer to Kharkiv. It does look like Vesele may have been captured, as most of the activity—both reports and satellite data—have moved north along the road toward Neskuchne, but I’m leaving it as contested for now. There is definitely still fighting in the little mini-salient extending down to Pervika. [map available at the link]
There’s a change in both software and layout for the map. Hopefully it gives a better sense of which areas are under control and where there is dispute.
Despite statements from both Ukraine and Russia that they were preparing to advance in the Kherson area, that doesn’t seem to have happened yet. There was some tank-to-tank fighting north of the city at the the beginning of the day, but there seems to be little action in terms of artillery, and no reports of new settlements captured by either side. Russian attempts to advance toward Lyman and Ozerne to the east of Izyum were turned back, with Russia suffering multiple vehicle losses, but details are sketchy.
And that seems to be about it. Something of a breather day in terms of updating maps, but a day that was still almost certainly unbroken hell on the ground. Which seems like a good opportunity to post this story of a Ukrainian officer and a Russian pontoon bridge. [Tweet at the link]
Summing up the thread, an engineering officer for Ukraine was informed of a Russian attempt to cross the Siverskyi Donets a couple of kilometers east of Ozerne, where Russia had another failed advance on Wednesday. By seeing the position Russia was starting from, the engineer was able to predict where they were going, how many bridging sections it would take to get there, and how long Russia would take to complete the operation. Under cover of fog and smoke, Ukrainian teams prepared and, sure enough, the Russians aimed directly for the spot the engineer predicted.
Russia needed to get eight pieces of bridging in place to complete the crossing. Ukrainian troops let them get to seven. And then … [tweet at the link]
When the artillery let up, the planes took over the job, with the Ukrainian Air Force streaking in to drop bombs on the Russian position. The results of the engineer’s prediction, and the immediate, accurate action by the heavy artillery and aircraft can be seen in the tweets below. [tweets and images available at the link]
That’s an entire Battalion Tactical Group wiped out in a moment: a BTG and then some. Plus boats. Plus bridge sections. Plus bridging equipment. Plus all the men who had the expertise to complete this work. It’s definitely worth going back and reading the full account from the engineer involved, but the best bit may be about how to complete his observations, he employed ordinary consumer drones shipped out to him by a friend. [tweet and photo at the link]
Gotta have those sweets. However, this event was anything but sweet for the Russians attempting to cross the river. This is not the first such attempt that Ukrainian forces have halted. In one day, three bridges were stopped in another area closer to the eastern lines, though none of those efforts seemed to come with anything like this kind of equipment count.
Seriously, go read the thread and understand the steps that were involved: scouting, planning, getting forces into position, and then striking at just the critical moment when Russian forces were most exposed. […].
Great moments in the American presidency: ‘They were going to do fruit’
More at the link.
“Raspberry Beret.”
“Funk Drumming by Sheila E.”
“Papa Was A Rolling Stone.”
Guardian liveblog:
Link
Podcast episode – War on the Rocks – “Ukraine’s Military Advantage and Russia’s Stark Choices”:
…So I’m trying to develop an organized picture of the spectrum of views of the experts on the war and the internal Russian situation (which are of course related).
From less to more “bullish” (apologies if that sounds glib) on Ukraine’s chances in the war, it goes from the Kremlin-shill Guardian oped writers (who, OK, aren’t honest brokers) through the Pentagon, the UK military, Kofman, and Mark Hertling to the Daily Kos writers.
For writers about resistance/democratic possibilities within Russia, it goes from Julia Ioffe through the experts interviewed by Meduza, Michael McFaul, and Alexey Navalny to Vladimir Kara-Murza.
There’s no reason to think that anyone in the middle of either spectrum is more correct than those toward the ends (or vice versa). I’m trying to figure out which factors people are focused on, what the important unknowns are, what the major changes are in the situation and the evaluations over time, which analyses relate to the short vs. the long term, what the analysts’ sources of information are, etc.
Let me know if you have any criticisms or suggestions.
There seems to be a fundamental aspect in #4 – the spectrum of resignation vs. hope – not just in Ukraine or Russia, but in Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Romania, Belarus, and elsewhere.
“Fast Car.”
“Talkin’ About A Revolution.”
“That’s the Way I Always Heard It Should Be.”
“Revolution.”
B movie?
The Guardian tempreature check
Calling the safeguard mechanism a ‘sneaky carbon tax’ is a scare campaign and an argument for inaction
On the mysteriously-sabotaged Internet fibre cables here in France (see SC@471(previous page), et al.), I myself was not knowingly affected, and in fact didn’t even know of the attacks until late yesterday. To-date I’ve not seen any speculation or insights into who was responsible, albeit since the attacks all(?) appeared to happen at about 4am, it is widely-presumed they are related / coorientated. Nothing like this has ever happened before in France (or anywhere), leading to a great deal of head-scratching… why? who? wtf? (Previous attacks have all been small-scale and localised, and rare; I have no idea if those questions — why? who? wtf? — were ever answered in those previous rare cases.)
tuatara @ #9, that video is so well done.
Great article in the Guardian – “‘We Ukrainians know how to turn suffering into strength’: Gogol Bordello’s Eugene Hütz on his musical resistance.”
blf, I was wondering if you’d been affected!
Also in the Guardian:
“Measles cases surge nearly 80% in wake of Covid chaos, with fears other diseases could follow.”
“The Tories have decimated children’s futures. Now, they want more nursery cuts.”
“A bite mark, a forensic dentist, a murder: how junk science ruins innocent lives.”
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From their most recent summary:
HuffPo – “Christians Aid Migrants Because Church Is Run By Satan, Marjorie Taylor Greene Says”:
The video is at the link. It’s worth watching – when she talks about Catholics believing they should treat migrants with love, she uses a mocking tone and gestures to imitate them.
Guardian liveblog:
Jennifer Hansler, CNN:
Follow-up to Lynna’s #498 in the previous chapter – Rachel Maddow last night (YT links):
“Deposition Transcript Reveals Trump Fear Of Flying Fruit”:
“Donald Trump No Less Dangerous For Being A Ridiculous Buffoon”:
“Local official: Russia steals over 2,000 artworks from Mariupol museums.
According to Petro Andriushchenko, advisor to Mariupol mayor, stolen artworks include paintings of Ivan Aivazovsky and Mariupol-native Arkhip Kuindzhi, ancient icons, and medals.”
Kuindzhi was a fantastic painter.
NBC News:
Meanwhile, in Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis created his own severely gerrymandered district map and Republican legislators in that state approved it.
There are some court challenges to gerrymandered maps in various states, but I expect to see Republicans drawing districts that keep them in power for a decade in most instances. Republicans in the Senate have, for the most part, prevented the passage of voter-protection and voting-rights laws at the Congressional level.
Well, that’s even weirder than usual:
Philadelphia Inquirer link
@ 20
It seems the exploitable portions of our outmoded and outdated constitution, which allows the states to devise their own election procedures, are finally coming home to roost.
@ 21
You’d think that crowd would be happy about the news. Then again, the right has long ago declared that the Nazis really leftists AND homosexuals.
Ukraine update: Mariupol has become ‘a true concentration camp’ and a hideous, ongoing crime scene
See also: https://twitter.com/fireman452a/status/1517966822573809664
Akira @23, part of that nonsense about Hitler faking his death also concludes that some of Hitler’s descendants are now the leaders of anti-liberal, white supremacist groups.
Mark Sumner:
Link, (see the 8:30:48 AM post), which also includes a tweet and video about Russian state TV raging about WWIII and inevitable escalation. “Citizens are being primed to believe that even the worst outcome is a good thing, because those dying for the Motherland will skyrocket to paradise.”
More at the link.
Edit @ 23
“…the Nazis were really leftists…”
Guardian liveblog:
Followup to comment 26.
Julia Davis:
Akira @27, very confusing. The neo-Nazis in the state where I live are not leftists. I think that Putin and many others are using the word “Nazi” to mean “ultimate evil,” and that they are not really discriminating when it comes to what terms they use to describe their perceived enemies.
@ 26
And here we thought that if nuclear annihilation were to occur because a Rapture-obsessed Christian zealot pressed the button that it would an American to do it.
Followup to SC @16: Some people are pointing out that Biden’s proposed relief bill to help Ukraine includes more money than Russia’s entire budget. Now we are starting to really see how Russia’s depressed, limping economy cannot support the war it is waging against Ukraine.
Link, 10:14:34 AM post.
Oliver Carroll:
JFC.
Ohio Republican sees pregnancy after rape as an ‘opportunity’
God has a lot to answer for.
“Not a good sign when your 60 page internal use memo to get on Fox News gets discovered…”
Nicely done by Rep. Cicilline.
@ 30
The American right has often made a big deal that the “S” in NSDAP means “socialist,” therefore Hitler and company were leftists no matter how many actually Marxists they sent to their deaths. It’s much like the way that claim that “Democrat’s started the Klan” despite the Southern Strategy and the ideological swap the parties made in the 20th century (which they deny happened).
Meanwhile, I’m pretty sure Putin’s usage of the term “Nazi” is meant to stir up jingoistic emotions about “The Great Patriotic War” and defending the rodina from the Germanic hordes. You’re not suppose to think about what he’s saying, you’re supposed to ACT upon it.
Republicans in the USA who are all for Putin:
https://twitter.com/TristanSnell/status/1519511808515751938
The House held a vote to express support for Moldova’s democracy, independence, and territorial integrity. The vote passed 409 to 17.
Commentary from Wonkette:
Re 37:
I heard years ago that the term “antifascism” is commonly used in Russia in roughly the meaning we’d understand as “patriotism”. This includes at least implicitly the message that fascism is when someone wants to hurt Russia, period. It’s somewhat understandable in the light of Great Patriotic War, the memory of which has been extensively reheated in recent Russian propaganda. Only in recent months I’ve heard references to literal “nazism” in reference to Ukrainian resistance, but that’s hardly a meaningful distinction.
More signs that Elon Musk is ill-informed, if not willfully stupid, when it comes to politics:
Link
Guardian liveblog:
Ukraine update: Russia is crawling forward, buying ‘victory’ at tremendous cost of men and materiel
Link
Quoted in Lynna’s #40:
Yes, this! There was an earlier international study that was written up in the Guardian and elsewhere that found exactly the same thing. I think it was this one: “Republicans closely resemble autocratic parties in Hungary and Turkey – study.” I posted it here, and KG and I discussed some of its methodology.
I was watching All In with Chris Hayes last night and thinking how much the Republican Party – especially when we consider what’s happening at the local level – increasingly looks like a quasi-fascist party. But whereas in Europe fascistic movements have more of a history and tend to take more recognizable forms, in the US we’re seeing one of two long-established parties transform relatively rapidly into something more culturally amorphous. This makes it harder for people to recognize it and to unite and mobilize against it.
Guardian liveblog:
Re the Lend-Lease bill, After Lynna’s #38 above, you’ll be unsurprised to learn:
“Updated dismissal numbers for #COVID19 vaccine refusal from the services:
Marine Corps — 1968 (20% honorable)
Navy — 798 (100% honorable)
Army — 345 (3% honorable)
Air Force — 287 (2% honorable)
Space Force — 0 [giggle]
Except for rare cases, all other dismissals were general.”
Seem like pretty small numbers.
The James Webb Space Telescope has completed the initial mirror alignments, and cooled the instruments to to their operating temperatures. What is left is the commissioning of the instruments which is expected to take a couple of months before the first official science photos are available.
Link 1
Link 2
Link
Roger Stone announces he’s back on Musk’s Twitter—is banned again in record time
Kyiv Independent:
Impressive:
Video at the link. There are subtitles, but he’s speaking English. And it’s funny!
Axios – “Scoop: Former Manhattan prosecutor blasts Trump and Barr in new book”:
The Republicans are still trying to take away health care! On top of all the fashing, they’re continuing their efforts to take away health care and railing against Biden for planning to erase some student loan debt. Meanwhile, Johnson is working to privatize Channel 4 and make more cuts to day care. So populist.
New episode of QAA – “Episode 187: Libsoftiktok feat Taylor Lorenz”:
“Russian state propaganda outlet Ria Novosti runs an op-ed praising Rod Dreher’s article in The American Conservative, ‘Endarkening the Nations’, in which he attributes ‘the collapse of Western civilization’ to ‘transgender madness’.”
SC @52, that was great. :-)
Ukraine Update: With modern Western artillery on its way, Ukraine’s job is to just hold
Followup to comment 49.
Wonkette: “Oh No Roger Stone Found The Satanic Portal Above The White House”
Periodic reminder for other Pharyngulites in Adelaide or nearby enough and hopefully worth noting given recent developments :
The Adelaide Refugee Vigil is not over. Not yet. The sadistic. national disgrace that is Offshore non processing – jailing refugees in horrific conditions indefinitely – continues and as long as it does, so will we. Please join us 5 pm tonight in Rundle Mall near the metal pigeon sculpture. Details below :
Source : Adelaide Refugee Vigil for Manus and Nauru fb page.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their most recent summary:
They also have a business liveblog with some breaking news:
Dmytro Kuleba:
Seems Traiassic Ichthyosuars maye have been Earth’s largets ever libving animals :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-29/ichthyosaur-fossils-found-high-in-swiss-alps/101025162?utm_campaign=abc_news_web
Spectically the Shastasauridae.
Timothy Snyder in the New Yorker – “The War in Ukraine Is a Colonial War”: “For centuries, the country has lived in the shadow of empire. But its past also provides the key to its present….”
Guardian liveblog:
All the best people:
New Books Network podcast – “The Wives of Western Philosophy: Gender Politics in Intellectual Labor“:
This is too expensive for me, unfortunately, but looks fascinating.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/pence-jan-6-coup-car
Ukraine update: To execute a different strategy, Russia needs a different army
Joshua Yaffa:
Photo at the link.
Deadly heat wave:
Link
Update on anti-war Russians who fled west after threats from thought police
1.2 Billion people suffer through temperatures up to 122 F, with a likely staggering death toll
Much more at the link.
From the latest summary at the Guardian liveblog:
Guardian liveblog:
“155 mm rounds for Ukraine.
The Democracy Defense Air Bridge is in full swing.”
Photos at the link.
Dan Lamothe, WaPo:
Jason Stanley at Project Syndicate – “The Genocidal Identity”:
Much more at the link.
Guardian liveblog:
Edward Stringer:
Text quoted by SC in comment 72:
So, the Russian missiles were not “high-precision” then.
AXIOS:
Good.
Ian Dunt at i News – “Elon Musk and Piers Morgan simply don’t want to have a serious conversation about free speech”:
Musk is also just plainly a political imbecile. I don’t think he’s retreating from these issues; I’ve seen no evidence that he’s capable of coherent, sophisticated reasoning in this realm.
Trump has a new (and bad) idea to deal with Mark Meadows’ texts
LOL.
“It’s taken 20 years to confirm what everyone suspected: the man who met two 9/11 hijackers, brought them to San Diego, filmed them, and co-signed their lease was a Saudi spy”
Link at the link.
Guardian liveblog:
“Charlie Kirk warning of a recession: ‘The only benefit is that employers are now going to, kinda, get some of their leverage back because everyone’s going to be begging for a job soon'”
Video at the link. Populisting hard to the right.
Meduza – “‘They can’t imprison everybody’: Yevgenia Kara-Murza on assuming the mantle of her husband’s political work — and explaining his arrest to their children.”
Also, a reminder: CNN will re-air Navalny tonight at 9 ET (in about 15 minutes).
MIA – “Did Psychiatry Ever Endorse the Chemical Imbalance Theory of Depression?”:
[“Theory” and “hypothesis” are misplaced here, of course. This was never a theory, and to the extent it was ever a plausible hypothesis it was so briefly decades ago. “Notion” or “claim” would be more apt. Also, some background: Though many people continue to believe it, the chemical-imbalance notion was debunked a long time ago. Several leading psychiatrists in the past several years have thus contended that psychiatry never promoted this idea, and even that if people say WTF they were told by their doctor or therapist that they had a chemical imbalance, they’re not to be trusted; so this is research examining those claims. Finally, for anyone on psychiatric drugs who might be surprised to learn this: don’t just stop taking the drugs. Never just stop taking any drugs! There are serious withdrawal effects and people need to do this safely.]
Link
Russian Army Self-Destructing: Firefight breaks out between Russian Units Over Loot
More at the link, including additional intercepted Russian conversations.
@ 71. Lynna, OM
Himachal Pradesh, the northern Indian Western Himalayan “roof of the world” / “third pole” whos e name literallytranslates as “Province of the Snow-laden Mountains” ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himachal_Pradesh ) has :
Oh & for those like me who prefer their temps in degrees C rather than F – 122 fahrenheit = 50 Celsius
113 to 122 F = 45 C to 50 C.
Using https://www.metric-conversions.org/temperature/fahrenheit-to-celsius.htm
^ D’oh! Always something. Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-30/south-asian-heatwave/101027906
For my quoted bit above.
As Phil Plait brilliantly discusses here :
https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/bad-astronomy-dunes-on-jupiters-moon-io-may-be-volcanically-driven
we’ve found Jovian moon Io has dune’s sculpted by steam blasts from its volcanoes. Wonder if similar features might also exist on Pluto which has dunefields on it too as well as its own complex nitrogen atmosphere? :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Pluto
Meanwhile much closer to Earth and indeed on the difficulty of getting pieces of asteroids around it where they need to go :
https://www.space.com/hayabusa2-asteroid-samples-japan-nasa-travel-challenges
on the Hayabusa 2 mission to Ryugyu sample return which landed its captured asetroid material prize at Woomera then faced some unexpected prosaic and other obstacles.
Martin Rowson in the Grauniad, On Macron’s victory over Le Pen (cartoon), rather obviously based on Eugène Delacroix La Liberté guidant le peuple (1830), illustrating the annoyance of must choose Macron.
Somewhat related, When voters abstain, France takes notice — the UK should learn to do the same:
Nasa/JPL’s Mars helicopter Ingenuity has completed its 26th flight in a planned one-month five-flight technology demonstration mission, exactly one Earth later after its original flight (April 19th). It imaged the Perseverance rover’s EDL backshell and supersonic parachute, NASA’s Mars Helicopter Spots Gear That Helped Perseverance Rover Land (contrary to the title’s implication, this imaging was planned, not serendipitous):
Ingenuity has now flown almost 50 minutes (and almost six miles) in total. In the future:
Ukraine update: Russia using ‘depleted & disparate’ units, still can’t coordinate forces
I’m so, so, so, very sick of people in power being needlessly cruel to other people & the rest of the world we all share.
Time that changed.
The Shadow Ministers Jesus, not Refugee us song – Tonightly With Tom Ballard
Meanwhile in the Maidan Square …
https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1520054017891700736
Beautiful photo of spring flowers at the link.
Some snippets from the current Meduza live blog:
Whilst the Association is probably correct that will have a devastating blow on Russia’s (independent) film-makers, the closure of cinemas is only a proximate cause. The real cause is Putin’s invasion of Ukraine (which those same (independent) film-makers would probably have an even harder time making films about). In addition, there are reports Russian cinemas are now resorting to screening pirated copies of movies. (I don’t think there are — yet — any movies about, or set in or after, the invasion, but screening those (pirated or not), or Ukrainian movies in general (ideally not pirated?), would be a neat — and dangerous — move.)
Ukraine update: ‘Filtration camp’ may be the most disgusting euphemism since WW II
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1520461443291832320
Video is available at the link.
Video available at the same link.
WTF?
People’s Convoy fires live rounds at anti-fascists in Oregon
Wonkette: “Tennesseans Now Able To Deworm Their COVID Without A Prescription”
Wonkette: “MTG Oddly Familiar With Satan’s Conversations With Prospective Abortion-Havers”
Re 102:
Meanwhile, a reheated “Convoy” protest held today in Helsinki:
https://twitter.com/Dimmu141/status/1520360405960437760
(Photo of a dozen or so people protesting peacefully in front of the Parliament House. How the nutty have fallen.)
BTW, I have a general request for anyone posting quick Twitter links in this thread.
It’d be nice to see not just a standalone link, but also a few words’ summary of what the tweet is about. Then it’d be easier to decide if I want to bother with clicking myself there and back.
Even better would be, if you could quote/paraphrase/summarize the content of the tweet (not always possible, obviously). It seems Twitter has recently restricted browsing to members only. This may have gone unnoticed by many regular users who are always logged in.
lumipuna @105, “How the nutty have fallen.” LOL. True.
WTF Roundup: Pay no attention to GOP corruption—stare at this Hunter Biden laptop and buy a pillow
From The Weekender, written by Nicole Lafond and other Talking Points Memo staff:
Cawthorn was caught … again!… with a gun in his carry-on luggage.
Profiteering is absolutely real
Three-legged dog with cancer saves baby otter in Minnesota river drama. That headline reads like a spoof!
Marjorie Taylor Greene Says Legal Challenge to Take Her Off the Ballot Is a Ploy for a (dated about one week ago; RWW edits in {curly braces}):
The reference baffled me. Presumably, Jones means the Cloward–Piven strategy, which was an attempt in the late-1960s to tackle poverty in the States. I don’t recall ever hearing of it before, and so know about it other than the brief summary at the link. It seems to have been partisan, an attempt to force the dummies to do something (they then controlled both houses of congress (and at the time of publication, 1966, the presidency)). Precisely what this alleged-strategy was I do not know, but some quotes / excerpts at the link suggests an important component was a guaranteed annual income. It’s easy to imagine teh thugs, both then and now, considering that , hence Jone’s misreferencing / misdescribing. (I rather doubt Greene had any idea what Jones meant, and am doubtful Jones even understand what he (more likely, his presumably ghost-written script) meant).
† For many values of “They”, Greene is correct, “They don’t want me in [government].” Hence, no , albeit teh “They” Greene was referring to was (presumably) teh
A new Republican crime spree: Tampering with election equipment
Ukraine Update: Russia is stuck, and they can’t even blame it on the mud
Link
Wonkette: “Kirk Cameron Paraphrasing Hitler In Push For Wholesome Christian Homeschooling”
“Experts anticipated a Moscow-led cyber-assault; instead, unprecedented attacks by hacktivists and criminals have wreaked havoc in Russia.”
Washington Post link
Ukraine update: Nancy Pelosi led congressional delegation to Kyiv, met with Zelenskyy
Followup to comment 114.
The White House Correspondents Association dinner and roasting was better than I expected.
Link
At least Trevor Noah demonstrated that he understood the issues and that he was well informed when it came to the latest news.
Big News out of Ukraine, if it can be verified. Russia’s Top General Injured and Evacuated to Russia
Jan 6th Insurrectionist Repeats Lies and Interrups Judge During His Sentencing.
Judge Howell also expressed doubts about Vuksanaj’s disability:
Happy May Day! Let’s Talk About Some Awesome Ladies Of The Labor Movement
Mypillow moron gets back on Twitter after being banned for spreading conspiracy nonsense in 2021. Gets banned again in 3 hours.
https://www.businessinsider.com/mypillow-ceo-mike-lindell-re-banned-twitter-hours-after-return-2022-5?amp
Spotted via the Gruaniad’s current one madman’s war live blog, from CNN, Russians plunder $5M [worth of] farm vehicles from Ukraine — to find they’ve been remotely disabled:
As quoted, the contact is a bit confusing; I presume the contact means after the stolen harvesters were shipped to Chechnya.
The story continues, mostly about reports of Ukrainian grain being stolen (as previously mentioned in this series of poopyhead threads).
I know nothing about this source, but it claims to be a fact-checking operation run by the VoA (and, according to Ye Pffft! of All Knowldge, RFE/RL). Anyways, Russian Spy Chief Falsely Claims Poland Wants Ukrainian Territory:
Kodos for backing off and admitting he made a mistake, but just who backed-down is rather surprising, ‘I Made a Mistake’: QAnon-Linked Candidate Corrected During Arizona Debate:
The Kremlin Keeps Trying to Call Volodymyr Zelenskyy a Drug Addict (Vice edits in {curly braces}):
The article points out this — and similar — absurdities are being used by Putin and his acolytes to disbelieve anything Zelenskyy says,
Rare ‘Wicked’ bible that encourages adultery discovered in New Zealand:
Rather like the Grauniad
</snark>No penguin feathers or bits of cheese? That lack tends to discredit one hypothesis…
This is a bit garbled. Medieval/early-modern Poland, which did at times rule much of what is now Ukraine, was removed from the map in the 18th century “partitions of Poland” between Russia, Austria and Prussia. An independent Polish state only reappeared in the wake of the Russian revolution. Lenin was at one stage prepared to recognise it, but as the Red Army came out on top in the Russian Civil War, got over-confident and thought it could maybe spread his revolution westward. This led to the first Soviet-Polish War, which the Poles won, enabling them to include a large chunk of now-Ukraine in Poland. Between WW1 and WW2 there was considerable Ukranian unrest in this area, with the Ukranian terrorist and fascist Stepan Bandera, still disturbingly a hero to many Ukranians, very much involved. In 1939 Stalin colluded with Hitler on a new partition of Poland, but both Poland and Ukraine came under Nazi rule after Barbarossa. With Hitler’s defeat, Stalin was able to insist on shifting Poland westward, taking what is now western Ukraine, and giving Poland a chunk of what had been German East Prussia in compensation (another chunk became the “Kaliningrad” exclave of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic within the USSR, and is now an exclave of the Russian Federation). Much of the population of the chunk taken by Stalin was also shifted – as part of an EU research project I visited the area taken from Germany and repopulated with Poles from now-Ukraine, where the irrigation system had silted up because none of the incomers understood how to run it.
Link
KG@128, Thanks for the informative clarification. I probably should have added somewhere something like “all(?) of this Ukraine-Poland hisyory is new to me so I’m both simplifying and probably garbling”. I apologise for not doing so.
I’d looked it up because I was curious just how much Putin’s acolytes were lying, and was slightly surprised (but probably shouldn’t have been so surprised) some parts of Ukraine were occupied by the Polish.
Again, thanks!
Republicans lose again in court:
Link
Wonkette:
Wonkette: “Trump Wants YOU To Vote Tuesday For JP Or JD Mandel Or Barbara Mandrell Or Whatever It Is”
From the Grauniad’s current States politics live blog:
Washington Post link
Putin’s retribution was swift:
NY Times link
Ukraine update: Ukraine may have taken key city near Kharkiv
Guardian – holy shit – “Israel summons Russia envoy over minister’s Hitler comments”:
Jack Detsch:
WaPo:
The next frontier for the antiabortion movement: A nationwide ban
Caroline Kitchener / May 2, 2022
SC @138, Lavrov sounds like he has completely lost it. Or perhaps he and his family are under extreme pressure from Putin?
Guardian – “Denmark accused of racism after anti-ghetto law adapted for Ukrainians”:
Guardian – “Russia’s Bolshoi theatre cancels shows by directors who spoke out over Ukraine”:
This brings together a number of issues discussed here previously – Twitter thread by Kamil Galeev:
Every (or virtually every) tweet in the thread – which I viewed in a private window – has an illustrative photo, graph, map, screenshot, video, or link.
Sorry – forgot to add: there are also links to support his work at the link @ #144.
Interesting supreme court case:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-says-boston-was-wrong-refuse-christian-flag-rcna25585
A Christian group called “Camp Constitution”, which promote the view that the United States is a Christian nation founded on Judeo-Christian values, wanted to fly their flag at the MA Capitol on Constitution Day. The city refused, they sued and the Supreme Court found in their favor, with the justification that there were no limits placed on other requests to fly a flag.
I disagree with the Supreme Court here, since flying a flag on the national holiday celebrating the creation of our country sends an implicit message conflating the two.
“FIFA President Gianni Infantino asked at a business conference in California about migrant worker abuses in Qatar said in part: ‘My parents emigrated from Italy to Switzerland. When you give work to someone, even in hard conditions. you give him dignity and pride’.”
Wonkette: “Georgia ‘Jesus, Guns, Babies’ Candidate Shares Plan To Take Down ‘Luciferian Cabal'”
“Vice President Kamala Harris tested negative today, according to her office.
Harris will head back to the office tomorrow wearing a mask until her ten-day period is up.”
Watch out for Donald Trump Junior … he is an up and coming evil guy:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/01/opinion/trump-jd-vance-ohio.html
Julia Davis:
Video clip with subtitles at the (Twitter) link.
“‘Lavrov’s was not an interview but a false and aberrant monologue. His words about Hitler are obscene’, the italian pm Mario Draghi just said in a press conference in Rome.
@LaStampa reports…”
“Meanwhile, Russia quits the International Space Station.
The last large international space exploration project is over for the Kremlin.”
‘They are trying to take your children’: Far-right Idaho ‘Patriots’ plan to confront Pride gathering
“Damn that Biden for tricking Putin into invading his neighbor and doing horrific war crimes….”
Video at the (Twitter) link. Joy Reid interviewed Nick Confessore earlier about his new piece in the NYT talking about Tucker Carlson as a white nationalist extremist. I’ll try to remember to get the original link and video clip. It’s interesting that this clip could seamlessly be part of the montage she shows.
Someone should tell the current UK Labour Party leadership.
I think we should have an international day of action centered around libraries on June 28th.
Kasie Hunt: “Important to remember: Overturning Roe vs. Wade will impact Americans with the fewest resources, not the wealthy or well-connected”
We’re going to beat it back, or we’re going to beat it back.
“Right now: Barricades are up around the Supreme Court building, just minutes after reports from Politico were leaked indicating SCOTUS has voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.”
Photo at the link. We will win. They will lose.
Shocking SCOTUS leak shows abortion rights overturned under draft opinion from Justice Alito
Ignore #163.
Kremlin source: Putin about to undergo cancer surgery. And he really is nuts.
More at the link.
Manu Raju, CNN:
The right looses an election or are even asked to wear a damn mask to help fight off a plague, they throw an armed revolt.
Reproductive rights are stripped from women and the left does… nothing. Instead of rioting in the streets, they sit in front of a keyboard and gripe online.
No wonder the fascists are winning.
Oh, STFU.
There’s no way this will hold.
LOL.
(We will win.)
Just keep telling yourself that SC. Maybe you’ll even believe it someday.
I believe it now.
When last I checked this was an atheist blog. Faith and other forms of magical thinking ought to be frowned upon here
Aussie ABC news on the leaked draft judgement overturning women’s bodily autonomy and their right to control what happens inside their own skins :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-03/roe-v-wade-us-supreme-court-leak-explained/101033320
Also from there :
Here’s hoping that that idea is correct and that tactic works.
It seems the draft judgement was written by Alito with Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — supporting him.
@ Akira MacKenzie : So what do you suggest people do?
Those in power and those in the general public?
What good will defeatism do and if you don’t think we (who exactly?) can win then what?
What measures do you recommend we take?
Personally, I think maybe Lysistrata (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysistrata ) was on to something and maybe the most massive public backlash and, ideally, the Democractic party taking immediate action to change SCOTUS perhaps including the arrests of Kavanaugh – for rape – and Handmaiden Comey OfBarrett for perjuy (Contempt of Congress if that’s a crime?) and consirpacy to pervert the Course of Justice along with the Federalist society members might be some possible steps for starters?
I’d love to know what lawyer and youtuber Legal Eagle makes of this.
Via Pervert Justice’s blog latest post on this
https://proxy.freethought.online/pervertjustice/2022/05/03/yes-i-know-im-reading-the-opinion-right-now-lets-stay-calm-unt-god-fuck-alito-goddammit/#comment-57340
Some more news links there – incl video of protestors gathering at the Supreme Court.
Passionate 5 minute 43 second long youtube clip by TYT’s Cenk Uygur here in a powerful reaction which raises some good points to this news.
Axios – “Scoop: Esper says Trump wanted to shoot protesters”:
“Russia doubled down Tuesday on its ever-wilder claims about Jews, neo-Nazis and Ukraine, accusing Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid of making ‘anti-historical statements’ when he said Jews didn’t murder themselves in the Holocaust”
WSJ link at the link.
“BREAKING: Brittney Griner is now classified as ‘wrongfully detained’ by Russia, U.S. State Department says. Major shift in her case. Means officials will try to negotiate her release rather than let Russian legal system [LOL] play out.”
ESPN link at the link.
Mediaite – “Video of Susan Collins Repeatedly Insisting Justice Kavanaugh Won’t Vote to Overturn Roe v. Wade Goes Viral”:
She’s now saying the opinion is “completely inconsistent” with what Gorsuch and Kavanaugh told her and said in hearings. Her arrogant speech announcing she would be voting to confirm Kavanaugh was so infuriating to me my blood pressure is rising just remembering it.
Guardian links:
Today’s Ukraine liveblog.
US-politics liveblog.
UK-politics liveblog.
Guardian US liveblog:
Guardian – “‘An abomination’: Pelosi leads outcry on supreme court draft abortion ruling”:
I had linked to this Meduza article in the previous chapter of the thread, but now they have it in English!: “Feeling Around for Something Human: Why do Russians support the war against Ukraine? Shura Burtin investigates.”:
Much more at the link.
Guardian US liveblog:
Sen. Schumer tweeted:
Greg Sargent, WaPo:
Link to WaPo opinion piece at the link.
Followup to SC @186.
Politico:
Commentary:
Link
Republicans are really mad … about the leak:
Link
Ukraine update: Surprise Ukrainian gains north of Kharkiv could impact Battle for Donbas
There have been missile strikes in Lviv, knocking out power in part of the city.
Kyiv Independent:
“Politico employees have been advised to be vigilant about who enters elevators with them at the office, and to consider removing any personal details from social media accounts that identify them as Politico staff, according to an internal memo”
Woud be great if the leaker turned out to be Clarence or Ginny Thomas.
Apropos of absolutely nothing, last week I went to a shop to order a replacement — under the shop’s extended warranty — for a part for my food processor. No problems, and they said the part would be shipped to me this week. So I was a bit surprised on Saturday to find a txt message on my mobile to the effect I wasn’t home when they tried to deliver, and to contact… blah blah. A “failed delivery” receipt found in the doorway confirmed the message. Well, Ok, just very fast service.
So this afternoon I went to the depot. Everything was working fine… I took the bus, stopped en-route at a shop for a few bits & bobs, then caught the bus for reminder of the journey: Everything exquisitely timed (i.e., literally no waiting for either bus, or in the shop, etc.). Slight glitch at the depot, they explained I was at the wrong place. Nuts. Back to the bus, again with exquisite timing. Like come on, something has to go dreadfully wrong!
At the “real” depot… it was closed for the day. Bummer. As it happens, the “real” depot is a few minutes walk from the lair, so there shouldn’t be any problem in collecting the replacement part… just a bit of a “waste” of multiple brilliant if mostly-accidental coincidences.
Kyiv Independent:
“Multiple Russian cruise missile strikes on infrastructure targets across Ukraine tonight, parts of Lviv without power. Likely the biggest barrage since the beginning of the war.”
News:
Haaretz link at the link.
“‘This will fall on the poorest women in our country. This will fall on young women who have been abused, who are victims of incest’.
Please watch this video. @ewarren is channeling the rage we are all feeling right now. Thank you, @SenWarren.”
Video at the (Twitter) link. This is righteous.
“New DHS IG report finds that the DHS’ intel division modified a report on Russian interference in the 2020 election to blunt the impact of its finding that Russia was aiding Trump, and that acting Sec Chad Wolf ordered it frozen b/c it would ‘hurt POTUS’.”
Link to the report at the link. This wasn’t just a cover-up for Trump but a cover-up for Putin.
Wonkette: “Supreme Court Is Anti-Democratic Trash”
https://www.wonkette.com/supreme-court-is-anti-democratic-trash
“Six train stations in Central and Western Ukraine hit by Russian missiles today, head of board of the state railways Ukrzaliznytsia Oleksandr Kamyshyn said. 14 trains are delayed. Damage to infrastructure is significant, he said”
Wonkette:
Link
FFS:
Wonkette:
https://www.wonkette.com/dobbs-roe-hell
Guardian liveblog:
SC… @ # 187 – Thanks for posting that incredible anthology of Russian grassroots doublethink.
I found it completely dizzying – like talking to a hardcore False Noise true believer, only more so. The Murdochs probably have teams of analysts reviewing Russian media, to find out how Putin & Co have so thoroughly impregnated a large nation with self-contradictory lies, with more teams in the US working out how to leapfrog their techniques into the bravest possible new world.
George Takei:
New Yorker link
Ukraine update: The incredible shrinking Russian army
Lynna @ # 211: Senator Susan Collins… said[:] “Nothing in his confirmation hearings suggested that he would ever be less than trustworthy with a woman.”
Multiple accusations of rape don’t “suggest” that??!? Collins has moved from disingenuous to dysfunctional.
Re: #213
Probably should be made clear that the New Yorker link is satire by Borowitz. There is not much space between satire and reality anymore. Tough times for comedians.
Quoted in Lynna’s #207:
I wouldn’t even know where to start with this item (much less the rest of the list), but, as Wonkette notes, we have “the highest maternal mortality rate of any developed [sic] nation” and “a worse racial disparity in maternal mortality than before the Civil War.” In addition, black women are more likely to lack access to the services he lies about all women having access to and more likely to be poor. Abortion bans are extremely racially discriminatory.
Re #159, I wasn’t able to find the Joy Reid segment, but here’s one from PBS (YT link) – “Tucker Carlson’s influence and his increasingly extreme views”:
This was last night – Mediaite – “Tucker Carlson Somehow Concludes Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine is America’s Fault: ‘Payback For the 2016 Election’”:
#211 took me longer than any previous ones to identify as satire.
Meduza – “Influencing fragile minds Kremlin officials are coming up with ‘creative’ ways to hit back at celebrities who oppose Russia’s war against Ukraine”:
There has been some disturbing reports of Russian war crimes and atrocities coming out of Ukraine. (This is an understatement.) It is genocide.
One of the things they are doing is forcing the population in occupied territory into Russian concentration camps. The numbers are huge, around 800,000 including 200,000 children. They screen them through what they call “Filtration camps”. To screen out Ukrainians I guess. In this area, most of the population are actually Russian ethnics speaking Russian living as Ukrainian citizens.
So what do they do to the people who fail “Filtration”. According to the Russian soldiers, they just shoot them. These are BTW, all civilians.
I’m putting the link below.
It goes to an interview with a 17 year Russian girl who went through the process.
I’ll warn everyone that you probably don’t want to read her statement if you want to sleep tonight.
https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/uhesoj/a_girl_from_mariupol_that_went_though_a
This is what they are saying on Russian TV every day now.
When they are not talking about slave labor camps, sterilizing people, or disappearing them, they are talking about their nuclear weapons and how could they could destroy the UK or the USA.
This is what a country looks like when it is run by their version of Fox NoNews.
Human life is cheap in Russia and Rule of Law is nonexistent.
You can be killed or disappear any day if the state decides that is what they want.
That is why there is very little opposition to the war, at least openly in Russia.
It won’t stop the war, but it might well get you killed or sent to a slave labor camp in Siberia for a decade or two.
These are monsters.
Russia is a failed state.
tomh @ # 214 & SC… @ # 217 – Oops, thanks for the straightening-out.
First time I’ve fallen for a Borowitz parody; satirists do indeed face a Red Queen challenge accelerating daily.
Living in a dystopian farce gets wearisome.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Another gem from the Guardian oped page, this time by historian Adam Tooze – “Is escalation in Ukraine part of the US strategy?” It’s quite incoherent generally, but this part caught my eye:
The Anti-Comintern Pact between Japan and Germany was signed in November of 1936. The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was formally announced by Japan in August of 1940, after a decade of Japanese imperialist actions.
The Italy-Germany-Japan Tripartite Pact was signed in September of 1940 and had been joined by several other countries by early 1941.
The Lend-Lease Act was enacted in March of 1941, with the vast majority of supplies going to Britain, a smaller fraction to the Soviet Union, and a much smaller amount to other countries including China. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was prompted primarily by the US oil embargo and the need for raw materials, but of a piece with Japanese imperial ambitions, which were egged on by the Nazis (who wanted Japan to take on Britain and totally underestimated the US) throughout 1941.
So Japan was already working to grow its empire (and coming up against British/French/US imperial power in Asia) and formally aligned with an aggressive and expansionist Germany and Italy long before Lend-Lease. This led to their attack on the US, which was followed by Hitler declaring war on the US a few days later. But we’re somehow to believe that it was Lend-Lease that not only itself constituted escalation but was a “crucial step” in bringing about the world war? And that the current Lend-Lease Act – in completely different circumstances – is not only similarly escalatory but designed to be so – “the question of whether escalation is part of the plan must come into consideration”? Come the fuck on.
(Tangentially, but interestingly, Tooze’s grandfather was Soviet spy Arthur Wynn.)
@ 215
The right has long made the argument that legal abortion is just like the eugenics projects of the late 19th-early 20th century or that shallow parents will abort because they find out that the baby isn’t the desired sex or other “selfish” criteria. It’s just another attempt to use left-ish sounding arguments to advance a reactionary agenda.
Guardian liveblog:
Akira MacKenzie @ #224, I’m aware of the history. It’s the inclusion of this as a helpfully suggested pretext in the blueprint provided for states to join in the largest attack on women’s rights – and especially black women’s rights – in our lifetimes enshrined in this document, the brazenness of it, that pushed me over the exclamation-point edge.
Guardian – “Ireland condemns Russian TV for nuclear attack simulation”:
Bad news, as reported by The New York Times:
Trump seems to really like it when a former critic turns into a groveling sycophant.
@ 288
As do Ohio Republicans.
“The explosion of this thermonuclear torpedo by Britain’s coastline will cause a gigantic tsunami wave up to 500 metres high. Such a barrage alone also carries extreme doses of radiation. Having passed over the British Isles, it will turn what might be left of them into a radioactive desert.”
Noone tell Kim Jong Un. What goes on on Russian state TV is seriously worrisome. They are all insane. I don’t think this is similar to FoxNews disinformation at all. Just listen to Lawrow’s ramblings about Israelis supporting Nazis, they actually believe this stuff. And the patriarch of their state church supports this drivel. I did note that the catholic pope apparently said today that the patriarch should not be Putin’s Altar boy. A somewhat unfortunate statement.
raven @219, after information like that becomes public, some people still complain that the USA is escalating the war. That seems to me to be a misguided and petty point of view. Some people are still banging on about how we have to be careful in what we do and say so as to avoid upsetting Putin. No, just no. There is good reason, there are many good reasons, to slow Putin down and to eventually stop him. How many Ukrainians like that 17 year old girl must be put in Russian concentration camps, or killed, before people decide that it is okay to fight back/
Guardian liveblog:
SC… @ # 216: … “Tucker Carlson’s influence and his increasingly extreme views”…
Hey, at least TC promotes science:
Actually, of course, Carlson promotes the white nationalist pseudo-science of crude racism, but his misuse of scientific terminology does require notice. No doubt the creationists (will?) respond that this “proves” racism comes from “Darwinism”, and will non-sequitur as fast as they can away from a direct confrontation with their wingnut fellow-traveler, but it does reveal an interesting minor wrinkle in the culture-wars fabric.
SC @216, what makes Tucker Carlson think that giving in to Russia would save Ukrainian lives?
When someone tells a senator that Covid vaccines lead people to get AIDS, the lawmaker probably shouldn’t respond that the person’s claims “may be true.”
The Detroit Free Press reported:
Commentary:
Link
Why Republicans pretended to care about the leak of Alito’s draft
SC@223,
Yes, I usually admire Tooze’s writing (both books and journalism), but that article was all over the place.
Ukraine update: Mapping positions at the start of day 70
SC@187,
That Meduza report is seriously disturbing!
KG @240, I agree. I’m glad that SC posted that, but really it is not only disturbing, it is depressing. So many Russians seem to have completely given up when it comes to having any individual thoughts or initiatives. In addition, they actually want Putin to tell them what to do. Sheesh.
Related, from Mark Sumner:
To back up this wild conspiracy theory, Russian propaganda is using an old video from 2019 that shows an Azov fighter holding a Tavor style rifle. The video is not from the current war. Israel does not supply rifles directly to the Azov Battalion. Russian propaganda is spreading a many-layered lie. It’s a sickness.
Please Allow Me, a Woman Who Just Had a Baby, to Fact-Check Justice Samuel J. Alito
Gaetz faces backlash for ‘over-educated’ women remark
Yeah, I hope he faces “backlash.” Sheesh.
Lynna @ #242, I haven’t read the draft, but it seems like even if he wasn’t wrong about “quickening,” he’s acknowledging that abortion was legal in common law up to four months into a pregnancy. I don’t see how this is a point in favor of his so-called argument. What am I missing?
Good news, as reported by Wonkette: “Democrat Carol Glanville Defeats Gross Nazi Rape Comic In Michigan State House Race!”
I just filled out my mail-in ballot for politicians running in Idaho. For some of the state-level positions there were no Democratic Party candidates. It can be hard to get Democrats to run in Idaho. I was so glad to see Carol Glanville successfully take on the Republicans in Michigan.
Salon – “Anti-abortion zealots target Sotomayor aide as source of leak: Their threats are no joke”:
SC @244, I think Alito has blithely jettisoned not just precedent, the law, and the constitution, but logic as well. He just spouting whatever he pleases with the knowledge that he will probably get away with it.
Quoted in Lynna’s #243:
LOL.
Ukrainian Ministry of Defense:
“Another photo of Kremlin propagandist Dmitry Kisleyov preparing for the apocalypse while vacationing in Dubai. On last Sunday’s broadcast, he threatened to sink the UK with nuclear weapons.”
Photo at the (Twitter) link.
“Why There Are No Women in the Constitution,” by Jill Lepore, writing for The New Yorker
New Yorker link
Ukraine update: Russia tries to counter Ukraine’s counterattack … and fails
“Vaccination progress is stalled
Partisan gap in boosters and trust in CDC worrisome after initial success at getting majority of Rs vaccinated…”
Charts and link to the report at the (Twitter) link.
The Daily – “The Mar-a-Lago Midterms”:
The descriptions of the candidates groveling and performing for his attention and support are unbearably creepy and depressing. It’s a democratic country and these people prefer an authoritarian cult of personality around a corrupt, criminal buffoon, while Trump humiliates and exploits them to feed his insatiable greed and vanity.
Guardian liveblog:
This is what they want to bring back:
NBC – “Covid’s toll in the U.S. reaches a once unfathomable number: 1 million deaths”:
Follow-up to Lynna’s #242 – Ken Armstrong:
Chase Strangio: “If you are out here saying ‘marriage equality is next’ please do keep in mind that at least one state has made care for trans youth a felony right now and is currently in court defending that law. There is no ‘next’ – the horror is NOW.”
Too horrible to excerpt – AP – “AP evidence points to 600 dead in Mariupol theater airstrike.”
In an interview with TIME, Brazilian ex-president Lula da Silva, who will likely challenge the fascist Bolsonaro in the next presidential elections, has claimed that Zelensky is as responsible as Putin for the war in Ukraine and that he just didn’t negotiate hard enough.
NBC News:
An illuminating article on the history of NATO.
tl/dr: It’s always been about maintaining capitalism and US hegemony, not defending democracy or human rights (although it has occasionally, as now, done the latter incidentally). For a start, consider the past membership of Salazar’s Portugal and the Colonels’ Greece, as well as the current membership of Turkey, Hungary and Poland.
The Forced Birther’s in Oz are following the Repugliklan lead see this excellent essay by Lucy Hamilton :
https://theaimn.com/the-risk-of-the-religious-right-christian-libertarianism/
Plus this latest news :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-05/victorian-liberal-bernie-finn-praying-for-abortion-ban/101041168
Whilst in locally under-reported news that’s getting a lot less coverage than it deserves the Ben Roberts-Smith (BRS) war crimes, sorry, defamation trial* is continuing :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-05/ben-roberts-smith-witness-denies-emails-colluding/101041208
.* A defamation action that BRS brought himself bankrolled by major commercial TV station (c7) owner Kerry Stokes claiming to have been defamed by journos telling what – its increasingly clear – is the truth about him. Some horrific events uncovered. Hopefully, after the defamation trial an actual war crimes one might ensue.
PS. Our Opposition (ALP) leader and candidate to become PM Anthony Albanese is on ABC TV’s Q&A tonight from 8.30 pm c2. Bad news is the host is
rathervery LNP biased “journo” David Speers.. Most of the media here are appalling and very pro-LNP to their eternal disgrace. :-(PS BRS wikipage here :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Roberts-Smith
StevoR @ #264/5, re your first two links, yikes – sympathy and solidarity from the US.
(Reading these and feeling closer than ever to Australians, and then I click on a link and come upon “why doesn’t Morrison ‘get it’ — in 2021 — about violence against women? Is it because he’s a bit of a daggy dad who goes to the footy?” and suddenly I need a translator.)
From the BRS WP page and the WP page about the SASR (citation #s removed):
The photo of him from 2011 and the fact that he was awarded the Medal for Gallantry are so over the top.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
From Jezebel: Former ‘National Review’ Editor Calls for Supreme Court to Overturn Brown v. Board Next
Yes, “Centrists” and “Classical Liberals.” Please tell us once again that we are “over-reacting” to the agenda of the Republican Party and American conservatives.
“The new Reuters investigation into the soldiers who were in Bucha is great, with the best part being how one guy painted his Instagram handle onto a civilian’s wall….”
Photos at the (Twitter) link.
The Reuters report referred to @ #269 – “A REUTERS SPECIAL REPORT: Love letter, ID card point to Russian units that terrorised Bucha”:
Much more at the link. Terrorists.
The problem(s) with Trump’s perspective on what ‘racist’ means
As Donald Trump sees it, whenever someone is accused of racism, that means the person is “winning.” He really hasn’t thought this one through.
A bizarre take in the Guardian headline:
Since the only possible path to reversing the expected vicious attack on women from the fascist majority on the Supreme Court is through electing lots of Democrats, and that attack is highly unpopular, it would seem that: “Republicans under increasing pressure on abortion rights as midterms loom” would be a more accurate headline. But at present, the Graun seems to interpret absolutely any event as bad for the Democrats in the midterms.
Ukraine update: Russia may have found something appropriate to celebrate on May 9
https://twitter.com/OzKaterji/status/1522205977210089472
https://twitter.com/k_sonin/status/1521100786540982272
https://twitter.com/mdmitri91/status/1522204189149089792
The translation is easier to read here:
https://twitter.com/mdmitri91/status/1522204189149089792/photo/1
More apropos of absolutely nothing: Some time ago I acquired the recent (2021) version of Around the World in 80 Days starring Ibrahim Koma (Passepartout), David Tennant (Phileas Fogg), and Leonie Benesch (reporter Abigail Fix, a character I don’t recall from the novel (which I have read (in translation))). Last “night” I finally (binge-)watched it.
First impressions, moderated by some decent port: Rather good, albeit didn’t follow the novel too closely. Nowheres near as stupid as the 1956 movie (with Cantinflas and David Niven).
The Grauniad’s review, Around the World in 80 Days review — David Tennant channels a Victorian Jeff Bezos. I myself didn’t get the alleged “Bezos vibe” from Fogg (Tennant), but otherwise broadly concur with that review.
I could, of course, change my mind — depends on the port, the cheese, and a certain penguin (who was complaining throughout I was eating the cheese and drinking the port) but also seemed otherwise engrossed.
WaPo:
Louisiana advances bill to classify abortion as homicide
Caroline Kitchener / May 5, 2022
One million
Stephen Colbert rails against the Supreme Court and buries Susan Collins with scorn
Good video is available at the link.
@ 272
It’s not at all bizarre when you remember how feckless, craven, and duplicitous Dems can be. The Republicans are united behind banning abortion while the Dems pride themselves at being a “Big Tent” that will just let anyone in.
OMG LOL, so that’s why people have been sharing that picture of the destroyed one – it was the only one!
Link
Thanks, “pro-lifers”!
Washington Post:
The word genocide gets thrown around a lot.
In the case of this war, it fits.
The Russians claim that Ukraine was never and isn’t a real country. They are trying to get rid of the Ukrainian language and replace it with Russian. Now they are starting to write Ukraine out of their history books. They have been sending Ukrainians, especially children, from their occupied territories to reeducation camps and also, just simply killing a lot of Ukrainian civilians.
No wonder the Ukrainians are fighting so hard. What choice do they have?
PS I could put a link to the poll but not going to bother. It’s in Ukrainian with Cyrillic letters.
I’m sure there are multiple definitions for genocide.
Here is one.
The Russians are guilty of crimes against humanity, terrorism, and genocide.
Two are methods, the other is the goal.
@ 283
It shouldn’t really have surprised anyone. There is a huge portion of the American population who are paranoid of government action beyond police and the military, disdainful of science as challenge to their Christian superstations, and selfish to the point of sociopathy. Throw in a President who cheered their outrages on, et voilà! One million dead out of what should have been an easily controlled public health emergency.
So I’m watching “Under the Banner of Heaven,” a seven-part limited series on Hulu based on the book of the same name by Jon Krakauer. I think it’s pretty solid, and I’ve read a few reviews that generally agree (most think it’s not as good as the book, which I haven’t read, but I imagine they’re right). An ex-Mormon commenter at the AV Club review linked to two local articles about it suggesting they’re fairly entertaining reading, and, well, they’re right:
From the Deseret News – “Perspective: Under the Banner of Hollywood”: “Too much real-life anger comes out of Tinseltown. It’s time for Dustin Lance Black and company to let go of the angst toward Latter-day Saints…”
From the Salt Lake Tribune – “Oscar winner defends ‘Under the Banner of Heaven’ against criticism from church-owned newspaper”: “Dustin Lance Black sounds a bit peeved at premiere event in Salt Lake City….”
This latter one has a fine quote from writer-producer Black:
NBC News:
I think she will make a great press secretary.
Axios:
Cartoon: Double standards
This Is Critical – “Will Musk Bring Gamergate Back to Twitter?”:
One of the main methods of genocide is created hunger and famines.
The Russians are stealing all the Ukrainian grain they can. It’s 400,000 tons or so now. They are also attacking and destroying grain storage buildings wherever they can. There is no point to destroying grain elevators except to create food shortages.
The Ukrainians have been here before. During the Stalin famine of the 1930s, the Holodomor, 4 million Ukrainians died from starvation.
It is also clear that a lot of Ukrainian farmland isn’t going to be planted or harvested this year because of the war.
Ironically, a lot of the people going hungry and/or paying more for food this year and the next are going to be in the Third World, the countries that bought Ukrainian grain.
The video is in Russian but has English subtitles.
The future was overrated.
This morning I get up, and some Russian politician on their state TV is threatening to nuke Ukraine.
Then on my home tonight, I risk my life (avoiding the Covid-19 virus) to buy cat food at Safeway.
The Russians are now threatening to nuke someone with something over something…every day now.
Well, I started worrying about the Russians and the upcoming nuclear war when I was 5 years old in the 1950s.
So what else is new?
It looks like the Russian leadership is starting to realize they might well lose their war with Ukraine. They are starting to panic.
I didn’t even read it.
Nothing new about this.
Similar bills have been introduced in Texas and Idaho.
If an embryo or fetus is a person, then abortion is first degree murder.
The fundie xians are eagerly awaiting the first women to get life in prison or the death penalty.
India now, how much of the rest of the world how soon the way we’re heading?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-06/new-delhi-heatwave-a-glimpse-into-climate-change-future/101033250
Apologies if someone else has already posted about this but :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-05/uk-parliament-elon-musk-twitter-plans-businesses-governments/101042210
Seems likely to me that Musk’s plans to charge for Twitter may actually kill it off pretty quickly though I could be wrong.
I’m not going to knock Albo before the election is over, I really don’t want to, he’s vastly preferable to the alternative and the media has been extremely unfair to him and totally against him and all but FUCK he is uninspiring and piss-weak!
Echoes of Biden in the States. Which Iguess ended up for the less bad so there’;s that..
StevoR @298: I wish we, as a species, were mature enough to appreciate ‘uninspiring’ leaders. I want them to be boring and professional. The ‘inspiring’ ones are too often grifters.
StevoR @ 298. I sincerely hope that Scummo and the rest of the LNP gang don’t get back in. The very real prospect of the roasted potato-head Dutton rolling him to become PM should terrify all voters here into electing the ALP into power. I am not sure what I will do if the present loosely-termed ‘government’ get back in but it might involve me emigrating to NZ.
And as for One Nation or Clive Palmers bunch of kleptocrats, fuck me if it isn’t a mess.
It is possibly not well known, but are you aware that an Australian citizen can live, work, claim unemployment benefits, get free hospital care, and even vote (after living there continuously for 12 months or more) in NZ should they so choose. No visa is required for an Australian to enjoy all the rights and privileges of a subject or citizen of NZ.
Soooo, section 44 of the Australian constitution theoretically bars all Australian citizens from running for Federal parliament. My bolding below.
https://www.aph.gov.au/about_parliament/parliamentary_departments/parliamentary_library/publications_archive/archive/section44
@299. Rob Grigjanis : Fair point. Agreed.
@300. tuatara : Ddidn’t know that. Wow. Thanks.
Ilove where Ilive and my fmailyare allthere who I rely on so, no, couldn’t really contemplate moving although ..yeah. If the LNP which should have been thrown out in disgrace last election yet cheated their way into staying in undeserved illegitimate power manage to cheat their way back again, well, Ithink quiote seriously that we cannot call our nation a democracy anymore.
As Lucy Hamilton wrote here we’re pretty much already a “compeditive authoritarian” kakistocracy where Murdoch’s evil words hold near total sway :
https://johnmenadue.com/democracy-in-decline-australias-slide-into-competitive-authoritarianism-a/
I fear its already too late given the appalling media traetment of the ALP and worse our third largest and main progressive political party, the Australian Greens. Really is infuriating and depressing beyond words.
If the untrustworthy polls are wrong again this time and the LNP does somehow cheat and lie their way back, I don’t know, I really don’t.
StevoR @ 302.
Yeah. Murdoch…..where and how well does that all end?
We used to have a nice local rag here where I live, funded by local advertising and delivered free to every home. It was bought up by Murdoch, turned into a subscription only service, and now our only recourse to local news is faceache or twitshit, neither of which I can stomach.
The monopoly on news that the Murdoch reich holds (in 2016 Murdoch controlled 65% of newspapers in Australia – a share that continues to grow) needs to be broken into jagged chunks and shoved up Ruperts arse.
Oh well. So much for my wishful thinking.
Via friend on fb :
Thanks to Simon Stevens:
OVERTURNING ROE V. WADE – AN HISTORICAL ANALYSIS
Here’s a Twitter thread by a professor of history of the early modern era, @Literature_Lady, on the overturning of Roe v Wade. The decision of the US Supreme Court is much worse than most people realise.
Justice Alito’s invocation of Sir Matthew Hale in his leaked majority opinion is so, so much more fucked up than people realize. I’m a professor with a PhD, and my area of expertise happens to be women and gender in the early modern era (1500-1700). Here is what you need to know.
Sir Matthew Hale was a huge advocate for marital rape. Like many early modern men, he believed that women’s bodies belonged to men, first their father when they were born and then their husband when they were married. WOMEN WERE NOT SEEN AS AUTONOMOUS BEINGS.
Early modern law was based on a combination of roman law, common law, and biblical law. There wasn’t a separation of church and state. The 1632 manual The Lawes Resolutions of Women’s Rights, for instance, cited the Bible as the basis of a lot of laws pertaining to women.
Hale, just like a lot of Christian extremists today, believed that women were made from Adam’s rib. God did not make her as an autonomous being with rights. She was a physical extension of his body, made to be his “helpmeet,” namely to exist to help him to whatever he wants.
The writings of the apostle Paul were also used as a basis of law during Hale’s life. The man was “the head of the woman” and it was inarguable to suggest otherwise. Many Christian sects still quote this passage as a basis for patriarchal rule in the home and in the church.
Hale therefore wrote in his posthumously published book Historia Placitorum Coronæ (1713) that marital rape was totally legal. In fact, because a man owned a woman’s body as it was an extension of his own to do with whatever he willed, he was incapable of marital rape.
The logic was that you can’t rape something that isn’t considered an independent human being. Your wife’s body is yours and you can’t rape yourself. This is the logic Alito is upholding when he invokes Hale. But it gets worse.
Let’s say a woman vocalized her opinion and it ran contrary to her husband’s. She didn’t want sex. Hale believed that this put her in violation of her marital vows. She was literally breaking the law. Women who denied men sex needed to be punished.
There was a whole set of laws at the time specifically on the punishment of women who spoke up against the men in their lives. They didn’t have the legal authority to say no to sex because they were not legally independent human beings.
Beating your wife was not only permissible by law but also encouraged as a corrective tool. Hale, like many other legal writers of his day, subscribed to the “rule of thumb” – namely, you could beat your wife with an object was not thicker than a man’s thumb.
Men were encouraged in law manuals, however, to beat their wives in a reflective manner, understanding that it was necessary for the salvation of their wife’s soul and done out of love rather than anger. It was advised to never beat a woman in rage.
Court records, however, were filled with incidents of extreme physical violence against women by their husbands so this advice was rarely followed. Women who were beaten nearly to death rarely saw justice. The courts almost always sided with the husband. He was doing his job.
Keep in mind that Hale and others also viewed a father’s role in a similar way. The daughter had no bodily autonomy, and it was a father’s duty to “correct” his children as long as he did so within the law. Daughters were groomed from an early age to be obedient to future husbands.
It should be no surprise that Hale was responsible for the trial and execution of women for witchcraft and that his legal opinion would be used as a base for the execution of women and children by the state both in England and the Americas.
The big witch trial Hale was known for was the 1662 trial of Rose Cullender and Amy Duny. It followed many of the trial conventions of the day with bonkers stories of toads, vomiting pins, etc. Both women were widows and found guilty.
Women who were executed by the state for witchcraft were overwhelmingly poor and single. Most were widows. Hale & his contemporaries found independent women to be a serious threat in society. She was not owned by father or husband, which meant that she was an unnatural presence.
Women without a man to tightly control their behaviors were viewed ad extremely susceptible to immorality and becoming a Satanic force in the community. Hale believed it was in society’s best interest for men of the state to step in and control these women.
During this time, women could be declared legally independent, such as when a woman without a father became old enough to be freed from being another man’s ward. However, these legal declarations of independence were uncommon, and the assumption is that it would be temporary.
A woman’s primary purpose in adulthood was to be married, be obedient to a man, and to have children. Alito invoking Hale in his opinion made it clear that he also thinks this too. It’s his duty as a man to put the bodily fate of women in the hands of states run by white men.
Keep in mind that Hale was only talking about white Christian women. Women who didn’t fall into this category were debated as even being women. They were viewed as less than human with even less rights. The rule of thumb didn’t apply; they weren’t worthy of such restraint.
Are you starting to see why Alito’s invocation of Hale is so deeply, deeply fucked up on so many insane levels that there isn’t a way to possibly overreact to how shitty his legal standing is here? Rage, horror, disgust, etc. are not deep enough reactions to his legal opinion.
And if you think Hale being invoked by Alito was something out of left field, think again. Hale is all over our legal system. The easiest application to find was the Salem Witch Trials, but his influence on our laws is much more insidious than that.
Marital rape was not completely outlawed in the United States until 1993. Let that sink in. Hale’s Historia was being invoked in our American legal system all the way up until that point to justify rape by a husband. Alito is well aware of Hale’s lasting influence in our laws.
So when he talks about going back to what the founding fathers meant, he is talking about all of this shit. Women’s bodies being legally owned and controlled by men. He knows many Christian white women are groomed theologically to agree and will vote for this patriarchal control.
Alito knows that by kicking reproductive control back to the states that he is putting an incredible amount of power in the hands of the men who control these communities. He knows that white men are disproportionately in charge of these places.
Alito knows how much power and influence local churches have on local leadership. He knows most of these institutions are controlled by men. He is counting on it. He knows the biggest threat to women are the men in their homes and communities.
Justice Alito and men like him do not see women as independent human beings with their own human rights. They see us as incapable of making our own decisions. They consider men to be divinely appointed to rule over women. This is not an exaggeration.
If they think of white Christian women this way, imagine what they think about women of color, women of non-Christian groups, or trans women and men. The utter disdain towards them is deep, disturbing, incomprehensible, and violent.
Collectively we need to condemn Alito’s opinion and understand it for what it is: a deeply flawed rant by a misogynist zealot who puts his own sexist beliefs before his duty as a Supreme Court justice and the welfare of the American people.
PS – If you want to look up Sir Matthew Hale on Wikipedia, take that article with a grain of salt. Some Hale apologists have added some deeply biased wording and minimized his legal standing on women. If you want to know about him, look up what the experts are saying.
This thread is taking off so I am going to mute it. I’m leaving you with some books [see comments] that talk about what Hale and folks like him thought about women legally and theologically (and legal punishments). The further you go down this rabbit hole, the worse Alito’s invocation of Hale gets.
Yesterday was local election day in Scotland, Wales, and parts of England, and the Northern Ireland Assembly is also being elected. Results so far (all from England) indicate bad losses for the Tories, gains but considerably less than they hoped for Labour, LibDems and Greens doing well. Scotland uses STV in multi-member wards for local elections, and didn’t start counting until this morning, but the first few first preference counts suggested a similar pattern to England, with the SNP about where they were in 2017. In Northern Ireland the headline question is whether Sinn Fein will get more seats than the “Democratic” Unionist Party, whic hwould enable them to nominate the First Minister for the first time (although the First Minister and Deputy First Minister actually have equal power, so this would be of symbolic rther than practical significance – but as we know, symbols matter a lot in NI, and there’s speculation the DUP might take their ball home, leading to a collapse of the NI Executive and direct rule from London)..
Podcast episodes:
On the Media – “The Abortion Underground”:
New Books Network – “Katie Stallard, Dancing on Bones: History and Power in China, Russia and North Korea“:
The history of Victory Day and its commemoration is especially relevant.
Shaun Walker in the Guardian – “How Victory Day became central to Putin’s idea of Russian identity”:
More at the link.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Here’s the link to the Guardian’s local-elections liveblog (see KG’s #305 above).
Guardian – “Esper book details Trump rage at Pence and proposal to hit Mexico with missiles”:
Update on UK local elections: overall picture much as before, but SNP also winning extra seats. Overall in Britain (NI isn’t having local council elections, just the Assembly) Greens are up 57 seats (having won 105 so far – so more than doubling their previous tally), Scottish Greens have won 21 so far and are up 10 according to BBC – but I know they are lagging in their count and it must be nearing 30 from results I’ve seen on the party slack workspace. We had a total of 19 at the last local elections.
Republican talking points … and how those those talking points are disingenuous:
Link
Job creation hot streak continues, as May totals break a record
For the first time on record, the U.S. economy has now had 12 straight months with jobs gains above 400,000.
Followup to SC’s comment 307.
Ukraine update: Russia redefines Nazi as anyone who resists their assault
Congratulations on your party’s success, KG!
More Ukrainian updates from Mark Sumner:
Link, with quoted text above beginning at the subhead “UKRAINIAN COUNTEROFFENSIVE?”
BTW, the article from which I quoted in comment 314 is accompanied by a photo of “Patron, world famous mine-sniffing pup,” which is adorable, but with a scary background.
Guardian elections liveblog:
Video available at the link.
Link
Abbott’s threat to block undocumented kids’ education has been dream of racists like Stephen Miller
“After Lavrov’s hideous antisemitic Nazi remarks, for which Putin had to apologize to Israel, new directives apparently landed at the state TV studios. Now they claim that Nazism doesn’t have to be antisemitic and in its new iteration it is [drumroll] anti-Slavic and anti-Russian….”
Video with subtitles at the (Twitter) link.
Nasa/JPL’s Mars helicopter Ingenuity completed its 27th flight about a week ago, surveying “‘Fortun Ridge’ [named] after a parish in Norway, is a geologic feature of interest because data collected from orbit, and at a distance by Perseverance, indicates it is the boundary between the two major rock units on the crater floor. Previous images suggest tilted layers of rock in this area of Mars are uncommon (unlike on Earth, where plate tectonics and earthquakes cause tilting)”, from NASA’s Mars Helicopter Scouts Ridgeline for Perseverance Science Team.
Threat of far-right violence at abortion-rights protests became a reality already in Phoenix
About that brain drain from Russia: Biden administration scrambles to deal with Russians trying to reach America
The U.S. is trying to lure Russian scientists in particular, but a leaked State Department cable indicates many others need help after fleeing the Kremlin’s rule.
Wonkette: “Douthat: Men Can’t Succeed Unless Women Are Forced To Have Babies Against Their Will”
Guardian elections liveblog:
Esper: Trump Wanted To Activate Retired Four-Stars To Court-Martial Them For Disloyalty
Guardian elections liveblog:
“Andrew Wilhoite, who is accused of killing his cancer-stricken wife as she was seeking a divorce, won his Indiana GOP primary this week from jail and will be on the November ballot — if he has not been convicted.”
WaPo link at the link.
Followup to comment 326.
Posted by readers of the article:
Republican governor signs law making abortion pills by mail a felony with a $50K fine
Steve Bell in the Grauniad, How more countries may join Nato (cartoon).
RFE/RL – “Photograph Of A Missing Sailor Deepens Doubts About Russia’s Narrative On The Sunken Warship Moskva”:
From the Meduza liveblog:
Link
“‘Look at his face, just look at his face!’
The reaction of @LukePollard, Plymouth’s first openly gay MP, to @Dylan4Compton becoming the city’s first trans councillor is a real picture…”
Heartwarming photos at the link.
Link
Wonkette: “Nation’s Long Nightmare Over As Chuck Todd’s Daily Wankfest Banished To Streaming”
Wonkette: “Roberts Weeps For Supreme Court, Destroyed Because You Saw That Roe Opinion Six Weeks Early”
Trump-appointed judge won’t let jurors know about insurrectionist Nazi’s extremist beliefs
More re #317 – Guardian elections liveblog:
Another superb piece at Meduza – “‘Everything here smells like the dead now’: In Russia’s Buryatia, soldiers killed in Ukraine are buried daily. Has this changed how locals feel about the war?”:
RFE/RL – “Italy Orders Seizure Of $700 Million Yacht Suspected To Be Owned By Putin”:
Donie O’Sullivan, CNN:
Video at the (Twitter) link. Made me cry.
Guardian elections liveblog:
Sec. Blinken: “I have authorized $150 million in additional U.S. arms, equipment, and supplies for Ukraine to reinforce its defenses to counter Russia’s offensive in the East. We stand #UnitedwithUkraine.”
Oryx:
SC @342, nothing could provide a stronger contrast to what Putin is doing. Ireland is providing an example, (well … many examples), of goodness and light. People there are learning and helping each other. And what the fuck is Putin doing? Murdering children, torturing innocent civilians, bombing the house of a blind grandmother … and, in essence, betraying his own people.
China is not pitching in on Putin’s war, and Biden administration pressure may be part of the reason
Lynna said what I was going to say.
Alito isn’t even trying to make sense and he doesn’t care if he makes sense. This isn’t about logic, law, or morality.
It is about power. The power to control, enslave, and subjugate women.
The christofascists have the votes to overturn Roe versus Wade, that is what they will do, and no one can stop them. He doesn’t have to make a coherent arguments.
Thanks SC@315! We ended up with 35* councillors (up from 19), with 10 each in the two largest cities, Glasgow (up from 7) and Edinburgh (up from 8), and most of the rest in local authority areas where we’d never had one before. I admit this was far beyond my expectations; I thought we might even lose seats, because:
1) After entering the Scottish government in a semi-coalition with the SNP, I expected fewer people whose first vote went to a unionist party would give us their second vote,
2) Our firm support for trans rights has certainly alienated some members and supporters (although presumably boosting support among young people – but they are least likely to vote, particularly in local elections), and
3) The Russian invasion of Ukraine might be expected to reduce support for independence (there’s some sign of this in polls on that issue), and hence for pro-independence parties.
I didn’t canvass this time (I’m still doing my best to avoid Covid), but in delivering posters to local members I came across examples of both (1) and (2). An amateur psephologist I consult at election times, Allan Faulds, who also happens to be a Green, thought 25 seats would be a good result.
The STV electoral system (very clearly explained here by Faulds) should provide a lot of data for psephologists, because the number of transfers after each round of counting is public information. So it should be possible to see if (1) occurred to any marked extent, and whether increased transfer votes from those who voted SNP as first preference outweighed it. However, if you don’t have enough first preference votes, your candidate will be eliminated before they can benefit from transfers. According to Wikipedia our share of first preference votes increased from 4.2% to 6% (but there are two errors in what that article says just about our party, and also we stood in more wards, so I’m taking that figure as provisional).
I’m off to Edinburgh’s Mayday march – more on other results later.
*In some places you’ll see the figure as 34, but that’s the number who were elected in actual contests; in one ward in the Highlands, surprisingly, the only candidate was a Green and so was elected unopposed.
Meme / tweet going around on fb and originating on twitter :
That awkward moment when Sharia law literally gives women more rights and power and value than the Supreme Court of the United States of America.
Ukraine Update: One side knows how to fight a war, and it’s not Russia
Link
Video is available at the link.
The bad news from Ukrainian updates:
Link
Upon closer inspection, Tucker’s gaslighting theory about Oath Keeper Ray Epps on Jan. 6 crumbles
Even in swing districts, Republican House candidates hold extremist, anti-democratic views
Link
“Women, children, elderly exit steel plant.”
Washington Post link
‘Potentially historic’ wildfire event threatens New Mexico, Southwest
The entire state of New Mexico is under a red-flag warning for dangerous fire conditions.
Lynna@351, One of the comments on the article cited leads to this fascinating read, I Commanded US Army Europe. Here’s What I Saw in the Russian and Ukrainian Armies, by Lieutenant General Mark Hertling (retired). Too long to meaningfully excerpt, albeit as on commentator at the Kos article summarised it, “We thought the Ukrainians were OK but they proved to be much better than we thought; we thought the Russians would suck but we way underestimated how badly they suck.”
European Parliament demands return of 400 ‘stolen’ aircraft from Russia (Irish Times edits in {curly braces}):
Good grief. Clare Daly, the Irish “Mélenchon” with similar barmy ideas expressed in a pleasant accent (but fortunately no party of significance (the Irish Independent Left is so new I had to look them up, they are a nothing). Like Mélenchon, she’s basically anti-everything (except maybe the EU (not sure (ironic if she is, being an MEP))), albeit unlike Mélenchon, she’s done some toadying up to Putin (nothing on the scale of hair furor or Le Pen), and has appeared on Russian TV allegedly supporting the invasion (or at least opposing the EU and Nato helping Ukraine). Last I can remember of Ms Daly’s antics, she was trying to blame France for the Bataclan attacks in Paris, albeit I’m not too surprised she’s popped up again. She’s a loon, albeit better educated than (e.g.) Greene.
Ron Johnson, Who is Not a Doctor, Says He’s Waging a Against Medical Experts on COVID:
blf @359, thanks for highlighting that link. You are right, the entire article deserves to be read. Here is an excerpt:
The basic truth that I came away with after reading the article was that a lot of failures or inadequacies contributed to the “Russian Bear” becoming a mangy, starving beast on its last legs … and those inadequacies were evident at every level of the organization.
Russians don’t see their military’s inadequacies, and that’s an entirely different problem that leads to other errors.
So, the local election results in Britain (note: Britain not the UK – see below) can be summarised as: very bad for the Tories, mixed for Labour, very good for the Lib Dems and Greens (Green Party of England and Wales and Scottish Greens), good to very good for the SNP (they didn’t win a lot more seats, but after being in government for 15 years, making any gains is impressive), mixed for Plaid Cymru (they lost a few seats but gained control of three councils, giving them a contiguous area of control across most of west Wales). The number of independents winning seats went up, but there don’t seem to have been any significant wins by other parties (Farage’s “Reform UK” has 2 councillors, his former UKIP Party none) with one exception: in the Tower Hamlets area of London, Labour was ousted by the “Aspire” Party, the personal vehicle of one Lutfur Rahman, who has just finished a five-year disqualification from office for electoral misconduct. A point worth noting on Labour: their vote share was almost exactly the same as when these council seats were last contested in 2018 (some council areas in England had all seats contested, some had none, some had half of them), when Jeremy Corbyn was leader. So the claim that Corbyn was an utter disaster and Starmer’s all-out attack on the left of the party has made it electable again looks pretty feeble.
In Northern Ireland, meanwhile, Sinn Fein won most votes (29% first preference votes) and seats (27 out of 90 – with 2 still to be declared), despite only a small increase in vote-share; the DUP lost several seats and considerable votes, mostly to the even more reactionary Traditional Unionist Voice, which won significantly more votes, but still only has one seat. The biggest gainers were the neither-Unionist-nor-Nationalist Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, soggy centrists in policy (17 seats, up from 8). The SDLP and UUP (once dominant parties among Nationalists and Unionists respectively) lost seats, the Greens (who form part of the all-Ireland Green Party) lost both their seats (they had been lucky to hold two on just 1.9% of first preference votes last time – this time 1.5%). My hunch is that they lost votes mainly to Alliance, but as for the Scottish results, this was an STV election, so there should be plenty of data for psephologists. A couple of independents and one Trot (“People Before Profit”) complete the roster so far. The victory of Sinn Fein is highly significant of course, but a new devolved executive can’t be formed without the participation of the DUP, who have said they won’t take part unless the Northern Ireland Protocol (a key part of the Brexit treaty between UK and EU, which imposes customs checks between Britain and Northern Ireland) is scrapped. Of course this also saves them from the embarassment of losing the symbolic title of First Minister to Sinn Fein. So direct rule from London looks likely, since the Protocol can’t be unilaterally scrapped by the UK, and direct rule in turn will give Sinn Fein a fine issue to campaign on. “Get Brexit Done” – my arse!
Well I was wondering what good youtube lawyer Legal Eagle’s take on the SCOTUS Roe v Wade overturning would be , well , here it very alltoobreifly is plus his take onteh elak which actaully seems fien and not a crime or anything here.
Apologies if someone has already posted upthread here.
^ Clarifying fix : Well , here it very – all too breifly is. (Under a minute long – & really hoping he does a longer, more in-depth analysis of it soon.) Plus Legal Eagle’s take on the leak which actaully seems fine and not a crime or anything here.
Seems to me that it would be good if the SCOTUS became more transparent – and more accountable – and less secretive.
Among other more important and badly needed changes and reforms to it.
Sorry in advance if this has been posted already here and I didnt see.
https://law.stanford.edu/publications/the-impact-of-legalized-abortion-on-crime-over-the-last-two-decades/
Author(s): John J. Donohue III, Steven D. Levitt
Publish Date: November 16, 2020
Publication Title: American Law and Economics Review
Format: Journal Article
Abstract
Looks like the USA is in for another crime wave in about 20 years.
Australian “leaders” debate round 2 – live blog here :
https://www.9news.com.au/national/federal-election-2022-scott-morrison-anthony-albanese-leaders-debate-may-8-channel-9-confirmed/015ac55f-1b6c-412b-bbd2-82e2c5d4c954
Sorry wrionmg link – that’sto the C9 debate page – meant to post this link actually :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-08/scott-morrison-anthony-albanese-second-leaders-debate/101048046
Some cartoons in the Grauniad:
● Javi Aznarez, Happy 96th birthday David Attenborough: “Today is David Attenborough’s 96th birthday. This cartoon, based on dialogue from Attenborough’s appearance on Jarvis Cocker’s Sunday Service in 2013, is by Barcelona-based illustrator Javi Aznarez. […]”
● Chris Riddell, Local elections: the wheels come off the Boris bus
● Tom Gauld, On a guide to contortionism.
Russia is what you get when their version of Fox NoNews controls and runs the country.
Some days their state TV explains why they will have to use nuclear weapons and why it is a good idea. That the West also has nuclear weapons and will nuke them back is a point that they don’t worry about.
For something different, they talk about how Ukraine and Ukrainians must be genocided. This guy claims that they won’t have to kill more than 2 million Ukrainians. He might be right. All they have to do is drive a few millions or tens of millions out as refugees. Already the number of Ukrainian refugees is in the millions. Capture and deport a few millions to Russian slave labor camps to never be heard from again. They already have more than a million captured.
Set off a famine to kill a few more millions. Suppress the Ukrainian language, and culture.
And you are done.
The link goes to a video but it is in Russian with English subtitles that I copied.
https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/ukhk3l/5_of_population_just_needs_to_be_killed_russian/
This is part of the Russian genocide plan.
The Russians have a long history of deporting non-Russians to their Gulag slave labor camps. Most of the time they are never heard from again.
After World War II, they deported tens of thousands of the elite of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, and others to Siberia, most of which never came back.
The Pfizer conspiracy is a product of Twitter’s armchair experts (New Statesman edits in {curly braces})::
† I have no idea why New Statemans decided to mark “bollix” with a “sic”: That’s a variant spelling of “bollocks”, and can be found in several dictionaries; as one example, Merriam-Webster. Admittedly, substituting “bungle” (essentially what it means) is less colourful and perhaps more meaningless, but the quoted statement seems, to me, to be a typical angry ranting British-style loon.
From the channel 9 page linked befiore & take with a glacier of halite ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_glacier ) but still :
Poll results have been changing a fair bit all night including after being shown on national (proper) telly.
Incidentally, seems we haven’t pharyngulated any online polls for a while have we ..?
Some snippets from Vienna show spotlights Rothschild dynasty conspiracy theories:
Kyiv circus troupe stuck in Italy says show must go on — for Ukraine (video) :
Cartoon: Roberts did this
Ukraine update: Russia can’t stop getting snake bit
Snippets from a Ukrainian update:
Link. Much more at the link.
StevoR @373: I wish Canada had just the one centre-left party. Unfortunately, we have two (with the NDP currently a bit further left than the Liberals). That means the left-leaning vote is always split, and it’s the only reason Conservatives ever have a chance of winning. Bloody frustrating, especially with the increasing volume of socially conservative, Trumpesque noise (if not numbers) on the right.
Link
SNL Cold Open Takes On Alito’s Medieval Justification For Taking Reproductive Rights Away, Burning Witches
Via a link-chain:
At which point I so completely lost it überROTFLing the mildly deranged penguin screamed and exited the vicinity, France, Europe, and at the speed she seems to be going, not only the Earth but very probably the Solar System. Don’t worry, besides the Massive Orbital Cheese Vault (MOON (blame poor styluspenguinship)), she did take care to evacuate the cheeseboard. (Fortunately, there is one brie she somehow missed, which I am now munching.)
In the UK, Leeds citizens shame thieves who stole plaque to victim of police racism:
Ukraine update, politicians and celebrities version:
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/05/08/world/ukraine-russia-war-news
Meanwhile in Mariupol:
Re 369 (on David Attenborough turning 96):
Apparently, Attenborough is narrating the much-hyped CGI documentary Prehistoric Planet, which comes out this month. If you’d told me 10 or 20 years ago that he’d still be narrating nature documentaries in 2020s, I’d have assumed you meant a posthumous CGI avatar of him…
Follow-up to @385, From the BBC, 96 Years of Sir David Attenborough in 96 seconds (video).
Useful commentary article on the Northern Ireland Assembly election in the Guardian. Fintan O’Toole is always worth reading.
The Guardian and other European outlets are today publishing articles by writers from Novaya Gazeta, which has suspended publication in Russia because of censorship over the Ukraine war: For Vladimir Putin, the sinister cult of victory is all that is left – Kirill Martynov
Just seen this :
https://insurancecouncil.com.au/resource/updated-data-shows-2022-flood-was-australias-costliest/
Which you’d think deserves a bit more media attention & coverage than its got as far as I recall..
There’s also this :
https://www.science.org.au/news-and-events/news-and-media-releases/australian-bushfires-why-they-are-unprecedented
From the Global Overheating era recent past here.
Meanwhile live updates here from ABC news on Putin’s invasion of Ukraine :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-09/ukraine-russia-war-zelenskyy-evil-returned-ukraine/101048490
Good. Wonder if it will have any effect?
@369 & 386. blf : Thanks for those. Huge respect for and fan of Attenborough here.
.***
Some slight consequences for the Aussie Forced Birther / Female Slaver Bernie Finn :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-09/victorian-mp-bernie-finn-resigns-as-opposition-whip/101051242
Though much more needs to happen there consequences-wise I’d say.
ABC election analysis with 11 days to go here :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-09/election-2022-morrison-albanese-women-vote/101050546
Plus technical military analysis of an apparent Ukrainian strike on another Russian warship here in a further blow to Putin’s navy.
On May 3rd the Perseverance rover on Mars lost contact with the Ingenuity helicopter, which failed to “phone home”. Analyzing the situation, the helicopter team decided the batteries hadn’t sufficiently charged due an accumulation of dust, causing power to be automatically shut off to some critical components (as designed). Later, hopefully warmer and with more charge available, the helicopter would power up and eventually attempt to contact Perseverance. However, one of the components powered-off was the clock, so after waking up, Ingenuity would have no idea of the time. Since the communications with Perseverance are on a regular schedule, any attempted communications would to be very lucky indeed to “hit” the window when Perseverance was listening.
So what they did was stop essentially all operations on the rover and listen… and Ingenuity did, eventually phone home, on May 5th, at the wrong time and with a low battery charge. To try and charge up the batteries, the heaters now turn at a much colder temperature than before — meaning the systems (much of which are COTS (commercial off-the-shelf and not space-hardened)) will be subject to both colder temperatures and greater changes in temperature than previously.
According to NASA’s Ingenuity in Contact With Perseverance Rover After Communications Dropout, “Their goal is to help the helicopter’s battery accumulate enough of a charge during the next few sols so that it could support all necessary spacecraft systems during the cold Martian night. […] The Ingenuity engineers hope that after several days of the helicopter’s array soaking in the limited rays, the battery will have reached a point where the spacecraft can return to normal operations.”
The general problem is likely to get worse, as the Martian winter is approaching and Mars gets colder with more dust in the air. Ingenuity now needs all the power it can get, but the dust (some of which may be on the solar panels) is having a noticeable impact on their efficiency.
There was apparently a 28th flight a few days before (April 29th),
François Fillon was the French PM whose reelection campaign self-imploded in 2017 when it was revealed he “hired” his wife a fake job, reimbursed by the government. One consequence is the current President, Macron, was elected. A snippet from French court upholds one-year sentence for ex-PM Fillon in ‘fake jobs’ scandal:
Good grief. Kudos to him, however, for resigning from both positions due to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine update: The race for the last bridge over the Siverskyi Donets
Putin speech (first impressions)
There is no one to put out the flames in Siberia because the Russian military burns Ukraine instead
More videos are available at the link. Details about other climate-related disasters are also presented.
There is no one to put out the flames in Siberia because the Russian military burns Ukraine instead
Videos, maps, and details are available at the link. This is scary stuff.
Ethnic Conflict, Gunfights, Knife Fights, Racketeering: The Russian Army in Kherson
[Map available at the link]
Link
More at the link.
Followup to comment 397.
Link
Summary from Steve Benen regarding political races in Georgia:
JFC.
New York Times:
Commentary:
Link
I don’t think I can fairly excerpt this article, but it’s a nice read, ‘It was happy and sad’: sisters reunited after 20 years by war in Ukraine, “Adopted at eight, Tatyana was 2,000 miles away in Spain, but when Russian troops amassed she begged Angelika to join her”. One snippet:
They only found each other again in 2019. The sister who grew up in Spain, Tatyana, apparently has lost most of her Ukrainian language, and Angelika does not know Spanish, so they are mostly communicating via an app.
Clarence Thomas speaks, shows a profound lack of self-awareness
“A Big Fizzle”
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-big-fizzle
So It Begins: Mississippi Guv Leaves Door Open For Birth Control Ban
The Smash-and-Grab Economy
Private equity billionaires are looting the country, leaving everyday Americans to clean up the mess—and fight for the scraps.
Much more at the link, including this:
Wonkette: “Sunday Shows On Mother’s Day Got Kind Of Weird, Considering”
Snippets from the Meduza live blog (albeit 3 days ago):
[Angry Rant Mode: ON]
FUCK! This is the administration that is “fighting” for your reproductive rights.
White House condemns protests at homes of Supreme Court justices after Republicans cry harassment
Once again, the Democrats, with their slavish devotion to “norms” and “civility,” reveal how spineless and useless they really are, even in the face of fascism. Biden and Psaki should be cheering this protestors on as loudly and fervently as Trump goaded his thugs along. Instead, they roll over like a fucking dog the movement the right starts to complain!
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. Their most recent summary:
KG @ #s 387 and 388, thank you for those links. (I agree about O’Toole!)
From the first:
Hee.
From the second:
An interesting point Katie Stallard makes in the podcast @ #306 is that Stalin canceled the Victory Day holiday after the original celebration at the end of the war. The victory had come at such a huge cost and people were still struggling, so it was difficult to see as a day of celebration; also, he was very much concerned with sidelining potential rivals like Zhukov. It wasn’t made a holiday until 1965, under Brezhnev.
There are multiple reports on Twitter of strikes on Odesa right now.
“As Victory Day fireworks go off in Moscow tonight, Russia is launching missiles at Odesa…”
Fireworks photo at the (Twitter) link.
“A major win for #Ukraine: U.S. President #JoeBiden signed the #LendLease Act on the day #Russia held its traditional #militaryparade.”
LOL WTF: “Russian state TV aired a big #VictoryDay concert on Channel One, showing pictures of nice Soviet couples during this song… including Bonnie and Clyde.”
Video at the (Twitter) link.
“Here’s another photo of that same brave Soviet woman preparing to fight the Nazis and Hitler’s bloodthirsty Ukrainian nationalist collaborators….”
(Twitter link)
“British scientist says US anti-abortion lawyers misused his work to attack Roe v Wade”:
&
Key truths in this :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-08/women-teal-independents-federal-election-shift-power-politics/101042148
excellent article via Aussie ABC news by Yasmin Poole.
Of course, the Australian Greens have been doing this and saying this for ages too..
Ukraine update: This ‘Victory Day’ comes without much in the way of victory for Russia
Wonkette: “Blue States Gear Up To Meet Abortion Needs Of Women In Post-Roe Red State Hellscapes”
Associated Press:
Maddow’s show was so good tonight it made me more annoyed that it’s on only on Mondays now. Will look for clips in the morning.
60 Minutes last night – “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine scrambles global ballet community into action”:
13-minute YT video at the link.
“Biden and Psaki should be cheering this protestors on as loudly and fervently as Trump goaded his thugs along.”
The voice of extreme immaturity. Whatever Biden (or Psaki, who voices policy, she doesn’t originate it) think, that would be a huge strategic blunder, like not voting for and championing Hillary, no matter what you may have thought of her, when 3 SCOTUS seats were at stake. The time for action was in 2016 … protesting now is ineffective.
When it comes to people like Begala, OTOH, he should STFU and sit down, or should point out that these people are NOT judges, they are GOP political operatives who were groomed for these positions of extreme power … and he should talk about how Marbury v. Madison gave the SCOTUS powers never intended by the Founders and it has usurped power ever since, almost always acting against the interests of the people with a short exceptional interlude which has misled people. And even during the Court’s civil rights era, it was consolidating the power of corporations.
From Maddow last night:
“Hackers Humiliate Putin; Prominent Media Vandalized On Russian Holiday”:
“GOP Fields Candidates Of Questionable Character As Attacks On Abortion Rights Intensify”:
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Guardian – “China’s pro-Russia propaganda exposed by online activists”:
More at the link.
Ukraine update: Having nearly secured territory around Kharkiv, what’s next for Ukraine?
Update to #125 in the previous chapter of the thread – Guardian – “Spain’s spy chief sacked after Pegasus spyware revelations”:
Link
CBS – “Philippines election set to bring dictator Ferdinand Marcos’ family back to power with landslide win for son Bongbong”:
If you want to be even more depressed about this news, I recommend the 2019 documentary The Kingmaker.
Josh Marshall:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/drop-the-losers-logic
OAN Admits Bogus Georgia Election Fraud Conspiracy Theory It Hyped Was Bogus
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/oan-georgia-2020-election-fraud
So glad to see OAN losing in court.
Followup to comment 433.
Posted by readers of the article:
Florida’s fascist textbook reviews were incompetent, chaotic, and ridiculous
Followup to comment 430.
Commentary from Wonkette:
UK politics gets increasingly bizarre. The leader and deputy leader of the main opposition party have now promised to resign if they are issued with fines over an event which may have breached Covid regulations. I think they were in fact right to do so – and in reality, if fined, Starmer at least would have had little choice, having so publicly called for Johnson’s resignation both before and after he was issued a fine for breaching the regulations. But it seems quite clear that the Durham police – who had already decided no rules were broken – would have ignored “fresh evidence” (that the curry take-away the Labour leaders and others ate when working late was preplanned, not impromptu) had they not been pressured by Tory MPs and the right-wing press, in a particularly cynical bout of whataboutery.
Wonkette: “No One Taking Dinesh D’Souza’s Documentary Seriously”
Oh, FFS.
Link
Washington Post:
Russia refused to let the wounded fighters be evacuated.
Some sources dispute the “three Kinzhal hypersonic missiles” and say instead that the missiles were older, Soviet-era missiles. Either way, it is a nightmare to see missiles raining down on Odessa.
Well, like the end of Roe, we all knew THIS was going to happen:
Reuters: Musk says he would reverse Twitter ban on Donald Trump
Not that I really used Twitter for much, but I’m closing down my account right now.
Two or three things to share
• A backroom “church” in San Jose, California, The Iglesia Apostoles Y Profetas church, is under investigation for a kidnapping of a 3-month old and the death of three-year-old girl last September from apparent asphyxiation while they performed an exorcism to get the evil out of her.
• Elon Musk has publicly said he will reverse the Chump ban on Twitter. I have deactivated my account although I never used it anyway. That’ll show’em :-)
• The NY Times reports a CDC report saying there was a 35% increase in gun related homicides in 2020 from 2019. Not surprisingly a disproportionate number were Black men.
From the latest summary at the Guardian liveblog:
Guardian liveblog:
Brian Fung, CNN, on the Musk news:
Musk is just…such a dipshit. I can’t believe banks are backing this.
Incidentally, I thought this episode of On the Media last August had a good discussion of free speech in the US – ” Constitutionally Speaking” (Twitter handles removed):
In Georgia’s Republican gubernatorial primary, former Sen. David Perdue said yesterday that if he’s elected, and Roe v. Wade is overturned, he would “immediately call a special session of the legislature to ban abortion in Georgia.”
I hope that is good news for the Stacey Abrams campaign.
Republicans try to punish Disney:
Link
Ukraine update: Russian soldiers reported ‘missing in action’ actually piled high in ‘body dump’
JFC
Breaking whistleblower news from Florida
Great news: The NYT has an interview with Maria Alyokhina of Pussy Riot. She’s managed to escape Russia by posing as a food delivery person when leaving a friend’s apartment where she’d been hiding out, crossing into Belarus, and going on to Lithuania.
Guardian liveblog:
Guardian liveblog:
Humor/satire from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
Guardian podcast – “What does Sinn Féin’s win mean for Northern Ireland?”:
“Meanwhile on Russian state TV: Tucker Carlson, Donald Trump, JD Vance. Kremlin-controlled state media covers American politics with the same obsessive zeal as Ukraine. Ultimately, it’s all connected. The Russians are hoping that the GOP will win in the midterms and Trump in 2024….”
Video montage at the (Twitter) link.
“I mean… we do have three guys that look literally the same: Charles Michel of the EU, Oleksiy Reznikov (Ukraine’s defense minister), and Denys Shmygal (Ukraine’s PM)
I can’t tell who is who is this picture…”
Photo at the (Twitter) link. They do look so much alike!
Randall Balmer in Politico – “The Religious Right and the Abortion Myth”:
More at the link. This history is also covered in Sarah Posner’s 2021 Unholy: How White Christian Nationalists Powered the Trump Presidency, and the Devastating Legacy They Left Behind.
Postcards from the frontlines of Global Overheating with some powwerfulimages of what’s at stake and being lost :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-11/climate-change-effects-facts-causes-pacific-postcards/100999144
Via Aussie ABC news online.
Nicholas Wu, Politico:
“Michael Flynn said he was just informed by DOD that they are recouping $40K he received from Russia for a speaking fee in 2015. ‘It’s just another dig, another means to embarrass .. They’re just gonna reach into my retirement and take some money out’.”
Rhode Island should disown this scumbag.
“One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer.”
That number of 3,381 dead civilians in Ukraine isn’t even in the right order of magnitude.
I’ve read that the best estimates are well over 20,000 and likely much higher, maybe right now 30,000. Wherever the Russians have been, there are mass graves. They’ve been pushed out of a few places around Kharkiv but still hold most of the territory in the east and south that they invaded. We won’t know for a long time but the civilian deaths are going to be high.
The Ukrainians are having the same problem.
They have thousands of Russian soldier’s bodies stacked up here and there, many in refrigerated railroad boxcars. They don’t want to bury them in Ukraine because they aren’t too happy with the Russian army right now. The Russians won’t take them back. They don’t want them either. Because it doesn’t look so good when the bodies start coming back to Lower Boondocks Russia where most of their conscripts come from.
The Russian army is mostly ethnic minorities; Chechens, Dagestanis, Buryats (Asian Mongolians), and poor Russians from the hinterlands.
Human life is cheap in Russia. It’s meaningless. No wonder their population is dropping. Who wants to live in a place like that anyway?
News bulletin just heard on the radio in the car, on the ABC.
Our deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce saying of China that the red menace has a clear policy of “encircling Australia” with military bases. All this over the security deal that China has inked with the government of the Solomon Islands.
Perhaps he has never seen a map of the world before. Last I looked, there is little West of Australia with 6,500km of mostly empty Indian Ocean to Madagascar, South is of course Antarctica some 2,500km from the southern tip of Tasmania, and South East is New Zealand some 2,000km away. Australia is therefore a very difficult nation to encircle.
When asked Mr tomato-face Joyce said that his comments were “not alarmist”.
The only red menace I see is him. It must be an election cycle.
tuatara@464, “Perhaps [Ozland’s deputy Prime Minister Barnaby tomato-face Joyce] has never seen a map of the world before.”
He’s probably using one of those Medieval maps showing the world as a flat square or circle with Jerusalem in the centre. None(?) of them included Ozland, proof of “China’s clear policy of ” !
Third & final “leaders” debate in Oz on tonight starting soon – like a few minutes time or so – with a live blog of it here :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-11/election-live-blog-scott-morrison-anthony-albanese-third-debate/101058388
For those who might be interested.
PS. Huh. Looks like the debate has already started and is NOT being broadcast live locally here.. Grr..
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Ukraine update: Russia pulling forces from Izyum to deal with what’s happening north of Kharkiv
Guardian – “‘Completely devastating’: US passes 1m overdose deaths since records began”:
Guardian – “Texas court ordered to reconsider decision to uphold prison sentence for woman who voted”:
Guardian liveblog:
Steve Scalise and Joe Manchin are just as disappointing as ever ahead of WHPA vote
Link
NBC News:
Commentary:
Senator Rick Scott’s response:
Commentary:
Link
Wonkette: “Manchin-Endorsed GOP Rep. Got Ass Whooped In West Virginia Primary”
Joe Manchin is fraying my nerves.
Wow:
Here it is in English translation. (Twitter links.)
GOP filibuster derails bill to codify Roe v. Wade protections
The Women’s Health Protection Act, designed to codify Roe v. Wade protections, was derailed today by a Republican filibuster, but the fight isn’t over.
Humor/satire by Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
Cartoon: Not so welcome
NBC News:
NBC News:
NBC News:
Republicans aim to defund DHS disinformation board
Kyiv Independent – “Belarus to expand use of death penalty. Democratic forces, rail guerrillas under threat”:
@ 475
The author doesn’t know elderly right-wingers very well. As long as they promises to send all the blacks to prison, ban the abortions and the gay, and make Jesus president, they’ll vote for any politician.
Guardian – “North Korea admits to Covid outbreak for first time and declares ‘severe national emergency’”:
Guardian – “US judge determines Elon Musk’s 2018 tweets were inaccurate and reckless”:
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their most recent summary:
Also from there:
Guardian liveblog:
Bradley’s thread:
Seems like there’s a big announcement and some possibly extraordinary images about to be released here :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2022-05-12/black-hole-milky-way-sagittarius-a-event-horizon-telescope/101050908
11 pm is for the Eastern states, (iI’mm ina central one -SA) so probly happening in about half an hour or so’s time from now…
Well, it happened.
Finland has applied to join NATO.
Putin and the Russians are just dumb.
By invading Ukraine, committing atrocities and war crimes, calling for the genocide of Ukrainians, and almost daily threatening to nuke somebody for something,…have made countries like Finland and Sweden joining NATO not just a good idea but inevitable.
Putin and Russia shot themselves in their own feet here.
Finland lost 11% of its territory, Karelia, to the Russians after the Winter war during World War II. The Russians deported the Fins to Finland and resettled the place with Russians.
Meaningless threats from Russia.
They have already threatened to station nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad, right across the Baltic sea from Finland. They already have nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad so who cares.
Reports are that the Russians never did much of anything with Karelia except deport or drive out 420,000 Fins.
Today it is a poverty stricken sort of run down place and mostly rural.
AFAICT, that sums up most of Russia outside the cities. Only 77% of Russian houses have indoor plumbing.
“Feb 26, 2022 — Meanwhile, 22.6% of Russians do not have indoor plumbing. In rural Russia, almost 2/3 have no access to indoor toilets, 48.1% use outhouses …”
A thought-provoking article from the Guardian, arguing that the terror of nuclear war widely felt throughout the Cold War has faded, and that this is dangerous. While it would be wrong to let that fear prevent Ukraine being assisted, great care should be taken to minimise the risk of a direct Russia-NATO clash, and I am alarmed by some of the gung-ho sentiment (“On to Moscow!!!”) I see in some Daily Kos comments, for example. If Putin is backed into a corner where he sees using nukes as the only alternative to losing power, there can be no certainty he would not use them, or that his subordinates would refuse his orders. Does anyone doubt Hitler would have used nukes (and his subordinates obeyed) in 1945 if he had them, even if the Allies had had them too?
New podcast episodes:
Citations Needed – “Ep. 161: The Real Life Implications of Pop Culture’s Fascination with the Dubious Science of ‘Criminal Profiling'”:
Maintenance Phase – “Diet Book Deep Dive: ‘How To Take 20 Pounds Off Your Man'”:
Guardian liveblog:
Guardian – “Trump officials and meat industry blocked life-saving Covid controls, investigation finds”:
Re 487 (quote from the Russian mfa whining about Finland and Nato):
Response from Finland (a penguin meme; blf might want to check this out):
https://twitter.com/Aleksanteri_G/status/1524742938730795008
Akira @484, not all of those elderly retirees are right-wingers.
What it is really like being a Democrat in The Villages, FL
Guardian – “‘Sinkhole of corruption’: Trump Organization sells Washington hotel”:
Ukraine Update: