“Another life lost… 16 yr old #ZakariaKhial has been shot by #Iran’s security forces on Tuesday, in Piranshahr. He was protesting the death of #Mahsa_Amini…”
Russian military bloggers making lists of items for the mobilised vatniks to take with them are hilarious. I can understand some basics like clothes… but suggesting they bring their own armoured vests, helmets, tourniquets, and even… drones?!
I’m NOT joking. Here’s a list [link in Russian at the (Twitter) link] consisting of 18 points, I can’t be bothered translating this, but generally, they suggest bringing: camouflage, good boots, rucksack, loading vest, knife, flashlight, socks and pants, sleeping bag…
medkits, various tourist things like matches, powerbanks, also binoculars, thermal visor, armoured vest, a kevlar helmet, gloves, second uniform, another smaller rucksack, A DRONE, soap, shovel, radio…
“Amazing how Zelensky just stole the show the same day Putin said he was calling in the cavalry. Now the ultras in Russia are pissed and everyone else is trying to flee the country.”
Julia Ioffe: “It seems a protestor, a young woman, in Moscow has been killed by police who clubbed her in the head.”
Video from the scene at the (Twitter) link.
ravensays
@471
Oggie: Mathom
21 September 2022 at 2:34 pm Add-on to 469:
I am currently reading Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. The account of Stalin’s (and, by extension, Russia’s) attempts to completely destroy Ukrainian culture, the Ukrainian language, everything, is eye opening.
IANAH and don’t even play a historian online.
But I’ve learned a lot about Ukraine just by following the war.
And yeah, the Russians have spent centuries trying to destroy the Ukrainian cultural identity. That is a lot of what the current invasion is about.
Stalin made an attempt by arresting all the Ukrainian writers and artists he could find and just killing them. This even has a name, the executed Renaissance of Ukraine.
The Russians did this everywhere they conquered, killed and deported the native intelligensia, notably the Baltic states. They are still doing it in Belarus where the Belarussian language is under continual attack and fading away.
Executed Renaissance
Wikipedia
The Executed Renaissance (or “Red Renaissance”, Ukrainian: Розстріляне відродження, Червоний ренесанс, romanized: Rozstriliane vidrodzhennia, Chervonyi renesans) is a term used to describe the generation of Ukrainian language poets, writers, and artists of the 1920s and early 1930s who lived in the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic and were subsequently persecuted, denied work, imprisoned and, in dozens of cases, shot during the Great Terror (August 1937 – November 1938).
and
Almost three hundred representatives of the Ukrainian Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s were shot between 27 October and 4 November 1937 at Sandarmokh, a massive killing field in Karelia (northwest Russia).[17]
Elliot Higgins: “Sounds like Russian nationalists aren’t taking the prisoner swap well.”
:)
ravensays
“This wave of persecution in the book publishing industry rolled on top of another one the year before.” The dictator of Belarus has shut down the book publishing businesses in the Belarusian language.
“On the night of October 29, 1937, which is now remembered as the Night of the Assassinated Poets, more than a hundred Belarusian writers, poets, artists and scientists were executed in Minsk on the orders of Joseph Stalin and his associates.”
Where have we seen this before?
Hardly anyone speaks Belarusian any more. Polls show 10% of the population uses it in their day to day life.
The Belarusian language is under attack
Day after day, President Alexander Lukashenko is carrying out a cultural genocide of Belarusians.
Olga Loginova
Belarusian-American documentary filmmaker and journalist based in New York
Published On 12 Jun 2022
The Knihauka bookstore in Belarus, which specialised in Belarusian language books, had unexpected visitors on the morning of its first day of operations on May 16.
Rygor Azaronak and Lyudmila Hladkaya, two journalists infamous for spreading state propaganda, visited the small shop and criticised it publicly for its alleged “nationalist ideology”.
A few hours later, the police arrived, searched the store, confiscated more than 200 books – including a translation of George Orwell’s 1984 – and reportedly sent 15 titles to an “expert” to determine whether they contained “extremist materials”.
During the operation, the shop’s owner, publisher Andrey Yanushkevich, and sales assistant, literary blogger Nasta Karnatskaya, were also arrested on “petty hooliganism” charges that are commonly used in politically motivated arrests in Belarus. They remain behind bars after their administrative sentences were extended.
This attack on Belarusian language publishing was not unique or out of the ordinary. Earlier in March, Andrey Yanushkevitch’s namesake publishing house was asked to vacate its office. A year earlier, its accounts were frozen and equipment confiscated.
Several other publishing houses specialising in books by Belarusian authors or in the Belarusian language – Halijafy, Limaryus, Knihazbor, as well as the printing house Medysont – were ordered to temporarily cease operations “for violation of regulations” earlier in the spring.
This wave of persecution in the book publishing industry rolled on top of another one the year before. “With the current government, I don’t see a future for book publishing [in the country],” a Belarusian publisher who was forced to shut his publishing house and a bookstore recently told me. He asked to remain anonymous out of safety concerns. continues
Russian war propagandists also having a fit. Medvedchuk is liked by nobody. His wife once joked to me that she’d leave him if it weren’t for his Crimea mansion. I actually think she may have been serious.
“Breaking: @CNN reporting 11th Circuit court of appeals panel has quickly ruled in favor of DOJ and against Trump. DOJ can proceed with documents investigation, and not disclose classified docs to Trump team. Expect Trump to delay by asking for full court to review en banc.”
Oggie: Mathomsays
WARNING tl/dr for former Military Intelligence and still an historian.
About 15 years ago, the Russian Army decided to make a major change. They decided to recreate the Russian Army in the Western mold.
Western armies, including the United States Army, actually, all NATO armies, are based, at least somewhat, on the pre-World War I German army. Specifically: a professional officer class with higher education, a professional non-commissioned officer (NCO) corps, an active-duty army and a reserve army which are both trained to (reasonably) to the same professional standards. In the US, this means that officers often have masters, or doctorate degrees in their specialties. It means that NCOs are long-term professional soldiers, often holding college degrees (one of my Drill Instructors at Fort Leonard Wood had an MS in psychology and a PhD in public management). And these two groups, the officers and NCOs, are of similar experience, education and professional development in both the reserves and active duty forces. In the US Army, the officer decides what needs to be done and, if he or she is worth his or her salt, leaves it to the NCOs, who always have more experience than junior officers (up to and including Majors and Lieutenant Colonels), to decide the proper tools and methods to achieve the desired result. Almost all the training is handled by the professional NCO corp. And the NCOs have both the academic knowledge and the experience to handle most things that come up in, or out, of a combat situation. The sergeants are the institutional memory of the Western armies. Two of my DIs were Vietnam veterans. They had seen the elephant almost 20 years before. Additionally, the Western army has a huge tail — supply, ammunition, repair, food, etc. — with only about 15% in actual combat positions and 85% in support positions. This may seem like a bad thing, but it means that those fighting — sailors, marines, soldiers, airmen — actually have the tools needed for almost any situation.
Soviet-bloc armies are also based on a professional officer corp. And the similarity ended there. All enlisted personnel were short term soldiers — a two-year enlistment — with new classes entering the military every six months. NCOs, the sergeants, are the brightest or most enthusiastic recruits and are given a little specialist weapons training. So, for a recruit in a Soviet-style army, the first six months are spent learning how to be a soldier, think like a soldier, react like a soldier, and how to handle the tools. For the last six months of the two-year enlistment, in most units, the senior soldiers got first call on duties, food, clothing, everything. The final quarter soldiers, in many units, also hazed the newbies, sometimes resulting in deaths. The sergeants had no authority and, more important, no institutional memory. The junior officers filled the role of the NCOs in the Western armies. Which means that they had about the same experience with weapons and tactics as the soldiers (and sometimes less), but also had no institutional memory. The Red Army/Soviet Army had to learn the same lessons every time the junior officers were promoted. The junior officers not only had to be the junior officers, but also the junior and senior NCOs. And the logistical tail of the Soviet-style army was about 20% (compared to 85% in the US military). This situation continued into the early 2000s.
Around 2005, Russia decided that they wanted a professional army, similar to the German, French, Italian, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, British, American and Canadian armies. The massive stores of equipment — guns, tanks, IFVs, APCs, AAA vehicles, etc. — were no longer maintained as, with a Western-style army, a unit of a given size would have much better training, better equipment (because they didn’t need as much), better morale (because of better training and pay), and much higher combat capabilities than the same size unit in the Soviet-style army. This was seen as a way to develop a much more effective military at a lower cost (fewer soldiers and weapons) so that Russia, with its much-reduced post-empire borders, would be able to match NATOs combat power.
The programme failed. Yes, there were now some professional soldiers, but the living conditions were still so harsh, the pay so bad, that very few saw any future in a career as an enlisted soldier. So they filled it in with short-term recruits and draftees. Who were still in for a very short time. And the stores, the equipment, was scrapped or ignored (which is worse than scrapping). Plus, the Russians never addressed the logistical issues.
To me, what happened to the Russian Army in Ukraine came as a mild surprise. I was aware of the issues with Russia’s army both before and after the restructuring. I thought Russia would have problems with the tail — supply, ammunition, medical care, food — but I didn’t realize it would be this bad.
Putin’s decision to bring 300,000 ex-soldiers back into the army will be an even bigger disaster. Remember, these are the people who decided that a career in the army was not in the cards. These are the recruits who went in, learned the minimum, and got the hell out. With no professional NCO corps to train these ‘reservists’ (who really are not reserves, just ex-service members) in new weapons (the few the Russians have been able to actually build), tactics, lessons learned from the battlefield, or any of the hundreds of things that an experienced professional soldier knows and, if they are good, teaches, these soldiers will be cannon fodder. And the logistical tail, shrunk severely by interdiction missions by the Ukraine Army, just got even smaller. Three hundred thousand out-of-shape ex-soldiers equipped with poorly stored weapons, partial uniforms, no combat experience, and no supplies? Sounds like a recipe for an even bigger disaster.
Russian military leaders are worried. When this surge fails, Putin will want bigger weapons — nukes. However, nuclear weapons, even sitting on a shelf in a controlled environment, degrade. Explosives are, by definition, unstable. The shaped charges used to compress the fissionable material into a critical mass degrade and become problematic after as little as 20 years. Fissionable materials, themselves, are radioactive, which means that the actual chemical composition of the nuclear part of the weapon actually changes over time, building up, in some cases, poisons which will impede nuclear fission. Fusion weapons, the thermonuclear weapons, depend on tritium which is, short term, not very stable. Will they work? Will they splutter in partial fission? No one knows. Because the Russians have not been able to afford the expertise to actually maintain the nuclear force.
Does that mean it is a paper dragon? No. I’m sure some would work. Enough to cause massive casualties and enough to ensure return bombardments (Russian weapons would have to be aimed at large targets (cities) because of poorer targeting hardware and software. The Soviets made up for this by using much larger throw weight. US weapons tend to have much lower throw weight and much more precise targeting.) So if Putin decides to hit Germany or England (most likely aimed at cities) the return would be aimed at missile launch facilities, military targets, and command, control, communications and intelligence (C3I). The fallout would still be deadly but we in the west can assuage our conscience by knowing that we didn’t actually target the civilians.
No matter what, Putin’s current trajectory is, at best, a death sentence for tens of thousands of Russian soldiers. At worst, well, think Alas, Babylon, or On the Beach. Or maybe Putin is very close to deciding to commit suicide.
Not sure if any of that is helpful, but it has been percolating in my mind since the talk about the escalation of the war and I just needed to write it down.
Oggie: Mathomsays
Stalin made an attempt by arresting all the Ukrainian writers and artists he could find and just killing them. This even has a name, the executed Renaissance of Ukraine.
Hitler and Stalin both did the same thing to Poland’s intelligentsia after the partition of Poland. Hitler to remove any leaders from a nation of slaves, Stalin to destroy the potential leaders of an anti-Soviet resistance.
I strongly recommend Bloodlands. It is well-written, includes personal stories to illustrate the larger plot, and is truly horrifying.
Oggie: Mathomsays
Damn. I worship at the feet of Tpyos, and hir accolyte, htmailia.
A three-judge appeals court panel on Wednesday granted the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) request to continue its review of classified documents seized in an FBI search as part of an investigation of former President Trump’s potential mishandling of the information.
The judges, two of whom were appointed by Trump and one of whom was appointed by former President Obama, also indicated in their opinion that there appeared to be no evidence that Trump declassified the documents while he was still president and that his legal team “resisted” in providing any evidence that he did so using officials channels. [Yep. Total farce on the part of Trump’s legal team.]
They also questioned why Trump would “have an individual interest in or need for any of the one-hundred documents with classification markings.” [Yep, and a note that is a subtle “you were wrong” to Judge Cannon.]
“Plaintiff has not even attempted to show that he has a need to know the information contained in the classified documents. Nor has he established that the current administration has waived that requirement for these documents,” they wrote in the opinion.
The judges highlighted the Justice Department’s argument that the lower court “erred in exercising its jurisdiction to enjoin the United States’s use of the classified records in its criminal investigation and to require the United States to submit the marked classified documents to a special master for review.” [Yay! They corrected the error made by the judge who was in the tank for Trump.]
“We agree,” they wrote.
The appellate judges in their opinion also allowed a review by a special master appointed by a federal judge in Florida to continue simultaneously. The DOJ also appealed that appointment but eventually said it would be in support of one of the Trump team’s candidates for the position, Judge Raymond Dearie, who is currently serving in the role.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon had temporarily barred Justice Department investigators from using the documents in its investigation weighing whether to bring criminal charges against the former president that involve possible violations of the Espionage Act as well as other federal statutes. […]
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday hiked its key interest rate by 0.75% for the third time in a row as it races to get ahead of the galloping inflation that is sapping the earnings of American consumers.
Senator Elizabeth Warren made the point that the Federal Reserve only has one tool, changing interest rates. However, there are problems that need to be addressed with other tools. There’s the COVID pandemic, which is still affecting economies on a worldwide basis, and still hobbling supply chains. Congress should provide more funds to combat COVID, and the Biden administration should continue the push for booster vaccinations, testing, treatment, etc. There’s the war in Ukraine, which affects food supplies, energy supplies, etc., etc. And, she said, there are still some corporations that are price gouging.
Senator Warren made the point that raising the interest rate will also increase unemployment in the USA, so that raising of interest rates should not be the only tool being used.
Snyder’s course “The Making of Modern Ukraine” at Yale this semester is also available on YouTube. Each class is posted two or three days after it meets.
[…] Within minutes of the announcement, Trump’s spokes-shill, Liz Harrington, posted a comment on his floundering Twitter ripoff, Truth Social, that she apparently thought was a defense of her boss. It wasn’t…
“These people are DERANGED! [Former] President Trump did not inflate his assets. He UNDERVALUED them. They have turned New York City into a Third World country. They release violent criminals on the streets, and use their energy to go after a law-abiding, successful businessman, who is their number one political opponent. Sick!
First of all, Harrington is lying about Trump not inflating his assets. Not only does James cite abundant evidence that he did, he has even bragged about doing it saying in his book “The Art of the Deal” that “a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. It’s an innocent form of exaggeration. In other words, an “innocent” form of lying.
However, Harrington completely missed the part of James’ statement where she also said that Trump undervalued his assets in order to “to pay lower taxes.” So Harrington’s post is explicitly affirming that Trump is guilty of that charge in the AG’s lawsuit.
[…] If Trump is looking forward so much to defending himself against these claims, why did he take the Fifth Amendment more than 400 times when he was deposed by James a few weeks ago? Which is something that he previously said only guilty people and mobsters do? And why did he try to evade the depositions entirely unless he was granted immunity?
For his part, Trump also banged out a rapid reply to James in a Truth Social rant. He whined that this is “Another Witch Hunt by a racist Attorney General, Letitia James,” and that he “never thought this case would be brought – until I saw her really bad poll numbers.”
This isn’t the first time that Trump called James, who is Black, a racist. Nor is it the first time he’s shown his obsession with polls, even when they have nothing to do with the subject at hand. For the record, last month a Sienna College Research Institute poll had James beating her GOP opponent by 14 points.
Trump’s latest meltdown is typical of his desperate emotional state. Whenever he is confronted by bad news, he complains of his victimhood. Everything is a “witch hunt” and everyone is out to get him. And this is the model of a strongman that has so enraptured the Trump Cult.
not to mention they are still giving lots of coverage to the dead lady in England – Oggie: Mathom@475
Well that’s understandable: she’s still dead!
lotharloosays
@Oggie:
That was a very good read!!
lumipunasays
Update to my 495 on the previous page: According to this story (in Finnish) there is modest increase in traffic from Russia to Finland since yesterday:
This is like weekend level traffic, not any unusual rush. Thus far, Russian border officials aren’t trying to stop men/reservists from leaving the country.
Also, this thread (in English) explains in more detail what I meant by the likely impending “border closure”:
Three former SSRs, have said it is a felony crime for their citizens to go fight in Ukraine on the side of the Russians. The penalty is 5-10 years in prison.
This is the day after Russia said it would give citizenship to foreigners who fight in Ukraine.
Two of these countries, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, are members of the Russian NATO equivalent, CSTO.
It’s clear that the CSTO doesn’t do much and also clear that they aren’t on Russia’s side at all.
It seems like they know that if Ukraine falls, they are next.
Putin wants to recreate the USSR and they were once part of…the USSR.
22 September, 2022 mil.en.ua Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan reminded their citizens of the potential responsibility for participating in the war in Ukraine
The governments of the three Central Asian countries warned their citizens of the possible penalty for participating in the war in Ukraine.
Citizens of these countries will face criminal punishment and confiscation of property in their homeland for participating in the hostilities.
The Turkish international news agency Anadolu reported about this.
The Kyrgyz Embassy in Moscow released a statement that read:
“In connection with the State Duma of the Russian Federation adopting legislative acts, which provide for the simplified acquisition of Russian citizenship by foreigners who have signed a contract to serve in the ranks of the Russian military, we warn citizens of Kyrgyzstan who are temporarily in Russia against participating in armed conflicts or military actions on the territory of foreign states for which criminal liability has been established”.
Військовослужбовці Киргизстану
Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have also declared that their citizens would face criminal responsibility in their homeland if they participate in the war in Ukraine.
Citizens of Kyrgyzstan would face imprisonment for a period of 5 to 10 years with possible confiscation of property for participating in the war.
In Kazakhstan, the participation of citizens in armed conflicts or hostilities on the territory of any foreign country is punishable by a prison sentence of 5 to 9 years.
The Embassy of Uzbekistan in the Russian Federation stated that it warns compatriots against joining volunteer battalions and/or participating in hostilities on the territory of foreign countries, for which criminal liability has been established.
Військовослужбовці ЗС Узбекистану
In Uzbekistan, the punishment is a prison sentence of 5 to 10 years.
As previously reported, on September 21, 2022, Putin signed a decree on partial mobilization in Russia.
And before that, the State Duma introduced the concept of “mobilization” and “wartime” into the Criminal Code and approved amendments for liability for desertion during mobilization or wartime.
Reginald Selkirksays
@23: This is the day after Russia said it would give citizenship to foreigners who fight in Ukraine.
Wow, what an incentive.
/s
ravensays
@Oggie:
That was a very good read!!
Yes it was.
There is a lot of information coming out of this war about Russia and Ukraine.
Some of it of dubious reliability.
To take one example, Ukraine gives the number of Russian dead soldiers as ca. 50,000 and the US estimate is more like 25,000. The Russians are claiming 6,000.
The Russians always lie so we can ignore their number.
I have no way of knowing whether the Ukraine or US estimates are correct.
I have a keen eye for when someone needs a hug, a high-five or a sheet cake hurled at their face. Although I do sometimes get them confused. Never ends well.
ravensays
At least the Russian are on time.
This is the daily threat from the Russians to kill me and my cat with nuclear weapons. Along with a few million of my closest friends.
Medvedev is a loon and a troll.
He is also a very high ranking Russian official and is a former President of the Russian Federation.
Russia is what you get when internet trolls run a country.
FWIW, a recent paper in Nature analyzed what happens in an all out nuclear exchange between Russia and the West. Five billion people will die in the aftermath.
Jerusalem Post World News Medvedev: Strategic nuclear weapons can be used to defend annexed Ukrainian territory
“The Western establishment and all citizens of NATO countries in general need to understand that Russia has chosen its own path,” Medvedev said.
By REUTERS, TZVI JOFFRE, JERUSALEM POST STAFF Published: SEPTEMBER 22, 2022 12:27
Updated: SEPTEMBER 22, 2022 13:07
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday that any weapons in Moscow’s arsenal, including strategic nuclear weapons, could be used to defend territories annexed to Russia from Ukraine.
Medvedev, who also serves as deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said that referendums planned by Russian-installed and separatist authorities in large swathes of Ukrainian territory will take place, and “there is no going back”.
“Therefore, various retired idiots with generals’ stripes do not need to scare us with talk about a NATO strike on Crimea,” Medvedev wrote on Telegram. “Hypersonic [missiles] are guaranteed to be able to reach targets in Europe and the United States much faster.”
“The Western establishment and all citizens of NATO countries in general need to understand that Russia has chosen its own path,” he added.
Nuclear “winds” of war
During his Wednesday speech mobilizing Russian reservists, Russian President Vladimir Putin made veiled nuclear threats against Ukraine’s western allies.
“Those who are trying to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the wind can turn in their direction.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin
Putin claimed that Western countries had “crossed every line” and tried to “blackmail” Russia with nuclear weapons.
Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev gives an interview at the Gorki state residence outside Moscow, Russia, January 25, 2022. (credit: SPUTNIK/YULIA ZYRYANOVA/POOL VIA REUTERS)
Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev gives an interview at the Gorki state residence outside Moscow, Russia, January 25, 2022. (credit: SPUTNIK/YULIA ZYRYANOVA/POOL VIA REUTERS)
“We are talking not only about the shelling of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, which is encouraged by the West, which threatens a nuclear catastrophe, but also about the statements of some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO states about the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction against Russia – nuclear weapons,” said Putin.
“To those who allow themselves to make such statements about Russia, I would like to remind you that our country also has various means of destruction, and for some components more modern than those of the NATO countries. And if the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people. It’s not a bluff.”
“Those who are trying to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the wind can turn in their direction,” warned the Russian president, adding that Russia will use “all available means.”
Putin claimed that the West is trying to “weaken and destroy Russia,” adding that “When the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people. This is not a bluff.”
Is nuclear war possible?
A senior Biden administration official dismissed Putin’s nuclear-charged language on Wednesday, saying “we have heard him before wave around the nuclear card, and we heard it again in his speech today. And, in fact, the language and formula he used today is quite similar to how he’s spoken before.”
Tags Nuclear Russia ukraine Ukraine-Russia War
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YitzIsrael
2 hours ago
Russia can choose its own path within its own borders. It cannot invade other countries, such as the Ukraine, and force its path on them.
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ravensays
That 5 billion killed in a nuclear war isn’t just pulled out of the air.
We now have a good understanding of what fires and soot do in the atmosphere due to global warming research and weather research.
Full-Scale Nuclear War Could Kill 5 Billion People, Study Shows
By Alex Millson Bloomberg
August 15, 2022 at 8:00 AM PDT
Five billion people would die in a modern nuclear war with the impact of a global famine — triggered by sunlight-blocking soot in the atmosphere — likely to far exceed the casualties caused by lethal blasts.
Scientists at Rutgers University mapped out the effects of six possible nuclear conflict scenarios. A full-scale war between the US and Russia, the worst possible case, would wipe out more than half of humanity, they said in the study published in the journal Nature Food.
The estimates were based on calculations of how much soot would enter the atmosphere from firestorms ignited by the detonation of nuclear weapons. Researchers used a climate forecasting tool supported by the National Center for Atmospheric Research, which allowed them to estimate productivity of major crops on a country-by-country basis.
Oggie: Mathomsays
We now have a good understanding of what fires and soot do in the atmosphere due to global warming research and weather research.
WARNING–DARK HUMOR ALERT
A full nuclear exchange would also exacerbate atmospheric CO2, of course, contributing to ocean acidification, but, look at the bright side: global warming would slow, or even reverse, for a couple of years.
In his first TV appearance since a court-authorized search of his Florida home last month, Donald Trump reasserted Wednesday that any documents taken from the White House to Mar-a-Lago were declassified while he was in office, adding that a president can carry that out “even by thinking about it.”
So does that mean that the documents are still classified because Trump really doesn’t do thinking stuff? Does the responsible agency magically pick up the mental vibes from the President? Or do the thoughts of the President change the actual classification on the documents themselves?
Iran has shut off the internet in parts of Tehran and Kurdistan and blocked access to platforms such as Instagram and WhatsApp in an attempt to curb a growing protest movement that has relied on social media to document dissent.
The protests, which were sparked on 16 September after the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman in police custody, show no sign of subsiding. On Thursday, protesters torched police stations and vehicles in several cities.
This comes as anti-regime demonstrations spilled into cyberspace, with videos of women burning their hijabs going viral. Other women have been posting emotional videos in which they cut their hair in protest under the hashtag #Mahsa_Amini.
Mahsa Amini was detained on 16 September for allegedly wearing a hijab headscarf in an “improper” way. Activists said the woman, whose Kurdish first name is Jhina, had suffered a fatal blow to the head, a claim denied by officials, who have announced an investigation. Police continue to maintain that she died of natural causes, but her family suspect that she was subjected to beating and torture.
Iranian state media reported that by Wednesday street rallies had spread to 15 cities, with police using teargas and making arrests to disperse crowds of up to 1,000 people.
In southern Iran, video footage purportedly from Wednesday showed demonstrators setting fire to a gigantic picture on the side of a building of general Qassem Soleimani, the revered Revolutionary Guards commander, who was killed in a 2020 US strike in Iraq.
Demonstrators hurled stones at security forces, set fire to police vehicles and bins and chanted anti-government slogans, the official Irna news agency said.
On Thursday, Iranian media said three militiamen “mobilised to deal with rioters” were stabbed or shot dead in the north-western city of Tabriz, the central city of Qazvin and Mashhad in the north-east of the country.
A fourth member of the security forces died in the southern city of Shiraz, Iranian news agencies reported, adding that a protester was stabbed to death in Qazvin, adding to six protester deaths already announced by officials.
The Iranian authorities have denied any involvement in the deaths of protesters. [FFS]
Amnesty International said it has recorded the deaths of eight people – six men, one woman and a child – with four shot by security forces at close range with metal pellets.
The protests are among the most serious in Iran since November 2019 unrest over fuel price rises.
“The internet shutdowns must be understood as an extension of the violence and repression that is happening in physical space,” said Azadeh Akbari, a researcher of cybersurveillance at the University of Twente, in the Netherlands. “Social media is existential to the mobilisation of protesters, not only to coordinate gatherings but also to amplify acts of resistance.
“You see a woman standing without her hijab in front of the anti-insurgency police, which is very courageous. If a video of this comes out, it’s suddenly not just one person doing this, women in all the different cities are doing the same.”
“Women, life, freedom”, the words which could be heard at Amini’s funeral, have been repeated by protesters across the country, including in a video which shows young women burning their hijabs while male protesters fight off security forces. The video has received over 30,000 views on Twitter.
In a different video, an Iranian woman sings a hymn to fallen youth as she cuts her hair with household scissors, which has amassed more than 60,000 views.
…
Social media has long been one of the key tools for anti-regime activity, as public spaces are closely policed by security forces. “Platforms like Instagram became the virtual street, where we can gather to protest, because it was not possible to do that in real life,” said Shaghayegh Norouzi, an Iranian campaigner against gender-based violence who has been living in exile in Spain.
Norouzi said that while she had been able to keep in touch with activists in Tehran, she was afraid of future internet blackouts and what they could mean for the safety of activists.
“During the last protests [2017-2019], the government cut off internet for days at a time. During that time, protesters were killed and arrested,” she said. “Protesters are also using the internet to organise themselves. They can call each other and say when they are in danger or warn each other.”
Iran‘s powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps called on the judiciary to prosecute “those who spread false news and rumours” in a statement published on Thursday.
Amini’s death came amid a governmental crackdown on women’s rights. On 15 August, Iran’s hardline president, Ebrahim Raisi, signed a decree which, among other measures, increased the punishment for women posting anti-hijab content online.
At the same time as targeting women’s rights, Akbari says the government is tightening its cyber-regime. She fears that continued internet blackouts could be used to facilitate an expansion of the Iranian national internet, which is cut off from the rest of the world.
“This is a very dangerous plan, which would see the regime completely cut off Iran from the global internet in the near future,” she said. “This would allow the regime to control cyberspace along with policing the physical space, and develop an all-pervasive machinery of control.”
We have sanctioned Iran’s [so-called – SC] گشت_ارشاد# Morality Police, the entity responsible for the arrest and death of #Mahsa_Amini, and designated seven other Iranian security officials responsible for suppressing non-violent protests.
This is an obvious point, but it is easier to mobilize before you’ve sustained heavy losses than afterwards. Particularly if you’re fighting a war without clear goals and employing an unclear strategy to achieve those unclear goals.
The Finnish government is considering ways to sharply reduce Russian tourism and transit through Finland, the country’s prime minister Sanna Marin said.
Her remarks came after the Finnish border guard said traffic arriving at the country’s eastern border “intensified” overnight after Vladimir Putin ordered a partial military mobilisation.
Some 4,824 Russians arrived in Finland via the country’s eastern border on Wednesday, an increase of 1,691 compared to the same day last week, according to the border guard’s head of international affairs Matti Pitkaniitty.
Traffic at the border remained elevated on Thursday but was under control, the border guard said….
Protests are sweeping Iran & women are burning their hijabs after the death last week of Mahsa Amini, following her arrest by the “morality police”. Human rights groups say at least 8 have been killed. Last night, I planned to ask President Raisi about all this and much more.
This was going to be President Raisi’s first ever interview on US soil, during his visit to NY for UNGA. After weeks of planning and eight hours of setting up translation equipment, lights and cameras, we were ready. But no sign of President Raisi.
40 minutes after the interview had been due to start, an aide came over. The president, he said, was suggesting I wear a headscarf, because it’s the holy months of Muharram and Safar.
I politely declined. We are in New York, where there is no law or tradition regarding headscarves. I pointed out that no previous Iranian president has required this when I have interviewed them outside Iran.
The aide made it clear that the interview would not happen if I did not wear a headscarf. He said it was “a matter of respect,” and referred to “the situation in Iran” – alluding to the protests sweeping the country.
Again, I said that I couldn’t agree to this unprecedented and unexpected condition.
And so we walked away. The interview didn’t happen. As protests continue in Iran and people are being killed, it would have been an important moment to speak with President Raisi.
International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Karim Khan has said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe crimes within the jurisdiction of the court had been committed in Ukraine.
Speaking at the UN’s security council, Khan said the ICC investigation priorities were intentional targeting of civilian objects and the transfer of populations from Ukraine, including children.
In [Buryatia], male uni students are being taken straight out of classes. Some schools have closed and turned into enlistment offices. Men are being rounded up and conscripted from small villages.
This will all look *very* different in Russia’s ethnic republics than in Moscow.
ravensays
This will all look *very* different in Russia’s ethnic republics than in Moscow.
Yeah, it sure will.
There aren’t even that many Buryats in Russia.
It is a small minority of 461, 389 people who make up a much larger proportion of the Russian military in Ukraine.
They are being used as cannon fodder and they know it.
According to the 2010 national census, there are 461,389 Buryats in the Russian Federation.
Putin’s state TV mouthpieces insist that rich Russian oligarchs should pitch in to help save his failing invasion of Ukraine
The Kremlin’s cronies are now demanding that Russians “who are fattened up” help fuel Vladimir Putin’s disastrous war.
If Putin hoped that his invasion of Ukraine would conceal the way himself and his cronies have plundered Russia’s resources, it’s backfiring quite spectacularly and revealing some glaring shortcomings. More in my recent article…
Subtitled video and link at the (Twitter) link. “If there’s a Leopard 2 on their side and on ours a T-62, that is not a very persuasive picture.”
It was deeply odd to hear Donald Trump tell Fox News last night that he had the authority to declassify documents “by thinking about it.” But as part of the same exchange with Sean Hannity, the former president shared a related thought about the FBI’s search at Mar-a-Lago:
“There’s also a lot of speculation because of what they did, the severity of the FBI coming and raiding Mar-a-Lago, were they looking for the Hillary Clinton emails that were deleted but they are around someplace?”
[WTF??!!]
At that point, the host, apparently eager to help his guest, intervened to say that he wasn’t storing Clinton emails at his Florida property. The Republican responded that federal law enforcement officials “may have thought” that Clinton emails were at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump added, “And a lot of people said the only thing that would give the kind of severity that they showed by actually coming in and raiding with many, many people, is the Hillary Clinton deal.”
For the record, I couldn’t help but love the former president’s insistence that there’s “a lot of speculation” about the FBI seeking Clinton emails at Mar-a-Lago. That’s plainly false. What we instead have is a former president who keeps bringing it up, despite the obvious fact that it’s stark raving mad. [SNL skit]
If I tell a bunch of people that I might be the starting quarterback for the Miami Dolphins this weekend, I don’t get to then say, “There’s a lot of speculation that I’ll be leading the team on Sunday.” There is no such speculation. There’s just me peddling absurd claims about my athletic prowess.
As for the underlying argument itself, it’s a doozy. As we recently discussed, the FBI went to a court for a search warrant and pointed to a series of important statutes. But to hear Trump tell it, maybe the FBI was actually expecting to find emails belonging to the former secretary of state — who left office a decade ago, and who lives 1,200 miles away […]
In reality, no one in federal law enforcement is looking for Clinton emails — at Mar-a-Lago or anywhere else. So what in the world is the former president talking about?
Maybe he’s just trying to bring his former Democratic rival into the conversation? Maybe, as Greg Sargent suggested, Trump wants us to believe FBI agents planted Clinton emails at his property?
Forcibly conscripted Russians who do not wish to die ignominiously in a foreign country. Surrender when there is a first opportunity. Ukraine guarantees your life and dignified treatment. According to the Geneva Convention, you will not be extradited to the RF unless you want to.
ravensays
Igor Sushko @igorsushko
🧵#Mobilization: List of 305,925 names comprising the 1st of presumably 3 waves of Putin’s draft has been leaked. Pieces fiting together to further corroborate that 1 million people are intended for the draft, not 300,000.
94mb text file:
More on the Russian mobilization.
The actual number is up to 1 million people to be mobilized.
Russia doesn’t have the money to support and arm 300,000 people much less 1 million people. Not without raising taxes and cutting services anyway.
This isn’t going to go over well in Russia.
Republicans getting it wrong regarding immigrants and immigration laws:
GOP senator Marco Rubio wanted to provide Venezuelans with temporary legal status and work authorization as recently as the spring. Rubio released a video statement via social media yesterday, in which the Republican argued in an incredulous tone:
“In what country in the world are you allowed to enter illegally — into a country, violating its laws — and within a week be in court suing the very government whose laws you just violated? Well, that’s what we hear today, that the 48 migrants from Venezuela who violated our laws a week ago and entered the country illegally are now suing. They’re now in court; they have a lawyer; and they’re suing. This is incredible. No other country in the world would allow that.”
Rubio went on to insist that critics of the way the migrants were exploited are “hypocrites” — he was a little fuzzy on why — and “radicals” who “want to destroy this country.”
It’s not altogether clear what motivated such hysterical whining. […] he’s lashing out at these Venezuelans in the hopes it will impress the GOP base.
Indeed, Rubio pushed the same message, almost word-for-word, on Fox News yesterday.
At this point, we could spend a couple of minutes reminding the senator that one need not be an American citizen to seek legal recourse over government abuses. We could also note how curious it is to hear a Cuban-American politician, representing a state that’s home to many Cubans who sought refuge in the U.S. after fleeing a brutal regime, insist that these Venezuelans face an entirely different set of standards.
But what stood out for me most was Rubio’s repeated insistence that these migrants broke the law. They entered the United States “illegally,” the senator said, and “violated our laws.”
What Rubio really ought to know is that asylum seekers aren’t criminals.
As a Washington Post analysis explained yesterday, the asylum seekers fleeing the dictatorial regime in Venezuela “appear to have been legally allowed to remain” in the United States. The Post added, “Many migrants cross into the country and immediately try to make asylum claims, claims that have to be made on American soil. If the plaintiffs are seeking asylum from the Venezuelan regime, they are allowed to remain in the United States until their cases can be heard.”
Rubio marveled at these folks’ willingness to brazenly break American laws, but by all accounts, they’ve played by the rules. In return, they’ve been exploited, lied to, and condemned by politicians like Rubio.
Recent estimates suggest there are at least 200,000 Venezuelans in Florida. I wonder how many of them are taking note of the senator’s outrage.
Floridians, vote for Democratic Rep. Val Demings. She is running against Marco Rubio. She would make a far better Senator to represent Florida.
What Marco Rubio said as recently as April:
Given the Maduro regime’s ongoing campaign of state-sanctioned violence against the people of Venezuela and the humanitarian crisis present in the country, we request that you re-designate Venezuela for TPS for an additional 18 months. Failure to do so would result in a very real death sentence for countless Venezuelans who have fled their country.
Now Rubio has changed his tune. He has decided to lie. He has decided to promote disinformation about Venezuelan asylum seekers.
The Texas Republican was delighted to brag about delivering a “great victory” for his constituents. He neglected to mention that he voted against it.
Over the last several months, a variety of congressional Republicans have tried to take credit for infrastructure projects they voted against, hoping voters wouldn’t know the difference. Leave it to Sen. Ted Cruz, however, to provide us with a classic of the genre.
Last week, the Texas Republican published this tweet, which read, “The Ports to Plains highway will run from Laredo all the way up to North Dakota and into Canada. This project will bring jobs to Texas and millions of dollars to the state. A great bipartisan victory!”
The message appeared alongside video in which the GOP senator boasted with great enthusiasm to KAMC in Lubbock about the project, the years of hard work that went into it, and how proud he was of his legislative victory:
“We did the hard work to bring together Democrats and Republicans, and we now have designed I-27, the Ports-to-Plains [highway], to run from Laredo, all the way north through Lubbock, all the way up to Canada. That is going to bring jobs, $55 billion project, you’re talking hundreds of thousands of jobs. You’re talking tens of billions of dollars of additional GDP to the state of Texas. It’s a great bipartisan victory for the state of Texas.”
Sounds good, right? When senators deliver for their constituents, it stands to reason that they’ll brag like this to local outlets. What Cruz neglected to mention, however, was that he voted against the bill. The Hill reported:
Cruz and Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.) introduced a bipartisan amendment to an omnibus bill passed earlier this year that designated part of the Ports-to-Plains Corridor as a future addition to the nation’s interstate highway system. The Texas Republican supported the amendment but ultimately voted against the sweeping $1.5 trillion omnibus spending package when the Senate voted on the legislation in full.
In fact, as it turns out, in the same on-air appearance, Ryan Chandler at the local ABC affiliate specifically asked the senator why he voted against the bill he’d bragged about moments earlier. Cruz explained that while he supported his priority, the legislation included other measures, so it passed over his objections.
This part of the interview was left out of Cruz’s public-relations push. Imagine that.
Is it any wonder that even the White House is needling the senator over the contradiction?
In theory, the bipartisan Presidential Election Reform Act should’ve passed with an overwhelming majority. In practice, Republicans had other ideas.
During the debate yesterday on the House floor over the Presidential Election Reform Act, Republican Rep. Liz Cheney told her colleagues, “If your aim is to prevent future efforts to steal elections, I would respectfully suggest that conservatives should support this bill.”
The good news for democracy advocates is that a majority of the House members agreed. The bad news is that the vast majority of Republicans did not. NBC News reported:
The House voted 229-203 on Wednesday to pass a bill aimed at preventing future election subversion, inspired by the investigation into Jan. 6 and a determination to prevent such an attack from occurring again. The Presidential Election Reform Act was written and introduced earlier this week by Reps. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., two members of the Jan. 6 select committee.
[…] as NBC News report explained, the bipartisan Presidential Election Reform Act would amend the 135-year-old Electoral Count Act “to remove any doubt that the vice president’s role in counting Electoral College votes is simply ministerial. It would lift the threshold for members of Congress to force a vote on discounting presidential electors from just one member of the House and the Senate each to one-third of both chambers. And it would require governors to send electors to Congress for the candidate who won, based on state law set before Election Day, which cannot be retroactively changed.” [Good guidelines]
[…] Only nine House Republicans voted in the majority:
Liz Cheney of Wyoming
Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio
Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington
Chris Jacobs of New York
John Katko of New York
Adam Kinzinger of Illinois
Peter Meijer of Michigan
Tom Rice of South Carolina
Fred Upton of Michigan
What do these nine lawmakers have in common? Not one of them will be on Capitol Hill next year: They were either defeated in GOP primaries in recent months or they’re retiring voluntarily.
In other words, of the Republicans who intended to be in office in 2023 and 2024, they all opposed a bipartisan effort to prevent future coup attempts.
The fight now shifts to the Senate, where a similar-but-not-identical package appears to have the votes to advance, but where party leaders will likely wait to hold a vote until after the midterm elections.
It remains one of the most iconic moments of the illegal invasion of Ukraine. Throughout April, largely cut off from outside support and pushed back into a series of bunkers and tunnels that run beneath the giant Azovstal steel plant, these last defenders of Mariupol held out. They survived not just ground assaults and weeks of bounding artillery, but even strategic bombers flown in from Russia to drop massive explosives on their positions. Many times, when it seemed like they must be gone, they emerged to carry out counterattacks on Russian vehicles and to even gather supplies brought in by daring helicopter crews. Through it all, they guarded a group of civilians, kept safe far underground.
Russian forces surrounded Mariupol and laid siege to the city starting on March 2, a week after the invasion began. By April 12, Russian troops moved into the city in force, even as Ukrainian resistance fought a desperate holding action in the streets, parks, and factories. On April 22, most of the Ukrainian forces remaining in the city—both Azov Regiment and other Ukrainian units—took refuge in the Azovstal complex. It would be May 17 before the defenders of Azovstal surrendered.
For Ukrainians, the fighters were heroes who inspired the nation in those early weeks of the war. For Russians, they were infamous examples of Ukrainian “Nazis,” and their eventual surrender was celebrated as signaling Russia’s complete occupation of the largest city captured during the invasion.
Now, 215 of the Azovstal defenders have been released from Russian prisons in a prisoner swap. Most of them are already back home, getting the hero’s greeting they far more than earned. Included in the release are men and women who became household names in Ukraine, like Serhiy Volynsky, the commander of the 36th Marine Brigade, Azov commander Lieutenant Colonel Denys Prokopenko, and combat medic Kateryna Ptashka, whose singing from the ruins at Azovstal moved people around the world. [Tweet and images available at the link, video of Ukrainian soldier singing in Azovstal Steel Plant is also at the link]
It wasn’t just the Azovstal defenders who were released in this prisoner exchange. The exchange covered a number of foreign fighters, including two Americans—Alexander Drueke and Andy Tai Huynh. The Americans were released along with three soldiers from the U.K. and fighters from Sweden, Croatia, and Morocco. Russia had declared that these foreign volunteers were mercenaries, not soldiers, and two of them were already facing death sentences.
As part of the deal, five of the most senior Azov commanders will remain in Turkey throughout the war, but they’ll be under supervision from the Turkish government, which helped broker the deal, rather than in confinement by Russia.
What did Russia get in exchange for a total of 300 prisoners released? They got 55 people. That included some Russian soldiers, a group of Russian collaborators being held for treason, and one former client of Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. That last would be Viktor Medvedchuk. Medvedchuk was the leader of a pro-Russian party inside Ukraine. He was also Putin’s pick to head up a puppet government in Ukraine when, in Russian fantasies, their tanks rolled straight down the highway into Kyiv and President Zelenskyy ran away. Medvedchuk also owns a very nice mansion in Crimea, which is definitely where he should go now.
To say that Russians are slightly upset about giving up the Azovstal defenders in exchange for Medvedchuk is like saying the sun is slightly brighter than a firefly. Russians are pissed at Putin. Especially so, as this deal comes just hours after the dictator announced his “partial mobilization” scheme that has men being dragged off around the country. But not to worry, those new forces will get plenty of training. [Tweet and video at the link: “newly ‘mobilized youths’ to be sent on a two week training course before being sent to the front. ‘That should be enough.’ ” There’s also video featuring Richard Engel’s reporting, he was two miles from the Russian border. Protesters in Russia chanting: “Send Putin to the trenches.” Russia tried to stop President Zelensky from speaking at the U.N. He received a standing ovation.]
The release of defenders of Ukraine from captivity was met with a long line of ambulances, and with a large group of first responders who helped the wounded into ambulances.
“It looks like Putin’s announced a partial mobilization, and that soldiers contracts have been extended indefinitely. Apparently, it’s because the war is going so well that Ukraine is about to collapse…”
My friend agreed that I could post their response here. So here it is;
“I’m worried sick about my friends in Russia, 300k soldiers will be mobilized in the first wave, the next wave will be dangerous for most of them.
I have some inside info from my close friends, about their drafted relatives;
They say that the fucks [are] just recruiting random people across Russia. Without combat experience, etc. Instead of the three or four months of training that the government is claiming they’ll get, they’re getting around ten (10) days.
FSB people are joking about this in cafes in my home town. They are literally saying that everyone in the first wave is a dead man.”
There doesn’t have to be a process, as I understand it. You know, there’s different people saying different things. But as I understand it, there doesn’t have to be — You’re the president of the United States. You can declassify just by saying ‘it’s declassified.’ Even by thinking it.
Trump knew about the process required to declassify documents:
[…] Multiple times throughout his term, Trump relied on intricate, formal processes to declassify records that he found politically valuable. This happened most clearly at the end of his administration with an order to declassify records relating to the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation.
In other words: Trump didn’t believe that he could declassify records simply by thinking it when it counted — when he was in office.
[…] During Trump’s final weeks in office, the New York Times reported last month, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows pushed federal law enforcement to declassify a “a binder of Crossfire Hurricane materials” that included texts between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, the MAGA bogeymen, as well as certain steps that the FBI took in its investigation.
Trump declassified the binder in the hours before his term ended, the Times reported, while agreeing to some redactions proposed by the FBI. That order was published on the White House website. […]
In Dagestan, a video appeared to show people angrily confronting an official arguing in favour of the draft at a recruitment centre.
The official said that her son had been fighting in Ukraine since February.
“You’re fighting for your children’s future,” shouted the woman, who was not identified, in front of a crowd outside a municipal building.
“We don’t have a present, what kind of future are you talking about?” a man in the crowd responded.
Much more at the link.
Pierce R. Butlersays
Lynna @ # 45: … Democratic Rep. Val Demings… would make a far better Senator to represent Florida.
After living in Florida more than half my life, I have to quibble with this.
While Rep. Demings would certainly make a better Senator than Marco Rubio, she seems basically sane and grounded in factuality, and thus would not represent Florida as well as the incumbent deranged dishonest dingbat.
Reginald Selkirksays
@30: … adding that a president can carry that out “even by thinking about it.”
Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kuleba, receives a standing ovation as he joins Stephen to give an update on his country’s war with Russia, and to share what it’s like working with his country’s brave leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
OMG Hallie Jackson is interviewing Trevor Reed (US Marine freed from Russia in April in a prisoner swap) on MSNBC right now and he’s wearing a NAFO/OFAN t-shirt.
Paul Ksays
Oggie: Mathom @12: I found this post very helpful. I have been following the war since before it started, and get most of my leads as to where to read from posts here. As things move from moment to moment, having a more distant view of the how and why just makes pieces slip into place in my mind.
If only empathy and longing for good outcomes worked the way prayer is supposed to, this would all be over. I feel helpless in the face of all that’s going on in the world, but am grateful to know as much as I can about those who are giving their lives to try and save it. Thanks, as always, to the folks here who keep us informed!
Senate Republicans voted Thursday to block the consideration of a bill to promptly require organizations that spend money on elections to promptly disclose the identities of donors who give $10,000 or more during an election cycle.
The body failed to invoke cloture on the measure, in a 49-49 vote. Every Republican present voted against the measure, while every Democrat voted for it.
[…] Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) brought the bill to the floor to highlight the reliance of Senate Republican candidates on huge cash inflows from GOP dark-money groups, such as the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC linked to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), according to Democratic senators familiar with Schumer’s thinking.
The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), has been a top Democratic priority since the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United in 2010 that enabled corporations and other outside special interest groups to spend unlimited amounts of money on federal elections.
Schumer on Thursday morning said the court’s decision more than a decade ago “has disfigured our democracy almost beyond recognition.”
The Democratic leader cast Thursday’s vote as a defining issue ahead of the election, when voters are bombarded by televised political ads funded by tens of millions of dollars in anonymous donations.
“Republicans today must face the music. Either vote to bring transparency and fairness back to our elections as the vast majority of Americans want, or block this measure and cast their lot with the forces of dark money,” Schumer said before the vote.
McConnell, a longtime opponent of campaign finance restrictions, dismissed the bill as a “liberal pet priority” that he said would give “unelected federal bureaucrats vastly more power over private citizens’ First Amendment rights and political activism.” […]
Schumer, however, noted on Tuesday that McConnell has supported requiring donor disclosure in the past.
“Even Leader McConnell used to support disclosure … then he did a 180-degree about-face,” Schumer said, quoting McConnell’s statement from 1997 that he thought disclosure was “the best disinfectant.”
The bill would also require groups that spend money on ads in support or opposition to judicial nominees to disclose their donors, a top priority of Whitehouse, who has spoken on the Senate floor regularly to highlight the influence of conservative group spending on the Supreme Court.
Whitehouse noted in a press release issued ahead of the vote that political spending by groups that don’t disclose their donors increased from $5 million in 2006 to more than $1 billion in 2020. In addition, political spending by billionaires has increased from $17 million in the 2008 election to $1.2 billion in 2020.
President Biden urged Congress to pass the bill earlier this week, decrying the mounting influence of dark money in politics.
“There’s much — too much money that flows in the shadows to influence our elections. It’s called dark money. It’s hidden. Right now, advocacy groups can run ads on issues attacking or supporting a candidate right until Election Day without exposing how’s paying for that ad,” he said.
Democrats in the lead up to the vote pointed repeatedly to a $1.6 billion contribution to a political nonprofit group controlled by Leonard Leo, the co-chairman of the conservative Federalist Society, which is credited with helping to reshape the federal judiciary in recent years. […]
Wonkette: “Law Closing In On Brett Favre” [and others]
Mississippi, the state where only 1.42 percent of people who qualify for welfare actually get it, has an ongoing scandal involving state officials diverting millions of dollars of federal anti-poverty funds into grifty causes for favored insiders, like the very nice volleyball stadium that former NFL star Brett Favre wanted built at the University of Southern Mississippi. Today, there’s another development in that ongoing scandal, as John Davis, the former director of the Mississippi Department of Human Services (DHS) is pleading guilty today to a bunch of state and federal fraud charges.
Davis agreed to plead guilty to two federal charges and 18 state counts in exchange for his cooperation with state and federal investigators; the plea agreement document does not specify what sentence he’ll have to serve. But how’s this for being a lucky ducky? Whatever time he’s sentenced to will be served in federal prison, not in Mississippi’s notoriously harsh state prison system.
The guilty plea involves welfare funds that Davis directed to companies owned by WWE pro wrestler person Ted “The Million Dollar Man” DiBiase, and to DiBiase’s son Teddy Jr.
Davis and the wrestler’s son apparently became friends during Davis’s term in office, from 2016 to 2019, Mississippi Today reports:
Davis instructed two nonprofits receiving tens of millions in welfare funds from his department to pay Teddy DiBiase Jr. under what the federal court filing called “sham contracts” to deliver personal development courses to state employees and a program for inner-city youth, “regardless of whether any work had been performed and knowing that no work would ever be performed.”
This makes Davis the third person involved in the scandal to agree in a plea deal to help investigators. In April, Nancy New and her son Zach New agreed to plead guilty to state and federal charges as well; Nancy New had been the director of the Mississippi Community Education Center, one of the nonprofits that took part in the misuse of funds from the federal Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program, which replaced what we used to call “welfare” and frankly still do.
The federal “bill of information” (it’s like an indictment but different, since Davis is pleading guilty) explains that Davis directed funds from TANF and another federal program, The Emergency Food Assistance Program […], to nonprofits run by unnamed co-conspirators, under the pretense that the moneys would go to companies that would provide legitimate anti-poverty services. […]
The clever journos at Mississippi Today used the incorporation dates of the unnamed nonprofits and companies to figure out the identities of three co-conspirators. One was the Mississippi Community Education Center, run by New and her son Zach; another was the Family Resource Center of North Mississippi, run by Christi Webb. Two companies owned by Teddy DiBiase Jr. were also involved, along with another entity that couldn’t be identified.
The bill of information says that “As a result of the actions of DAVIS, the Co-Conspirators, and others, millions of dollars in federal safety-net funds were diverted from needy families and low-income individuals in Mississippi — all told, about $2.2 million went through the nonprofits to the two companies run by Teddy DiBiase.” Of course, that’s just a tiny fraction of the $77 million in misspent funds. Brett Favre himself received $1.1 million for PSAs he never made, and took a damn while and a lot of threats to pay it back, while cash assistance for people on TANF, for the entire state, totaled $3.7 million in 2020.
Casey Lott, the attorney for Cheri Webb, offered this hilaripathetic blame-shifting statement on behalf of Webb and her nonprofit:
The DiBiase’s and their organizations contracted to provide services to needy families. The problem is they didn’t hold up to their end of the bargain. And once they refused to do everything Christi asked them to do, she refused to award any additional subgrants to those organizations. This enraged John Davis. He yelled and cursed Christi and other FRC employees for not sending them money anyway. He threatened to cut their funding if Christi didn’t do what he told her to do. And when she stood her ground and did the right thing, he followed through with his threat. Christi is the only one who ever told John Davis ‘no,’ and she was punished for it. She was forced to lay hundreds of people off. Those innocent people who were providing much needed services to the North Mississippi community lost their job because Christi stood up to John Davis and did the right thing. So, to say she’s a ‘co-conspirator’ is absurd.
So maybe there was some corruption on the part of the rassler and his son, and on the part of Davis, but Webb and her nonprofit were but an innocent funnel with no idea that the money was in any way being misused. Mississippi Today notes that Webb “is facing civil charges but has not been charged criminally.”
Now, it’s worth noting that none of the documents in Davis’s guilty plea mention Brett Favre or the scheme to build that volleyball stadium. But Davis’s agreement to cooperate in the ongoing federal investigation could mean trouble for Favre, since now there’s one more person who might be able to shed light on how much Favre knew about the deal. Text messages revealed earlier this month indicated that Favre was a LYING LIAR WHO LIED about not knowing he was sticking his dick in welfare-money pie.
As the scandal continues to unfold, it also appears that that some brands that have featured Favre in advertising are “quietly distancing themselves” from him, reports Front Office Sports, although none has publicly commented on the scandal. Gosh, that’s too bad!
We’ll keep you up to date on the story as it develops, especially if Favre is caught trying to sell undrinkable water from Jackson, the state’s capitol, as a sports drink. You never know. Oh, yes, also a new development there: Last week, the city’s “boil water” directive was lifted, although occasional reports of discolored water continued. Also, on Wednesday, Jackson residents filed a federal class action lawsuit to seek damages for decades of terrible water. Again, no no real connection to the welfare fraud scheme, apart from the fairly obvious fact that the welfare of low-income residents is clearly the last thing on the minds of the Republicans running the state.
President Ebrahim Raisi, a hard-line cleric who was elected last year, signed an order on 15 August to enforce a new list of restrictions.
They included the introduction of surveillance cameras to monitor and fine unveiled women or refer them for “counselling”, and a mandatory prison sentence for any Iranian who questioned or posted content against the hijab rules online.
The restrictions led to an increase in arrests but also sparked a surge in women posting photos and videos of themselves without headscarves on social media – something that has only intensified in the days following Ms Amini’s death.
Masih Alinejad, a journalist and activist now based in the US, says the protests which have erupted since the death of Ms Amini feel deeply personal.
Over the years, she has run several viral campaigns against the hijab laws, including #mystealthyprotest and many, including the government, see her as an instrumental force behind the current unrest.
Women began removing their headscarves and waving them in the air at Ms Amini’s funeral in western city of Saqez on Saturday.
In the days that followed, they have taken to the streets across the country and some have been filmed setting fire to their hijabs to cheers from male protesters.
“When they did this it reminded me of the time people started taking the Berlin wall down, it’s that moment,” Ms Alinejad said.
“What makes me very emotional and hopeful is that this is the first time these girls are not alone. Now men are standing with women together.”
Zelensky appeals to Russians in his eve address. “55k Russian soldiers died in this war in six months. Tens of thousands are wounded and maimed. Want more? No? Then protest. Fight back. Run away or surrender to Ukrainian captivity. These are your options if you want to survive.”
A young Iranian woman without a headscarf is pictured standing on a wheelie bin in Tehran tonight amid near total shutdown of internet connections by the state to crack down on nationwide protests over the death of #MahsaAmini in morality police custody.
The Mar-a-Lago special master on Thursday ordered Donald Trump’s lawyers to state in a court filing whether they believe FBI agents lied about documents seized from the former president’s Florida residence in a court-authorized search last month, or claimed to have taken items that were not actually in Trump’s possession.
In a Thursday afternoon filing, U.S. District Judge Raymond J. Dearie — the special master — told Trump’s legal team to state by Sept. 30 whether they believe any of the seized items were incorrectly described in the Justice Department’s 11-page inventory list, which said some of the documents were highly classified.
Dearie also told them to say whether they are claiming that any items on the inventory list were not in fact taken from the premises.
Trump has said on social media and in television interviews that the FBI planted items when they searched his Mar-A-Lago residence and private club on Aug. 8. He also claimed to have declassified documents found in that search that were marked classified and were highly sensitive. His lawyers have not made similar assertions in court, however, instead saying they have not reviewed the seized materials and are unable to confirm whether the government’s inventory list is accurate.
Dearie’s order, in essence, demands that Trump’s lawyers back up their client’s claims. “The submission shall be Plaintiff’s final opportunity to raise any factual dispute as to completeness and accuracy of the Detailed Property Inventory,” he wrote. At a hearing Tuesday, Dearie pressed Trump’s lawyers to take a position on whether the classified documents were, as Trump has said, declassified, but they demurred.
[…] Judge Aileen Cannon never asked Trump’s attorneys to explain why they thought the inventory list may be inaccurate or why they implied that some of the documents that were labeled as classified were not actually classified.
In his order, Dearie gave the government — which is investigating the potential mishandling of classified information at Mar-a-Lago — until Monday to submit a statement declaring whether its inventory list is a full and accurate representation of what was seized. The government must also later respond to any factual disputes that Trump’s team raises in its filings.
[…] Dearie’s Thursday order said Trump’s attorneys and the government should review the non-classified documents on a rolling basis, with Trump’s team reviewing them first and marking any that it thinks are privileged. The Justice Department would then note whether it agrees with that assertion, and Dearie would settle any disagreements between the two parties.
They must submit all the documents to Dearie by Oct. 21 — more than a month ahead of the Thanksgiving deadline that Cannon set for the special master review. Trump’s lawyers said at a hearing Tuesday in Dearie’s Brooklyn courthouse that they believed his proposed schedule would not allow them enough time to thoroughly search through all the documents.
Dearie also said in his Thursday order that James Orenstein, a former U.S. magistrate judge for the Eastern District of New York, would help him with the review. He said Orenstein has served on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and holds top-secret government clearance, which means that if he would theoretically be able to review many of the seized classified documents if required.
Orenstein is most known for a 2015 case in which he determined that prosecutors did not have the legal authority to force Apple to help investigators bypass the passcode feature on a drug dealer’s iPhone.
Dearie said he expects to use court staff from the Eastern District of New York to help him with his special master duties.
Trump’s team proposed Dearie to be the special master — and the government agreed he would be a suitable choice. Cannon then appointed Dearie, ordering Trump’s legal team to cover the costs.
Since Dearie is still an active federal judge, he said in his Thursday filing, he does not plan to charge Trump for his work in this review. But he proposed that Orenstein be paid at an hourly rate of $500 per hour.
When Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration needed a company it could trust to carry out a controversial program to transport migrants to other states, it chose an unusual option.
Although Destin-based Vertol Systems Company is in aviation, its primary business is training pilots for the military and providing helicopters across the globe.
But the company was familiar to a key member of the DeSantis administration: Larry Keefe, the state’s “public safety czar” responsible for carrying out the governor’s anti-immigration programs. The company also has a private jet that flew from Florida to San Antonio a week before charter flights took 48 migrants to Martha’s Vineyard.
Before DeSantis hired Keefe, and before he was named U.S. Attorney for Florida’s Northern District by then-President Donald Trump, Keefe represented Vertol Systems in a dozen lawsuits between 2010 and 2017.
…
The state has paid Vertol Systems more than $1.56 million to, among other things, arrange last week’s migrant flights from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, which sparked outrage, a criminal investigation by a local sheriff and a federal lawsuit by some of the migrants.
So far, Keefe’s ties to Vertol Systems are the best explanation of why the state hired the company. The DeSantis administration has disclosed few details about the secretive program, which is being paid for with $12 million in interest earned from federal COVID relief money.
State officials haven’t said how they chose Vertol Systems, whether the state solicited multiple bids for the work as required by the Legislature, or even released the state’s contract with the company.
The governor’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Court documents and other records show the company is active in GOP politics. In addition to Keefe, U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, whom Keefe hired before Gaetz was elected to Congress, also represented Vertol Systems in two 2010 lawsuits. The company and its owner, James Montgomerie, have given $27,000 to Republican politicians and political committees since 2005.
Vertol Systems is also a partner in a company called Zeppelin Holdings LLC with Jay Odom, a prominent Okaloosa County developer and close associate of Gaetz.
In 2009, Odom was indicted along with Florida House Speaker Ray Sansom and the then-president of Northwest Florida State College on charges of funneling state school construction funds to build a hangar for Odom’s business, Destin Jet. The charges were dropped, but in 2013, Odom pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations in a separate case and was sentenced to six months in prison.
Zeppelin Holdings LLC owns an eight-seat Cessna Citation jet that flew a similar course as the planes that went to Martha’s Vineyard….
Neither Keefe, Odom nor Vertol Systems responded to questions about whether the Zeppelin Holdings jet was authorized to participate in the governor’s initiative.
Keefe was hired by the governor’s office last September as the state’s first “public safety czar,” with a $131,725 salary….
“Dozens of political activists and journalists have been arrested on Thursday evening as protests continue in #Iran. According to a human rights organisation at least 30 people are killed but the number is expected to be higher.”
They’re arresting and killing people because it’s so important to them that women put fabric on their heads. Find a productive use of your time and leave women alone.
David Rohde of the New Yorker just told Alex Wagner that he has information that the FBI is investigating Trump potentially having been showing people classified documents at Mar a Lago, among other unconfirmed leads.
Considering how the last couple of days have brought Vladimir Putin calling for partial mobilization in Russia, President Joe Biden blasting Russia in the U.N. for significant violations of the charter, and a big prisoner swap that saw many Azovstal defenders and U.S. POWs returned in exchange for an oligarch and some captured Russian agents, it’s understandable that the last few updates haven’t gotten far into the nitty-gritty of events on the down.
This afternoon is an attempt to remedy this, at least when it comes to the area around the northern Donetsk city of Lyman.
Despite 100 “any minute now” claims over the last few days, as of this writing (2PM ET, 10PM in Kyiv), it doesn’t seem that Lyman has been completely liberated by Ukrainian forces. There are certainly Ukrainian forces in the city, and Russia has certainly surrendered several positions that it has held over the last week of fighting, but the latest reports are that conflict inside Lyman continues. However, something else appears to be happening that may be more important than whether the last Russian forces have been booted from Lyman. [map at the link]
In the last day, Ukrainian forces have reportedly broken through the Russian defensive lines near Rubtsi, on the east side of the Oskil River, resulting in a significant movement of the front. The reports coming in on Telegram and Twitter at this point have the same kind of excited, rapid-fire change seen during the Kharkiv counteroffensive, with some reports suggesting that Ukraine has already liberated the town of Lozove—which was a position that Russia was supposedly using to mass for its own counter-counterattack. One report indicates Ukrainian forces failed in an attempt to take Karpivka. Other reports have Ukrainian forces as far north as Ridkodub (one of several new locations I had to add to the map).
Multiple Ukrainian sources have images of Ukrainian troops at Korovii Yar. However, it’s unclear if this is more than just an advance force moving through the area. There are a number of sources now claiming that this town is confirmed to be liberated. This alone would make for a 5-kilometer advance of the line in the last day.
It’s possible the area under Ukrainian control now extends to Lozove on the river and north to the Kharkiv-Donetsk border on the west side of Lyman, making this counteroffensive much more extensive than indicated on the map. Or, of course, not. In the post-Kharkiv counteroffensive period, there have been a lot more reports where formerly reliable sources seem to be jumping the gun, anxious to be first with some new announcement. In this case, it seems certain there has been some level of breakthrough near Rubtsi, Ukrainian forces have advanced to the next line of towns to the north, and that Russia has been put back on its heels in this area while fighting to hold positions around Lyman.
The map above represents a pretty good middle ground when it comes to the reports. Ukraine may have liberated more. We should know soon. Some of the reports also suggest that, rather than continue to the north, Ukrainian forces are swinging around to put Lyman in the kind of “pincer” that Russia tried, and failed, to achieve in so many places. If so, it should be obvious in the coming day.
Elsewhere, Russia continues to attack in the area of Bakhmut, and Ukrainian sources indicate Russia has had “some success” to the south. It appears Russia is not going to try to drive into the city from the east, but to flank current Ukrainian positions by trying to move southwest of Bakhmut. But as always, movements in the area have been small. In Kherson, Russia reportedly retook the village of Pravdyne in the southern part of the area in what Ukrainian Telegram channels called “an unpleasant loss.” This may be connected to images seen on Russian sources that reportedly show a column of Ukrainian vehicles being destroyed in Kherson.
Earlier on Thursday, there were images circulating that purported to show Ukrainian special forces at Enerhodar, near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. The best that can be said for these is that they are fake. Also … why?
The other story that’s circulating widely in the last few days is a rumor that the U.S. intends to send M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine. It’s a request that Ukraine has made for some time, and there’s little doubt the Pentagon would like to make them happy on this point. The U.S. has made over 10,000 Abrams. They can spare a few. It’s a matter of figuring out how to make it work.
More than 40 years ago, the U.S. and Russia took drastically different directions in tank development. Russia’s T-72 (and all its many descendants) is basically what would have been called a light or medium tank in earlier days. Though the latest versions have swollen to over 40 tons, it’s intended to be cheap, fast, and maneuverable. At the other end of the spectrum, an M1A2 Abrams tips the scale at 70 tons. It’s about 10 kph slower than a T-72, but that T-72 is not dressed out in a sandwich of depleted uranium, graphite, ceramic, reactive explosives, and steel. It’s also not equipped with a technical wonderland of thermal and IR vision systems.
Basically, the Abrams is a tank that’s meant to take a punch and keep punching. The T-72 is a tank that’s meant to take a punch and … be replaced by the next cheap T-72 in the line.
Does the Pentagon want to see how an M1A2 SEP stacks up against a T-80M or T-90? Or just how it holds up in a battlefield littered with drones and portable anti-tank weapons? Yes, it most certainly does.
However, almost every tank the Ukrainian military is driving now is some variant on the Soviet T-72 family (or older). Each and every one of the variants poses problems in terms of different engines, different electronics, different fire control systems, etc. At first even those differences seemed like too much to deal with, but as the war as stretches on, Ukraine has become fairly expert in handling a mixed bag of tanks and other vehicles from multiple countries.
On the other hand, the Abrams has nothing in common with anything now on the battlefield in Ukraine. It doesn’t just have a different engine, it has a different type of engine (a 1500hp multifuel turbine) and none of the fire control, visual systems, and coms gear inside the tank is at all compatible with anything else on hand. A tank company moves out with thousands of spare parts and truckloads of maintenance gear, none of which Ukraine has. It’s not just a matter of learning to drive the tank, it’s learning to maintain it, repair it, and deal with specialized systems used just in the maintenance.
But hey, you can load it up with 500 gallons of almost anything that burns. That’s something.
The training, maintenance, and logistical challenges of using the Abrams in Ukraine are almost insurmountable. […]
This is difficult, but not impossible. And Ukraine wants it badly, so it’s probably going to happen.
For now, expect other NATO countries to keep working to dust off their own older Soviet designs to send to Ukraine. But don’t be surprised if once mud season really sets in for Ukraine, there are Ukrainian soldiers doing some training in Texas.
Remember that part of Putin’s speech where he said this was only for members of the reserves with combat experience, and it wasn’t like he was about to start conscripting college students? These are college students being pulled directly from their classrooms. [video at the link]
Allow me to kinda hijack this thread to brag about my son, who graduated from infantry training today. [image at the link]
It’s not a complete hijack, because it’s a good excuse to point out that his infantry training was 22 weeks, or nearly six months. Think about that when you see these Russian conscripts getting sent to the front with two-week training (if that). Real military training takes time, effort, and resources. That’s why it took Ukraine 4-5 months to spin up their new Western-equipped battalions. Russia isn’t bothering with any of that nonsense. That’s a big reason, of many, why they have been so ineffective on the battlefield.
As for my son Ari, next stop is Ranger school. […]
In an event that some commentators are calling the day the nation lost its innocence, millions of Americans were stunned to learn yesterday that Donald J. Trump may have committed fraud.
As news of the New York State attorney general’s fraud lawsuit against Trump spread like wildfire across the Internet, Americans expressed shock and incredulity that one of America’s most successful and respected businessmen might have violated his own high ethical standards.
“I’ve been walking around in a state of disbelief all day,” Harland Dorrinson, a barber in Cleveland, said. “He held our nation’s highest office and always conducted himself with such propriety. I hope to God these fraud charges are some kind of mixup.”
Carol Foyler, an insurance agent in Tampa, agreed. “How could he have gotten involved in such shady dealings?” she asked. “He’s a very smart man. For heaven’s sake, he even ran a university!”
Davis Logsdon, a psychology professor at the University of Minnesota, said that it will be important for parents to talk to children who have been traumatized by news of Trump’s legal imbroglio.
“Anecdotally, I’m hearing that kids are taking the news particularly hard,” he said. “They feel as if the rug has been pulled out from under them. If Donald Trump is capable of misleading people, who’s next—Dr. Oz?”
Although not sure how much impact it will have both here and internationally?
For those who watch free to air telly in Oz – perhaps very small group here but still – some good docos on TV tonight. (23rd Sept 22.) DOCO ALERTS : C96 (9Rush) tonight from 9.30 pm ‘Through the Wormhole’ on parallel universes & then 10.30 pm ”How the Universe Works’ on deadly stars includiing supernovae, rogue stars and vampire stars plus more. Details via ABC’s online TV Guide :
How The Universe Works
Friday, 23 Sep
10:31 PM – 11:32 PM [61 mins]pg
The universe is home to real-life Death Stars that could destroy planet Earth. The latest science reveals the terrifying secrets of NASA’s six deadliest: vampire stars, supernovas , and unpredictable stars gone rogue.
&&&
Through The Wormhole With Morgan Freeman
Friday, 23 Sep
9:31 PM – 10:31 PM [60 mins]pg
Scientists explore the possibility of parallel worlds and parallel versions of reality; intelligent life in these alternate worlds might be trying to send us messages.
According to the author of “The Trumps: Three Generations That Built an Empire,” that very empire is on the verge of collapse now that New York Attorney General Letitia James is using the full force of her office to pursue Donald Trump and his children for real estate fraud.
In a column for Politico, Gwenda Blair asserted that, if the former president has one “superpower,” it is his ability to lie and exaggerate and convince people to believe him — which is at the root of James’ case against the Trump family.
As she wrote for Politico, Trump’s “…flair for tall tales would be his MO for more than four decades and arguably catapulted him to the presidency. But now, his main tactic has left him open to a civil suit that threatens to unravel his empire.”
After detailing the “gimmicks” and bravado that allowed Trump to build on the family name in New York, Blair suggested the mistake Trump made was thinking the same modus operandi would play in Washington DC — but instead, it led to increased “scrutiny” back in New York.
Controversial far-right attorney Sidney Powell was scheduled to appear before a Fulton County special grand jury in Georgia on Thursday, but did not appear as scheduled.
“Sidney Powell, former attorney of former President Donald Trump, was scheduled to testify Thursday morning, but sources tell Channel 2 Action News that there may have been some confusion over the subpoena, and she apparently did not testify,” WSB-TV reported. “It is unclear if there will be legal repercussions from her failure to appear.”
In January, Powell was subpoenaed by the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“According to court records, the grand jury wants to ask Powell about her involvement in an incident that happened in South Georgia in January 2021,” WSB reported. “Video shows several people being let into the County Elections Office to download elections data from voting machines and an elections server. State investigators call it ‘criminal behavior’ and say Sidney Powell paid for it all.”
A Michigan GOP congressional nominee being endorsed by former President Donald Trump previously argued that the country would be in a better state if women could not vote or be in a position to govern.
In fact, he also argued that the social system of patriarchy “is the best model for the continued success of a society.”
According to CNN’s KFile, the controversial remarks came from Trump-backed candidate John Gibbs, who recently won the Michigan Republican primary against the state’s incumbent Rep. Peter Meijer.
A Michigan GOP congressional nominee being endorsed by former President Donald Trump previously argued that the country would be in a better state if women could not vote or be in a position to govern.
In fact, he also argued that the social system of patriarchy “is the best model for the continued success of a society.”
According to CNN’s KFile, the controversial remarks came from Trump-backed candidate John Gibbs, who recently won the Michigan Republican primary against the state’s incumbent Rep. Peter Meijer.
Appearing on a forum hosted by his think tank, Society for the Critique of Feminism, Gibb argued that the country would be better if women were restricted from voting.
“Some argue that in a democratic society, it is hypocritical or unjust for women, who are 50% of the population, not to have the vote,” Gibbs argued. “This is obviously not true, since the founding fathers, who understood liberty and democracy better than anyone, did not believe so. In addition, all people under age 18 cannot vote, although they too comprise a significant portion of the population. So we cannot say that women should be able to vote simply because they are a large part of the population.”
Andrew Warren, a Democrat, was removed as Hillsborough county state attorney on 4 August after saying he would not enforce the abortion ban or prosecute providers of gender transition treatment for young people.
At a hearing in Tallahassee on Monday, Judge Robert Hinkle denied motions from DeSantis to dismiss Warren’s lawsuit, and another by Warren seeking an immediate return to office, instead requesting their differences be settled at a trial in the coming weeks.
“The governor now has to answer it to a court of law where facts matter and where you have to tell the truth,” Warren said in an interview with the Guardian.
“It’s a victory for the truth. A federal judge has ruled that the governor has to come into court to explain the reasons behind my suspension, to show that it wasn’t political, to show that it wasn’t in violation of my free speech rights, to show that it wasn’t in violation of the voters’ rights to have the state attorney of their choice.”
Oggie: Mathomsays
On another note, Wife and I sit our granddaughters (3 1/2 year old twins) four days a week. Which means that we have been tuning in to PBS children’s programming. Most of it is meh. However, Donkey Hotay is really well done. And it even has easter eggs for the adults: King Friday the XIII, for instance.
I have discovered that I can sing Dr. Suess’s ABC book. All except for W. W does not fit the ABC melody.
I am also working on adapting Green Eggs and Ham for a cappella voice. One voice for Sam I Am, one voice for the one who won’t eat Green Eggs and Ham. If I can get the melodies right, I’ll send it to my dad and sister who sing in a chorale. I bet it would work.
Currently making ham and bean soup to celebrate actually closing the windows and putting on a flannel shirt.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
The United Nations has said its investigators have concluded that Russia committed war crimes in Ukraine, including bombings of civilian areas, numerous executions, torture and horrific sexual violence.
The UN has made the investigation of human rights violations in the war a priority and in May its top human rights body mandated a team of experts to begin work in the country.
Since then, UN investigators, have risked their own lives to collect evidence of crimes perpetrated against civilians, including in areas still threatened by enemy forces or laid with mines.
The team of three independent experts on Friday presented their first oral update to the UN human rights council, after it launched initial investigations looking at the areas of Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Sumy regions, adding that it would broaden its inquiries.
The team of investigators visited 27 towns and settlements, as well as graves and detention and torture centres; interviewed more than 150 victims and witnesses; and met with advocacy groups and government officials.
Muslim clerics are urging Uzbeks not to join Russia’s war in Ukraine, warning that to do so would be against the Islamic faith.
Members of some “terrorist organisations” were attempting to recruit Muslims to fight in the conflict in Ukraine under the pretext of “jihad” or holy war, the Muslim board in Uzbekistan said.
But in reality, it was not permissible for a Muslim to participate in any military action except to defend their homeland, it said.
The statement by Uzbekistan’s top religious authority came after Russia offered fast-track citizenship to foreigners who sign up to join its army, part of a broader drive to strengthen its military.
Uzbekistan’s state prosecutors have warned its citizens not to join foreign armies, saying that those fighting in military conflicts abroad face criminal prosecution under Uzbek law.
A video circulated on social media earlier this month showed two Uzbeks captured in fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces. The detainees said they were recruited in Moscow.
Border queues build as people flee Russia to escape Putin’s call-up
Pjotr Sauer and Dan Sabbagh report for the Guardian on the exodus of young men from Russia:
Long lines of vehicles continue to form at Russia’s border crossings on the second day full day of Vladimir Putin’s military mobilisation, with some men waiting over 24 hours as western leaders disagree over whether Europe should welcome those fleeing the call-up to fight in Ukraine.
The Russian president’s decision to announce the first mobilisation since the second world war has led to a rush among men of military age to leave the country, likely sparking a new, possibly unprecedented brain drain in the coming days and weeks.
Witnesses on the border with Georgia, a popular route used by Russians to leave the country, said that some men resorted to using bicycles and scooters to skip the miles-long queue of traffic jams.
Footage from the scene circulating on social media appears to confirm these reports.
“I have been waiting in my car since Thursday afternoon,” said Anton, who declined to give his surname fearing it might complicate his travel. “Everyone is worried that the border will be closed by the time we get anywhere close to it,” he added.
Usually sleepy border crossings into Kazakhstan and Mongolia have also been overwhelmed by the sudden influx of Russians looking for a way out.
Russian international borders remain open for now, but there are widespread fears Putin will impose martial law next week in an effort to prevent a further outflow of men from leaving the country.
This is from Dan Sabbagh, the Guardian’s defence and security editor:
Western officials believe that Russia “will face major challenges” to mobilise 300,000 more people to its armed forces and that the country’s military will struggle to train and equip any new recruits unless the Kremlin waits several months before deploying them on the front line in Ukraine.
The intelligence experts acknowledged that the true recruitment target could be higher, but although some reports have suggested the Kremlin’s real goal is to mobilise 1million, the officials reiterated in a briefing on Friday that it was their belief it will be very hard for Russia to reach 300,000, never mind any larger figure.
When pressed, one official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that 300,000 was “an immense number of people to then try to get in any sense of semblance to be able to fight in Ukraine”. The official added: “The authorities will face major challenges even in mustering this number of personnel.”
Russia has faced problems with training and equipment throughout the conflict so far, and the officials said that would almost certainly extend to newly pressed recruits. “We think that they will be very challenged in training, let alone equipping such a large force quickly,” the official said. Recruits will likely be issued “old stuff and unreliable equipment,” they said.
Western officials believe there was a clear regional bias in Russian recruitment, focusing on poor and minority areas in the country’s east – and avoiding the country’s middle class urban centres. “We are not as yet seeing at the moment, recruiting teams in St. Petersburg or Moscow,” an official said.…
A video shows Russian men who have been called up as part of Vladimir Putin’s mobilisation being told by an officer that the “games are over”.
The officer is heard telling the draftees that they will receive two weeks of training before they are sent to the front.
ravensays
The US has noticed that Putin/Russia keep threatening to kill us all.
They’ve been warning the Russians that this isn’t a good idea.
To state the obvious, if Putin starts using nukes, even tactical nuclear weapons, that is an admission that Russia has lost its war of genocide in Ukraine. Winners wouldn’t have to use nukes.
And we will somehow retaliate.
“The Biden administration generally has decided to keep warnings about the consequences of a nuclear strike deliberately vague…”
Oh well, not only did they not ask me, the Biden administration isn’t going to tell me either.
U.S. has sent private warnings to Russia against using a nuclear weapon
Washingtonpost 09/22/2022
A Yars intercontinental ballistic missile is launched from an airfield during military drills on Feb. 19, 2022. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service/AP)
The United States for several months has been sending private communications to Moscow warning Russia’s leadership of the grave consequences that would follow the use of a nuclear weapon, according to U.S. officials, who said the messages underscore what President Biden and his aides have articulated publicly.
The Biden administration generally has decided to keep warnings about the consequences of a nuclear strike deliberately vague, so the Kremlin worries about how Washington might respond, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive deliberations.
PS: This is bringing up all sorts of memories, none of them good.
I grew up during the Cold War in nuclear weaponsville.
We lived near a Trident nuclear submarine base, an ICBM assembly plant, and not too far from a plutonium producing reactor complex.
We knew if there was a nuclear war, we would be vaporized first.
I was 5 years old when I started asking my parents about our bomb shelter.
In the video (amidst lots of obscenities) they say they’re on their way to a short stint of training in Kamchatka before heading to Ukraine…”
Video at the (Twitter) link. I…
Oggie: Mathomsays
PS: This is bringing up all sorts of memories, none of them good.
I grew up during the Cold War in nuclear weaponsville.
We lived near a Trident nuclear submarine base, an ICBM assembly plant, and not too far from a plutonium producing reactor complex.
We knew if there was a nuclear war, we would be vaporized first.
Wife and I feel much the same way. She grew up just north of DC and vividly remembers duck and cover drills. I spent middle school and high school near Hagerstown, MD — Fairchild Industries (manufacturers of A-10 Warthogs), Mack Truck (heavy equipment transmissions) were both in Hagerstown; up near Smithsburg was Fort Richie (a major communications hub for the military) and Camp David; and down towards Leesburg were ‘secret’ installations for military command and control during war — and we didn’t even bother with duck and cover drills. We figured we were toast. Lets face it, though — the whole east coast, between targets and fallout from western strikes, I, and my family, would be toast pretty much no matter what we do. Depressing to be thinking about this again.
Deadly Hurricane Fiona has strengthened into a Category 4 storm as it barrels toward Canada’s Atlantic coast, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Officials in Canada’s Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island are urging those in the storm’s path to be on high alert and prepare for the impact of the hurricane, which has already claimed the lives of at least five people and shut off power for millions this week as it battered multiple Caribbean islands.
“The Air Force Hurricane Hunters have been investigating the major hurricane and have found that it remains powerful and very large,” the center said in an update Friday morning.
The storm “is projected to be a significant and historical weather event for Nova Scotia,” said John Lohr, the minister responsible for the provincial Emergency Management Office.
“It has the potential to be very dangerous. Impacts are projected to be felt across the province. Every Nova Scotian should be preparing today,” Lohr added during an official update Thursday.
The area hasn’t seen a storm this intense for about 50 years, according to Chris Fogarty, manager for Canadian Hurricane Centre.
“Please take it seriously because we are seeing meteorological numbers in our weather maps that are rarely seen here,” Fogarty said.
…
“Once Fiona passes by Bermuda, the storm is forecast to impact Nova Scotia by Saturday afternoon. Fiona will become extratropical before impact, but this will do little to hinder the damage that Fiona will cause,” CNN Meteorologist Robert Shackelford explained.
Across Atlantic Canada, winds could be around 100 mph (160 kph) as Fiona makes landfall on Nova Scotia, Shackelford said….
A tropical depression that formed early Friday morning in the central Caribbean Sea can potentially take aim at South Florida as a hurricane as early as Wednesday, according to forecasters.
Tropical Depression 9 formed at 5 a.m. on Friday and has maximum sustained winds of 35 mph. The depression is currently located 615 miles east-southeast of Kingston, Jamaica, and is moving west-northwest at 13 mph.
The tropical depression can be upgraded to a tropical storm and receive a name sometime on Friday, forecasters said [Hermine is next, I think]. A depression is a tropical cyclone with maximum sustained winds of 38 mph or less, while a tropical storm has maximum sustained winds of 39 to 73 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Tropical Depression 9 is forecasted to bring gusty winds and heavy rain to Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao, Jamaica and northern parts of South America through the weekend. On Monday, it is expected to impact Cuba, then emerge over the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday, affecting Florida on Wednesday.
As the storm has potential to rapidly intensify over the next few days into early next week, it may hit South Florida as a hurricane on Wednesday. The exact timing and location of where it would make landfall was unknown Friday.
The potential hurricane is currently forecasted to approach Florida as strong as Category 2 storm, meaning winds of 96 to 110 mph can cause extensive damage to well-constructed homes, snap or uproot shallowly-rooted trees and block roads, according to the National Hurricane Center. Power outages that last days or weeks are also a possibility.
A hurricane hasn’t made landfall on the Florida Peninsula in five years, since Irma in 2017, while the northwestern part of the state was pummeled by Sally in 2020 and Michael in 2018.
StevoRsays
For those like me who are interested in the Artemis 1 -SLS launch :
Meduza has learned from a source close to one of Russia’s federal ministries that the Kremlin plans to conscript 1.2 million people — four times more than Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu claimed when the mobilization was announced.
This just keeps getting worse.
They are up to 1.2 million men conscripted now, definitely a full mobilization no matter what they call it.
Russia doesn’t have the resources to feed, support, and equip this number of soldiers. Especially with the winter coming up.
They are also destroying their economy to do this by taking workers out of necessary jobs.
Reports are that they will be given a few weeks training and minimal and obsolete weapons and sent to the front in Ukraine.
Where they will promptly end up as dead cannon fodder by the Urkainians.
This won’t end well for the Russians.
(They are trying to replay World War II where Stalin used human wave tactics to defeat the Germans. It worked but…”The Soviet Union lost around 27 million people during the war, including 8.7 million military and 19 million civilians.” 9 million soldiers dead is a lot.
This isn’t WWII though. Instead of resisting the German attack, the Russians are the Germans and they are trying to genocide the Ukrainians.) Will it work this time?
I don’t see how but we are about to find out the hard way.
PS: If the conscripts start taking heavy casualties, I don’t see why they don’t just start shooting their officers. It is clear none of them want to be there.
Make no mistake about it, that Vladimir Putin had to go on television in Russia and announce any sort of mobilization at all is a huge admission of failure. Putin launched his illegal, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine with the real expectation that he would be touring around Kyiv within the week. He expected Ukrainian forces to surrender en masse. He expected President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to take the first flight out of the country. He expected to install Viktor Medvedchuk as the leader of a puppet government while they planned, with plenty of pomp and ceremony, the reinstitution of the Soviet Union with Ukraine as a client state.
Russia was going to “demilitarize” Ukraine by destroying its military. It was going to “de-Nazify” Ukraine by destroying its government. And it was going to “free” Ukraine … to be a vassal of Moscow.
Russian troops in that media-hyped “40-kilometer caravan” heading down the road from Belarus to the outskirts of Kyiv didn’t bring along their dress uniforms just for the hell of it. They expected to don those uniforms, take a victory stroll, and raise a Russian flag right in the middle of Independence Square.
The last thing any of them expected was that Ukraine would fight. That Zelenskyy would stay. That the only time those dress uniforms would be seen was when they were removed from the shells of destroyed tanks. And none of them expected that the Russian military would prove to be so utterly ineffective in an actual fight against even a modestly competent opponent.
Russia’s withdrawal from the area around Kyiv was a crushing defeat that signaled an end for Putin’s big dream of Soviet Union 2.0. But rather than just drag their troops home, Russia took the survivors of the Battle of Kyiv and shoved them into the areas where they had met with some success: the Donbas and the coastal south. It’s no coincidence that the Izyum salient grew as Russia pulled its forces from area around Kyiv, Sumy, and Chernihiv. The capture of the entire Donbas became Putin’s widely announced consolation prize. Russia may not take Kyiv, but by Stalin, with all the force of the Russian military, they could take two states in eastern Ukraine; states where they had occupied half the territory since 2014.
Only they could not. For the last seven months, Russia’s “professional military,” aided by mercenaries from the Wagner Group and the sadistic Chechen TikTok brigade, have tried to take that one little area, an area that is smaller than the city limits of New York. What they’ve managed to do instead is to lose over 50,000 men, more than 2,000 tanks, and 100% of their reputation as an effective fighting force.
Putin invaded Ukraine seeking to destroy an army. And he did. Only it was Russia’s army.
With multiple reports that Battalion Tactical Groups are operating with fewer than half the troops they should have, that maintenance crews and support staff have been turned into front-line forces, and that even then many of these units have trouble scraping up 60 men for infantry, someone finally had to tell Putin that unless they did something, the counteroffensive that swept away Russian gains in Kharkiv was going to be the counteroffensive that pushed Russia back to the border.
Back in March, independent journalist Kamil Galeev wrote a lengthy thread showing just why the Russian army couldn’t perform in the field, and why “the world’s second strongest army” was turning out to be the second-strongest army in Ukraine. In large part, that’s because the Russian military is a trash heap. Members of the military aren’t considered heroes in modern Russia. Mobsters and oligarchs are heroes. Soldiers are suckers, the poorest of the poor, almost universally from ethnic minorities and outlying regions that Muscovites look down as with pure disdain. They’ve given almost no training, have their best equipment stolen before it can ever be used, and get treated in a way that makes “cannon fodder” seem like a compliment. Overall they are viewed as people whose greatest contribution to society comes when they die and reward their families with a cash payout. [Tweet at the link]
Putin had resisted calling for mobilization, because he knew exactly what that meant. It meant that while Russians were perfectly willing to make happy noises about how Putin used his army of contract soldiers that the average Russian sees as a pathetic pile of misfits constantly bullied by Russia’s criminal-based upper class, they would not make happy sounds if they had to actually put an inch of skin in the game.
Back in May, a poll showed that poor Russians—those most likely to have relatives in the military—were, unsurprisingly, the ones most likely to be against the invasion of Ukraine. A majority of Russians who had trouble putting food on the table were either hesitant about continuing the war or straight-up wanted to withdraw from Ukraine. At the other end of the scale, wealthy Russians were hugely in favor of watching poor people get slaughtered for sport.
For decades, Putin has been able to simply proclaim “Russia Stronk!” as he sent his patchwork army to blow up buildings and stumble over the rubble. But as it turns out, Russia not so stronk. And now people—people not so poor that they joined a miserable, bullied military—are finding themselves rounded up and sent off to die with the same Soviet-era tanks, same moth-eaten clothing, same spoiled rations, and same nonexistent training as the rest of Putin’s deadenders.
The announcement of “partial mobilization” has already generated a sell-out on airline tickets out of Moscow, long lines at the few available border crossings, and protests in major cities. But what’s becoming clear as each hour passes is that there’s nothing “partial” about this mobilization for most of Russia. Putin’s claim that this would affect only members of the reserves, and then only those with prior combat experience, is simply another lie.
University classes are already being hauled off as a group. Protestors become instant conscripts. Circulating lists of names suggest that over 1 million people are already facing conscription. As always, the location of those names is far from equitable. The numbers in major cities in the western part of Russia may be relatively small. The numbers in the east are simply overwhelming. [Tweet and video at the link]
Vladimir Putin crashed the Russian army on the rocks of Ukraine. What’s left if it is a wreck tottering on the edge of total destruction. The situation is so bad that Putin has turned to what is legitimately a last-ditch effort to patch the holes and try to keep things afloat long enough to … to …
And that’s the real kicker. Putin will hold his mock elections. He will proclaim parts of Ukraine to be parts of Russia. But he will never get to keep them. Still, maybe he will get a little ethnic cleansing done and call that victory.
Maybe it’s time for another poll on just how much Russians love this war.
The Russian Army conscripts are not only getting ancient equipment dragged out of long term storage, but they will be going up against Ukrainian soldiers who have better weapons, have developed tactics to defeat Russian tactics, have learned how to integrate armour, artillery, air and infantry into the old Soviet Army idea of combined arms tactics, and are also the survivors more than half a year of combat operations. In short, neophytes with poor weapons, tactics and knowledge versus veterans with decent weapons, well-learned tactics, and intimate personal knowledge of how to be soldiers in combat.
Putin reminds me of the king in Schreck: “Some of you may die, but that’s a chance I’m willing to take.”
Georgia’s Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker just can’t seem to tell the truth—whether it’s about himself, his children, his businesses, or even charitable donations he may have made (but probably didn’t).
In an archived website, The New York Times uncovered a pledge from Walker’s Famous 34 and H. Walker Foods, brands that supply food to hospitals, schools, casinos, diners, sports bars, and even the U.S. military.
The website highlights that, as part of the brand’s corporate charter, “15% of all profits are given to various non-profit charitable organizations serving people in need.” The organizations are listed as Multiple Sclerosis, The Special Olympics, PE for Life programs, and the Boy Scouts.
The problem is, when the Times began reaching out to the various charities, there was little proof that Walker’s company had, in fact, given any money to the charities.
[…] Aside from his exaggerations about charitable donations, almost more insulting is that he’s taken full advantage of his “minority business” red seal but spends his time on the campaign trail [criticizing] the very federal programs that offer Black business owners a fair chance at success
[…] Walker’s company, Renaissance Man Food Services (RMFS), has taken full advantage of being “a certified minority-owned food company” and winner of “Marriott’s 2016 Diversity Supplier of the year” and the “Marriott International Diversity & Inclusion Award” in 2014, per their website. But during a Hall County, Georgia, Republican event in July, Walker launched into the usual GOP rhetoric of belittling the designation of “minority-owned” as “affirmative action.”
“They have regulations for everything. … I found out that I was Black, so my company was a minority-owned business. Like wow, a minority-owned business, what does that mean? It means you’ve got to fill out all of these forms,” Walker said. “I was like, ‘I got to fill out forms to be Black?’”
[…] Since announcing his run, the GOP and Trump-endorsed Walker has lied about everything from graduating from the University of Georgia, to hiding the fact that he had any children other than his one 22-year-old son Christian, to the mammoth exaggerations about his business acumen, to the tall tale about the time he founded (or co-founded) the veteran’s organization Patriot Support—which he did not. He even recently tried to deny that former President Donald Trump ever said the 2020 election was stolen.
The Times reports that during a 2009 interview with ABILITY Magazine, Walker proclaimed that “Fifteen percent of all my company profits go to charity,” adding, “As a person who was blessed, I think it’s my responsibility to share the blessing with others.”
[…] From the Boy Scouts of America to the Special Olympics, again and again, the comments the Times got from sources connected to the charities were either that the charities didn’t discuss donations due to privacy, the donations happened long ago, or there was no record at all of Walker’s donations.
Especially egregious is this detail from the Times regarding Walker’s alleged relationship with the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. When contacted, the report says, “officials said they had received gifts from Mr. Walker, but not in the last decade. The group’s records showed that Mr. Walker had donated $860 in 2005, and Renaissance Man Food Services gave another $1,000 in 2006.”
[…] the group could find only one donation since then that might have come from Mr. Walker’s company: a gift of $25 from ‘RMFS’ in 2009,” per the Times.
*I’m not going to call it a “new government”, because it isn’t one: Truss and many of her ministers were in office under Johnson, May, and even (like Truss herself) Cameron.
Bits and pieces of news, as summarized by Steve Benen:
To get a sense of where things stand in Republican politics, consider the fact that the National Republican Senatorial Committee is now asking supporters where they want GOP governors to “ship” migrants next. [Holy fuck]
———————-
According to a Politico report, top members of Donald Trump’s team are launching a new super PAC — dubbed MAGA, Inc. — that will “become the primary vehicle for Trump’s operation to engage in political activity in 2022.”
————————
In Pennsylvania, the latest Morning Call/Muhlenberg College poll found Democratic state Attorney General Josh Shapiro leading Republican Doug Mastriano by 11 points in the state’s gubernatorial race, but in the U.S. Senate race, the same survey found Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman leading Republican Mehmet Oz by only five points. [somewhat good news]
————————-
The latest Quinnipiac University poll in Connecticut also offered good news for two Democratic incumbents: Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Gov. Ned Lamont led their Republican rivals by identical 17-point margins.
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The New York Times had an interesting report today on a group called the States Project: “A Democratic-aligned group is investing nearly $60 million in state legislative races in five states, a significant sum in an often overlooked political arena where Democrats have struggled for decades.” [Good news about a good plan]
——————
The latest University of New Hampshire poll in the Granite State showed incumbent Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan leading Republican Don Bolduc, 49% to 41%.
On a related note, Bolduc declared this week that he believes the recent focus on reproductive rights distracts from “the really important issues.” [totally clueless asshole is down in the polls]
“The House just passed a Bill which prohibits the Vice President from doing what all the ‘great’ Democrat & RINO legal scholars said he couldn’t do, ‘under any circumstances,’ regarding sending election results back to State Legislatures. If the V.P. couldn’t do it, then why are they passing legislation saying he can’t do it. BECAUSE HE COULD HAVE DONE IT, and should have, based on large scale fraudulent election results. Would have been a different result. REPUBLICAN SENATORS SHOULD VOTE NO!”
Commentary:
[…] Part of this is notable because the Senate will still need to take up the issue of reforming the Electoral Count Act before the current Congress ends in January, and the more the former president lobbies against it, the more challenging the legislative circumstances will become.
But [Trump’s] rant is also notable because it helps capture a deeply twisted and potentially dangerous perspective.
[…] experts said ahead of Jan. 6, 2021, that then-Vice President Mike Pence didn’t have the legal authority to help overturn election results. But, as the former president sees it, if lawmakers now feel the need to reform the process, that must prove that the experts were wrong, and Pence could’ve handed him illegitimate power.
Or put another way, nearly 700 days after he lost, Trump is still lashing out at Pence for following the law instead of following his illegal demands.
But does the former president have a point? Does the reform effort itself suggest a problem with the law? No and no.
[…] when Trump and his confederates launched a campaign against the 2020 results, they sought to overturn the election by exploiting alleged ambiguities in the 135-year-old Electoral Count Act — a law passed in the aftermath of a brutally messy election controversy, which was designed to establish a congressional process for certifying electoral votes.
Leaders in both parties now agree that the law is due for an overhaul, in part to clarify the vice president’s ceremonial role in the certification process.
As for the former president’s contention that these efforts necessarily raise doubts about the integrity of the status quo, George Conway recently explained, “The Twelfth Amendment and the Electoral Count Act of 1887 already make it entirely clear that the Vice President merely opens the envelopes. But sometimes we want to make laws even clearer so that even semiliterate psychopaths have a chance at understanding them.”
The largest online forum of the “incel” movement has seen an increase in calls for violence, according to a new report released on Friday.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate found a 59 percent increase in the use of terms and codewords related to acts of mass violence on the “incel” forum, after analyzing over 1 million posts between January 2021 and July 2022, according to Friday’s report.
The term “incel” was created as a shorthand for “involuntary celibate” but has come to refer to a predominately-male movement that promotes hatred and violence against women and other groups.
The “incel” movement has been linked to dozens of deaths, including a 2014 massacre in Isla Vista, Calif., that left six dead and 14 injured, the report.
“Hateful” and “dehumanizing” language is central to the movement, with 21 percent of all posts on the “incel” forum studied for Friday’s report featuring misogynistic, racist and homophobic language.
The vast majority of users are supportive of rape, with 89 percent expressing support in threads that discussed rape. The forum also tolerated and promoted pedophilia, with 28 percent of users mentioning keywords related to pedophilia and 53 percent voicing support on threads about pedophilia.
The report noted that the forum recently changed its rules from blocking the sexualization of all minors to blocking the sexualization of only pre-pubescent minors, allowing for the sexualization of pubescent minors.
“Incels are not lone wolves or socially isolated,” Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, said in a statement. “They are in fact enmeshed in highly active communities with a coherent, evolving ideology that has radicalized further in the past eighteen months.”
he center called on technology and social media companies to make several changes to prevent the rise of the “incel” movement, including recommending that YouTube de-platform “incel” channels and that Google de-rank “incel” websites.
“Big Tech companies, like YouTube, Twitter and Cloudflare, have enabled this community,” Ahmed said. “They know about the problem but have failed to act. They are voluntarily providing a platform and monetizing content that encourages atrocities against women and girls.”
The woman’s ex-husband, who’s suing on behalf of a literal embryo, says her abortion violated his perceived “fundamental right” to parent.
ravensays
Some rare good news here.
The badly misnamed Project Veritas of James O”keefe has lost again in court, jury trial.
This happens a lot.
They deceptively edit their videos until they are fiction, get sued, and lose in court.
Reuters Project Veritas loses jury verdict to Democratic consulting firm
Fri, September 23, 2022 at 9:12 AM·2 min read
By Jonathan Stempel
(Reuters) – A federal jury has found Project Veritas, a conservative group often accused of using deceptive tactics, liable for violating wiretapping laws and misrepresenting itself in an undercover effort to target Democratic political consultants.
Jurors in Washington on Thursday awarded $120,000 to a member of Democracy Partners, co-founded by self-described progressive strategist Robert Creamer.
Democracy Partners claimed it had been infiltrated by a Project Veritas operative who lied about her name and background to obtain an internship during the 2016 presidential campaign, and secretly recorded conversations while working there.
Ukraine’s armed forces said it has liberated another settlement in the Donetsk region and improved their positions around the eastern town of Bakhmut. The village of Yatskivka in Donetsk region is now in Ukrainian hands, according to Oleksii Hromov, deputy head of the operations directorate of the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces….
Ukraine said on Friday it had shot down four Iranian-made “kamikaze” drones used by Russia’s armed forces, prompting President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to complain that Tehran was harming Ukrainian citizens, Reuters reports.
Ukrainian forces in southern Ukraine said that they had shot down the Shahed-136 unmanned aerial vehicles over the sea near the Odesa port.
Ukraine and the United States have accused Iran of supplying drones to Russia, something Tehran has denied. Zelenskiy has asked his foreign ministry to respond to the use of Iranian equipment, spokesman Serhii Nykyforov said.
“Such actions by Iran are considered as steps against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine and also against the lives and well being of Ukrainian citizens,” he said in a statement.
Military experts say the drones would be useful to Russia for both reconnaissance and as loitering munitions that can bide their time in locating and engaging suitable targets.
On Friday, a video posted online by an officer of the Ukrainian Armed Forces showed another long-range drone, the Mohajer-6, shot down by Ukrainian forces and afloat in the sea.
Finland to close borders to Russian tourists
Finland will close its borders to Russian tourists after Russian president Vladimir Putin issued a mobilization order earlier this week.
Finnish ministers on Friday evening announced that the government will prohibit Russian tourists from crossing its borders over the next few days.
“The aspiration and purpose is to significantly reduce the number of people coming to Finland from Russia,” president Sauli Niinistö told state broadcaster Yle, the Financial Times reports.
The decision comes after traffic at Russian border crossings with Finland surged after the mobilisation order sparked fears that men of fighting age in Russia would be ordered to the frontlines of the Ukrainian war.
In recent weeks, Finland has come under enormous pressure from its EU neighbors after it refused to follow suit in the paths of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland in banning Russian tourists from entering their borders.
Yashar Ali: “The family of Mahsa Amini is being pressured by the Iranian government to call on people not to attend demonstrations, and to give an interview with state TV absolving police of blame for her death.”
“In response to Russia’s use of Iranian drones, @MFA_Ukraine strips Iran ambo of accreditation & orders diplo personnel to be ‘significantly’ reduced. ‘Supplying weapons to Russia to wage war against Ukraine is an unfriendly act that deals a serious blow to Ukraine-Iran relations'”
Ukrainians have reported armed soldiers going door-to-door in occupied parts of the country to collect votes for self-styled “referendums” on joining Russia.
“You have to answer verbally and the soldier marks the answer on the sheet and keeps it,” one woman in Enerhodar told the BBC.
In southern Kherson, Russian guardsmen stood with a ballot box in the middle of the city to collect people’s votes.
The door-to-door voting is for “security”, Russian state media says.
“In-person voting will take place exclusively on 27 September,” Tass reported. “On the other days, voting will be organised in communities and in a door-to-door manner.”
One woman in Melitopol told the BBC that two local “collaborators” arrived with two Russian soldiers at her parents’ flat, to give them a ballot to sign.
“My dad put ‘no’ [to joining Russia],” the woman said. “My mum stood nearby, and asked what would happen for putting ‘no’. They said, ‘Nothing’.
“Mum is now worried that the Russians will persecute them.”
The woman also said there was one ballot for the entire household, rather than per person.
Although the evidence is anecdotal, the presence of armed men conducting the vote contradicts Moscow’s insistence that this is a free or fair process. [LOL]
…
A source in Kherson told the BBC there was no public effort to encourage voting, apart from an announcement on the Russian news agency that people can vote at a port building, which had been disused for 10 years.
Another woman in Kherson said she saw “armed militants” outside the building where the vote seemed to be taking place. She pretended to forget her passport, so she didn’t have to vote.
The woman said all her friends and family were against the referendum. “We don’t know how our life will be after this referendum,” she said. “It is very difficult to understand what they want to do.”
…
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent mobilisation of at least 300,000 extra troops has caused many Russian men of fighting age to flee.
One young Russian man who left St Petersburg for Kazakhstan to avoid the draft told BBC World Service’s Outside Source programme that that most of his friends were also on the move.
“Right now, I feel like it’s a total collapse. I know only maybe one or two folks that don’t think about exile right now,” he said.
He said some, like him, are travelling across the border, whereas others have gone to small Russian villages to hide.
“The big problem of Russia is that we didn’t think about the war in Ukraine in February as we think about it right now,” he said.
On Friday, the majority of the action when it comes to a counteroffensive by Ukrainian forces is along the Oskil River. But while attention has lately been focused on the city of Lyman and Ukrainian forces maneuvering to encircle the Russian forces there, it’s far from the only location east of Oskil seeing action. [map at the link]
While it’s easy to understand the attention being devoted to the southern end of this map, both because of the intense conflict around Lyman and the rapid expansion of the Ukrainian-liberated area immediately east of the river, at least three other areas are seeing active conflict along the river on Friday,
At the northern end of the line, Ukrainian forces launching out from Dvorichna have reportedly crossed the river, secured Hryanykivka, and are engaged in fighting at Tavilzhanka. Conflict in this area was first reported over 12 hours ago, […] There’s simply no new information.
Next down the line is the city of Kupyansk. This is the location from which Russia originally launched its “Izyum salient” to the west, so it only seems right that it now become a point from which Ukraine can work to the east. That seems to be happening on Friday. Though earlier reports had Russian forces trying to reclaim the part of the city east of the river, it now seems that Ukraine has secured that area, including a small suburb, and has moved toward Petropavlivka. There has been geolocated video of Ukrainian forces advancing in the area, and the destruction of a Russian tank, but like Tavilzhanka, it’s now been several hours since there was anything new from this area.
Next … Kivsharivka. It’s on the map with a yellow pin, not because either side has attacked it, but because the one thing that all the messages coming out of Kivsharivka seem to agree on is that no one is there. Well, not no one. Before the war, this was a substantial town of 20,000, and a good deal of that population still seems to be in place. It’s just that for something like five days running, there have been neither Russian nor Ukrainian forces present. The same may be true of Hlushkivka, which is that white dot just below Kivsharivka on the map. I just don’t have any information.
Senkove is the one place where Ukrainian forces have definitely reached the river on the west side, but don’t seem to have created a bridge to the east. It’s unclear why that may be.
Then it’s down to Horohovatka, across the river from Pidlyman and Borova. Pidlyman was apparently liberated five days ago, but conflict with Borova to the north has been sporadic. There have been some reports that Ukrainian forces are waiting for more troops to press south from Kupyansk before making a serious assault on Russian forces in this town.
And that finally gets us down to the south end of the reservoir near Lyman. What’s going on in this area? What isn’t? [map at the link]
On the west side, Ukraine has reportedly secured Rubtsi and Korovii Yar (which may be the location with the most alternate spellings on the entire map of Ukraine). From there, Ukrainian forces have proceeded into Lozove, which may or may not be fully liberated. But if it’s not, that hasn’t stopped Ukrainian forces from moving north of the town and reportedly reaching Pisky-Radkivski (which is fun to say).
Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces also seem to have made a thrust to the northwest. As in Lozove, there are some reports that Ukraine has liberated Karpivka, and there are reports of conflict both at Ridkodub and Nove. At end of daylight in Ukraine, there was reportedly a conflict going on in the fields midway between Ridkodub and Karpivka. Outcome unknown.
Swinging down to Drobysheve, there are reports that while the town is completely encircled by Ukrainian forces and under Ukrainian control, there remains within the town a group of Russian soldiers fortified in place. These are reportedly what remains of two Russian mercenary units identified as BARS-13 and BARS-16. In just the last half hour, Ukrainian sources have reported a Russian counter-counterattack on Drobysheve. It will be some time before we know if that effort was successful and whether the Russians trapped there were able to escape.
In Lyman itself, Russia still reportedly has artillery in the northern part of the city or in the area just to the city. There’s concern among Russian sources that Ukraine intends to drive from Drobysheve and Derylove to Stavky, then to come directly south at Lyman. That fear has led to some discussion of trying to get guns and armor out of the city now, while there is still a route of escape.
On the other hand, Lyman has been “about to be liberated” about twice an hour for the last five days. Except on those occasions when someone has declared that it was “already liberated.” So it’s hard to know how seriously to take any of the talk about Russian forces moving out.
If it seems like things are moving slowly around Lyman, […]
So give Ukraine a little more time. Things are going well.
Mobilisation is worrying many Russians. But not Vera: “I’d be much happier if my son got wounded fighting in Ukraine than die of alcoholism here,” she tells me. Our latest report from Moscow as the draft continues….
[…] CNN reports that there’s another battle going on concerning executive privilege. A secret battle.
In this battle, another set of Trump attorneys is working to prevent a federal grand jury from ever hearing evidence of Trump’s actions in attempting to overturn the 2020 election results, including how Trump participated in events leading to the violence of Jan. 6. Trump has reportedly constructed a “firewall” around the conversations he had in the White House, and tearing down that wall may be the most important step in seeing Trump indicted for his attempts to overthrow the lawful government.
Before he even stepped into the Oval Office, Donald Trump was abusing the idea of executive privilege. In particular, former officials in the Trump White House have repeatedly refused to testify or produce documents under the theory that Trump might declare conversations or documents privileged, even though Trump hasn’t made any such claim. Information that had regularly been available in the past was hidden behind privilege. Officials refused to appear before committees or to make regular briefings to Congress. At one point, Trump even tried to claim executive privilege over the census.
And now Trump is continuing to insist on a kind of former executive privilege over documents and conversations he never moved to protect while in office. Trump tried to shield White House records around Jan. 6 using this retroactive executive privilege. Mark Meadows declared that post-White House orders from Trump were enough to keep him from testifying. At one point, Trump’s privilege claims were so extreme that a federal judge felt it necessary to remind Trump that “presidents are not kings, and plaintiff is not president.”
The scale of the secret battle being fought to keep this privilege in place isn’t clear, because most of it appears to be happening under seal. Attorneys are meeting in closed chambers, making their cases before judges in hearings that are no more than numbered entries on the docket,
A portion of this battle temporarily became visible when former Trump White House adviser Eric Herschmann was issued a grand jury subpoena in August. As Brandi Buchman reported on Monday, Herschmann is known to have warned Trump in 2021 against removing presidential records, and told him that failing to return any documents he had taken could result in “serious legal charges.” Reports centering on the subpoena suggest that the jury also wanted to talk to Herschmann about “events surrounding January 6.”
But the effort to get Herschmann to testify became entangled with the ongoing fight over privilege. Herschmann is willing to testify. However, Trump’s attorneys are in court trying to exert privilege over conversations with Herschmann—including those that took place after Trump was out of office and Herschmann was no longer employed by Trump.
Herschmann, who was known to oppose many of the efforts to overturn the 2020 election, is just one of the people that federal prosecutors would like to see testify. They’re also seeking testimony from former White House counsel Pat Cipollone and deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin. Both Cipollone and Philbin have reportedly appeared in front of the grand jury, but only after negotiating carveouts that would prevent them from being asked about conversations with Trump.
Just as Trump’s claims to have declassified documents (while refusing to name any documents that have been declassified) resulted in pushback from Judge Dearie, Trump’s claims to have privilege without setting out topics or conversations that are specifically privileged is also resulting in frustration. As The New York Times reported last week, even Herschmann is frustrated by his inability to get clear answers.
For weeks this summer, Mr. Herschmann tried to get specific guidance from Mr. Trump’s current lawyers on how to handle questions from prosecutors that raise issues of executive privilege or attorney-client privilege.
What Herschmann got was a mixture of “perplexing answers” and advice that he “assert sweeping claims of executive privilege” that would put everything off limits, no matter the subject.
But there’s one big flaw with all of Trump’s arguments in defense of his privilege wall.
“The Supreme Court in United States v. Nixon (1974) held that executive privilege cannot be invoked at all if the purpose is to shield wrongdoing. The courts held that Nixon’s purported invocation of executive privilege was illegitimate, in part, for that reason.”
Who said that? The ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation said that in 2012, when they were insisting that President Barack Obama could not use privilege to hide details of the “Fast and Furious” operation. And that was a sitting president, who was dealing with a still-in-progress international incident.
What held with Nixon certainly holds with Trump. These are criminal investigations. Trump is attempting to use a “sweeping claim of privilege” to hide all of his attempts to overturn the election and his involvement with inciting violence on Jan. 6. His “firewall” should be given all the legal consideration of a stack of preschool blocks.
But that’s not how it’s being treated. And it could be this secret fight, held under seals of a different kind of privilege, that determines whether Trump climbs onto the podium at the next GOP convention—or watches it from jail.
Trump is threatening to flee to Hungary and to relocate his business there. Excerpt:
[…] Her [Letitia James’] despicable attacks on my children WILL NOT STAND!!! We will find someplace else to do business. Hungary looks VERY GOOD as both a business HQ and as exciting new vacation destination for MAGA!!!
Somebody added a #Satire-ForNow tag, so who knows what the heck is going on.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) claims Democrats are lying to voters by saying that Republicans want to take away abortion and marriage equality, two specific actions she supports and one of which Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) proposed in the Senate earlier this week.
Speaking on the Real America podcast with Dan Ball, Greene said that Democrats “believe the way to drive people to the polls is by scaring them.”
“They’re lying to women all over America saying they can’t have an abortion anymore, which that’s a lie,” she said. “There’s plenty of places that women can easily get an abortion.”
But if she and Graham and all the rest get the majority . . .
johnson catmansays
re Lynna @111: Bye!! Seeya!! Please do it!! And take all the MAGATs with you!!
In a candid interview guaranteed to make headlines, Melania Trump revealed that she wished she could get a divorce “just by thinking about it.”
While stressing that she had no plans to divorce her husband, Mrs. Trump said that doing so would require “a lot more than having the idea in my head.”
“I think to get a divorce one would need lawyers, courts, those types of things,” she said. “To say you can undo something like a marriage just by thinking about it is some kind of crazy talk.”
At the conclusion of the interview, Mrs. Trump emphasized, once again, that she was happy in her marriage to Donald Trump. “I live in a beautiful home with all the nuclear codes a woman could want,” she said.
An amended autopsy report released Friday revealed Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old Black man who died after a confrontation with police officers, died because he was injected with ketamine by paramedics after being forcibly restrained.
“I believe this tragic fatality is most likely the result of ketamine toxicity,” the report said, adding McClain received a higher dosage of the sedative than he should have. “Simply put, this dosage of ketamine was too much for this individual and it resulted in an overdose.”
The manner of McClain’s death is undetermined, according to the amended report.
The original autopsy report, signed Nov. 7, 2019, said McClain’s cause of death could not be determined, but new information that emerged during a grand jury investigation prompted the state attorney general’s office to order a second autopsy.
“The opinions rendered were based on information available at that time. Since then, this office has received additional material for review including extensive body camera footage, witness statements, and additional records,” the report said. “It is worth noting that these materials had been requested prior to release of the initial autopsy but the material was either not provided to us or not provided to us in their entirety.”
The amended report comes one month after Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser announced that two police officers, one former officer and two paramedics in the Denver suburb of Aurora had been indicted and would be charged with one count each of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide, among other allegations in the 32-count indictment.
Officers responding to a call about a suspicious person put McClain, a massage therapist, in a chokehold and paramedics later injected him with ketamine, a powerful sedative, on the night of Aug. 24, 2019, after McClain had bought iced tea at a corner store, authorities said. He died about a week later.
Although not unheard of, changing an official cause of death is rare, said Ian Farrell, an associate law professor at the University of Denver.
“In order for there to be a second autopsy, you have to have some reason to think that there was a problem with the first one,” he said.
The five named in the indictment will be arraigned Nov. 4 in Adams County District Court, state officials said. They are Aurora Police Officers Nathan Woodyard and Randy Roedema; former Aurora officer Jason Rosenblatt; and paramedics Jeremy Cooper and Peter Cichuniec.
…
The new autopsy report was released to the public after Colorado Public Radio filed a lawsuit against the Adams County Coroner’s Office for denying the news organization’s request for a copy of the amended report.
…
McClain had just come out of the store where he had bought iced tea when he was stopped by police responding to a call of a suspicious person wearing a ski mask and waving his arms.
McClain usually wore a ski mask because of a blood condition that made him feel cold, according to his family.
The officers questioned him and then grabbed him when one of the officers thought McClain was reaching for a holstered gun.
Authorities said officers applied a carotid control hold on McClain, a type of chokehold meant to restrict blood to the brain to render a person unconscious.
Paramedics called to the scene injected McClain with ketamine to sedate him. Inside an ambulance about seven minutes later, McClain did not have a pulse and went into cardiac arrest, according to a report released later that year by then-District Attorney Dave Young. Medics were able to revive McClain, but he was declared brain dead and taken off life support less than a week later.
I just watched the evening news and, watching the footage of the Russian soldiers holding the ‘referendum’ and I kinda wonder just how long it will take before a GOP candidate uses this footage in an add complaining about Democratic operatives collecting mail in ballots.
Seriously. Watching that was scary. Even Giuliani would look at that and say that it might not be really legal.
Roads going into the city are being blocked by fire and the police station was attacked a couple days ago.
The overrunning of local government municipality buildings in Mazandaran, in Iran’s north, was already unprecedented. Even if this control will be brief, I’ve never heard of this happening in any protest movement in Iran in living memory.”
Arizona can enforce a near-total ban on abortions that has been blocked for nearly 50 years, a judge ruled Friday, meaning clinics across the state will have to stop providing the procedures to avoid the filing of criminal charges against doctors and other medical workers.
An injunction has long blocked enforcement of a law, on the books since before Arizona became a state, that bans nearly all abortions. The only exemption is if the woman’s life is in jeopardy.
The ruling also means people seeking abortions will have to go to another state to obtain one.
An appeal of the ruling is likely.
The decision from Pima County Superior Court Judge Kellie Johnson came more than a month after she heard arguments on Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s request to lift the injunction. It had been in place since shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in the Roe v. Wade case, which held that women had a constitutional right to abortion.
The high court overturned Roe on June 24 and said states can regulate abortion as they wish….
I think the lines between the people for freedom and the people for oppression are being more clearly drawn around the world every day.
“these videos are horrific. Kids getting drafted into an army of occupation with no officer corps remaining and leftover equipment. they’re going to get mulched. utter madness”
Video at the (Twitter) link. Also, sabotage is a thing.
…For decades, policy development on the right was shaped as follows. Oligarchs and corporations funded the thinktanks. The thinktanks proposed policies that, by sheer coincidence, suited the interests of oligarchs and corporations. The billionaire press – also owned by oligarchs – reported these policy proposals as brilliant insights by independent organisations. Conservative frontbenchers then cited the press coverage as evidence of public demand: the voice of the oligarchs was treated as the voice of the people.
…
But now the thinktanks don’t need a roundabout route. They are no longer lobbying government. They are the government. Liz Truss is their candidate. To defend the interests of global capital, she will wage war against any common endeavour to improve our lives or protect the living planet. If Labour is looking for a three-word slogan with which to fight the next election, it could do worse than “Mend This Country”.
From your comment:
Starmer has made clear he will not support strikes or direct action
I’m baffled by this. Even people in Biden’s cabinet have joined picket lines (which is unusual in the US). What good is a labo[u]r party that doesn’t stand by workers? I honestly don’t get it. How is this not a dealbreaker?
How Putin’s Ukraine Gambit Doomed a Long Partnership
India’s initial reluctance to condemn Russia for its war against Ukraine has been the subject of much debate and criticism in the West. In mid-March, Jen Psaki, then the White House press secretary, urged India to reflect on “where you want to stand when history books are written at this moment in time.” Numerous world leaders and diplomats have expressed impatience with India for effectively abetting a Russian agenda by remaining on the side-lines.
Some analysts and former policymakers in strategic circles in New Delhi insist that such a reproach is unfair and fails to appreciate India’s nuanced position on the war. India, they argue, is merely navigating between clashing geopolitical powers, Russia and the United States, that happen to be two of its major partners. Yes, India notably abstained from key votes about the war in Ukraine in the United Nations (in the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Human Rights Council, and the International Atomic Energy Agency). But it has also toughened its statements about the invasion, decrying the killing of civilians and the violation of national sovereignty. New Delhi has its own concerns, this line of thinking runs, and doesn’t want to jeopardize its relations with either Moscow or Washington.
A deeper look at Indian actions, however, suggests an altogether different reality. India is not backing Russia’s invasion, nor is it simply balancing between two major powers. Instead, a subtle but major shift is underway: India’s slow but inevitable decoupling from Russia.
Such a reorientation began before the invasion of Ukraine, but the war has accelerated it. Although Russia remains for now an important source of both military equipment and energy, New Delhi is slowly extracting itself from any dependence on Moscow. Deeply entrenched anti-Americanism, a staple of India’s old strategic elite, is disappearing, and India and United States are now closer than ever before. Russia’s ties to China have grown stronger just as India and China’s relationship has become rocky; border clashes in 2020 left India’s government and strategic community viewing China as an existential challenge to Indian national security.
The contours of a future geopolitical framework are clear, with India drifting closer to the West and the U.S. to hedge against China and, in the process, withdrawing from its long partnership with Russia. This decoupling will not happen overnight, and Indian and Russian officials will make concerted efforts to keep the relationship afloat, perhaps for years to come. But larger geopolitical pressures will invariably drive India and Russia apart.
India’s decision to ramp up its purchases of Russian oil since the invasion of Ukraine has piqued many Western commentators. In February, just before the war began, India’s purchases of Russian oil were negligible; by April, they had risen to 389,000 barrels a day, and in June the figure reached the one-million mark. But the boost in oil imports is largely opportunistic. Russia has offered India deep discounts, much as it has other willing buyers. In May, for instance, buying Russian oil saved India $16 per barrel over the average oil import price for that month. The injection of Russian oil has helped alleviate economic distress resulting from the lingering aftermath of the pandemic and the rise in retail prices driven by the war in Ukraine. Indian officials bristle at criticism about these purchases, especially considering that most European countries have continued to buy at least some Russian gas—and have been reluctant to stop doing so.
In other important areas, however, great change is afoot. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Russia was India’s largest supplier of arms in the last decade. But from 2012 to 2021, the share of Russian weapons in India’s arsenal shrunk by nearly half. Over the years, India has been attempting to diversify its defense procurement, turning to alternate suppliers, including France and the United States. In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, New Delhi deferred its plans for more military purchases from Moscow, including a deal for 21 new MiG-29 fighter jets for the Indian Air Force. Indian officials claimed to have made the move to support domestic production, but the country is clearly slowing its rate of arms purchases from Russia. TThe protracted nature of the Russia-Ukraine conflict has also raised concerns in New Delhi about Russia’s military production capabilities. In particular, India worries that Russia won’t be able to follow through on scheduled deliveries of new hardware and spare parts for older equipment, especially in emergency situations.
At the level of public diplomacy, India is also sending important signals. The contrast between New Delhi’s official statements during the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the invasion of Ukraine earlier this year further demonstrates India’s tilt away from Russia. In 2014, there was little condemnation of Russia’s attack. In fact, Shivshankar Menon, then national security adviser, insisted that “there are, after all, legitimate Russian and other interests involved.” However, the phrase “legitimate Russian interests” is notably absent from recent Indian statements. Although Indian officials have not named or condemned Russia, their statements from March onward have been indirectly yet undeniably critical of Russian actions. Their continuous references to respect for international law, the UN Charter, and the principles of territorial integrity and the sovereignty of states suggest that India does not in fact consider Russia’s invasion legitimate. […]
President Joe Biden announced Thursday that the federal government will pay 100 percent of the costs of Puerto Rico’s recovery from Hurricane Fiona for the next month.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and other high-profile Democrats filed an amicus brief in Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County v. Talevski [on] Friday, the case barreling towards oral arguments that could leave beneficiaries of major programs like Medicaid with little recourse should states neglect their care.
[…] Here, the Democrats are clear: Congress meant for Section 1983 lawsuits to be permitted, and if the Court closes that pathway to accountability, it will be actively working against what the legislature intended.
“When Congress speaks, it does so with an understanding of the law. It also says what it means,” they write. “This Court should not alter its precedent based on analogies to contracts, blatantly ignoring congressional language and intent regarding who the ultimate beneficiaries are in Spending Clause Legislation.” […]
A Florida legislator has filed a lawsuit against Gov. Ron DeSantis and other state officials, challenging the legality of the state’s use of public funds to fly nearly 50 migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard last week.
Career prosecutors have recommended against charging Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) in a long-running sex-trafficking investigation — telling Justice Department superiors that a conviction is unlikely in part because of credibility questions with the two central witnesses, according to people familiar with the matter.
Gaetz sought a pardon from Donald Trump last year. He didn’t get a pardon. Looks like he going to get away with whatever sketchy stuff he did.
It was 15 months ago when House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy first started talking publicly about rolling out a “Commitment to America” agenda. That should’ve given the would-be House speaker and other Republican leaders plenty of time to prepare for a big rollout.
They have reason to be disappointed with how it’s gone.
The first misstep was a couple of days ago, when the House GOP published its blueprint online, only to remove it soon after without explanation, and then republished the whole thing again a day later.
This morning, things got a little worse. The Daily Beast reported:
As he rolled out the first official Republican Party congressional platform in years, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy fittingly invoked the revered father of the GOP: Abraham Lincoln. At the top of a letter to Republican lawmakers thanking them for their contributions to the “Commitment To America” — the policy agenda they are launching near Pittsburgh on Friday — McCarthy included a quote attributed to Lincoln. “Commitment,” reads the quote, “is what transforms a promise into reality.”
It’s a nice quote, but there’s literally no evidence that Lincoln ever said it. The phrase did appear in advertising, however, for Lehman Brothers, a Wall Street giant that collapsed in 2008. [LOL]
And in case that weren’t quite enough, House Republican leaders this morning also released a video to help promote their agenda, though as HuffPost noted, it had one key flaw.
House Republican leaders on Friday unveiled their “Commitment to America” agenda for 2023 ― and with it, an inspirational video full of scenes presented as exceptional imagery of America that were actually stock footage from Russia and Ukraine.
[WTF!!]
In fact, the House GOP’s video featured multiple shots from Serg Grbanoff, a filmmaker based in Russia, as well as a Slovakian store that was supposed to help capture American inflation.
To be sure, the important thing about the Republicans’ blueprint is its substance, and on that front, McCarthy’s pitch is deeply flawed. His platform — I’m using the word loosely — is largely made up of vague platitudes, in large part because the party likely fears a political backlash that would come if GOP leaders went into more detail about their policy plans. [yep]
But it’s also true that the minority leader and his team were hoping for a smooth rollout for their “commitment,” and as today’s developments make clear, they didn’t have one.
Fox News’ Jesse Watters is […] the somehow lower-brow alternative to people who think Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity talk with too many word-sounding words. On Thursday, Watters went on his show to attack homeless Americans. […]
Watters began his sad rant saying, “Here at Primetime, when we see a problem in America, we address it. We try to fix it. And being that our studio is here in New York, we’re witnessing a major problem, something all cities are dealing with: the deranged and dangerous homeless. They used to be a nuisance but now it’s starting to freak people out. West Coast cities are so bad, you don’t even know where you’re in Fallujah or L.A. In Portland, the homeless have become an invasive species.” You read that right: “Invasive species.”
Watters’ entire career is based on having so little shame and sense of self-worth he is willing to dive to the depths of the lowest common denominators in bigotry and inhumanity. […] The entire Fox News production on Watters’ homeless segment came with clip after clip of homeless people in various stages of mental health crises in order to really dehumanize and trivialize the problem. Then came the straight-up lying and final solution ideas Watters and his guest have for the “homeless problem.” [video at the link]
Watters then moves on to Denver, Colorado, where officials are trying out one of the many Universal Basic Income experiments that have been successful across the civilized world. The basic idea is that you choose a few people and give them a solid stipend of money with no requirements on how they use that money. So far, in every case, Universal Basic Income projects have shown solid returns in helping people dealing with clear economic hardships […]
One of the things that prompted this specific round of Universal Basic Income means testing in Denver was the fact that since the pandemic started, the number of homeless women in the city has tripled. The initial contract, which will include 520 households receiving $12,000 for a year, also includes a contract with the city for “140 women and transgender and gender-nonconforming people.” It is this slice of the project that both Watters and his guest lie about and magnify as the futility of giving people money to help them through economic hardships.
One group of participants will receive $6,500 up front and $500 per month going forward, while a second group will get $1,000 per month. A third control group will receive $50 per month. The program will launch this November with 820 households, and run through 2023.
After Watters’ opening invective, he brings on the classic right-wing-o-sphere pseudo-tell-it-like-it-is Glenn Beaton. Beaton is a syndicated columnist who writes dreck […] He’s the kind of guy who will write up an opinion piece about how everybody in Charlottesville behaved badly but that antifa was basically the same as the neo-Nazis, and Trump’s handling of the affair wasn’t great but he wasn’t a problem. Scintillating analysis. If that isn’t heady enough for you, he also uses his broad brush to write opinion pieces that argue that since everybody is racist according to the internet, nobody is actually racist.
Watters is bringing Beaton on because Beaton is an Aspen resident who is writing a book about how liberals are ruining Aspen. Beaton, entering in on the ground floor of the Fox News garbage media circuit, is here to reiterate the false dilemma that Denver politicians and liberal groups are throwing money at a problem when they should be not throwing the money anywhere and instead imprison the problem. His angle is to add a pretend expertise to the misinformation Watters is spewing about Denver’s Basic Income Project […]
[Beaton said] “I don’t think people ought to starve or freeze to death in America. We’re too rich a society to afford that. And if somebody is starving to death or freezing to death in the gutter, I’ll help them right there. But, giving them money isn’t going to help them. They’re going to misuse the money.” Got that? Unlike the richest of the rich who know that getting millions and billion-dollar handouts should be used on stock buybacks to inflate your business’ financial worth, and therefore your own, these unhoused individuals are not as smart and responsible as people like Jesse Watters.
What is the solution, you ask? “You know, in the old days we didn’t have this problem […] In the old days, we had mental institutions. We had prisons. We had family support groups. We had churches. Well, the left doesn’t want any part of any of that, because it threatens their governmental control. They want all of this to be owned by government.” I mean, state mental institutions and state prisons are … the government. But whatever, facts and things hurts my brain!
Can Watters somehow make this more offensive? Oh, yes. Yes he can. “You’re right. It was more civilized when we banished them to asylums and put them in strait jackets and gave them the help and the drugs that they needed in an institution. This is not civilized, to let people sling poop.”
Charles Dickens wrote about how uncivilized that approach was in 1837, 1838, 1839, 1843, 1854, 1855, 1857, 1859. It is breathtaking how purposefully obtuse the entire exercise here is. Incarceration rates have only gone up over the last many decades. The real variables in our society are increasing income inequality, decreasing affordable housing, and stagnant wage growth.
But as Beaton and Watters get to the end of their segment, they further reveal what they really mean. As Watters tries to get out of the interview to move onto the next grotesque take he has on the news of the day, he and Beaton chatter back and forth about how giving any money, “you could give them a million dollars and they wouldn’t buy a house with it,” says Beaton with a smile. Why? “You know, it’s a mistake to assume these people are like us,” Beaton finishes. [OMFG]
That’s it. “These people” aren’t like the people Jesse Watters and Glenn Beaton consider themselves to be. They’re “losers,” and “addicts,” and “want to live on the streets.” And somehow these folks have always been around but there are more now, but it’s only different because, according to these two men, we used to brutalize them in dungeons and that was just peachy.
Here is the actual criteria for the Denver program:
– Must be connected with one of the partner service providers.
– Individuals experiencing homelessness, meaning they are without fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence, which includes: Living in motels, hotels, camping grounds due to lack of alternative adequate accommodations; Sharing housing due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or similar reason ( e.g. being “doubled up” or “couch surfing”); Living in cars, parks, public spaces, abandoned buildings; Living in emergency shelters or transitional shelters; People whose nighttime residence is a public or private place not designed for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodations.
– Individuals who do not have severe and unaddressed mental health or substance use needs.
– Individuals who are 18 years old and older
[more video at the link]
StevoRsays
Australia has spent $9.65 Billion (yes with a B!) on offshore torture & imprisonment camps against Refugees.
From the front page of ‘The Saturday Paper’ Sept 10th – 16th article by Mike Seccombe titled “I am hopeless now’ : Australia’s $9.65 billion torture camps” quote :
“Analysis of federal budgets by the Refugee Council of Australia shows total spending from July 2013, when Rudd made his vow, up to and including this year’s budget, is $9.65 billion. The true cost is likely several billion dollars higher, according to analysis by the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at UNSW Sydney because it is unclear to what extent,if at all, it covers things such as aid & development assistance provided to Nauru & Papua New Guinea to secure their ongoing offshore processing agreement.”
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Russian commanders ‘increasingly concerned’ by setbacks, says UK MoD
Russian forces are probably trying to attack dams in Ukraine in order to flood Ukrainian military crossing points amid Russian concerns about battlefield setbacks, UK intelligence says.
The Ministry of Defence said in its latest daily briefing that the strikes were “unlikely to have caused significant disruption to Ukrainian operations due to the distance between the damaged dams and the combat areas”.
It said Russian forces struck the Pechenihy dam on the Siverskyi Donets River with ballistic missiles or similar weapons on Wednesday and Thursday after striking a dam near Krivyy Rih in central Ukraine the previous week.
Ukrainian forces are advancing further downstream along both rivers. As Russian commanders become increasingly concerned about their operational setbacks, they are probably attempting to strike the sluice gates of dams, in order to flood Ukrainian military crossing points.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in his nightly address on Friday, told Ukrainians in occupied territory – currently Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces – to hide from Russian mobilisation, avoid conscription letters, and get to Ukraine-held territory.
However, if they end up in the Russian military, Zelenskiy asked people to save their lives and help liberate Ukraine.
But if you get into the Russian army, sabotage any activity of the enemy, hinder any Russian operations, provide us with any important information about the occupiers – their bases, headquarters, warehouses with ammunition. And at the first opportunity, switch to our positions.
Vladimir Putin has taken a more direct position in the strategic planning for the war in Ukraine in recent weeks, according to US officials, reports the New York Times.
The Russian president rejected requests from commanders to retreat from the southern city of Kherson and pull back across the Dnieper River, according to the Times.
While such a withdrawal would preserve Russian equipment and lives, it would be another public humiliation for Putin after Ukraine successfully reclaimed large portions of territory in the Kharkiv region earlier this month….
Queue at Russian border stretches 10km as people flee
Hours after the Kremlin shocked Russia by announcing the first mobilisation of at least 300,000 troops since the second world war has led to a rush among men of military age to leave the country.
The line at the border between Russia and Georgia is approximately 10km long, according to the BBC, where people have reportedly been waiting more than 20 hours to cross.
Options to flee are limited, people fleeing previously told the Guardian. Earlier this week, four of the five EU countries bordering Russia announced they would no longer allow Russians to enter on tourist visas.
“I will be driving across the border tonight,” said a 29-year-old sergeant in the Russian reserves, Oleg, on Thursday. “I have no idea when I’ll step foot in Russia again,” he added, referring to the jail sentence Russian men face for avoiding the draft.
SC@125,
Starmer won the Labour leadership by promising to unite the party and retain most of the policies in Labour’s 2019 manifesto (tested individually and without a party label, almost all were popular). Once elected, he has comprehensively trashed those promises, attacking the left of his party with far more venom than the Tories, and taking Peter Mandelson – the notoriously corrupt aide to Blair – as one of his main advisors. The most generous interpretation of his behaviour (i.e, assuming he’s not simply a Tory who happened to end up in the worng party) is that he believes this is the way to win the next election – by appealing to centrists (although polls indicate widespread support for strikers, unsurprising as the vast majority of the electorate are suffering a cut in their real incomes), and denying the right-wing press any issue on which they can demonise him. Hence the refusal to support strikers, and also his declaration that he won’t form a coalition with the LibDems if Labour does not win an overall majority, and won’t even talk to the SNP. This won’t work: Murdoch and the like don’t need any facts to work with in order to launch a hate campaign. And in courting centrists, Starmer is ignoring the danger that those who supported Corbyn (especially the young) will either stay at home, or vote Green. At present, Labour have enough of a lead that they would likely be close to an overall majority in a general election held now, but short of getting one, and if Starmer held to his promise of no coalition (a big if, given his past performance!), he would have to form a minority government and wait for an opportunity to call a fresh election. My guess is that this is his plan, if he can’t get an overall majority.
Paul Ksays
Wow, KG, I try to keep up a bit with UK politics, but I didn’t know just how fucked you are over there. I figured that, with the way the Tories have ruled, and how it just keeps getting worse, they would so easily be destroyed when the next general elections come, and that things would have a chance to improve. How can Labour keep Starmer as their leader if he has these obvious — even to me — flaws?
ravensays
Already the Russian mobilization isn’t going well.
They are just grabbing anything male and under 70 right now, preferably nonRussian minorities. Few of these have any military training.
And…they aren’t going to get much of any military training, two weeks is a common number quoted.
The Russians also don’t seem to have a whole lot of equipment left either.
There is a video circulating on the net of Russians commenting on their newly issued AK 47 rifles. They are all heavily rusted and probably don’t even work.
The old Mosin-Nagant bolt action rifles they are also issued are probably far better.
And oh yeah, the cold far east European winter is coming soon.
This isn’t going to end well for the Russians.
ISW: Russian mobilization struggling to execute Putin’s plans
September 24, 2022 7:30 am
by The Kyiv Independent news desk
The Institute for the Study of War said in its latest update that Russia’s mobilization efforts will likely fail to produce reserve forces “of even the low quality Putin’s plans would have generated,” unless Russia rapidly fixes systemic issues.
Russian military bloggers have also reported that Russia is issuing illegal draft notices and mobilizing men who do not meet the Kremlin’s stated criteria, “especially (Defense Minister) Shoigu’s promise that mobilization would prioritize men with “combat experience,” the ISW wrote.
Available information suggests that the mobilization campaign is “overwhelming an ineffective and unmotivated bureaucratic system and could fail to generate the much-needed combat-ready reserve force in a short time or at all,” according to the ISW.
Pierce R. Butlersays
SC… @ # 136: … four of the five EU countries bordering Russia announced they would no longer allow Russians to enter on tourist visas.
The central and western European nations don’t seem to have thought this through very deeply.
Would they rather pay Russian men’s room & board bills in cheap hotels, or pay for the munitions for the Ukrainians to blow them up?
A new law signed by Vladimir Putin says Russian troops who refuse to fight, desert, disobey or surrender to the enemy could now face a jail sentence of up to 10 years, according to Russian media reports. The law was approved by the parliament earlier this week.
Russia’s deputy defence minister, Dmitry Bulgakov, who has been in charge of military logistics since the beginning of the Ukraine invasion, has been dismissed from his post. He’s been replaced by Col Gen Mikhail Mizintsev, the head of the National Defence Management Centre, who oversaw Russia’s siege of Mariupol.
Iran’s ministry spokesperson, Nasser Kanaani, “advised” Ukraine to “refrain from being influenced by third parties who seek to destroy relations between the two countries”. The statement came after Ukraine downgraded diplomatic ties with Iran on Friday, and stripped its ambassador of his accreditation over what it called Tehran’s “unfriendly” decision to supply Russian forces with drones.
…
The queue at the border between Russia and Georgia is approximately 6 miles (10km) long, where people have reportedly been waiting more than 20 hours to cross. The number of border crossers from Russia into Finland has also doubled in recent days compared with last week….
Slight correction to #85 above: I suggested that the storm apparently heading to the Gulf of Mexico would probably be Hermine, but Hermine already exists, so that storm is Ian.
Russia launched renewed strikes on Ukrainian cities on Saturday, as Moscow’s mobilisation drive to refresh its struggling war effort continued to provide scenes of chaos across Russia.
Ukrainian officials said a Russian missile hit an apartment building in the city of Zaporizhzhia, killing one person and injuring seven others, and said a total of three people were killed and 19 injured in strikes across the south and east of the country.
In Russia, even Kremlin cheerleaders expressed unease at the progress of the mobilisation drive, announced by the president, Vladimir Putin, on Wednesday. Viral videos have shown mobilised men who appear variously to be confused, drunk or angry at receiving the call-up.
[AP:] Iranian activist Masih Alinejad says videos and messages she’s been receiving in recent days from women in Iran are showing how angry they are following a young woman’s death in police custody over a violation of the country’s strict religious dress code.
What everyone needs to know is the women who send @AlinejadMasih videos of oppression in Iran are violating the law.
No, it’s not illegal to send these videos in general.
The article is topped by a photo of a female Ukrainian soldier: “NOT a Russian soldier. A Ukrainian soldier on the front line at Kupyansk. Because Russian Army is not for women. It is for big, tough 65 year-old drunks. September 24, 2022.”
On Saturday morning, the news from the front is … pretty much what it was yesterday. At Bakhmut, Russia has launched a series of new attacks from the south, all of which have apparently been repelled. Same as always. At Lyman, there are reports that Russian forces have withdrawn and that Ukraine is preparing a final push into the city. Same as pretty much every day this week. [map at the link]
Just hauling up yesterday’s Lyman map for reference, Russians sources report that they managed to get some air support to slow Ukrainian troops moving toward Ridkodub. So while there are other reports suggesting that Ukraine controls both Ridkodub and Nove (mostly in the form of reports that Russia shelled those locations), I’m not updating for now. There are also reports that Ukrainian forces have entered Novoselivka and control about half that location. Novoselivka is pretty much cut off from the rest of the area by lakes to the east and a steep valley / canyon on the north, so holding this position doesn’t really seem to offer a good chance to maneuver anywhere else.
Russia claimed it got additional force to Drobysheve and helped break out those two mercenary units that had been encircled in the town. In an incident reportedly taking place north of Lozove, Ukrainian forces shot down not one, but two Su-25 jets—possibly the same planes that had been providing ground support at Ridkodub. (Correction: On closer inspection, the plane flying away appears to be a shiny new SU-30SM multirole fighter.) [vido at the link]
The second SU-25 is able to fly out of the picture with engine that’s very much in the process of consuming itself. I can’t tell from the available shots whether it also crashes or makes it away. In any case, it won’t return soon.
There seems to be ongoing fighting at Derylove, Drobysheve, Novoselivka, Lyman, Serednie, Shandryholove, and north of Lozove. And that’s just what’s getting reported. Which is probably why the number of Russian troops being listed as killed each day has been running upwards of 400.
It’s a lot of fighting. Why Ukrainian forces aren’t able to smash this area they way they did Balakliya and Izyum, I don’t know. I don’t have a good handle on the number of troops fighting here on either side, and some of the folks who are usually good at showing the deployment of units seem just as baffled. Both sides report that the other is getting reinforcements. Russian sources seem convinced that Ukraine is putting in “all the reserves” (spoiler alert: they are not) for a big push at Lyman in the next 48 hours.
If I learn anything more, I’ll pass it along.
Multiple sources are showing that new recruits to the Russian Army can expect beautiful, new equipment.
“I won’t comment anything. Just will say that they gave this allegedly so that our hands remember [how to hold guns]. Still, I’m f****** shocked,” a mobilized Russian soldier says on the video about issued rusty Kalashnikov assault rifles.
[Tweet and video showing rifles in garbage condition (worse even than I thought) is available at the link]
And first class transportation. [Tweet and video of recruits walking available at the link]
To their choice of five star accommodations. [Tweet and video of sleeping cots lined up in the forest, no tents] […]
More at the link, including this:
Putin’s mobilization also directly affects international businesses which remain working in Russia. They are now obliged by law to assist authorities in drafting their employees. The choice is either to become accomplices in Putin’s barbaric war or immediately pull out of Russia.
Scroll down at the link to see Ukrainian Special Forces looking like walking trees and shrubs (Ents :-)) as they join the fight against the forces of Mordor.
Not one document has been sorted, but Donald Trump has already lost everything he gained when Judge Aileen Cannon appointed a “special master.” In the last week, rulings from that special master, Judge Raymond Dearie, and from a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, have drained the entire process of any value to Trump. That process will continue. But everything Trump hoped to achieve, is gone.
Even before stepping foot in the White House, Donald Trump had been involved in a jaw-dropping 3,500 law suits. From all that time in court spent stiffing contractors, dodging people who paid for condos that were never built, and feigning ignorance over tax fraud, Trump demonstrated his biggest superpower: Delay. Given enough money, and an unscrupulous attorney, Trump found the legal system offered endless opportunities for motions, appeals, and requests. In a lesson that came straight from his racist father and his legal mentor Roy Cohn, Trump learned early that it was possible to ride out most any storm through the magic of delay.
In the case of the documents that Trump stole from the White House and carted off to Mar-a-Lago, Trump has already worked the refs for 21 months of delay. Thanks to Judge Cannon, he expected the special master process to take him safely through the next three months, gliding past the mid-term elections, while the Department of Justice had to sit on their hands.
Except what happened this week not only gutted the value of the special master process, they also anticipated Trump’s next moves.
At this point, Trump may be talking up the National Archives as his latest “radical left wing” villains when it comes to interviews with Sean Hannity, but the truth is that Trump has pretty much zero concern for the 11,000 documents taken from Mar-a-Lago and destined to come under control of the Presidential Records Act. Will those documents contain examples of his greed, vanity, and disdain for the nation? Of course they will. And it won’t change a thing.
It’s the 103 classified documents that really concern Trump. Because “Donald Trump took this Top Secret document describing secrets of the [insert nation here] nuclear program and refused to give it back, even under subpoena” is exactly the kind of charge that a grand jury can easily understand when raising their hands in favor of an indictment. And that’s assuming that all those empty folders don’t represent classified documents that have gone completely missing, because that’s an even simpler charge.
[…] What’s happening with the document search at Mar-a-Lago is very public. It’s also very simple: Trump stole documents. He lied about them to federal agents. He refused to return them. He’s lying about them still.
What we can see of the investigation into classified documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago represents the greatest single chance that Donald Trump will be indicted on criminal charges within the next few months. […]
Which points immediately back to that decision by the court appeals. By overturning the, at best, misguided ruling of Judge Cannon, the 11th Circuit switched the criminal investigation into those documents back to “on.” And you can bet that there is are a metric ton of attorneys and investigators at the DOJ burning the midnight oil on this, even over the weekend, because they understand that Trump—or Cannon—could put the brakes on tomorrow with some other appeal, or half-assed ruling, that sends this all trundling toward the Supreme Court.
The other thing that happened to kneecap Trump this week was a triple play by Judge Dearie. First, Dearie challenged the idea that Trump had declassified any of the documents involved, whether that occurred by telepathy or something that looked like an official process. When Trump’s attorneys once again tried the “maybe he did, maybe he didn’t” play that Trump has used so long, Dearie did what any reasonable judge should have done at the outset — put that down as a “no.” All the documents the government says are classified, are to be treated as classified. Done and dusted.
Next, Dearie laid out a timeline that has all of this wrapping up before the mid-terms. […] Dearie’s timeline sucked back over a month from Trump’s delay machine, and that has to have Trump fuming.
Finally, Dearie directly challenged Trump’s team over public statements hinting (heavily) that the FBI had planted documents in the material. Now Trump’s attorneys are going to have to go through the list and say yea or nay to everything that the FBI carried away. If Trump says the FBI planted something, he’ll get a chance to prove that — against a search in which you better bet the FBI carefully documented each step. If Trump admits that a document was in his desk drawer to begin with, then he’s admitting to having in his possession a document that was both illegal to remove and the object of a federal subpoena. That’s going to be fun.
Really, when the 11th Circuit made its ruling, the whole special master process might as well have been over for Trump. What he wanted out of the whole thing was already gone. Dearie’s rulings just made the next month more painful. Now Trump has to [wait] through a process that can’t do a thing to help him.
“Protests have started early on day nine of unrest in Iran over the death of #MahsaAmini in morality police custody. In the city of Shiraz, a young woman stands on a car, waves her hijab and leads chants of ‘death to the dictator’….”
There frequently is a kind of fatalistic acceptance among local authorities faced with the ascendance of openly neofascist groups like Patriot Front and the Proud Boys—entities who are openly waging a kind of low-level insurgency against American democracy, while wrapping themselves in pseudo-patriotic bunting, proclaiming their love for their country and their hate for their countrymen all at once. All too often, local officials like police chiefs, sheriffs, and prosecutors forced to deal with them shrug off their ability to do anything about it, citing the extremists’ free-speech rights.
It turns out that this doesn’t sit right with a number of the very people who have proven their dedication to defending the nation: combat veterans. An organization of such veterans is now demanding that the nation’s prosecutors buckle down and get tough in their dealings with Patriot Front—and have even prepared a 239-page report detailing both its membership as well as the myriad criminal charges that could be filed against them.
Meet Task Force Butler, the brainchild of Kristofer Goldsmith, a veteran of the Iraq War and a longtime advocate for veterans’ rights. The group is named after 1920s-era Marine Gen. Smedley Butler, and cites his credo: “My interest is, my one hobby is, maintaining a democracy. If you get these 500,000 soldiers advocating anything smelling of Fascism, I am going to get 500,000 more and lick the hell out of you.” The group’s mission, according to its website, is “to engage veterans in the hobby of maintaining a democracy.”
Toward that end, they recently released a lengthy report, called “Project Blacklist,” detailing the history of criminal activities, along with the identities of Patriot Front members, and compiled with a team of 10 volunteers. Goldsmith and his organization sent it to a number of local and state law enforcement officials around the country, part of what it calls an effort to “hold Patriot Front legally accountable for their politically and racially-motivated harassment of vulnerable minority communities, their terrorizing of local residents in cities and towns throughout the United States, their acts of violence, and their use of American cities as backdrops to showcase for the media and the nation the ethno-nationalist agenda.”
[…] if someone needs to do the homework to make sure that justice is found, we’re willing to do the homework.”
[…] “All of these far-right groups like the Oath Keepers and Patriot Front and Proud Boys have polluted the meaning of patriotism in this country, and it’s past time to call it out and correct that,” he said.
Project Blacklisted is their debut project, and it focuses entirely on Patriot Front, which the report explains “remains a violent, terrorist, racketeering gang that primarily functions to plan, train, and manufacture weapons for the explicit purpose of engaging in acts of violence and harassment against minorities, the LGBTQIA+ community, and others deemed ‘enemies’” by the organization’s founder and leader, neo-Nazi Thomas Ryan Rousseau of Haslet, Texas.
[…] And it particularly focuses on three recent incidents in which Patriot Front engaged in criminal behavior: a July 2, 2021, march in Philadelphia at which a Black man was assaulted by the group’s members; the June 11, 2022, Pride in the Park event in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, at which 31 members were arrested en route to a planned riot at the peaceful LGBTQ gathering; and the march less than one month later in Boston at which they appeared without warning amid the city’s normal July Fourth parade.
The report notes the organization’s startling brazenness:
Patriot Front is not deterred from engaging in violence by current piecemeal, local legal accountability efforts, and often uses local law enforcement’s tactics of escorting the group through urban spaces to create a permissive environment for their violence. The fact that multiple members of Patriot Front who were arrested weeks prior in Idaho participated in the Boston march on July 2, 2022 illustrates this phenomenon.
[…] the organization poses a bona fide threat both to the public at large and to police officers themselves. […]
Although Coeur d’Alene city officials have proceeded with prosecuting the 31 arrestees on riot charges diligently, there is some cause for concern in the case—primarily because of a stark lack of apparent involvement from the Justice Department, including the Idaho U.S. Attorney’s office, […] Patriot Front members violated federal law prohibiting crossing state lines as part of a conspiracy to engage in a riot. […]
[…] Goldsmith’s hope is that if Task Force Butler gains traction, “we can help to make sure that extremists are not able to interact with businesses and with folks who, if they knew who these people were, would not want to interact with them. There’s one guy in there who works for a security company that provides security services at Jewish temples. We want that guy blacklisted from working security at an institution that he targets with hate, with genocidal intent.”
Former FBI agent Mike German of NYU’s Brennan Justice Center told NBC News that the group’s work could prove to be a valuable tool for prosecutors. “One of the frustrations that I’ve felt and that a number of other people in the community feel is that law enforcement is reluctant to use existing authorities to target white supremacist and far-right militant groups for investigations,” he said. “It’s the opposite problem when it’s anti-racism groups, environmentalists, Muslim Americans, where you see them understanding the broad scope of their authorities and using them very aggressively, even when there’s no history of violence or violent acts to point to.”
[…] Goldsmith thinks about Task Force Butler’s role in strategic terms. “You know, we hear so much about organizations rising up to defend democracy,” he told Daily Kos. “Well, that is great, and I am very happy to see that, but our mindset needs to change, because we’re at war right now, for the spirit of our democracy. You can’t win a war purely on defense.
“So we, Task Force Butler, are going on offense. We want to put hate groups on their back foot. We want them to stop being able to advance, and we will, within the bounds of the law, do everything we can to make space for frequently targeted populations and vulnerable folks.”
President Biden on Friday announced that his administration would distribute $1.5 billion to states and territories, including tribal lands, to fund responses to opioid overdoses and support recovery.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will disseminate the funding through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) State Opioid Response and Tribal Opioid Response grant programs as part of National Recovery Month.
————————–
President Biden on Friday signed a bill that will eliminate the statute of limitations for people who were sexually abused as minors to file civil claims.
The Eliminating Limits to Justice for Child Sex Abuse Victims Act was passed by the House by voice vote on Tuesday after passing the Senate by unanimous consent in March.
Former senior technical adviser for the January 6 Committee, Denver Riggleman, said the White House switchboard connected a phone call to a Capitol rioter on January 6, 2021.
“You get a real ‘a-ha’ moment when you see that the White House switchboard had connected to a rioter’s phone while it’s happening,” Riggleman told 60 Minutes correspondent Bill Whitaker. “That’s a big, pretty big ‘a-ha’ moment.”
Riggleman, an ex-military intelligence officer and former Republican congressman from Virginia, oversaw a data-driven operation for the January 6 committee, pursuing phone records and other digital clues tied to the attack on the Capitol. He stopped working for the committee in April. [video at the link]
[…] UPDATE: Riggleman ceased working for the committee in April, and in the interest of context, the committee has been displeased with his lack of discretion.
In an internal email obtained by POLITICO that was sent Wednesday night, shortly after the interview aired, staff director David Buckley told colleagues that Riggleman’s appearance was “in direct contravention to his employment agreement.”
“I want you to know that I am deeply disappointed in his decision to discuss the Select Committee’s work on television,” Buckley said in the email to the panel’s staff.
The conflict centers on a rare breach for a committee that has, by most accounts, operated with little internal drama and dissension. It’s also an unwelcome distraction for the panel on the eve of its long-awaited slate of public hearings, scheduled to begin next week.
This does not make Mr. Riggleman less credible, and for his part he denies it violates his employment agreement, but he is willing to talk.
Again, this bears repeating, a call was not swtiched into the White House, Riggleman alleges a call was made to an insurrectionist from the White House. […]
I may be kicking myself for the rest of my life for not shorting Truth Social stock when I had the chance. For those who aren’t as financially savvy as I like to pretend to be, shorting a stock is when you find a big, puffed-up, slovenly loser who looks like a sea lion exploded inside a pair of golf pants and bet against his business.
When Donald Trump, who once named glitching brain stem Rudy Giuliani as his cybersecurity adviser, announced he was starting a social media company, it looked like a sure loser. Much like Trump himself. For some reason, I figured the guy who couldn’t keep a casino company solvent would have trouble taking on well-established tech giants like Twitter. But I didn’t have enough experience in stock trading to pull the trigger […]
Well, it looks like I was right all along. And the worst part about this missed opportunity is that if I’d shorted Trump Social stock from the outset, I would have literally been taking money from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who bet big on the company and has since lost thousands of dollars. [embedded links available at the main link]
On Thursday, Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC), the special purpose acquisition company that plans to merge with Truth Social, saw its stock dip 5%, extending its weeklong drop of 32%. In March, the stock traded at $97 per share. It’s now at $16.50, and unless the company can find a quick and easy way to monetize stolen nuclear secrets, it may fall further.</b?
But that’s not all! Institutional investors are losing confidence in the stock now, too.
Reuters:
Digital World said it had received termination notices from private investment in public equity (PIPE) investors ending nearly $139 million in investments out of the $1 billion commitment it had previously announced.
Investors, who signed the PIPE commitment about one year ago, are free to move their money after the Sept. 20, 2022 deadline if the deal has not completed.
Digital World did not disclose the investors that pulled out. Sources told Reuters Sabby Management, which had committed $100 million to the PIPE, is one of the investors who have terminated.
Reuters added that more big investors could ditch the stock in the coming weeks, since they’re allowed to void their deals anytime after the deadline.
In a recent whiny statement that was written by either Trump himself, an AI Trump-bot, or a dyspeptic prairie chicken with an overweening fondness for Adderall, the company pointed its creepy little fingers elsewhere:
“The SEC has stalled its review of our planned merger with DWAC, having failed to act despite DWAC having filed its registration statement more than four months ago. This inexcusable obstruction, which directly contradicts the SEC’s stated mission, is damaging investors and many others who are simply following the rules and trying to expand a successful business.
“In light of the obvious conflicts of interest among SEC officials and clear indications of political bias, TMTG is now exploring legal action against the SEC. Despite the increasing weaponization and politicization of government agencies, Truth Social will continue its expansion plans, supported by the unprecedented levels of user engagement on the platform.”
Of course, the SEC is investigating the Trump-connected SPAC because the deal looks shady—like everything else Trump lays his oleaginous, preternaturally wee digits on. The agency is reportedly looking into whether DWAC negotiated its deal with Truth Social before going public—a move that would have been illegal.
But hey … legal, illegal? It’s all the same to Trump. What this guy cares about is grifting as much cash from his goober brigade as possible, but for once the government—and common sense—might actually stop him.
Both far-right conspiracy forums and mainstream platforms such as TikTok have spread wild claims in the past week that all surround the date of September 24. Although there’s no proof whatsoever that anything catastrophic or world changing will happen on that date, the otherwise unremarkable day has become the source of rampant online speculation.
QAnon followers, apocalyptic conspiracy theorists and various content creators have fixated on the date, sharing baseless theories across social media that have received millions of views. Each has come up with convoluted explanations for why the day has some hidden meaning.
The online fascination with September 24 stems in part from a speech given by Friedrich Merz, leader of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union party. In a speech earlier this month addressing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Merz misspoke and said September 24 (instead of February 24, the first day of the invasion) would be a day that people would remember, according to a German far-right researcher.
Merz’ “September 24” comment was then clipped and spread around German QAnon Telegram channels, according to Vice, stripping it of context and framing it as having some outsized significance. The clip gained traction and proliferated around social media as many baselessly speculated that something big will happen on the day, while some QAnon believers used it as fodder to promote their movement. The reasons given for why the date is significant tend to rely on outlandish connections or numerology — some users have cited as proof the fact that The Simpsons’ ninth episode in its 24th season (which could abbreviate to 9/24) included survivalists preparing for the end of the world. […]
The conspiracy gained traction after an episode of the Simpsons was tied to the date…
While no one at QAnon is certain what, exactly, is going to happen on September 24th, followers on different platforms have thrown around the possibility of nuclear war, a financial crisis, water poisoning, and an armed revolution. […] QAnon followers turned to The Simpons — which has, in the past, predicted Trump’s presidency and the Disney-21st Century Fox merger, among other things — to investigate.
Naturally, they turned to Season 9 Episode 24 (aka 9/24), an episode that features a group of end-of-the-world preppers. In the episode, dubbed “Lost Our Lisa,” the preppers discuss WROL, or Without Rule of Law, which refers to a post-apocalyptic landscape with no rules. QAnon followers also cited the electromagnetic pulse device that features in the episode as proof that “10 days of darkness” are coming to restore Donald Trump to office.
[“days of darkness” is appropriate to describe any return of Trump to office.]
Shit snowballed from there…[from Vice]:
The claim has been spread by major QAnon accounts on Telegram, YouTube, and Trump’s own platform, Truth Social. One of those sharing the claim was Juan O Savin, a QAnon influencer whose real name is Wayne Willott, who has deep connections to far-right GOP candidates running for secretary of state positions in November’s midterms.
To back up their wild speculation, followers flagged other coincidences about the day—such as the fact that Sept. 24 on the Gregorian calendar converts to Sept. 11 on the Julian calendar. Others pointed out that it is the beginning of Rosh Hoshanah, the Jewish new year, though, like many of the claims, this is inaccurate as the holiday begins this year on the evening of Sept. 25.
[…] Last weekend, one of the speakers at the conspiracy-filled Reawaken America conference series, where Trump’s two adult sons have spoken in the past, told the audience that “the day of vengeance” was a week away, before adding: “We’re going to watch it happen.”
Supposedly a solar flare will destroy the Earth…[from Newsweek]:
No one quite knows what to expect from 9/24 but the most popular theory is that Earth will be hit by a massive solar flare, which will supposedly bring about the end of the world. […]
From analyzing current solar activity, the probability of any major solar flare happening on this date is extremely low. As of Friday morning the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center hadn’t issued any solar storm warnings.
What’s more, according to NASA, even if a large solar flare were to occur, it would be unlikely to cause direct harm to humans due to the shielding effect of the Earth’s atmosphere. That’s not to say it would go unnoticed; powerful radiation like this could disrupt the high frequency radio signals used in navigational systems around the world.
The property management subsidiary of Jared Kushner’s family real estate company has agreed to pay a $3.25 million fine to the state of Maryland and to reimburse many of the tens of thousands of tenants in the Kushners’ Baltimore-area apartment complexes for excessive fees and for rent they were forced to pay over the past decade despite serious maintenance problems in the units.
The agreement represents the settlement of a 2019 lawsuit brought against the subsidiary, Westminster Management, by the Maryland attorney general. The state alleged that the company’s “unfair or deceptive” rental practices violated Maryland’s consumer protection laws and “victimized” people, “many of whom are financially vulnerable, at all stages of offering and leasing.”
“This is a case in which landlords deceived and cheated tenants and subjected them to miserable living conditions,” said Attorney General Brian Frosh, a Democrat, at a press conference announcing the settlement Friday morning in Baltimore. “These were not wealthy people. Many struggled to pay the rent, to put food on the table, to take care of their kids, to keep everybody healthy, and Westminster used its vastly superior economic power to take advantage of them.”
Kushner Companies, which has since sold off most of the complexes, did not respond to requests for comment, but in a statement to the Baltimore Banner, it said: “Westminster is pleased to have settled this litigation with no admission of liability or wrongdoing. We look forward to moving past this matter so that we can focus on our ever-expanding real estate portfolio.”
Frosh took issue with that characterization. “You don’t pay three million two hundred and fifty thousand bucks if you’re not liable,” he said. “They may not have formally signed a piece of paper saying that they did it, but they did.”
[…] The 17 complexes contained a total of about 9,000 units and provided a strong cash-flow ballast for a real estate company better known for trophy properties in New York.
The article reported that the company had brought hundreds of cases against current and former tenants over unpaid rent and broken leases, including people who had moved out of the complexes before the Kushner Companies even purchased them. The company also pursued tenants who possessed evidence that they did not owe the money claimed, with all manner of court and late fees piling on top of the original claims.
[…] At Friday’s press conference, Frosh and two former tenants elaborated on the deplorable conditions. Frosh showed images from squalid units, including one of a large cluster of mushrooms growing beside a toilet. Tiffany Dixon described the floor and wall damage in her family’s unit at a Kushner complex called Commons of White Marsh that she said was caused by a large hole under the kitchen sink of an adjacent unit. Dixon recounted the horrifying discovery, after her kitchen stove stopped working, of mice remains inside the oven. Vaughn Phillips described living in a unit in another complex, Fontana Village, that had water pouring out of the kitchen wall for months “to the point where there was a small pond in my kitchen and living area.” Phillips also said that gas leaked from the unit’s kitchen stove and that “mice that would come out and watch TV with me.”
[…] officials were well aware of the problems. “We desperately need your help at the Commons of White Marsh with the number of roof leaks that are still occurring due to the damage of the storm that was caused from the storm back in March,” the community manager at the complex wrote to the director of construction at Kushner Companies, in September 2018. “I am receiving at least 30 complaints per day and residents coming [in] and screaming in office. We have a large amount of drywall damage and potential for mold is becoming an issue.”
[…] The state case against the company won a major victory in April 2021, when an administrative law judge found that Westminster violated consumer laws in several areas, including by not showing tenants the actual units they were going to be assigned to before signing a lease, and by assessing them a range of “spurious” fees. The ruling came after a 31-day hearing in which about 100 current and former tenants testified.
The company had initially downplayed the lawsuit as a politically motivated stunt to embarrass Kushner, [OMFG, more bullshit] the highly influential son-in-law of then-President Donald Trump. […] “It became very clear that they had done wrong and we were not going to let them off the hook,” Frosh said.
[…] Under the terms of the settlement, Westminster must make an effort to reach all of the estimated 30,000 tenants who resided in its Baltimore-area complexes to alert them that they may submit claims of restitution for rent they were forced to pay despite substandard conditions. […]
Westminster may end up paying considerably more than $3.25 million, since there is no limit on the amount of restitution the special master can order. (Of the $3.25 million fine, $800,000 will be treated as a down payment on the restitution.)
The former tenants at the press conference expressed satisfaction with the settlement. “I wasn’t looking for financial gain,” Dixon said. “I was just looking for justice. I was looking for someone to acknowledge the negligence so that other people didn’t have to endure what we did.”
Ukrainian forces have recently shot down two Russian Su-30 jets, one Su-25 and one Su-34, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said in its evening briefing on Sept. 24.”
[…] $3.25 million divided between 30,000 potential tenants is just over $100 per person– hardly a significant compensation for over ten years of being overcharged. If, in fact, all reasonable claims of abuse are addressed and compensated, though, this could easily mushroom into a settlement of tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars.
Given the fact that it involves Kushner, I wouldn’t be surprised if it grows to a multibillion dollar settlement once all of the abuses are revealed. This is, after all, a family that’s famous for elevating fraud and abuse to levels rarely seen before in history.
—————————-
Oh noes…
Now he has only $1,996,750,000 left of that Saudi money.
How will he ever survive???
————————-
Don’t forget that Hannity is a slum lord, also.
———————
Being shoddy and abusive is an endemic characteristic of the Kushner Companies and the Trump Organization
Using inclusive language should be a baseline goal no matter where you sit on the political spectrum; after all, using language that feels best for others is a simple sign of respect. That said, Republicans are working really, really hard to incite anger and terror when it comes to an ongoing push for more inclusive language when it comes to a number of identities and human rights—try asking someone on the far-right to use the phrase “undocumented immigrants” instead of “illegal aliens,” for example, and you’ll see what I mean.
Thanks to the Republican anti-trans push of recent years, expanding definitions of words like “woman” and “girl” have caused a lot of anger. So much anger that 34-year-old Jeremy David Hanson, of Rossmoor, California, was found guilty of—wait for it—two felony charges of “threatening communications to commit violence” against the literal dictionary over its updated definitions, as reported by the HuffPost.
Hanson pled guilty to threatening violence against Merriam-Webster. At the U.S. District Court in Springfield, Massachusetts, he pled guilty to one count of interstate communication of threatening communications to commit violence, as well as one count of the same offense that had originally been filed in Texas.
He said he often decided who to send messages to based on their gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity, as reported by ABC News. Threats were made via the website’s “contact us” section back in October 2021 and included remarks such as: “There is no such thing as ‘gender identity.’ The imbecile who wrote this entry should be hunted down and shot.” In a separate message, he threatened to “shoot up and bomb” the dictionary’s offices.
“It would be poetic justice to have someone storm your offices and shoot up the place, leaving none of you commies alive,” he wrote in a message via the contact us section, according to prosecutors.
“The only good Marxist is a dead Marxist,” he wrote. “I will assassinate your top editor.”
Other remarks included accusing the dictionary of telling “blatant lies” and promoting “anti-science propaganda.”
In case there was any ambiguity here, Hanson also wrote to the dictionary that it is “sickening that you have caved to the cultural Marxist, anti-science tr–ny agenda and altered the definition of ‘female’ as part of the Left’s efforts to corrupt and degrade the English language and deny reality.”
The threats were taken seriously enough that the company closed its offices in both New York City and Springfield, Massachusetts, for several days last year.
Hanson was originally arrested in April and was indicted by a grand jury in June. As of now, Hanson is sentenced to be sentenced on Jan. 5, 2023. He faces up to five years in prison.
KGsays
The central and western European nations don’t seem to have thought this through very deeply.
Would they rather pay Russian men’s room & board bills in cheap hotels, or pay for the munitions for the Ukrainians to blow them up? – Pierce R. Butler@142
I’m not sure their decision is right, but there are arguments for it:
1) Many of those entering on tourist visas are actual tourists, who will mostly be among the elite, who support the regime but like to have access to the EU.
2) Those who are fleeing the draft wouldn’t be joining the war for some time, won’t be effective if and when they do, and may cause Putin more problems if they can’t leave Russia than they would by fleeing abroad.
3) We can be certain spies would be among those “fleeing”, and very likely saboteurs as well.
Pierce R. Butlersays
KG @ # 161: Many of those entering on tourist visas are actual tourists…
Quick: which causes more harm to the EU – depriving Putin’s army of a soldier or allowing an oligarch’s mistress to buy perfume in Paris?
Those who are fleeing the draft wouldn’t be joining the war for some time…
Two weeks, according to all reports. Two. Weeks.
… may cause Putin more problems if they can’t leave Russia …
Despite Zelensky’s exhortations, I doubt many conscripts will carry out much sabotage or espionage.
… spies would be among those “fleeing”, and very likely saboteurs as well.
That one comes straight out of the anti-refugee talking points echoed across Europe – c’mon, can’t you do better than that?
Aiden Aslin just tweeted: “just want to let people know I’m slowly coming back onto the Twitter account but will be sharing it with my friend to continue bringing news and information etc, let us not forget those who are still kept in captivity and help them return home to their family’s”
KGsays
Pierce R. Butler@162,
Setting aside your unnecessarily nasty and self-righteous tone, all the expert commentary I’ve seen indicates that the conscripts will not add significantly to Russia’s military capability for months if at all, and indeed, may reduce it – they will be unwilling, untrained or badly trained, and poorly equipped. They don’t need to engage in active sabotage to cause Putin problems at home while evading the draft – the process of hunting them down will itself generate further discontent. As for:
spies would be among those “fleeing”, and very likely saboteurs as well.
That one comes straight out of the anti-refugee talking points echoed across Europe – c’mon, can’t you do better than that?
C’mon, can’t you do better than that? The fact that similar things have been said by anti-immigrant bigots, doesn’t mean it’s not an issue that needs to be considered. Do you actually think Putin won’t use any opportunity to send spies and saboteurs? After the assassinations his agents have already carried out outside Russia – in the case of the Salisbury poisoners, agents posing as tourists?
Pierce R. Butlersays
KG @ # 165: … your unnecessarily nasty and self-righteous tone…
Feeling snowflakey today? We’ve both gotten a lot ruder here before.
…the conscripts will not add significantly to Russia’s military capability for months if at all…
A draft-dodger at large in Western Europe badmouthing the current regime will do Russian more harm than a reluctant grunt.
Do you actually think Putin won’t use any opportunity to send spies and saboteurs?
I feel pretty sure the FSB has more and better ways to place actual agents than cramming them into long backed-up lines – and that anyone planted in that way won’t get much opportunity to spy on anything other than fellow emigrés.
Definitely, valid arguments exist on both sides of this debate – but everything I’ve seen about it indicates the EU (+ UK, etc) has reacted so far only on knee-jerk xenophobia (or pandering to the parts of the population exhibiting same), but with very little visible thought on the advantages of assisting wannabe Russian exiles, which I suspect would pay numerous long-term dividends.
Earlier this week a journalist asked me how this might end now, with the partial mobilization and referendums. I said that I don’t see a realistic endgame scenario. Then I spent several days thinking about it. I still don’t see it, at least not anytime soon. So, some thoughts
1. Ukraine has the will, the resources and the capacity to fight. Even if Russia mobilizes every bear in Siberia and reindeer in Yakutia, Ukraine will keep fighting. Even if Russia uses nuclear weapons, Ukraine will keep fighting. I think this should clear to everyone by now
2. Russia has the will and the resources to fight, there are still unmobilized bears in Siberia, reindeer in Yakutia and people willing to go fight in the provinces. Human life is cheap in Russia, especially outside Moscow
3. Even after mobilizing every single reservist Russia won’t be able to win and Ukraine refuses to lose. Frozen conflict is impossible with Russia’s existing troop levels and unsustainable by relying on costly, poorly trained and unmotivated reservists who would rather be home
4. Even if there is a coup in Moscow, it will likely be done by those who think they know how to kill Ukrainians more effectively, not those who want peace. Even if they will agree to peace, there is no way they will agree give up Crimea and Ukraine won’t accept such peace
5. So where does this leave us? Option 1: Russia keeps sending people to be killed and Ukraine keeps killing them until Russia doesn’t have anyone left to send. Option 2: There is a mutiny in the Russian army when enough get too tired of being killed
6. Option 3: The large number reservists make the Russian army so ineffective that it collapses in the field. Option 4: There is a coup in Moscow that leads to chaos and loss of control which Ukraine uses to fully destroy the Russian army or the Russians collapse on their own
I think options 3 and 4 are most likely outcomes but maybe there are other options that I haven’t thought of. So, dear journalist, if you are reading this, it is my response beyond “I don’t see how it ends”.
Unfortunately, there’s also Option 5: Putin realizes he’s been backed into a corner, can’t call off the war without being assassinated and replaced by the ultranationalists he has surrounded himself with, can’t continue the war without sacrificing the existence of Russia through economic suicide and popular uprising and probably getting killed anyway, and thus he personally has nothing to lose, and launches preemptive nuclear strikes on all the NATO/EU states on his way down to his bunker, and nobody in the chain of command is willing to disobey him, and we all die. MAD only serves as a deterrent when the people who control the nukes believe they have a viable future.
How can Labour keep Starmer as their leader if he has these obvious — even to me — flaws?
Same way the Democrats can keep having the same incompetent center-right cretins in charge since 1992: shady funding, internal power struggles, and Boomer nostalgia for the Reagan era.
StevoRsays
Is it just me or do the words “tropical storm” have no place in the same sentence as “Canada” unless used in the negative sense e.g. “Canada is too far north to experience tropical storms?”
Tropical storm Fiona washes away houses, state of emergency declared in Newfoundland, Canada
Tropical storm Fiona, which transformed from a hurricane, forced waves to pound the town of Channel-Port Aux Basques on the southern coast of Newfoundland on Saturday, where entire structures were washed into the sea.
“I’m seeing homes in the ocean,” Port aux Basques resident and Wreckhouse Press editor René J Roy said.
“This is hands down the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said, describing many homes as “just a pile of rubble in the ocean right now.”
“It’s complete and utter destruction. There’s an apartment that is gone.”
Mr Roy estimated between eight and 12 houses and buildings had washed into the sea.
“It’s quite terrifying,” he said.
The Canadian Hurricane Centre said Fiona had the lowest pressure ever recorded for a storm making landfall in Canada.
is that just me?
StevoRsays
@167. SC (Salty Current) :
4. Even if there is a coup in Moscow, it will likely be done by those who think they know how to kill Ukrainians more effectively, not those who want peace. Even if they will agree to peace, there is no way they will agree give up Crimea and Ukraine won’t accept such peace
&
6. Option 3: The large number reservists make the Russian army so ineffective that it collapses in the field. Option 4: ) (wait, what again? Do they mean 7 or 4b maybe – ed?) There is a coup in Moscow that leads to chaos and loss of control which Ukraine uses to fully destroy the Russian army or the Russians collapse on their own
I think options 3 and 4(which 4? – Ed) are most likely outcomes but maybe there are other options that I haven’t thought of. So, dear journalist, if you are reading this, it is my response beyond “I don’t see how it ends”.
Emphasis added.
Really? Is it too much to hope for that a Russian coup removing Putin would be lead by people who do want peace or at least are realistic enough to know that Putin’s invasion cannot suceed and who will therefore end the war even if de facto not de jure to save face i.e. we’re calling a pause and withdrawing our troops without officially surrendering and making an official acknowledgement that we’ve lost?
(Sorta like the end of the Korean war / Chinese Civil War?)
Is that option 7 / 8 / 4c at all plausible / realistic?
ravensays
1. Ukraine has the will, the resources and the capacity to fight.
Russia is waging an open war of genocide.
Of course, the Ukrainians will keep on fighting.
What other choice do they have?
They live there.
The US Secretary of Defense said what everyone says.
If Russia lays down their arms, the war ends.
If Ukraine lays down their arms, Ukraine ends.
You have to remember: anybody who disagrees with Putin on the basics of how the country should run has long since been — at the very least — removed from the portion of the chain of command that stands any chance of getting close enough to him to pull off a coup. In order to cancel the war with a coup you would need a fairly large number of highly-placed people who are all willing to risk their lives together to end the war, and that seems unlikely. From what I’m seeing, Putin has been surrounding himself with people who thought about Ukraine the way the GWB administration thought about Iraq: it’ll be a cakewalk, we can win without even trying, the people will reject their government and embrace us and it will all be a fait accompli to the rest of the world, and this is such a brilliant idea that we don’t have to do any planning for contingencies. (You’d think they would have learned from watching the Iraq invasion, but apparently no government in the entire world, including the Obama administration, learned anything from that — or, at least, if they did they haven’t been showing it.) That’s who is around Putin, and they even now have supporters in the general public — just as with Iraq, or with Brexit, or the 2016 Clinton campaign, there are people in Russia who are still convinced that the failure wasn’t because it was a dumb idea in the first place, it’s because things weren’t done as extremely as in their fantasies.
KGsays
Pierce R. Butler@166,
Well, I’m glad to see you’ve dropped your unnecessarily nasty and self-righteous tone! Thanks for that.
A draft-dodger at large in Western Europe badmouthing the current regime will do Russian more harm than a reluctant grunt.
Really? Both the media and public opinion in Western Europe are already overwhelmingly anti-Putin, with only Tankies and the far right supporting him. Putin’s strategy in relation to the Russian public has been depoliticisation. His announcement of conscription is a major defeat for this strategy, and the presence of draft-dodgers hiding out in their localities could be a lot more troublesome than the same draft-dodgers fleeing abroad. After all, he could close the borders today if he wanted – he may prefer to leave this pressure-valve open, although there would clearly be other costs in shutting it.
I feel pretty sure the FSB has more and better ways to place actual agents than cramming them into long backed-up lines – and that anyone planted in that way won’t get much opportunity to spy on anything other than fellow emigrés.
A I’ve already pointed out, it’s already used tourism as a cover for assassins. And why would Putin not want to plant spies in emigré communities?
Definitely, valid arguments exist on both sides of this debate –
I agree, as I made clear @161, nice to see you acknowledge it.
but everything I’ve seen about it indicates the EU (+ UK, etc) has reacted so far only on knee-jerk xenophobia (or pandering to the parts of the population exhibiting same), but with very little visible thought on the advantages of assisting wannabe Russian exiles, which I suspect would pay numerous long-term dividends.
In fact neither the EU nor the UK has banned tourists from Russia – the UK doesn’t have a separate “tourist visa” category, Russians can still apply for a standard visa, the problem may be that there’s a cost (as there has always been) and Visa and Mastercard have made it hard for Russian to use their cards for foreign purchases (I don’t recall the details). That’s no problem for oligarchs of course – they will have foreign bank accounts. The measures imposed by 4 of the 5 countries bordering Russia are in response to the EU’s refusal to ban Russian tourists, although it has made it harder for them to obtain visas. Zelenskyy has asked for a full ban. I’m certainly not denying that xenophobia is rife in the EU, and specifically in the countries that have imposed the ban – although many EU countries including IIRC those four have welcomed Ukranian refugees. I’ve come across, and opposed, online denigration of everyone and everything Russian – not here, but on Daily Kos (where I’m KnoGo). This kind of blanket condemnation of “enemy” nationals and culture is always an unpleasant feature of war, even the kind of partial economic war currently being waged between Russia and NATO/EU states, and the main argument for admitting Russian draft-dodgers is simply that they should not be forced to take part in the war.
StevoR @ #171, gah. Those stupid numbers at the beginning. I removed, as I generally do, the numbers at the end of each (the “(1/6),” etc.) since they’re distracting and unnecessary when the whole thread is quoted together. But he for some reason also numbered some at the beginning, and I consider this part of the text. They’re pointless and confusing since he also includes numbered options, yes. I thought of replacing them with ellipses as I do with “Why it matters:…” and the other useless and annoying lead-ins at Axios, but I thought that might confuse so I left them in. In any case, the numbers at the beginning are evidently for each thought (or set of thoughts) rather than each option – as you can see, he doesn’t begin listing the options until #5.
Really? Is it too much to hope for that a Russian coup removing Putin would be lead [sic] by people who do want peace or at least are realistic enough to know that Putin’s invasion cannot suceed and who will therefore end the war even if de facto not de jure to save face i.e. we’re calling a pause and withdrawing our troops without officially surrendering and making an official acknowledgement that we’ve lost?
Well, it’s his sense that it’s unlikely, and TBH I’ve seen a number of others who have the same assessment. Even Putin’s biggest domestic opponent Navalny has historically been a nationalist. People in positions to conceivably foment a coup haven’t shown any indication of leanings or movement in that direction, and would probably (reasonably) fear that if they tried it they’d be “removed” by the staunch-imperialist hardliners pretty quickly.
I don’t think there’s a contradiction between
Even if there is a coup in Moscow, it will likely be done by those who think they know how to kill Ukrainians more effectively, not those who want peace. Even if they will agree to peace, there is no way they will agree give up Crimea and Ukraine won’t accept such peace
and
Option 4: There is a coup in Moscow that leads to chaos and loss of control which Ukraine uses to fully destroy the Russian army or the Russians collapse on their own
I think what he’s saying is that a coup, if it were to happen, is more likely to lead to the end of the war by creating chaos which then causes the Russian army to collapse or be destroyed than by people seizing power who would willingly withdraw Russian forces from Ukraine.
In any case, it’s only one view, albeit that of an area expert. I try to share a range of views. It’s always difficult with closed authoritarian systems to have a clear sense of what’s happening behind the scenes, though, so…
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From there:
A Moroccan prisoner of war released as part of an exchange between Moscow and Kyiv said he wanted to draw attention to the “struggle” of Ukraine as he returned home on Saturday.
Agence France-Presse reported the 21-year-old as saying:
I’m happy to come home after going through very difficult times.
I want to draw attention to the difficult situation in Ukraine and the struggle of its people in this painful time.
Brahim Saadoun, an aeronautical engineering student, had been based in Ukraine since 2019.
He was freed on Wednesday, one of 10 foreign prisoners of war – including five British and two American citizens – transferred to Saudi Arabia as part of the exchange between Moscow and Kyiv.
Smiling and appearing in good health alongside his mother, Saadoun thanked Saudi Arabia, the Turkish government and the Moroccan people “who stood in solidarity with us”.
One of the monitors sent at the invitation of the Russian state to assess the legitimacy of the referendums under way in occupied areas of Ukraine has been revealed to be none other than the CEO of a publicly owned German energy provider, Stefan Schaller.
BBC Monitoring’s Francis Scarr posted an interview Schaller gave to Russian state media in occupied Melitopol in German, in which he says that he’s impressed by the transparency of the referendum and will be communicating this to his media contacts in Germany.
Schaller, CEO of Energie Waldeck-Frankenberg (EWF) in northern Hesse, which provides several hundred thousand residents in the region with electricity, gas and heating, confirmed to his local newspaper, HNA.
“I wanted to gather my own on the ground impressions about the situation there. Not least because I believe that objective information can never be wrong,” he said.
Acknowledging the danger of being instrumentalised for Russian propaganda purposes, Schaller said that he was “always at pains in my statements to concentrate on facts and not on political valuations. I assess what I see, in the full knowledge that I am only being allowed to see what I should see.”
Schaller added that his visit had nothing to do with his role as the CEO of EWF. “It is a purely private matter. I took holiday in order to do it”.
Ukrainian forces say the southern port city of Odesa was attacked by Iranian-made drones overnight, AFP reports.
It comes after Ukraine downgraded diplomatic ties with Iran and stripped its ambassador of his accreditation over Tehran’s decision to supply Russian forces with the weapons.
“Odesa was attacked again by enemy kamikaze drones,” said the Ukrainian army’s Operational Command South.
“The enemy hit the administrative building in the city centre three times,” it said in a Facebook message. “One drone was shot down by (Ukrainian) air defence forces. No casualties (were) recorded.”
“These were Iranian drones,” a Ukrainian South Command spokesperson, Natalya Gumenyuk, later told AFP.
The strikes come two days after two civilians were killed in Odesa in a Russian attack with an Iranian-made drone.
J.R. Majewski blatantly lied about serving in combat in Afghanistan. This isn’t just stolen valor and an insult to those he’s trying to represent, but to those who actually served in Afghanistan, many giving their lives. He must drop out.
“Some Russians citizens of mobilisation age are forbidden to leave the country prior to receiving any notice. Happening both on the ground borders and in airports.
More illegal border crossing to follow”
lumipunasays
Re 179: There have been increasing hints and predictions that Russia will very soon systematically ban reservists (if not all military age men) from leaving the country.
Definitely, valid arguments exist on both sides of this debate – but everything I’ve seen about it indicates the EU (+ UK, etc) has reacted so far only on knee-jerk xenophobia (or pandering to the parts of the population exhibiting same), but with very little visible thought on the advantages of assisting wannabe Russian exiles, which I suspect would pay numerous long-term dividends.
Also my thoughts, generally speaking. The matter is complicated.
KG at 174:
In fact neither the EU nor the UK has banned tourists from Russia – the UK doesn’t have a separate “tourist visa” category, Russians can still apply for a standard visa, the problem may be that there’s a cost (as there has always been) and Visa and Mastercard have made it hard for Russian to use their cards for foreign purchases (I don’t recall the details). That’s no problem for oligarchs of course – they will have foreign bank accounts. The measures imposed by 4 of the 5 countries bordering Russia are in response to the EU’s refusal to ban Russian tourists, although it has made it harder for them to obtain visas.
Currently, Finland is just about to join the border closure as the fifth country. The purpose is to make it more difficult for Russian tourists to enter the EU generally, and to direct the entry route away from Finland specifically.
In principle, this shouldn’t prevent Russians from getting a humanitarian visa to Finland or other “frontline” EU country if they have sufficient grounds for that.
In principle, those Russians who apply for a visa (or have an existing one) to some West European country, could still fly there via third countries – if they have enough money.
In practice, the visa application process or even an existing valid visa presumably wouldn’t be useful for those who are already being actively drafted and pursued by authorities. They’d be stopped by Russia’s own border security before they can apply for asylum. At most, it might be useful if we decide (against general international principle) that a mere possibility of being drafted is grounds for asylum.
In practice, this is all moot anyway, as it now seems Russia is closing its borders from the inside for anyone they might consider drafting. The question is then, on what grounds we should grant asylum for those who cross the border illegally through the woods into Finland or Baltic countries. It’s not about visa/border rules anymore, with regard to draft avoiders.
Using the hashtag #DontPanic, pro-Kremlin bloggers have started comparing conscripted soldiers to french fries and gummies in social media posts about how “small” the scale of the country’s mobilization actually is.
The independent Russian outlet Mediazona has found at least three of these posts. In them, bloggers from the far-eastern city of Khabarovsk call on men to stay calm, reminding them that the authorities are only planning to conscript 300,000 people, or 1 percent of the 25 million people who make up Russia’s “total mobilization base.” These figures were given by Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu shortly after Vladimir Putin’s September 21 mobilization announcement.
Multiple independent sources have guessestimated the actual figure at at least 1 million, largely, it seems, press-ganged from non-Slavic (i.e., not ethnic Russian) regions / peoples (plus protestors and other Putin-designated “undesirables” who aren’t defenestrated).
And I rather doubt Douglas Adams would be too thrilled about the hijacking of “Don’t Panic”.
The influencers liken the soldiers-to-be to one percent of an order of french fries, one percent of a bag of gummies, or one percent of a woman’s makeup bag — a negligible amount, in their view. Only one percent, friends! wrote one woman. Remember the gummies.
None of the bloggers offered any advice, however, to people who have already been conscripted.
I kept reading “gummies” (the candy) as “Gumbys” (the Monty Python characters, used in this very blog to mark <blockquote>d eejits). And, of course, being compared to a snack to be eaten is perhaps not motivational, at least if one’s goal is to calm people’s concerns; the usual (bogus) comparisons are to creatures like lions, which do the eating.
blfsays
KG@174, “I’ve come across, and opposed, online denigration of everyone and everything Russian — not here, but on Daily Kos […]”.
Yes! Thank you. That tendency also annoys me greatly about both dKos and twitblithering (and probably other sites I don’t now recall). As far as I can recall, at dKos, the “Ukraine Update” series (specifically) avoids that “denigration of everyone and everything Russian”, albeit the (reader’s) comments, and some other dKos articles, do not.
IMHO, a very annoying aspect is there has been some really good comments, worth dredging through the muck for… but then there’s also the Ukraine should march on Moscow armchair-Kissinger / -Chomsky / -Corban pseudo-expert comments. None of those fools have actually called for Ukraine to invade Russia (as far as I know), but that invade-Russia nonsense is at least as stoooopid as those persons’s insistence Ukraine should agree to a ceasefire or whatever, both “freezing” Putin’s “gains” in Ukraine and ignoring Ukraine’s suggested resolutions.
…
Waters wrote an open letter to Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska early this month in which he blamed “extreme nationalists” in Ukraine for having “set your country on the path to this disastrous war.” He also criticized the West for supplying Ukraine with weapons, blaming Washington in particular.
Waters has also criticized NATO, accusing it of provoking Russia.
KG @ 174: Both the media and public opinion in Western Europe are already overwhelmingly anti-Putin…
Glad to hear that – the US media’s “both-sides!” fetish had given me the impression that significant head-in-the-sand blocs persisted. (So who are the “tankies”, and what motivates them – ideology or money?)
… the presence of draft-dodgers hiding out in their localities could be a lot more troublesome than the same draft-dodgers fleeing abroad.
Dodgers hiding won’t have much political influence. Dodgers demonstrating might, but unless the cops switch sides (by which point the Putin-czars analogy will have reached completion), that wouldn’t last long; cops kicking down doors to meet press-gang quotas may generate productive backlash, but I find it hard to imagine a positive endgame from that scenario.
… he could close the borders today if he wanted…
As lumipuma @ # 181, and others, have noted, he’s finally getting around to that. I wonder that he didn’t do so together with the mobilization order – another indication of Putin’s info silo, perhaps.
… [Russia]’s already used tourism as a cover for assassins.
Do you doubt the FSB (et al) have whole cabinets full of forged EU/UK/US/etc passports and fake identities?
… why would Putin not want to plant spies in emigré communities?
Just as easy to turn actual émigrés into spies by threatening stay-behind family members, etc.
… neither the EU nor the UK has banned tourists from Russia …
Apparently I misunderstood various reports about “Schengen”-area restrictions and/or confused demands for shutdowns for implementations of same, then. Given the size of the Baltic nations, I can more easily understand why their governments would fear inundation.
…online denigration of everyone and everything Russian – not here, but on Daily Kos …
I’ve seen some, ahem, overbroad generalizations here too. As for DK – {sigh}
… the kind of partial economic war currently being waged between Russia and NATO/EU states…
Very weird, that. No doubt the upper echelons in each capital have regularly updated comprehensive balance-of-trade reports; I’d sure like to see some.
… the main argument for admitting Russian draft-dodgers is simply that they should not be forced to take part in the war.
I doubt humanitarian incentives count for much among said upper echelons, but surely even they must see some of the potential advantages in accelerating Russian economic decline, exploiting brain drain, and westernizing those who will likely someday return to Russia. Of course, they have to weigh that against short-term economic stresses, and short-term thinking usually prevails everywhere outside Beijing (and perhaps Seoul & Pyongyang – can’t think of other possible exceptions right now).
lumipuma @ # 181 – thanks for the update and up-close perspectives!
ravensays
It is starting to look like support by the Russian people for the Ukrainian invasion isn’t all that high.
This article below doesn’t have a lot of data on this question but that type of data is going to be hard to get.
Russia is a dictatorship in trouble which means it isn’t going to be doing a lot of polling, and people aren’t going to be answering those polls anyway. Being antiwar in Russia is a crime with a prison sentence of up to 15 years.
We can still see get an idea though.
.1. A lot of Russians are leaving any way they can. The border crossings are backed up, plane tickets to anywhere are expensive and hard to get.
.2. In a country with a huge Gulag and security police forces, there are now a lot of anti-draft riots and protests.
This is far more dangerous than in the West. A lot of draft age men are immediately being hauled off to..join the Russian army cannon fodder forces.
.3. After the last century, Russians are used to not giving their real opinions on anything much less politics. In recent times past, that could get you sent to the Gulags or just flat out killed.
I’ve seen estimates that maybe 25% of the Russians are nationalists who want to bring back the USSR, 25% are pro-West who want to look like an EU country, and half the people are apolitical and don’t care.
Or they didn’t care until Sasha got pulled out of college and sent to the front in Ukraine.
Bloomberg Opinion Lara Williams September 25, 2022, 12:00 PM UTC The Cost of Putin’s Ukraine Escalation Is Already Clear
It turns out that Russians care about securing a better life for themselves, not a war being fought for a dictator’s abstract goals.
Russian protesters have a question: Who is this war good for?
A country with one of the world’s largest populations and the biggest stockpile of nuclear weapons is mired in a hopeless war. What happens next?
We found out the answer to that question last week, when Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a call-up of reservists. Airfares for those trying to flee spiked massively:
Taking Flight
Prices of a one-way flight from Moscow to many destinations have soared amid high demand after the mobilization order
It turns out that people who mostly just want to earn a better life for themselves and their families aren’t necessarily willing to lay their lives on the line in order to bring down something as abstract as the “globalist West.” continues
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 186
Oh, that article doesn’t mention the worst: During the writer’s meetings for his appearance, Seagal came up with a idea for a sketch where he portrays a psychologist treat a rape victim play by a pre-Christo-fascist Victoria Jackson. At the end of the skit, Seagal’s character rapes Jackson’s. That’s what Seagal considers “funny.”
US to act ‘decisively’ if Russia uses nuclear weapon in Ukraine
The US and its allies will act “decisively” if Russia uses a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine, its national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday, reaffirming the Joe Biden White House’s previous response to mounting concerns that Vladimir Putin’s threats are in increased danger of being realised.
“We have communicated directly, privately and at very high levels to the Kremlin that any use of nuclear weapons will be met with catastrophic consequences for Russia, that the US and our allies will respond decisively, and we have been clear and specific about what that will entail,” Sullivan told CBS’s Face The Nation.
Sullivan said that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, had been “waving around the nuclear card at various points through this conflict”, and it was a matter that Biden’s administration has “to take deadly seriously because it is a matter of paramount seriousness – the possible use of nuclear weapons for the first time since the second world war”.
Protests against the mobilisation order to recruit more people for Russia’s army appear to be continuing in the Russian republic of Dagestan, with videos showing standoffs between police and the public.
Video footage posted on social media shows the police arresting demonstrators. The order will see thousands more Russians drafted to be part of the war effort in Ukraine. On Thursday a video showed people angrily confronting an official at a recruitment centre.
Dagestan’s capital, Makhachkala, appears to be at the centre of the protests, with some roads blocked. The area borders Azerbaijan and Georgia to the south.
The counteroffensive in Kharkiv that kicked off in the first week of this month set a pace that’s hard for the Ukrainian army, or any army, to match. In a matter of days, they blasted through the Russian line that had held for months at towns like Balakliya, and drove over 60km straight across Kharkiv Oblast. At the same time, forces fanned out, liberating what had been one of Russia’s most important locations at Izyum, and pressing Russian forces all the way to the border in the north. Over 8,500 square kilometers were liberated between September 6 and September 12, about halfway between a Delaware and Connecticut worth of ground.
The end of that counteroffensive … never happened. Or at least, it hasn’t happened yet. Because on the heels of liberating Izyum and pushing to the west side of the Oskil River at places like Kupyansk, Ukraine immediately began making bridgeheads in new territory.
At multiple locations, Ukraine pushed across the Silverskyi Donets River, constructing pontoon bridges and successfully establishing forces in the same area where Russian attempts to cross the river had repeatedly been met with massive losses. They moved across the Oskil River in at least three locations upstream, and crossed the bridge east of the town of Oskil, forming up a new line that faced to the northeast.
The expectations set by the success of the first days of this counteroffensive were so great that it’s hard to realize that Izyum was liberated just 12 days ago. It wasn’t until September 14 that President Volodomyr Zelenskyy came to Izyum to thank the military and greet the liberated citizens of the city.
In the last two weeks, it may seem that things have slowed down, but they have absolutely not been slow. Here’s a map from September 7, the day after the counteroffensive really got rolling, and also the day we first learned that Ukrainian troops on the north side of the Siverskyi Donets were more than a few special forces paying a visit. (As always, right-click on these maps and open in another tab for a larger image.) [maps are available at the link]
That September 7 map doesn’t really show much north of Lyman. Mostly, that’s because there was nothing to see. Nothing but red. Everything in that area was occupied by Russia, and had been since April.
Here’s a look at where things stood a week later. Ukraine was still fighting to remove a remaining pocket of Russian forces in the city of Oskil, and just starting to press a line of cities across the river. It was fighting to take places like Studenok and Sosnove. The liberation of Svyatohirske had just been confirmed. Take a look in the yellow area at the northwest of this map and spot Studenok. We’re going to look at it again.
Here’s a good guess at where things stand this Sunday morning. You can measure Ukraine’s progress just by how many new locations are identified on this map—locations that had been deep in Russian occupied territory.
See Studenok on this map? It’s 30km from where Ukrainian forces are now known to be advancing east of Ridkodub. And this map is likely conservative.
See Novomykhailivka out there beyond Ridkodub? Russian sources indicate this is actually beyond the last line of Russia’s defense in the area. Russia is shooting back at Ukrainian forces that have moved north of their positions. On the west side of this map, Ukraine has liberated Pisky-Radkivski and is still moving north. It seems likely that in the next day or so they will reach the already established bridgehead south of Borova.
Ukraine has liberated around 600 sq. kilometers in the last week.
The concern on Russian Telegram channels is no longer about holding onto Borova or even Lyman. The concern is that, with Ukraine again moving swiftly to capture locations well behind Russia’s fortified positions, the entire defensive line in this area is “fast collapsing.” Multiple sources indicate that Ukrainian forces are, right now, going for Makiivka, which is on a highway that acts as a supply line for those Russian forces to the south. And also happens to be in Luhansk Oblast.
Highways are one big difference in what’s happening here. That dramatic, high speed race from Balakliya to Volokhiv Yar to Kupyansk all took place with forces moving down a major highway. There’s no highway along the path Ukraine has been carving north of Lyman. There’s really not even a road.
Capturing a few specific points in this area—Nove, Zelena Dolyna, Shandryholove—could soon become more important specifically because these locations are along good roads (roads that have been mined, but …). Unlike the area down in Kherson, there’s some real topography north of Lyman, gullies and hills, bluffs, and mini-canyons. And unlike the area down around Kherson, the soil in this area is not sandy. It’s more clay and loam. Rain is expected tonight. More rain is expected almost every day this week. General Mud has definitely made his return to the battlefield.
But right now, Ukraine is not bogged down. It’s advancing on multiple lines. On Sunday morning, there were reports that Ukraine has liberated Novoselivka (unconfirmed), and there were some reports that both Karpivka and Nove had been liberated (though Russia may now have reoccupied those positions). Ukraine also seems set to move into Luhansk Oblast at a new location east of Novomykhailivka, placing them less than 20km from from the big Russian supply and command center at Svatove.
These are big changes, and they’re happening so quickly that before one Ukrainian position can be confirmed, Ukraine has already moved on. This is steady progress—and it could be about to accelerate.
Meanwhile at the far end of the line, The New York Times has some very good, and very rough, reporting on what’s happening down in Kherson. In short—it’s not going well. Not in the sense that Ukraine is losing, […] In this flat, open territory where Russia has created multiple lines of trenches and fortifications, any advance is made at terrible cost. Ukraine is seeing losses in Kherson that are hard to contemplate, and the price they’ve paid for some of the territorial gains in that area may just be a down payment on what it will take to actually free Kherson. It’s a whole different war down there.
A hint of things to come, and why fighting, especially in the northeastern part of Ukraine, is likely to become more confined to areas along highways for the next couple of months. [video at the link, vehicle mired in mud]
Trump shows a lot of disrespect for fellow Republicans.
Former President Trump said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) “kisses my a–” in order to snag endorsements for his friends, according to a forthcoming book from New York Times correspondent Maggie Haberman.
“You know why Lindsey kisses my ass? So I’ll endorse his friends,” Trump said in the excerpt published Sunday in the Atlantic.
The quip comes from one of three interviews Haberman conducted with the former president after he left the White House.
Trump reportedly complained to Haberman, a White House correspondent throughout his administration, that Graham and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) had encouraged the former president not to endorse a challenger to Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial after being reelected with Trump’s endorsement.
[…] Haberman’s book “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America” is slated for publication next month.
Trump calls McConnell a ‘piece of s—‘ in Haberman book
Former President Trump called Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) a “piece of s—” during an interview with New York Times correspondent Maggie Haberman for her forthcoming book.
The Atlantic published an excerpt of Haberman’s book on Sunday, including Trump’s criticisms of the top Senate Republican, whose relationship with the former president soured over their disagreements on the 2020 election. Trump has since nicknamed McConnell “The Old Crow.”
“The Old Crow’s a piece of shit,” Trump told Haberman during an interview at Mar-a-Lago, according to the excerpt. […]
Haberman in the excerpt outlined how Trump’s constant disparaging of the media is juxtaposed with a “relentless desire to hold the media’s gaze,” noting how he has met with nearly every prominent author writing a book on his presidency, including Haberman herself.
“His impulse to try to sell his preferred version of himself was undeterred by the stain that January 6 left on his legacy and on the democratic foundations of the country — if anything, it grew stronger,” Haberman wrote.
[…] Appealing directly to Russians during an address, Zelensky said Ukraine could guarantee three terms to Russian soldiers in exchange for their surrender. He said such Russians will be treated in a civilized manner, the circumstances of their surrender will remain undisclosed and Ukraine will find a way to ensure those who do not want to return to Russia are not exchanged. […]
Shana Tova to all Jewish communities in Ukraine and around the world celebrating today. I wish everyone a happy and sweet year despite all the difficult challenges. May light prevail over darkness and may life prevail over death #ShanaTova #RoshHashana
It will be the brightest natural object other than the moon in the night sky
[…] On Sunday, Jupiter will reach its closest distance to Earth in 59 years at around 367 million miles. On Monday, the gas giant will reach opposition, meaning it will appear opposite the sun to those on Earth. Jupiter will rise in the east while the sun sets in the west. The two events will make Jupiter appear brighter and larger in the sky, with the best views Monday night, according to NASA. However, the planet will appear slightly bigger and brighter for the next few weeks.
Separately, the two occurrences are not exceptionally rare. Jupiter reaches opposition every 13 months, which makes the gas giant appear bigger and brighter than at any other time of the year. It also makes its closest approach to Earth, appearing larger, about every 12 years, the amount of time the planet takes to orbit the sun. The overlap of the two events is a game of physics and will not take place again until 2139.
[…] Amateur astronomers will probably notice the differences the most, Thaller said. Using binoculars or a telescope, people will be able to observe the finer details of Jupiter, including its banding, and three or four of its Galilean moons, according to NASA. Sky gazers should find a high elevation, dark skies and dry weather for the best visibility.
[…] Telescopes in space will also be able to capture a better view of the planet for the next couple of months, Thaller said. The recently launched James Webb Space Telescope has already captured an exceptional image of the planet in remarkable detail. The image, created from several composites, shows auroras above the northern and southern poles of Jupiter. The famous Great Red Spot, a large spinning storm that could swallow the Earth, and its clouds appear white as they reflect a lot of sunlight. […]
Meanwhile in Russia: see for yourself how clips of Tucker Carlson are being used on Kremlin-controlled state TV for their war propaganda, as well as anti-American and genocidal anti-Ukrainian messaging.
What is the Russian Orthodox Church making of Putin’s mobilisation?
Patriarch Kirill said in his sermon today that soldiers dying in Ukraine would have all their sins washed away
Video at the (Twitter) link. Even by the standards of silly religious getups it’s an extremely silly getup.
Oggie: Mathomsays
During the Second World War (sorry, the Great Patriotic War), and Soviet soldier who surrendered was treated as a traitor and, upon repatriation, imprisoned. It didn’t matter how he, or she, surrendered. Soldiers who were captured while unconscious were subject to the same punishments as those who waved a white flag. Those who were part of a large group of soldiers whose officers surrendered — as happened in the summer of 1941 quite a few times (some encirclements bagged hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers) — were subject to prosecution and punishments just as severe. Those who managed to escape captivity, or sneak out of encirclements, were closely questioned by NKVD special officers and had an 80% chance of being assigned to a punishment battalion. After the war, those few who returned from German captivity were sent to the gulag for 5-to-15-year terms. Their families were also punished through denial of rations, evicting them from housing, internal deportations and terms in the gulag. More than half of soviet POWs died in German captivity (German soldiers had a similar fatality rate in Russian POW camps and gulags) and those who came home faced a 1 in 4 chance of dying in the gulags.
I bring this up to point out that Putin’s comments regarding Russian soldiers who surrender is reminiscent of Stalin’s views on those who voluntarily surrender (which was any Russian soldier who surrendered).
Russian service members who “voluntarily surrender” to enemy forces during an armed conflict will now face up to ten years behind bars upon returning home, according to new legislation signed by President Vladimir Putin on Saturday. [This refers to an earlier law passed through the parliament which also introduced ‘mobilization’, ‘martial law’ and ‘war time’ into the legal code]
Three-year terms on on tap for those who voluntarily surrender. Of course, it will be the judgement of the authorities regarding who surrendered voluntarily. If they are first time offenders, they can redeem themselves by going back into combat (hello, punishment battalions?).
Putin was raised in the post-Stalin USSR, a time when communism was still viewed as the wave of the future. He excelled and entered one of the most coveted career paths. Putin was trained as a KGB officer under the tutelage of those who survived the pre-war purges, the Great Patriotic War, the post-war purges, the post-Beria house-cleaning, and decades serving a repressive system which took Czarist dehumanization to new heights. He was taught and trained by those who implemented the 1930s purges and the removal of potentially disloyal minorities. He not only survived under these ‘teachers’, but he thrived. And he came to the professional maturity of his job during the 1970s and 1980s, a time when the Great Patriotic warriors were beginning to fade. And ultimately fail to continue as a ruling caste.
Ultimately, Putin never left his upbringing behind. I don’t think he ever cared one way or the other for communism, but he certainly learned the lesson that authoritarianism, whether the authoritarianism of the Czar, the authoritarianism of the cult of personality or the authoritarianism of the politburo, is what made Russia great. And he is seeking to recreate that.
The repressive laws rubberstamped by the parliament, whether affecting the military or the rest of the country, are Stalinism light. So far, he has not resorted to terror campaigns reminiscent of the 1930s, but he appears to be heading that direction. So far, his killings have been retail and (clumsily) hidden (how many ‘suicides’ this year?). Right now, soldiers, draftees, those protesting the call-ups/round-ups, and, most recently, minorities, seem to be the most likely victims. Will this spread to other parts of society?
Rights activists in Crimea say Russia’s mobilisation drive in the occupied peninsula is disproportionately targeting Crimean Tatars, an ethnic group that has largely opposed Russian rule since the area was annexed in 2014.
“Everywhere, in every town, I am hearing that the majority of those mobilised are Crimean Tatars, and we know they are particularly targeting settlements with predominantly Crimean Tatar populations,” an activist from the group still living on the peninsula said in a telephone interview.
“This will be a catastrophe for us that will take years to heal.”
…
The largely Muslim Crimean Tatars make up about 13% of Crimea’s population. There is no official breakdown of who has been mobilised but extensive anecdotal evidence suggests Crimean Tatars have been targeted disproportionately. Crimea SOS, a Ukrainian rights organisation, estimates that 90% of mobilisation notices have been given to Crimean Tatars.
“This is a conscious effort to destroy the Crimean Tatar nation,” Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said during his nightly video address on Saturday.
Tamila Tasheva, Zelenskiy’s top representative for Crimea, also said she believed Russia was targeting the group deliberately. “Crimean Tatars are the least loyal segment of the population to Russia, and it was clear they were very buoyed by recent Ukrainian military successes. Now they are being punished,” she said.
Tasheva, who is Crimean Tatar, said she had received dozens of reports from members of her ethnic group of police arriving in their towns or villages and handing out summons.
“People are panicking, they don’t know what to do,” she said. She is advising those mobilised to try to surrender to Ukrainian forces at the first possible opportunity. “But of course, we’re worried they’ll just be shot in the back by the Russians.”
Asked if arming thousands of opponents was a strategy that could backfire for Moscow, she said: “Unfortunately, the Russians are not stupid enough to put all the Crimean Tatars together in the same regiment.”
Others also reported a sense of helplessness and panic in the community, with people attempting to flee Crimea.
With the nearest operating international airport hundreds of miles from Crimea, persistent rumours that Russia could close the bridge over the Kerch strait that links the peninsula to Russia and huge queues at Russia’s remaining open land borders with other countries, fleeing is not easy.
“Right now, it’s the only topic of discussion. How to flee, how to hide, how to get out of Russia. Yesterday I was at a birthday party and nobody was talking about anything else. There are no smiles, no happiness. Everyone is depressed, the women are in tears,” said the activist.
Tatars have called Crimea home for centuries, but became a minority after Russia took over the region in the 18th century under Catherine the Great. Joseph Stalin had the entire population deported to Central Asia during the second world war, wrongly smearing the group as Nazi collaborators. Most were only allowed to return to the peninsula in the 1980s.
This long experience of persecution led many Crimean Tatars to be extremely hostile to the Russian annexation in 2014. Russian authorities subsequently tried to co-opt Crimean Tatar leaders, but most refused to collaborate. A campaign of harassment and persecution against active community leaders began, and Russia outlawed the mejlis, the Crimean Tatar representative body. Many of its members were banned from entering the peninsula and are now based in Kyiv or elsewhere.
Dozens of Crimean Tatars are recognised as political prisoners, and there has been an increase in arrests and pressure since the war began in February, with Russian authorities on the lookout for sabotage and plots among a population it considers disloyal….
Oggie: Mathomsays
And SC’s quote fits right in with my wall of text. Thank you for the timely serendipitous post, SC.
#Georgian MP @NonaMamulashvi in an interview with [Ukraine] Freedom channel Sep.25: #Georgia looks to stop shut its border for #Russian men between the age of 18-55 starting Monday.
“Russians advise each other to behave boldly in Georgia,” she added.
Serbia will not recognize Russian annexation ‘referendums’ in occupied Ukrainian areas, the Kyiv Independent reports.
“[The annexation referendums] completely contradict our state and national interests, our policy of dealing with territorial integrity, sovereignty and the principle of inviolability of borders,” said Nikola Selakovic, the Serbian foreign minister.
He added that his country would comply with international law and the UN Charter.
After Vladimir Putin announced the Russian mobilization, arsonists started to set fire to military enlistment and administrative buildings (and one office of the United Russia party) with renewed vigor. In the first six months of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine at least 20 military commissariats were set on fire; now the frequency of such incidents has increased dramatically. This is a partial list of new instances of arson – more are likely to follow.
(This list contains only fires set after September 21, 2022, the day Putin announced the mobilization.)
September 21 Fires were set in enlistment offices in St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod. The fire in Nizhny Novgorod was allegedly started by a Molotov cocktail thrown through a first-floor window.
September 22 There were arson attempts in the Orenburg and Zabaikal regions, and part of the city administration building in Tolyatti, in the Samara region, was burned down.
September 23 Enlistment offices were damaged by Molotov cocktails in the Amur and Khabarovsk regions, and an “incendiary object” was thrown into a city administration building in the Volgograd region. In the Altai region, a fire was set at a village administration building, which fully burned out the post office located there.
September 24 An elderly man was suspected of attempting to burn down the municipal enlistment office in Kansk in the Krasnoyarsk region. In Bashkortostan, car tires were set on fire outside the local United Russia offices.
September 25 saw fires in enlistment offices in Kaliningrad, Mordovia, and the Leningrad region. That night, also in the Leningrad region, two bottles with combustible contents were thrown through the window of a social welfare office in a rural settlement. That morning, the building that housed the administration of the town of Bereslavka, near Volgograd, was burned down completely.
On August 29, eight cartons of notarized paperwork challenging 25,000 voter registrations were delivered by pro-Donald Trump “election integrity” activists to Gwinnett County’s election offices in suburban Atlanta. They were accompanied by additional paperwork claiming that 15,000 absentee ballots had been illegally mailed to voters before the county’s 2020 presidential election.
Two days later, the activists held a briefing on the filings. It was led by Garland Favorito, a soft-spoken retired information technology professional who has been agitating in Georgia election circles for 20 years and heads a non-profit called VoterGA. Favorito began by citing six lawsuits the group has filed against state and county officials – claiming counterfeit ballots, untrustworthy or illegal voting systems, and corrupt 2022 primary results. Then he turned to Gwinnett County.
“We are delivering today 37,500 affidavits challenging voter rolls and handling of the 2020 election,” said Favorito. “As a reminder, the presidential spread for the entire state of Georgia was 11,000 and change, not quite 12,000 [votes]. And we have 20,000 [allegedly improper voter registrations] just in Gwinnett alone. This number will increase as our analysis is ongoing.”
The Gwinnett challenges are not unique. In Georgia’s Democratic epicenters, Trump backers have been filing voter roll challenges since last winter targeting upwards of 65,000 voters. The state’s post-2020 election “reform” bill, S.B. 202, authored by its GOP-led legislature, allows an unlimited number of challenges.
While most of the claims put forth by Voter GA are easily refuted, the challenges individually targeting voters could have an impact in suppressing some number of votes this fall in Georgia, where polls find some statewide contests are very close.
[…]
“Something extraordinary is happening in Iran, a moment of political and social evolution that transcends the protests themselves and may have a profound impact on Iranian society and politics for years to come….”
Link and thread with news and video from tonight’s protests at the link.
This 20 Yr old girl who was getting ready to join the protest against the murdering of #MahsaAmini got killed by 6 bullets.
#HadisNajafi, 20، was shot in the chest, face and neck by Islamic Republic’s security forces.
Be our voice.
Reginald Selkirk @ # 213 – Your link goes to a 2020 Pharyngula post with no detectable connection to that headline (well, that’s what I got – the link itself specifies “report” on this page).
Former President Donald Trump said the “rich friends” he acquired from his presidency made it all worth it to him, according to an excerpt from reporter Maggie Haberman’s upcoming book published in The Atlantic on Sunday.
“The question I get asked more than any other question: ‘If you had to do it again, would you have done it?’” Trump was quoted as telling Haberman during one of three post-presidency interviews.
“The answer is, yeah, I think so. Because here’s the way I look at it. I have so many rich friends and nobody knows who they are,” he said according to the excerpt of her book, “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America.”
Haberman, who has spent years covering Trump for The New York Times, called his admission “as jarring as it was ultimately surprising,” considering his first impulses weren’t to mention public service or his believed accomplishments.
Trump did, in a later interview, say that “getting things done” was what he liked about the job and he listed a few accomplishments, Haberman noted.
Though he apparently didn’t share more about his secret friends, he did say that he doesn’t stay in touch with Russian President Vladimir Putin or Chinese President Xi Jinping. He wavered when asked about North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, however.
“Well, I don’t want to say exactly, but …” he was quoted as saying while trailing off.
Haberman said she later learned after her interview that Trump had been telling guests at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida that he has continued to stay in contact with Kim, who she noted is featured in a photo on his office wall.
She said Trump told her that he had “incredible things” in his possession from his White House days, but said that letters he received from the dictator and “most” other White House documents were in the National Archives.
As it later turned out, letters from Kim were found in boxes at Mar-a-Lago, along with other classified material, The Washington Post reported back in February.
The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into the possible mishandling of federal records.
I get a lot of pressure to take a public position on things like that [whether gays have rights]. And I said no, because someone has to be a bridge person. And as soon as you declare yourself, one way or another, then the other side doesn’t listen to you anymore. And I want to be one of those reconcilers.
Keep him & his “reconciliation” away from me, please.
According to former FBI official Peter Strzok, Donald Trump continues to put his attorneys in a bad place every time they face a judge and have to explain claims he keeps making to his rabid followers.
Appearing on MSNBC on Sunday afternoon, Strzok told host Yasmin Vossoughian that the judges are not buying Trump’s “MAGA make-believe,” stories and his legal team has no way of defending him without perjuring themselves.
‘What defenses do you see of the former president’s team floating here?” the host asked him.
“I don’t think they have many,” Strzok said as he smiled. “At the end of the day this is always been from Trump’s side, sort of a publicity stunt, something to fund-raise off of, something he could take to his base and continue the narrative that somehow he has been wrongly investigated, and the deep state is going after him and that he can use this to engender more support for this nonsense tale that he is trying to get away from any accountability for any potential criminal acts he engaged in.”
“At the end of the day, what’s refreshing is that all this nonsense in this land of MAGA make-believe hits the judicial system of the United States it crumbles immediately,” he added as he laughed. “That’s what you have seen from Judge [Raymond] Dearie, the special master laying out an aggressive timeline saying ‘We have heard you make the statements that you declassified them, we heard you make statements that evidence has been planted. Fine, by Friday, give details of exactly what you mean by that, and not only that but by next month, by mid-October, to have a complete review of a privilege log for anything you claim as executive privilege, client-attorney privilege.'”
“I don’t see any argument that Trump can make, and more importantly, any argument that attorneys representing Trump are going to be willing to put their name on the line for something that isn’t supported by the law, that isn’t supported by fact, and that might get them into a lot of trouble ethically and with their bar memberships,” he added.
He then predicted, “I don’t expect to see much of anything of substance coming from Trump and his attorneys this week.”
The irony her is that her name was Jina. She was deprived of her birth name,a Kurdish name, under laws that prohibited her ethnic people- Kurds- from visibility. Mahsa was the Persian name on her passport, but her name was Jina. Let’s say her name: Jina Amini.
The slogan “woman, life, liberty” started with the Kurds, too. I don’t see that mentioned anywhere either.
An excerpt from the Institute for the Study of War (USA).
It just says what everyone has already concluded, the Russian mobilization isn’t going to work very well.
They will get bodies but not soldiers with training and equipment to the front with Ukraine. It isn’t even obvious that they are geared up to feeding them.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is unlikely to overcome fundamental structural challenges in attempting to mobilize large numbers of Russians to continue his war in Ukraine. The “partial mobilization” he ordered on September 21 will generate additional forces but inefficiently and with high domestic social and political costs. The forces generated by this “partial mobilization,” critically, are very unlikely to add substantially to the Russian military’s net combat power in 2022. Putin will have to fix basic flaws in the Russian military personnel and equipment systems if mobilization is to have any significant impact even in the longer term. His actions thus far suggest that he is far more concerned with rushing bodies to the battlefield than with addressing these fundamental flaws.
The Russian Armed Forces have not been setting conditions for an effective large-scale mobilization since at least 2008 and have not been building the kind of reserve force needed for a snap mobilization intended to produce immediate effects on the battlefield. There are no rapid solutions to these problems.
ravensays
To no ones surprise, there is a measles epidemic in Africa. Again.
It started in an antivax fundie church.
The African fundie xian churches got that from the US churches that they just copy.
I’m sure we will see the same thing in the USA and soon.
Already we have a polio outbreak.
There have been several measles outbreaks in the USA in the last few years. They started and spread through…antivax fundie xian churches.
More Than 700 Children Have Died in a Measles Outbreak in Zimbabwe
It is driven by a decline in child immunization during the pandemic and the influence of an anti-vaccination evangelical church.
By Tendai Marima and Stephanie Nolen
NYTimes Sept. 24, 2022 edited for length
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe — A measles outbreak has killed more than 700 children and infected thousands of others across Zimbabwe, highlighting the risks of faltering childhood immunization campaigns around the globe.
As of Sept. 6, the country’s Ministry of Health and Child Care was reporting more than 6,500 cases and 704 deaths. It has not released numbers since then.
The outbreak is the result of a grim confluence of factors endangering child health in many countries.
Routine immunization dropped significantly in Zimbabwe during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Vaccination coverage was already flagging in Zimbabwe before the pandemic, declining each year since 2017, because a decades-long political and economic crisis has gutted the public health system.
Twenty-five years ago, Zimbabwe had one of the highest rates of vaccination coverage in sub-Saharan Africa, but vaccine hesitancy has swelled, amplified by influential churches that discourage immunization and urge members to rely on prayer and the intercession of pastors instead. The Johane Marange Apostolic Church, which has hundreds of thousands of members, is at the center of the measles outbreak.
Some Apostolic and evangelical pastors have long opposed vaccination, saying their prayers and sacred stones are enough to protect the faithful, and have threatened to expel women who take children to clinics. This rhetoric, fueled by social media, ramped up in opposition to Covid-19 shots, which some evangelical leaders warned would contain “the mark of the beast.” The hesitancy has spilled over into resistance to routine childhood shots.
ravensays
Thread
ТРУХА⚡️English @TpyxaNews
Two more mass burials were found in Izyum, – President Zelenskyy in an interview with CBS.
“We found a large mass burial with half a thousand people. Today I received more information. Journalists are already on their way.
This has happened everywhere the Russians have been.
I’ve seen video of the ones around Mariupol.
There are at least thousands of people buried there.
KGsays
How can Labour keep Starmer as their leader if he has these obvious — even to me — flaws?
Same way the Democrats can keep having the same incompetent center-right cretins in charge since 1992: shady funding, internal power struggles, and Boomer nostalgia for the Reagan era. -The Vicar@169 [emphasis added]
Vicar, you really don’t know shit about the UK. Internal power struggles: sure; shady funding: possible, although sources of donations over a certain size have to be declared, and aside from public funds, Labour’s biggest source of funding is generally some of the big unions; “Boomer nostalgia for the Reagan era”: er, no. Any UK “Boomer” nostalgic for that era would (a) be in the Tory Party or one of the far-right fragments such as Reform, UKIP, etc. and (b) think of it as the Thatcher era.
Starmer is a Blair acolyte (and is actively trying to rehabilitate Blair and bring him back into the party). Blair got his start at the end of the Reagan/Bush era, and support for Starmer’s right-of-centrism is driven by the idea that the whole “New Labour” push-to-the-right thing was good. That’s where Starmer’s support comes from, people whose idea of the best possible policy is what you got from Blair. That’s why he kept nodding along with Johnson over and over again and is still only lukewarm about resisting Truss; it’s emblematic of Starmer’s Labour that no Labour conference has ever sung “God Save The King/Queen”, but they’re requiring delegates to do it this time. So, in short, perhaps you should take a closer look at what your country is doing and pull your head back into some long-overdue sunshine? (And why would I call it the Thatcher Era? It’s like expecting me to go into mourning for your queen, which apparently some of your fellows expected from the rest of the world.)
(Incidentally: I give you full permission to make the most tasteless jokes possible upon the death of any and all US public figures. Even the ones I like. Nothing would cheer me up more than if something went catastrophically wrong at the funeral of one of the sociopaths who have governed us and we got a joke along the lines of Carrero being called “the first Spanish astronaut”.)
KGsays
Pierce R. Butler@187,
Dodgers hiding won’t have much political influence.
Well this is getting speculative, but as I said, Putin’s strategy has been to depoliticise both the war, and Russians generally. The presence of draft-dodgers will often beome known locally (“Where is Sergei? He doesn’t seem to be around, but his mother is still buying for two…), and will face neighbours with a dilemma – turn him in or not? If Sergei gets dragged away, and happens to be a well-liked guy, that will cause resentment. Putin wants to minimse how much ordinary Russians think about the war as anything other than a comfortably distant spectacle of good (Russia) versus evil (“Ukronazis”). Notice that there are already complaints from some fairly high-up people in Russia about the conscription of people who should not be eligible.
Do you doubt the FSB (et al) have whole cabinets full of forged EU/UK/US/etc passports and fake identities?
No, but do you doubt that EU/UK/US authorities are on high alert for such infiltrators. Where better to hide agents than among a large-scale flow of tourists andor refugees?
Just as easy to turn actual émigrés into spies by threatening stay-behind family members, etc.
A coerced amateur is not going to be as effective as a trained agent.
Vicar@229,
You ridiculous numpty, of course I know Starmer is a Blairite – he’s appointed Mandelson as one of his main advisers, FFS.
Blair got his start at the end of the Reagan/Bush era
Oh, it’s no longer the “Reagan” era, but the “Reagan/Bush” era, is it? Depends what you mean by “got his start”. He was born in 1953. He was elected to Parliament in 1983, standing on a “soft left” platform, quite different from the policies he pursued once he became party leader in 1994, during the Clinton era, and if he was basing himself on any American model, it was clearly Clinton, not Reagan or Bush. But go on, parade your ignorance some more.
And why would I call it the Thatcher Era?
Because you were talking about UK politics, specifically, reasons Starmer retained the leadership of the UK Labour Party, of course, and that’s how any relevant people nostalgic for that era would think of it. And you ignore the more important point: that any such people would not be in the Labour Party anyway. The nostalgia involved is for the Blair era, i.e. when Blair was in power, 1997-2007. Starmer and his cronies want to replace the Tories as the “natural party of government” by removing any policies and individuals that could be perceived as threatening radical change, and making clear he will allow inequality to go no increasing but smooth down the sharpest edges of raw “neoliberal” capitalism as pushed by Truss. That was Blair’s formula, which kept Labour in office for 13 years, and Starmer thinks enough of the capitalist/media elite will buy into it to allow him his turn.
Incidentally: I give you full permission to make the most tasteless jokes possible upon the death of any and all US public figures.
First, I don’t need or want your permission for anything whatever. Second, you still appear to be under some bizarre delusion concerning my politics, as shown both by your pathetic attempt to educate me on matters I know far more about than you, and by this irrelevant nonsense related to the death of Elizabeth Windsor.
Reginald Selkirksays
@218: The link work for me. The article is on CBC.
Washington (CNN)As allies of then-President Donald Trump made a final push to overturn the election in late-December 2020, one of the key operatives behind the effort briefed then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows about his attempts to gain access to voting systems in key battleground states, starting with Arizona and Georgia, according to text messages obtained by CNN. Phil Waldron, an early proponent of various election-related conspiracy theories, texted Meadows on December 23 that an Arizona judge had dismissed a lawsuit filed by friendly GOP lawmakers there. The suit demanded state election officials hand over voting machines and other election equipment, as part of the hunt for evidence to support Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud. ..
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian liveblog. From there:
A Russian man has shot the leader of the local military draft committee in a Siberian town after telling him he would refuse to fight in the war in Ukraine. The incident took place in the city of Ust-Ilimsk, a town of about 85,000 people in the Irkutsk region in Siberia. Video showed the gunman, dressed in camouflage, firing at the official from point blank range as other potential draftees for the Russian invasion fled the room. Reports say that at least three shots were fired.
Germany is furiously debating whether, and if so, under what conditions, it should be giving asylum to some of the tens of thousands of Russian war refuseniks, conscientious objectors and deserters who are seeking asylum abroad.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said Germany is potentially prepared to give protection to deserters from anywhere in the world who face hard repercussions if they refuse to fight, but that cases will have to be decided on an individual basis amid security concerns.
Experts are warning of the high likelihood that agents of the federal security service, FSB – successor to the KGB – might use the opportunity to infiltrate the country.
Security expert Christoph de Vries has warned Vladimir Putin might use this chance to try to “smuggle large numbers of Russian agents into Germany”, but asylum experts have also urged the government to be wary of the fact that those who refuse to fight face persecution at home.
The interior ministry has also been keen to point out that this legislation, recently introduced by the EU, will protect Germany from a huge flow of Russians entering the country.
Berlin is keen for there to be a joint European stance, not least wary of the fact that if it officially signals its readiness to give asylum to Russian males, it could be inundated with hundreds of thousands of them and their families.
Other European countries, such as Poland, have refused to do so, while Latvia and Estonia have introduced a ban on Russians entering their countries, and Finland is in the process of doing so, after 20,000 reportedly crossed over the border at the weekend. Slovakia meanwhile, has said it will decide very carefully on a case by case basis.
Russia’s Tass news agency is carrying some additional quotes from Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán, in which he suggests he will hold a national consultation in Hungary on whether the EU should continue sanctions against Russia. It quotes Orbán saying:
The sanctions were introduced in an undemocratic way, because it was the decision of the bureaucrats in Brussels, for which the European people are paying. We need to know the opinion of the people. For the first time in Europe, in Hungary, we will ask for the opinion about sanctions. National consultations will be launched, within which the Hungarian people will be able to express their opinion whether they support them and whether they are in favour of introducing new ones.
Tass reports that Orbán stressed he was in favour of “immediate peace talks and a ceasefire” between Ukraine and the Russian forces that invaded the country on 24 February.
“Kazakhstan’s foreign ministry says it will not recognize the sham referendums in the occupied Ukrainian territories, supports ‘the principle of territorial integrity’.”
Tampa Bay: @ZackSampson and I happened to spend two years researching and reporting on this region’s hurricane risk for this @TB_Times project, and there are 2 key things about the risk *today* that I learned and I want you to know.
First is that the geography of the Gulf Coast and Tampa Bay itself means the whole area is at much worse risk to floods than normal.
The water is shallower and the land is flatter than around, say, Miami. If storm surge goes up vertically a little, it moves inland a LOT.
The land being flat is a huge deal. Obviously deeper floods are worse than shallower floods, but the biggest change is your home potentially going from zero flooding to 1 inch. It doesn’t take much water to ruin a building.
So the first point, added up: even weak / far-off-the-coast storms can flood Tampa Bay more than other cities in this country.
The second point is that Tampa Bay has TONS and TONS of developed property in areas that can flood.
Here’s how much could flood even in bad Category 1 hurricanes*
(Ian is forecast to be Cat 3.)
*Not all from one storm, but from the combination of all possible storms. [?]
You can see this best through these photos @LuisSantana took from the sky (with no flooding).
Here’s Shore Acres, Apollo Beach, Madeira Beach and Palmetto Beach. [Yikes.] If you’re from here, you know those are four very different communities.
By any fair measure, Rep. Liz Cheney is a conservative Republican. The Wyoming congresswoman voted with the Trump White House roughly 94% of the time, and up until last year, she was a member of the House GOP leadership in good standing.
With this in mind, when Cheney expressed a willingness to support and campaign for Democratic candidates, it raised a few eyebrows. NBC News reported:
Republican Rep. Liz Cheney said Saturday that she would be willing to campaign for Democrats as she criticized her party’s acceptance of candidates who deny the results of the 2020 election. “Yes,” Cheney, of Wyoming, said simply when asked whether she’d be willing to stump for Democrats — the first time she has said so explicitly.
In context, the outgoing congresswoman, a month after her primary defeat, appeared at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin and reflected on Arizona gubernatorial race. Specifically, the discussion turned to Republican election denier Kari Lake, whose candidacy is based largely on ridiculous conspiracy theories.
Asked specifically whether she would campaign for Lake’s Democratic rival, Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, Cheney said, “I am going to do everything I can to make sure that Kari Lake is not elected.”
Pressed on whether that would include campaigning for Democrats, in order to defeat election deniers, the GOP lawmaker replied, “Yes.”
Cheney added that Lake’s candidacy is “dangerous” and partisanship “has to have a limit.”
The discussion wasn’t explicit on this point, but what the Wyoming Republican was describing was a simple litmus test: Election deniers have no place in elected office. Period. Full stop.
It is an entirely defensible position, predicated on the idea that those who reject the foundation of our system of government — we settle our differences at the ballot box, and agree to honor the will of the voters — simply can’t be trusted. […]
When Sen. Rick Scott unveiled a controversial policy agenda in February, the Republican leader tackled a wide range of issues, but he was careful to ignore health care policy. As The Washington Post reported, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy chose the same course when unveiling his election-season blueprint.
The one-page document — called a “Commitment to America” — is vague, pointing to broad ideas like price transparency and competition, instead of a bold vision for the future of health reform. That’s by design. As one conservative health expert put it, the GOP still has “PTSD” from its failed effort in 2017 to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.
[…] Republicans started working on their own health care plan in the summer of 2009, and as of this morning, it still doesn’t exist. Even bringing up the topic reminds voters that GOP officials have repeatedly tried to take health care benefits from millions of families, so it stands to reason that the party would focus attention elsewhere.
[…] the Republican Party spent much of the past decade with a single message related to health care policy: Repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. The GOP has not only dropped that goal, it’s also hoping voters forget that the party ever pursued such a regressive policy in the first place.
There is, however, one nagging detail: Republicans appear terrified of a debate over health care policy, though there’s an exception to their dread. Axios reported late last week:
Some key House Republicans are calling for the repeal of Democrats’ newly-passed drug pricing measure if the GOP flips control of one or both chambers of Congress next year…. The comments show Republicans are not giving up the fight against sweeping measures aimed at lowering prescription drug prices, and give a glimpse of what their health agenda could look like.
It was one of the biggest wins in the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act: For the first time, Medicare will be empowered to negotiate the cost of some of the most expensive prescription medications with the pharmaceutical industry. Democrats have worked on this issue for nearly three decades, but Big Pharma’s lobbyists successfully stood in the way. This year, Democrats succeeded anyway.
Republicans aren’t just eager to undo the breakthrough policy, they don’t mind admitting that this is a GOP goal.
Republican Rep. Morgan Griffith of Virginia told Axios, in reference to the Democratic policy measure, “If the courts haven’t gotten to it beforehand, yeah we’ve got to do our job and try to defend the Constitution.” Republican Rep. Buddy Carter of Georgia replied “yes” when asked if he backed repeal of the drug pricing law.
Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, is retiring, but he nevertheless added, “I would imagine that will be a top priority for Republicans in the new session.”
In the coming days and weeks, if Democrats warn voters that a GOP majority would make prescription medications more expensive, the warning will be rooted in fact.
[…] House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has eagerly touted the first bill his party would tackle if it controls the chamber next year. Two months ago today, for example, the would-be speaker boasted that the GOP’s “number one” bill would protect Americans, make the nation energy independent, lower gas prices, reduce street crime, secure the border, and hold officials accountable.
To be sure, that would be an impressive piece of legislation. It’s also the sort of outlandish promise politicians make when they’re not even trying to be taken seriously.
Two months later, the California Republican appears to have narrowed his focus a bit. On Friday afternoon, while unveiling a profoundly flawed “Commitment to America” blueprint, McCarthy clarified what Americans can expect from the first proposal in a GOP-led House. Marketwatch reported:House Republicans pledged to reverse the Biden administration’s hiring plans at the Internal Revenue Service on Friday, with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy arguing that it’s their “job to work for you, not go after you.” … “On that very first day that we’re sworn in, you’ll see that it all changes,” the California Republican said at an event in Monongahela, Pa.
“Because on our very first bill, we’re going to repeal 87,000 IRS agents.”
Lest anyone think this was just an offhand comment that the minority leader didn’t really mean, the House Republican leadership pushed the same message via social media yesterday, declaring, “The first thing we will do when we earn back the House this November is to repeal the 87,000 IRS agents Joe Biden and House Democrats’ [sic] hired.
[…] Most of his “Commitment to America” amounts to little more than effectively telling voters, “Elect us and we’ll do good stuff.” This vow to “repeal 87,000 IRS agents” at least has the benefit of specificity.
But the temptation to give McCarthy some credit quickly fades when we stop to realize how blisteringly dumb this “very first bill” really is.
[…]
as the House Republican leader surely knows, the Democratic policy in question didn’t hire 87,000 IRS agents. In reality, the IRS will be bolstered by new employees, but many of them will simply replace retiring workers, and many more will simply work in the building as IT technicians and folks who answer the phone. McCarthy can jump up and down, shouting about 87,000 IRS agents every day for the foreseeable future, but the repetition won’t make his lie any less wrong.
Just as notably, it’s curious to hear a GOP leader argue with such enthusiasm that Republicans, at their earliest possible opportunity, will push tens of thousands of Americans into unemployment.
As a political matter, it’s also probably worth mentioning that even if this is the party’s “very first bill” of the next Congress, President Joe Biden won’t sign it, so the promise is little more than hollow posturing.
[…] there’s a bigger picture to consider: According to McCarthy, the very first thing House Republicans want to do with power is, in effect, help criminals by defunding law enforcement.
After all, let’s not forget why Democrats prioritized IRS funding in the first place: The governing majority concluded that the government could collect more revenue without raising taxes by simply enforcing the laws already on the books. By making sure the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share, Uncle Sam could finance important priorities while leaving existing tax rates unchanged.
According to the House minority leader, Republicans would try to undo this the moment they have the chance — by defunding the tax police.
The effectiveness of the mobilisation is staggering. As Rybar notes, the mobilized men have been wandering for 4 days on a training ground with no training provided, and likewise no equipment given to them. Throws a shade at Ukrainians for some reason.
More on the mobilization. It isn’t working.
This source is a Russian source.
Reports are that a lot of the trainers have already been sent to the Ukrainian front.
No one knows what Putin is doing or thinking these days.
Except that he is getting desperate.
“An anti-#Ukrainian protest in #Poland organized by Karolina Pikula of the nationalist Confederation as part of the ‘Stop the Ukrainization of Poland’ in a town near Poland’s border with Ukraine attracted zero participants.
Last night Kremlin mouthpieces Vladimir Solovyov and Margarita Simonyan tried to find scapegoats for Russia’s chaotic mobilisation, with Solovyov even calling for overzealous recruitment officers to be shot
I don’t think this morning’s attack in Siberia was what he had in mind
Watching this, I can’t help thinking how little Russia has changed over history
They may as well be talking about local officials sabotaging the steel output of the third Five Year Plan
Subtitled video at the (Twitter) link.
snarkratessays
SC@236
Sorry, but I think Hossenfelder’s take on particle physics is bullshit. First, theoretical physicists do have a good reason for positing many of the particles they are considering. Indeed, it is similar to much of the reasoning that underlay the Higgs’ Boson hypothesis–namely they are hoping that they make some of the divergences that occur with the Standard Model go away. They are hoping to bring together the Standard Model with General Relativity and gravity. And yes, most of these efforts will lead nowhere, but to get anywhere you have to explore the possible worlds that could correspond to ours.
It’s not that there is anything wrong with particle physics. This is just what science looks like when you are not in the midst of a revolution.
Paul Ksays
@KG 232: Sorry my comment raised the Vicar. Their take on anything is so rife with unreality as to be useless, even when I [very rarely] find something of truth in something they say.
I guess it’s easier for me to be dumbfounded by the happenings in another place than by very similar things in my own. Over here, in the good ole’ US of A, the idea that Republicans have a chance of winning against Democrats, even in statewide elections for offices like Governor or US Senate (as opposed to in more local, gerrymandered districts), even in ‘purple states’, should be inconceivable, but it’s not. Democrats at the national level are mostly not willing to urgently, openly, and aggressively back ‘radical’ ideas like universal healthcare and wealth equality, even though most people here support them. They just don’t inspire passion because they seem to live in a bubble somewhere in the past.
After Ukraine’s stunning Kharkiv counter-offensive, Vladimir Putin has doubled down on his war against Ukraine, announcing a large military mobilization, threatening nuclear use, and pressing ahead with referenda in territories Russia has seized from Ukraine.
Can Putin salvage his campaign? Michael Kofman helps us understand these issues and more, encouraging people to think more temporally about Russia’s mobilization pipeline and delivering a warning: We are in uncharted territory.
WASHINGTON — “It’s the biggest federalism issue in a long time,” Chief Justice Nathan L. Hecht of the Texas Supreme Court said on the phone the other day. “Maybe ever.”
He was explaining why the Conference of Chief Justices, a group representing the top state judicial officers in the nation, had decided to file a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in a politically charged election-law case. The brief urged the court to reject a legal theory pressed by Republicans that would give state legislatures extraordinary power.
Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a law professor at Harvard, said the brief underscored how momentous the decision in the case could be.
“It’s highly unusual for the Conference of Chief Justices to file an amicus brief in the Supreme Court,” he said. “It’s even rarer for the conference to do so in a controversial, ideologically charged case.”
If the Supreme Court adopts the theory, it will radically reshape how federal elections are conducted by giving state lawmakers independent authority, not subject to review by state courts, to set election rules in conflict with state constitutions.
The conference’s brief, which was nominally filed in support of neither party, urged the Supreme Court to reject that approach, sometimes called the independent state legislature theory. The Constitution, the brief said, “does not oust state courts from their traditional role in reviewing election laws under state constitutions.”
The case, Moore v. Harper, No. 21-1271, will be argued in the coming months. It concerns a congressional voting map drawn by the North Carolina Legislature favoring Republicans that was rejected as a partisan gerrymander by the state’s Supreme Court. Republican lawmakers seeking to restore the legislative map argued that the state court had been powerless to act.
Four conservative members of the U.S. Supreme Court have issued opinions indicating that they may be ready to endorse the independent state legislature theory. Professor Stephanopoulos said the conference’s decision to raise its voice was telling.
“That the conference is willing to take a stand here highlights how extreme and dangerous the argument of the North Carolina legislators is,” he said. “That argument would undermine the authority of state courts to interpret state law — a bedrock principle of our system of federalism, and one that conservative justices historically championed, not questioned.”
[…]
The independent state legislature theory is based on a literal reading of two similar provisions of the U.S. Constitution. The one at issue in the North Carolina case, the Elections Clause, says: “The times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof.”
That means, North Carolina Republicans argued, that state legislatures have sole responsibility among state institutions for drawing congressional districts and that state courts have no role to play in applying their states’ constitutions.
The North Carolina Supreme Court rejected that argument, saying that was “repugnant to the sovereignty of states, the authority of state constitutions and the independence of state courts, and would produce absurd and dangerous consequences.”
Texas and a dozen other states led by Republicans filed a brief supporting the North Carolina lawmakers. “The Elections Clause forbids state courts from usurping state legislatures’ districting authority,” it said.
The Conference of Chief Justices’ brief said that reading was too cramped. “While the text of the Elections Clause requires that state legislatures prescribe the laws governing federal elections,” it said, “it does not otherwise displace the states’ established authority to determine the final content of their election laws, including through normal judicial review for constitutionality.”
Chief Justice Hecht said the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the case was unlikely to be limited to redistricting and could open the floodgates for all sorts of election challenges in federal courts.
“The Constitution’s language is very broad about time, place and manner of elections,” he said. “So that’s mail-in ballots, what it takes to register, what ID you have to show, how late the polls are open, how the ballots are counted, who gets to sit and watch when they do. The state courts get scores of these cases in virtually every election.”
The case, he added, “will profoundly affect both the state and the federal courts.”
Mark Sumner was awesome this past week, covering Ukraine through the weekend, on his days off, giving me space to spend precious time with my son Ari at Fort Benning, Georgia between his graduation from infantry advanced training, and entering the Ranger school pipeline—one of the hardest schools in the entire U.S. military, the black and gold Ranger tab one of its most prestigious honors.
Seeing Ari spend months on his training already, it was something seeing what Russia is doing to its countrymen during its partial general mobilization this past week: [Tweet at the link]
CORRECTION. Earlier reports suggesting that Russian conscripts get only one day of training before being sent to front may be incorrect. New report says they get ZERO days.
In the U.S. Army, every soldier gets 10 weeks of basic combat training, then moves to advanced individual training. For infantry, my son was in school 22 weeks, almost six months, to get him to a modicum of proficiency as an infantryman. To hear him say it, even that is rudimentary knowledge at best. While his platoon worked on basic infantry skills like ambushes, reacting to ambush, assaults, and other squad- and platoon-level tasks, he joked about what a mess they still were, despite several weeks of working on it.
For the army, that’s fine, because soldiers are expected to continue that education at their assigned unit under the guidance of experienced non-commissioned officers (NCOs, otherwise known as sergeants). So whether it’s an extra 12 weeks for advanced infantry training (post-basic training), or an extra 24 weeks for an Abrams tank mechanic, or an extra 53 weeks as Patriot air defense system repairer, that is just basic-level knowledge. Think of college laying foundation, but learning your actual career at your job.
Let’s take a look at the most basic Infantry unit, the rifle squad, to get an idea of how much support a brand new infantryman gets:
Squad Leader (E-6, Staff Sergeant)
Alpha Team Leader (E-5, Sergeant)
Grenadier (M4 rifle with attached grenade launcher)
Automatic rifleman (machine gun)
Rifleman
Brave Team Leader (E-5, Sergeant)
Grenadier (M4 rifle with attached grenade launcher)
Automatic rifleman (machine gun)
Rifleman
That Rifle Squad has nine soldiers. Three of them are NCOs. An E-5 sergeant has around 4-5 years of experience. In some cases, a really high speed soldier might make it in 3. But that requires things like, well, Ranger school. Regardless, we’re looking at 3-5 years of experience to lead just three soldiers. That E-6 commanding eight soldiers? Seven is the minimum time in service, but will usually take a year or two longer.
So in this nine-soldier squad, you’re looking at NCOs with at least 13 years combined years of experience, and more likely 15-20 (since they’ll stay in those slots and ranks for years). A brand new infantryman walks into a system that will take that basic knowledge learned in his or her initial training, and refine it over years of repetitive drilling and practicing.
Amazingly, Russia never had NCOs. Well, they have something they call “NCOs,” but they are a shell of the system seen in NATO armies. Russian officers have died at astronomical rates. That’s why we’re seeing 60-year-old retired officers being mobilized. They’re severely lacking in soldiers with leadership capabilities. And even those, like the ones already dying in Ukraine, lack the NATO-standard ability to adjust and adapt orders to best carry out a given mission. Those NCOs in that Rifle Squad have wide latitude in carrying out the orders from their officers. It’s called “battlefield initiative,” and Ukraine has been training it for the past eight years.
Now Russia is sending thousands of new conscripts straight to the front line with nothing but the most rudimentary training. They originally claimed these mobilized souls would get two weeks training, but even that was too optimistic. Why waste time “training” these new soldiers if they are merely meant as human speed bumps to advancing Ukrainian forces?
This is a good thread by retired Gen. Mark Hertling saying much the same as I did above, but with some added color: [Tweets, multiple, at the link]
The carnage will be massive. It’ll be like the Battle of Stalingrad scene in the movie Enemy at the Gates.
Ari is in the Ranger school pipeline. If you are curious to learn what that’s about, this is an excellent article. This is a quick primer: [video at the link] […]
Ahead of the Jan. 6 committee’s last expected public hearing this week, Denver Riggleman, a former Republican congressman and onetime adviser to the insurrection panel, stirred up a bit of controversy.
In an interview for 60 Minutes on Sunday, Riggleman said during his months working with the Jan. 6 committee, he had reviewed reams of phone records, text messages, and social media posts, including those belonging to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, an integral player in former President Donald Trump’s push to overturn the 2020 election.
Meadows had turned over more than 2,300 text messages to the panel before ending his cooperation, and Riggleman, among others supporting the probe, was tasked with sorting through those messages.
As Riggleman analyzed them, he told 60 Minutes correspondent Bill Whitaker on Sunday that it quickly became clear that Meadows’ messages represented a “roadmap to an attempted coup” on Jan. 6.
This is not the first time he has used this phrase to describe his findings.
[…] the former U.S. Air Force Intelligence officer and counterterrorism expert elaborated further, saying that during his time on the committee, he found a record of a call being made from the White House switchboard to a Capitol rioter on Jan. 6. [video at the link]
You get a real ‘a-ha’ moment when you see that the White House switchboard had connected to a rioter’s phone while [the riot] is happening. That’s a big, pretty big ‘a-ha’ moment,” Riggleman told 60 Minutes correspondent Brian Whitaker.
The call was unlikely to be “accidental,” according to Riggleman.
But, he acknowledged, during his time as a technical adviser on the probe, he was only able to discern “one end” of that call.
“I don’t know the White House end, which I believe is more important. But the thing is, the American people need to know that there are link connections that need to be explored more,” Riggleman said.
Riggleman left the committee in April to take a job with a nonprofit supporting Ukraine. Notably, his pronouncements this weekend about the switchboard call come just ahead of the release of his new book, The Breach.
[…] Members of the Jan. 6 committee responded to Riggleman’s remarks this weekend, stressing that they were already aware of this call.
A committee spokesperson also stressed that the former Republican congressman for Virginia only had “limited knowledge” of the committee’s work since his departure and that the panel did “much of our most important investigative work” after Riggleman had left.
In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” this Sunday, committee member Rep. Jamie Raskin addressed the switchboard call but wouldn’t divulge much else. The Maryland Democrat said the committee had looked into it already and cautioned that there was “lots of contact between people in the White House and different people that were involved obviously in the coup attempt and insurrection.”
Historically, the committee has kept details of its investigation and its plans for hearings under guard, leaving its most explosive findings to come out during its public presentations.
The relationship between Riggleman and the committee hasn’t been without some tension. Sources told The Washington Post that Riggleman was not always clear about his book deal, reportedly telling committee colleagues that he was writing a book though he wouldn’t confirm what it was about. Riggleman’s press interviews and chattering on television about the content of the committee’s subpoenas or how it divided its investigation was “unnerving,” committee staff director David Buckley wrote in a staff-wide email, according to Politico.
When he left the probe officially, Riggleman finally acknowledged to reporters openly that he had received a book deal. But he also said his book wouldn’t come out until next year.
On Sunday, Riggleman told 60 Minutes that as he reviewed the correspondence that flew back and forth in Trump’s orbit before the insurrection, there were eerie similarities between the language used there and the language used by fundamentalists or religious extremists he had studied in the past. [That’s interesting.]
[…] He continued: “I’m finding that everything they believe, the system they have sort of built up in their mind based on the support of Donald Trump is false.”
[…] Riggleman, who was brought aboard the committee with support from Republican vicechair Liz Cheney, also explained how his thinking around Jan. 6 had evolved over time.
“I went from [it was a] riot to [it was] coup-like movements,” he said of his early assessments. “At this point, I think it’s pretty evident that this was an attempted coup.”
[…]committee member Rep. Adam Schiff told CNN’s Jake Tapper during a Sunday appearance that the committee has been careful not to overstate or understate matters. Riggleman’s recent remarks “pose a real risk,” Schiff said.
Rep. Lofgren also elaborated, telling CNN that every lead Riggleman generated was looked into.
“Everything that he was able to relay prior to his departure has been followed up on and in some cases didn’t really peter out (sic), or there might have been a decision that suggested there was a connection between one number and one e-mail and a person that turned out not to pan out. So we follow up on everything, and, you know, I don’t know what Mr. Riggleman is doing really,” she said.
[…] CNN did confirm the identity of the cell phone owner
The phone reportedly belongs to Brooklyn, New York resident and Trump supporter Anton Lunyk.
The call from the White House landline to Lunyk’s phone lasted just nine seconds, beginning at 4:34 PM on Jan. 6.
The timing is interesting: it came less than 30 minutes after Trump issued a video halfheartedly asking rioters to go home as he simultaneously praised them for being “very special.” [Yes, that’s interesting.]
[…] At present, there are no known connections between Lunyk and anyone who worked at the Trump White House. And as pointed out by CNN, Lunyk’s car was spotted in New York City at 8:28 p.m.. on Jan. 6. This could mean that by the time the call was made to Lunyk’s phone, he was likely already in transit to New York from the Capitol.
[…] court records show that in the Instagram group chats from November 2020, where Lunyk, Connor, and Ferrigno discussed how the election was “stolen” from Trump, Ferrigno named one of the group chats “The Proud Boys” and then renamed it “The Proud Boys and Friends” a month later. In January, the name was changed one more time to “The Oath Keepers,” CNN reported.
After the Capitol attack, the virulent messages continued.
Connor, for example, sent Lunyk a message on Instagram on Jan. 8, 2021.
“Our job yesterday wasn’t completed. our end goal was to brutally murder [then Vice President Mike] Pence and [Speaker of the House Nancy] Pelosi, and sadly today they’re still breathing, therefore we must come back stronger and fiercely next time around,” Connor wrote.
On Jan. 12, 2021, Lunyk boasted that he was “gonna shoot Pelosi.” Other chats featured threats to rape Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. […]
So, why was someone in the White House calling that guy?
Soon after Vladimir Putin announced the start of Russia’s “partial mobilization” (a misnomer, as there’s little, if anything, that’s “partial” about the Russian authorities’ conscription plan), Russian state and pro-government media outlets were issued instructions for how to cover the transformative new measure. Meduza has obtained a copy of the guide, which was compiled by the Putin administration.
The document emphasizes that Russia has only won past wars when “everyone” in the country has contributed — and only when the people have believed the country is fighting a “people’s war.” Thus, the authors conclude, the media’s current task should be to convince Russians of one main idea: that “the people of Russia must unite against the NATO threat.” According to the Kremlin, the alliance is set on “dismembering and ransacking” Russia.
“It’s no longer acceptable to stand on the sidelines and dump the entire burden of responsibility on contract soldiers and the Donbas people’s militias. The front line is more than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) long, and Russian soldiers and Russian people are being killed by NATO mercenaries and terrorists from the Kyiv regime using NATO weapons,” write the media guide’s authors, summing up their central thesis.
The document also suggests explaining the necessity of mobilization by citing the shelling of Russia’s border territories and of Crimea: “They’re already waging war against us on our own territory. We’ve gone from ‘not abandoning our own’ to protecting ourselves.”
The propaganda guide also instructs the media to emphasize that Putin announced mobilization “right at the moment when it became essential and would significantly increase Russia’s ability to achieve the goals of the special military operation.” At the same time, the document explains neither what the “goals” of the “special military operation” are nor how the “special military operation” — a term invented to allow the Kremlin to insist there’s no war — can simultaneously be a “people’s war.”
“Russia is by no means fighting against Ukraine — it’s fighting against NATO. The West has prohibited Kyiv from conducting negotiations with Russia. NATO intelligence agencies are gathering data about Russian territory for the purpose of ordering Ukraine to move the fighting into Russia,” the authors write.
Additionally, the guide “suggests” filling media materials with “as much direct speech as possible” from residents of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics and other occupied Ukrainian territories. The quotes should show the residents’ “enthusiasm” and “gratitude,” referring to Putin as a “protector” who “responded to people’s request.” According to the propaganda guide, these quotes should “arouse joy” among Russian audiences.
The guide also calls for propaganda outlets to emphasize that mobilization will supposedly only affect “one percent” of Russia’s draftable population. The document calls the mobilization effort “minimal,” noting that only “experienced men who have served before” will be drafted. As Meduza has previously reported, these claims are false.
Similar messages have already begun appearing on various social media pages throughout Russia. One video that was posted in a page for Primorsky Krai residents claims that authorities are mobilizing only the 300,000 “most highly trained” men, all of whom have purportedly served in the army. “I’m talking to you, average Sergey from Lipetsk who’s never undergone military training. You can cool your jets and drink your coffee. Nobody fucking needs you there,” says the narrator of another video. Another clip addresses “Ivan Ivanovich” — a common Russian name — and tells his to “drink your vanilla latte and carry on with your graphic design.” [Well, that’s respectful!]
All of these posts are accompanied by the hashtag #DontPanic. Two sources close to the Putin administration told Meduza that Dialog, an organization created at the Russian authorities’ initiative to spread messages on topics ranging from COVID-19 vaccinations to Russia’s 2020 constitutional amendments, has been tasked with distributing the videos. Vladimir Tabak, who currently heads Dialog, did not respond to Meduza’s request for comment.
According to two sources close to the Putin administration, the new propaganda package is intended to counter Russians’ “negative reaction” to the mobilization announcement. In addition, the Russian authorities hope to “redirect [draftees’ and their families’] anger” onto the country’s military commissars, who propagandists claim are “going overboard in order to curry favor, rather than working efficiently by conscripting experienced fighters.”
Russian TV propagandist Vladimir Solovyov has already called for unscrupulous military commissars to “be shot.” RT head Margarita Simonyan, meanwhile, has called on Russians to report conscription officials’ violations, saying the commissars are acting “as if they’d been sent by Kyiv.”
“[The plan is] to ‘highlight’ the most egregious cases — the conscriptions of people with a lot of children or of older men. Then they’ll deal with those cases and cover the consequences widely. [While] regular, able-bodied men are being mobilized,” said a source close to the Kremlin.
Russian authorities are betting that propaganda will be a powerful enough tool to dampen people’s discontent at the mobilization. Nonetheless, according to Meduza’s sources, the Kremlin is “concerned” about the situation in the Caucasus — especially in Dagestan, where violent protests broke out this weekend. Sources close to the Putin administration told Meduza that authorities plan to “curb the protests” both by “peaceful means” (such as conscripting people in a more targeted manner and returning people who’ve been conscripted illegally) and “by force.”
[…] Like so many Republicans, DeSantis isn’t out looking for solutions, he’s out looking to create problems for his political gain. And since Florida doesn’t share any border with Mexico, he launched his despicable campaign using deception and false promises to lure migrants out of Texas. His campaign has reportedly done this with the help of “Perla.” From the start of his wretched stunt, migrants have spoken of a Perla who persuaded them to board these flights. The question remains: Who the fuck is Perla?
Jose is one of the migrants tricked by this mysterious figure. He told The Washington Post that this Perla offered himself and other migrants “a 90-day stay in a ‘sanctuary’ city that welcomes migrants. She said they had steady jobs for 50 people in fields such as cleaning and carpentry,” the report said.
Jose had trekked on foot from Venezuela to the U.S., passing the the bodies of deceased migrants who had attempted the same journey. He was tired and believed Perla, telling her he wanted to meet family friends in Philadelphia. She said she would help, and he believed her. But as noted in a complaint to the Massachusetts attorney general and the U.S. attorney for Massachusetts, migrants were being lied to. Boston-based Lawyers for Civil Rights said their clients had been told they were going to Boston, but only when they were in the air were they informed they were actually going to Martha’s Vineyard.
Judd Legum of Popular Information also wrote that migrants were given a brochure “crudely” made to look like a government document, which falsely claimed they were eligible for all sorts of benefits. While this is true for certain refugees, this isn’t the case here.
In Jose’s case, he and other migrants were first put up in a hotel by Perla, where she regularly brought food. They at one point signed forms they didn’t understand in exchange for $10 McDonald’s gift cards. Jose said he began to worry when they headed out several days later for their flight. While he’d never flown before, he noted there was no security. This is where the shady got even shadier when the San Antonio flight made a pit stop in Florida near the offices of Vertol Systems, the air charter company and GOP donor that has been paid more than $1.5 million to aid DeSantis’ stunt.
”The payments exceed the typical cost of a charter flight, experts said, but the governor’s office and the company have not responded to questions about how exactly the money was spent,” The Washington Post reported.
While this Perla had assured migrants, Jose and other migrants [were] unceremoniously dumped in front of a nonprofit organization in Martha’s Vineyard. Jose said the organization had clearly not been expecting them. Of course, while they hadn’t been expected, they were still welcomed, to the anger of conservatives. “He said don’t despair,” Jose said one man told them. “We didn’t expect you, but you’re here. We’re going to help you.”
This is then when Perla, she of the big promises and gentle reassurances, in effect disappears. Jose heard from her only one more time after getting a message to her through a Venezuelan man who’d apparently been helping her. Her message said only that people there “will take care of you. You have the numbers of the churches. Call the churches.” Of course, recall that faith-based organizations have been harassed by the right wing for aiding migrants in the first place.
This recruiter was also described in a Sept. 22 report from the Miami Herald as a woman with “straight, light-colored hair” in a black SUV, though adding to this confusion is that there could be multiple “Perlas.” Migrants have also described a recruiter with black hair. In the Herald’s report, a woman “with light hair and a blue shirt got out and nervously approached” migrants, who were immediately on edge after being warned about sketchy offers. Perla, or the Perlas, have since sped away anonymously after lying to migrants and aiding a craven politician seeking to bolster his political career. Once again: Who the fuck is Perla?
This weekend a bunch of disparate groups of Jan. 6 insurrection supporters got together to complain about the mistreatment of their compatriots. They expected an epic turnout. The crowd was as meager as the mental bandwidth of the rally-goers.
“Come support your January 6th Heroes at the biggest J6 event to date!,” information about the rally read in The Gateway Pundit. “Over 20 powerful speakers confirmed. Now is the time to stand united and show our strength in numbers by protesting conservative political persecution in the heart of the American Capital. State (sic) up for those that stood up for you.”
Speakers for the sad little event consisted of a long list of ubiquitous MAGA favorites, including MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell; Micki Witthoeft, mother of Ashli Babbit (the insurrectionist fatally shot by a police officer while rioting in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6); Couy Griffin, founder of Cowboys for Trump; and out-of-work business school professor and full-time election denier David Clements, to name a few.
776 Restoration Movement leader David “Santa” Riddell told The Daily Beast, “To treat everybody just because they are part of a day like they were vicious criminals. … I know they’re not.”
Clements further griped about the treatment of the Jan. 6 rioters, dismissing the violence of the day and telling The Daily Beast, “There are people being held on misdemeanor charges, having their due process rights violated. […] “Isn’t that enough?” [video at the link]
NBC News reporter Ben Collins covered the rally. He wrote on Twitter that most who attended, and the organizers themselves, seemed all over the place when it came to fully understanding the message of the day.
“Nobody at this January 6th Truth Rally has really settled on if the rioters are proud of it, if they didn’t do it, or if they did it and it was a setup. […] The theme is basically: There was no insurrection on January 6th, and we’d do it again,” Collins wrote. [vdeo at the link] […]
First, theoretical physicists do have a good reason for positing many of the particles they are considering. Indeed, it is similar to much of the reasoning that underlay the Higgs’ Boson hypothesis–namely they are hoping that they make some of the divergences that occur with the Standard Model go away.
Postulating the Higgs boson (more accurately, the Higgs mechanism) had nothing to do with divergences. It was a solution to the question “how do fundamental particles acquire mass?”. While not the only possible solution, it was a leading contender, and so justified theoretical and experimental investigation.
The degree to which the proposed particles listed by Hossenfelder justify investigation can be debated, but none of them come close to the “we probably need this particular particle” level, which applied to the Higgs (and before it, the t quark).
For years, I have believed that if the United States of America ever has a female president (yes, I said if — I’m feeling a tad jaded at the moment if you’ll excuse me), it will very likely be a Republican like Marjorie Taylor Greene or Lauren Boebert or hey, even Sarah Palin. I hate to say it but I give that better odds than it being a Democrat, if only because, oddly enough, Republicans do seem to be less likely to get stuck on whether a woman’s voice is annoying or not, so long as they think she can get them to where they want to be politically.
So I guess I shouldn’t be too terribly surprised that Italy’s first female prime minister (Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri) will be a woman who has praised Benito Mussolini — while admitting he made a few mistakes here and there — and described herself as having a peaceful relationship with fascism.
Ho un rapporto sereno con il fascismo. Lo considero un passaggio della nostra storia nazionale. Mussolini ha fatto diversi errori, le leggi razziali, l’ingresso in guerra, e comunque il suo era un sistema autoritario. Storicamente ha anche prodotto tanto, ma questo non lo salva.
Translation: “I have a peaceful relationship with fascism. I consider it to be an important period in our national history. Mussolini made many errors — race laws, getting involved with the war, and establishing an authoritarian system. Historically he did a lot, but that doesn’t save him.”
I’m not surprised by this result; Meloni has been predicted to win for weeks now, and aside from that, neo-fascism has been on the rise in Italy since the 1990s. I am, of course, sad, disappointed and worried for the people living there. [Tweet and image at the link]
Meloni’s party Fratelli d’Italia (FdI) also has fascist roots, as an outgrowth of the neofascist Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI) party that replaced the National Fascist Party after Mussolini’s National Fascist Party was banned.
Meloni is the current head of the “center-right coalition,” comprising her own party, Fratelli d’Italia, Matteo Salvini’s Lega, and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, along with several smaller and regional parties. She claims to be “center right,” but in actuality is very far right. She opposes abortion rights; opposes same sex marriage and unions (Italy still only has civil unions); opposes the ability of same-sex couples to adopt and LGBTQ+ rights in general; opposes (pregnancy) surrogacy and wants to make it a crime for Italians to use a surrogate even if they leave the country to do so; opposes living wills; opposes Italy’s “Citizen’s Income” (an up to €780-a-month payment for job-seekers); and really hates immigrants and Muslims.
She is also a believer in the Kalergi Plan, a ridiculous anti-Semitic conspiracy theory not unlike The Great Replacement, and she wants it to be legal for police to torture people, because she thinks that will help them do their jobs.
She wants to make “short divorce” illegal — meaning she wants married couples to have to be separated for three years (instead of six months) in order to get a legal divorce. This is an especially big deal in Italy where there is a very serious ongoing problem with intimate partner violence and nearly 60 percent of women who are murdered are killed by a husband, boyfriend or ex. The country literally had to implement “Don’t Kill Your Girlfriend” classes in high schools because femicide was such a serious problem, and this one wants to make it harder to get divorced. Genius!
Of course, because it’s still Europe and not the United States, Meloni is in favor of free daycare, maternity leave, child subsidies for the less well-off, and guaranteed flexible work (called lavoro agile or “smart work”) for women with children under 16. Of course, this is less for altruistic reasons than because she is super racist and concerned about “the birth rate.” [map/chart act the link]
That a woman is leading the most far-right Italian government since Mussolini makes a certain amount of sense. Women — white women in particular — like Marine Le Pen in France, and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert in the US, frequently end up as leaders in far-right movements largely because they “soften” the image of the hard right. […]
A big reason for these election results is that Meloni’s party was able to form coalitions with Italy’s other right-wing parties, while Italy’s Democratic Party (Partito Democratico or PD), led by politician Enrico Letta, failed to form any. He rejected the idea of an alliance with the Five Star Movement, which started out very Trumpy due to its stances on immigration and vaccines but is now also more progressive than the PD on a lot of issues. I don’t know what to tell you, Italian politics is weird and confusing and you can’t really look at it through an American framework. Meanwhile, more centrist parties didn’t want to campaign with the progressives in the PD.
There was also record-low turnout, and although the PD, the Five Star Movement and other center-left and centrist parties got more votes in total, the FdI’s alliances helped it surge to victory. On the sort of bright side, Italy’s governments frequently only last a year or two, so the possibility exists that this will be fixable.
lumipunasays
Re 235 (SC quoting the Guardian):
Other European countries, such as Poland, have refused to [consider asylum for Russian men fleeing the draft], while Latvia and Estonia have introduced a ban on Russians entering their countries, and Finland is in the process of doing so, after 20,000 reportedly crossed over the border at the weekend. Slovakia meanwhile, has said it will decide very carefully on a case by case basis.
The final count of Russians entering Finland over Saturday and Sunday was about 17,000, about half of which was estimated to be tourism and other normal traffic, while the other half were men apparently leaving Russia for the time being. As of Monday, the peak of traffic seems to have passed but smaller numbers of draft refugees keep coming in.
I’m seeing the estimate that (rather ironically) closer to 300,000 men have “mobilized” themselves into leaving Russia. The vast majority of these have been clogging the border crossings to Russia’s southern neighbors (from Georgia to Mongolia). I think it’s because Russians can travel to those countries without visa. In practice, only those who had existing visa to some Schengen country were able to rush out via Finland. There are reports that Russian military thugs are preparing to screen outgoing travelers on the southern border, while Kremlin pretends to not have “yet” made the decision for border closure. Presumably, Putin is trying to avoid further panic until the border closure goes into effect.
Thus far, fewer than 100 Russian draft refugees have applied for asylum in Finland. It is thought more will do so on a slightly longer term, but most of those who have entered the EU via Finland will seek asylum in other EU countries. Even if their asylum claim is considered unviable, the process will keep them out of Russia for a while.
John Oliver discusses Jair Bolsonaro, how he’s run Brazil as president, how far he might go to maintain power after the upcoming election, and, of course, nunchucks.
(It’s great aside from the sexist slur. A “no sexist slur” policy really would be simple enough.)
From the closing (I think) summary at the Guardian liveblog:
Nato air forces conduct drills over Baltic Sea. Member states including the UK, Germany, Italy took part in the military training, both over water and on land, in an effort to boost eastern defences.
The Netherlands increases its military support for Ukraine. Prime minister Mark Rutte also announced new sanctions in response to Russia’s mobilisation and referendum.
The US pledges to provide Ukraine with $457.5m in civilian security aid. The support is aimed at “saving lives” and “bolstering” Ukrainian law enforcement, secretary of state Antony Blinken said.
…
The UK announces 92 new sanctions in response to Russia’s regime of illegal referendums in Ukraine. The package of penalties target those behind the sham votes as well as oligarchs and board members….
Donald Trump has finally landed in the place we all knew he would, hurling insults at his chief Republican rival as his own air of invincibility falters.
“Fat.”
“Phony.”
“Whiny.”
All adjectives Trump is reportedly using in private to describe Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the man whom he plucked out of virtual anonymity in 2018 when then-Congressman DeSantis was still one of more than half a dozen Republicans vying to become the Sunshine State’s next governor.
Now, however, DeSantis has begun to shine as an equally repulsive alternative to Trump without the baggage of being a disgraced, twice-impeached, presidential loser who just can’t let go of his glory days in the White House. New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman writes in The Atlantic that she “heard that Trump was describing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis” in these inadvertently reflexive descriptions in her forthcoming book, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America.
Exactly when Trump started shooting these darts at DeSantis isn’t exactly clear in the text of Haberman’s piece. She conducted three interviews with Trump over the course of 2021 but only reports having heard about his use of the terms, not having witnessed them herself.
What is clear is Trump is keenly aware that DeSantis is encroaching on his plans to keep a stranglehold on a party that has become nothing more than oozy gooey putty in his hands. Over the course of the past year, DeSantis has emerged as the odds-on favorite to win the GOP nomination if Trump doesn’t run, but he is also rivaling Trump in some polls while eclipsing him in fundraising. Since January 2021, DeSantis and his allied groups have raised $174 million […] Trump’s haul in the same time period has been roughly $131 million, a sizable sum but still tens of millions less than DeSantis.
What this new revelation reveals is the fact that Trump is seething about the potential of being edged out by DeSantis. It’s only a matter of time before that animus bubbles over into full public view.
“The influx of Russians into Georgia is getting a lot of attention but it’s not even close to the whole story of this exodus – just been told by a Russian man queueing to cross into remotest desert western Kazakhstan that there are people there who’ve been waiting three days.”
Everything’s definitely fine in Russia when people are waiting three days to get across the border to remotest desert western Kazakhstan.
Here are some Republicans on the Sunday shows either telling the truth, being forced to tell the truth, or getting a pass on explaining what the hell they just said.
Three guesses which Sunday show host gave them a pass.
Let’s go!
Elise Stefanik on ‘Fox News Sunday’
Rep. Elise Stefanik, the third ranking House Republican (after they purged Liz Cheney), made an appearance on the Sunday shows. She was there to tout the GOP’s plans if they get back in power, the plans they posted, deleted and then narrowed down to a pamphlet sorely lacking in detail. Bream asked about that lack of substance and was met with empty talking points. [video at the link]
When Bream asked about valid criticisms that the GOP is using real people to play politics and committing human trafficking, Stefanik avoided the question, while accidentally revealing why they are ultimately OK with cruelty: [more video at the link]
STEFANIK: [T]he reality is, Republicans are polling plus 39 when it comes to border security in the most recent NBC poll. We’re plus 19 on the issue of immigration.
The inhumane treatment and cruelty to them is worth it for those plus polling points.
Earlier in the interview, Stefanik kinda contradicted herself on border security.
STEFANIK: We have the most secure border in our nation’s history. That’s compared to the most unsecured border under Joe Biden. It’s been a crisis with over three million illegals who have crossed the border. And those are the ones that we count. That doesn’t include the significant number of got-aways.
We have Schrödinger’s Border! Both secure and unsecure at the same time! [LOL]
The GOP always brings up how many people have crossed the border, or how many drugs have been seized, without realizing those seizures and apprehensions mean border security is working. That’s why they say, “who knows how many pass?” or refer to “the significant number” of “got-aways.” Stefanik knows this “crisis” comes up every election and then magically dissipates when immigration reform bills are actually proposed.
John Barrasso on ABC’s ‘This Week’
GOP Conference Chair John Barrasso came to lie and spin to George Stephanopoulos. At the end of the interview, Stephanopoulos asked about Donald Trump’s telepathic declassification skills, like he’s a common Charles Xavier. [video at the link]
Barrasso was forced to admit the truth:
STEPHANOPOULOS: You know that a president can’t declassify documents by thinking about it. Why can’t you say so?
BARRASSO: I don’t think a president can declassify documents by saying so, by thinking about it.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Barrasso, thanks for joining us this morning.
So that was good.
Nancy Mace and Chuck Todd on NBC’s ‘Meet The Press’
Chuck Todd opened the show complaining about how the country is divided, while blaming “both sides” and taking zero accountability for the news media’s role in helping that. [video at the link]
But this moment, during his interview with GOP Rep. Nancy Mace, exposed the cowardice of “good Republicans” and the news media’s basic inability to do its journalistic duty. [Tweet and video at the link]
To recap: House Republicans, possibly including Mace, would vote to impeach Joe Biden if they win power in November. Then Chuck Todd, ever the journalist, doesn’t bother to follow up by asking her what he would be impeached for.
We couldn’t have come up with a better example of the all-around failure of political journalism and modern politics. […]
Quick summary of my conversations with young Russian men on the Georgian side of the border w/ Russia this weekend. From the north — Arkhangelsk, St. Pete — Moscow, to the south — Krasnodar, Anapa etc. Mostly in their 20s, 30s, from all spheres of life.
Many had been on the road for days on end. Flew/drove into Vladikavkaz, bought a bike on the cheap and cycled or walked past the traffic jam. Some had been called up, some hadn’t. But no one believed in the “partial” in “partial mobilization.” Fundamental lack of trust.
Most weren’t overtly political but many said they had thought about leaving for a while, esp. since start of the war. The mobilization is the final straw. (“The war was strike one, but I wasn’t ready then. This was strike two, and now I was.”)
People have left behind wives, kids, work, savings, homes. Many had just a rucksack on them with a laptop and some toiletries. (“Possessions don’t matter. My father died only several days ago. Now I’ve had to abandon my mother. But she said that was better than to go to war.”)
Some were almost brazen: “I’m sick of my dictator.” But many insisted they were in Georgia for tourism or to visit a friend. Fear runs deep. (“I’m here for tourism with the prospect of extending long term,” one smirked.)
When they would go back? Some said: “soon” and laughed. Others were more serious: “When he is gone.” Somehow Putin has managed to pit his fate against theirs.
HARRISBURG, Pa. — In the same spot where he spoke to thousands of people at a raucous State Capitol rally demanding an end to pandemic restrictions in April 2020, Doug Mastriano appeared on Saturday before a crowd of just a few dozen — about half of whom were volunteers for his ragtag campaign for governor of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Mastriano, an insurgent state senator who in the spring cruised to the Republican nomination, is learning this fall that while it is one thing to win a crowded G.O.P. primary on the back of online fame and Donald J. Trump’s endorsement, it is quite another to prevail in a general election in a battleground state of nearly 13 million people.
He is being heavily outspent by his Democratic rival, has had no television ads on the air since May, has chosen not to interact with the state’s news media in ways that would push his agenda, and trails by double digits in reputable public polling and most private surveys.
There’s no sign of cavalry coming to his aid, either: The Republican Governors Association, which is helping the party’s nominees in Arizona, Michigan and six other states, has no current plans to assist Mr. Mastriano, according to people with knowledge of its deliberations.
The Pennsylvania governor’s race is perhaps the most consequential in the country. Mr. Mastriano, a retired Army colonel who chartered buses to the Jan. 6, 2021, rally that led to the attack on the Capitol, has vowed to ban abortion without exceptions and pledged to enact sweeping new voting restrictions. He would be likely to accomplish those measures given the Republican advantage in the state legislature.
But the stakes aren’t apparent based on Mr. Mastriano’s limited resources. There is little indication that he has built a campaign infrastructure beyond the Facebook videos that propelled him to stardom in right-wing circles and to the vanguard of Christian nationalist politics.
“I can’t even assess things because I don’t see a campaign,” said Matt Brouillette, the president of Commonwealth Partners Chamber of Entrepreneurs, an advocacy group that is a major player in Pennsylvania Republican politics. “I’ve not seen anything that is even a semblance of a campaign.”
Mr. Brouillette, who backed one of Mr. Mastriano’s rivals in the G.O.P. primary, added: “Now, maybe he knows something we don’t on how you can win in the fifth-largest state without doing TV or mail. But I guess we’re going to have to wait until Nov. 8 to see whether you can pull something like that off.”
Mr. Brouillette’s organization is the only one to air any television ads attacking Josh Shapiro, the state attorney general who won the Democratic primary for governor uncontested even as he spent $400,000 to help lift Mr. Mastriano to victory in the Republican primary.
But while Commonwealth Partners’s political action committee has paid for 811 television ads urging Pennsylvanians to “vote Republican” against Mr. Shapiro, the Democratic nominee’s campaign has broadcast more than 23,000 ads promoting himself and attacking Mr. Mastriano since the May primary, according to AdImpact, a media-tracking firm.
Republicans elsewhere who, with Mr. Trump’s endorsement, won primaries against the wishes of their local political establishments are facing similar disparities in TV advertising in the final weeks of the midterm campaigns. Along with Mr. Mastriano in Pennsylvania, Trump-backed candidates for governor in five other states — Arizona, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts and Michigan — have combined to air zero television advertisements since winning their primaries.
“We don’t fund lost causes and we don’t fund landslides,” Mr. Ducey said. “You have to show us something, you have to demonstrate that you can move numbers and you can raise resources.”
In polls of Pennsylvania this month, both The Morning Call of Allentown and CBS News showed Mr. Shapiro with a lead of 11 percentage points over Mr. Mastriano, an advantage that has more than doubled since the primary. The most recent campaign finance reports show that Mr. Mastriano’s campaign account had just $397,319, compared with $13.5 million for Mr. Shapiro.
Mr. Mastriano’s supporters say he’s following a Pennsylvania playbook written by Mr. Trump. They are counting on a surge of under-the-radar grass-roots enthusiasm on Election Day and a political environment in which Republicans are motivated by anger with President Biden.
“I wish that Senator Mastriano had the money to be on the air,” said Charlie Gerow, a longtime Pennsylvania Republican operative who finished well behind Mr. Mastriano in the primary. He added, “But his nontraditional campaign seems to be working.”
There isn’t a lot of evidence that’s true.
Mr. Mastriano, who this year spent $5,000 trying to recruit supporters on the far-right social media platform Gab, never built an army of small donors of the sort that have powered anti-establishment candidates elsewhere — including Mr. Trump.
“Really not finding a lot of support from national-level Republican organizations, so we’re calling on people across Pennsylvania and across the United States of America to give directly to our campaign,” a glum-looking Mr. Mastriano said in a video on Facebook last week. “These large groups, we have not seen much assistance coming from them.”
The video solicitation demonstrates the limits of Mr. Mastriano’s unorthodox campaign. Since he posted it on Wednesday, about 4,700 people have viewed the request — a small fraction of the weekly audience of millions for Mr. Shapiro’s deluge of television advertising, not to mention his ubiquity in the Pennsylvania news media.
According to Mr. Shapiro’s campaign, he answered questions or conducted interviews with 41 Pennsylvania newspapers, television and radio stations during the first three weeks of September. During the same time period, Mr. Mastriano — who speaks only to conservative news organizations and podcasts — spoke with just three Pennsylvania outlets, according to media trackers.
Those in the crowd on Saturday applauded Mr. Mastriano for what they viewed as his taking the fight to the news media. Supporters said his social media presence would be more than enough to counter Mr. Shapiro’s enormous financial advantage.
“He has no need to spend money,” said Theresa Wickert, a retiree from Lebanon County, Pa. “It’s grass-roots. He has never put out a commercial against anyone the way that Shapiro and the others are putting them out. Never. He will never do that. That is not who he is.”
Mr. Mastriano declined an invitation to an Oct. 3 debate at a dinner hosted by the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, the first time in decades the organization has not held a debate between the state’s major-party candidates for governor. Mr. Shapiro will instead answer questions before business leaders at a “fireside chat,” an opportunity Mr. Mastriano also rejected.
After speaking to about 60 people on Saturday — days before, his running mate, Carrie Lewis DelRosso, had urged supporters to attend “the big rally” — Mr. Mastriano hustled to a waiting S.U.V. while avoiding questions from reporters. A Pennsylvania state trooper shoved a local newspaper reporter out of the way as he tried asking Mr. Mastriano if he would accept the result of the November election.
Aides to Mr. Mastriano did not respond to messages and declined to answer questions at the rally.
Mr. Mastriano has resisted private entreaties from supporters to engage more with the news media — if only to spread his message to potential small-dollar donors.
“We have sort of a fundamental distrust as conservatives that we don’t get a fair shake,” State Representative Mike Jones, one of the warm-up speakers for Mr. Mastriano on Saturday, said in an interview beforehand. “But when you’re at a financial disadvantage, you’ve got to get out there and take advantage of free media whenever you can.”
There’s not much help coming for Mr. Mastriano from the Republican Party of Pennsylvania, which was sufficiently in need of cash that, in a real-life Hail Mary, it sold its Harrisburg state headquarters in June to the Catholic church next door for $750,000.
Mr. Shapiro has sought to fill the void left by Mr. Mastriano’s aversion to the news media and his inability to afford advertising, trying to win over moderate Republicans who might be put off by Mr. Mastriano’s far-right proposals.
Mr. Shapiro has said he would appoint two parents to the state’s Board of Education and has endorsed Republican legislation to allow parents in some of the state’s public schools to use state aid for private school tuition — a move that drew praise on The Wall Street Journal’s conservative editorial page.
Mr. Shapiro said he had little sympathy for Mr. Mastriano’s aversion to the press corps.
“The question I have when I look at his tactics regarding the media is, you know, what’s he hiding?” Mr. Shapiro said in an interview. “If he can’t answer questions from the Pennsylvania local media, how can you possibly be governor?”
Mr. Mastriano’s rally on Saturday was a hodgepodge of the state’s minor right-wing figures, many who came to prominence fighting public health restrictions early in the pandemic. A half-dozen men wearing uniforms of a local militia group, the South Central Pennsylvania Patriots, patrolled the grounds while a vendor stood behind a merchandise table without moving much product.
During one speech, a state representative, David Zimmerman, revealed for the first time that he had received a subpoena from the F.B.I. in its investigation of efforts to overturn the 2020 election. “The F.B.I. looked for me all day long,” he said. “But what I did that they didn’t know is, I turned my phone tracker off.”
Mr. Mastriano’s supporters said there was little reason to believe the crowd was indicative of his support.
They cited an array of explanations for the double-digit crowd — a Penn State college football game up the road in State College, the annual Irish Fall Festival on the Jersey Shore and Facebook, the original source of much of Mr. Mastriano’s popularity.
“This is good evidence of being shadow-banned on Facebook,” said the event’s organizer, a Philadelphia-area Uber and Lyft driver named Mike Daino who said he’d been kicked off the platform nine times for spreading misinformation. “They are banning conservative talk. But let’s continue on with the program.”
Earlier this month, when railroad workers threatened to strike over “grueling” conditions—like formal discipline for taking any time off at all—the Biden administration brokered a tentative deal, avoiding a work stoppage that could have crippled supply chains and cost the US billions of dollars a day. Crisis averted.
Or not. As more details of the deal come to light, it’s unclear that union members—who have to vote on the deal—will get on board. Workers had complained of weeks on call without a day off, overwork after staff cuts, and underpayment amid high inflation. One engineer told my colleague Noah Lanard that workers were “just fighting for the basic right to be able to be people outside of the railroad”—not for the $10 million–plus pay packages of top rail CEOs.
The current proposal offers raises, limits the rise of health care premiums, and tweaks a tight scheduling system used to cut staffing. But the sticking point in negotiations has been sick time. Despite rail workers’ unpredictable schedules, they’re penalized for sick days, medical visits, and family emergencies. The consequences of the strict sick-day policy can be fatal: In June, the Washington Post reported, a locomotive engineer died when he suffered a heart attack on the job—after postponing a doctor’s visit because he’d been called into work.
The tentative agreement removes penalties for up to three routine medical visits a year—but only on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, or Thursdays, and only if scheduled 30 days in advance. As some union members pointed out to the New York Times, you can’t always know a month ahead of time that you’ll need care, and unions already often manage to undo the discipline workers receive after unpaid leaves for health care.
Formalizing the deal will be an uphill battle. As the Post points out, some 115,000 union members have to ratify the contracts to avoid a strike. Two major unions haven’t accepted the agreement, and a third, smaller one already rejected it, aiming to make improvements by the end of September. The remaining votes are expected to take place across the following two months.
A woman, who appears to be with long-term military experience, is giving instructions to mobiks on what to take with them. This includes everything that is not armour and uniform, that is, tourniquets, medicines, and women’s pads.
Subtitled video at the (Twitter) link. Sorry, guys, your tourniquet money was spent on the stripper pole in Putin’s palace, which could well be in use right now.
Denver Riggleman, a former GOP lawmaker from Virginia and House Jan. 6 committee aide, wrote in his forthcoming book that his mom texted him saying she was “sorry you were ever elected” after the then-Republican lawmaker went on CNN to condemn QAnon.
Riggleman marketed his book as a behind-the-scenes look at the Jan. 6 investigation. A copy obtained by The Hill in advance of its Tuesday release reveals details on Riggleman’s relationship with his mother as he publicly raised concerns about former President Trump and right-wing conspiracy theories.
“What will it take to wake you up son….I love you so, but cannot stand by and listen to your elitist attitude and being praised by elitist journalist and democrats,” Riggleman’s mother texted him.
Congratulations, she said. “You are now part of the swamp…I’m sorry you were ever elected…You are officially a politician…I have cried over you and my heart is broken by you.”
[…] “I knew my mom and I were not on the same page politically, but this is something else,” Riggleman wrote. “Any hope for a mostly normal relationship seemed dim. She was damn near disavowing me.”
The former Virginia congressman describes his mother in the book as being solidly Republican and religious.
Riggleman wrote that she kicked him out of the house after he abandoned his Mormon mission but they still stayed in touch afterward, and their relationship only improved when he unsuccessfully ran for Virginia governor in 2016.
[…] “My relationship with my mom made it through my break with her Mormon Church,” Riggleman wrote in his book. “I wasn’t sure if it could survive the Church of Trump.”
[…] After their relationship soured, Riggleman wrote that he and his mom only reconnected when his sister’s health took a turn for the worse, but the former lawmaker said he never told his mom about his work on the Jan. 6 committee.
“If I can help even one person turn away from this fringe conspiracy culture or recognize Trump for the un-American grifter that he is, it would make everything worth it,” Riggleman wrote. “I’d be especially happy if that one person was my mom.”
There is a secret. And that secret is how to make top-secret secrets not secret anymore using only your mind. All that stands between you and doing this is embracing the power of positive declassifying.
Let others submit formal written declassification requests to the proper agencies. You are special. You are powerful. You are going to jail.
The first step is gratitude. Close your eyes—but also maybe keep one open for the F.B.I.—and say meaningful thank-yous to those whose service you will be betraying.
Picture each spy in your mind and thank them for their heroic and unsung work—whether it was long years spent pretending to be Vladimir Putin’s “sports masseuse” or a terrifying night in an Iranian nuclear facility spent replacing uranium with a slurry of crushed Cheetos and Mountain Dew.
Then, with your heart full of appreciation, hum—more of a flat “mm” here, as “om” is now considered a little appropriative—and visualize each agent you may be sending to an untimely death. Now chant, in your mind, I declassify, I declassify, with my mind, I declassify.
At first, you may not even realize that the documents have, just like that, been declassified. You may not yet know your own power. As I always say, “Just because you are an autocrat doesn’t mean you know a lot about autocracy.” You can now take the files to your personal residence, or turn them into papier-mâché lampshades to sell on Etsy.
But—poof!—just like that, what was secret is now not secret, all through the power of your beautiful, enormous, manifesting mind.
As you become more practiced in the power of positive declassifying, you will acquire the ability to declassify entire tranches of documents in a single go. At first, even one document containing the address and spouse’s and children’s names of a spy will feel like a lot. But, in time, you will be able to think of a foreign country and, just by remembering what people from there smell like, declassify all files relating to it.
Use these powers for good. As Gandhi said in one of his lesser-known speeches, on document security, “Be the leak you wish to see in the world.” Let people know about the actually pretty surprising country that obtained nuclear weapons all because of a FedEx shipping error. (Hint: It rhymes with “toast a zika.”) Why not make Americans aware of all the coups the United States has orchestrated around the world throughout the years, and what really incited the Will Smith slap? Unshroud the truth about Ted Cruz’s father, while you’re at it!
When your term is over, you will find yourself back in your own home or tax-minimizing resort. Had you not learned these tools of manifesting, you might well think to yourself, Oh, shoot, I can no longer declassify intelligence files, because, according to multiple federal courts, I “lost.”
But you must break free from this loop of negative thinking. Instead, you must learn the practice of positive retroactive declassifying. Think back to where you were standing when you still had the constitutional authority to declassify documents, and try to recall what you were feeling, even if you are emotionally blocked because of how your father was and, actually, that kind of explains everything. Now chant, in your mind, I ex-post-declassify, I ex-post-declassify. And, voilà, those documents will be back-declassified.
Never let anyone tell you that you can’t reveal incredibly fraught secrets. The true secret is that there don’t have to be secrets. Not if you learn to be the special master of your fate.
Joe Manchin is doing what Joe Manchin does best: Provide an obstacle. This time it’s the stopgap funding bill that needs to pass by midnight Friday or the government shuts down versus his push to get Congress to intervene in a private sector project and make it happen. That’s the main part of the energy project permitting bill he’s trying to shove through. In general, the bill would streamline the permitting process for all sorts of projects: transmission lines, water quality permits, and hydrogen energy and mining.
The bill has scant Democratic support, at least publicly, and no Republican support. House leadership seems lukewarm at best about having it included in this spending bill after around 80 House Democrats—including five committee chairs—wrote to Speaker Nancy Pelosi opposing including it in this funding bill, suggesting the bill be handled separately. The question about the bill now is whether Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is just humoring Manchin by insisting that it will be included in the bill, or is he trying to jam the House into taking it?
Schumer made a deal on the legislation with Manchin weeks ago, negotiating on the Inflation Reduction Act, which included some big climate initiatives. Schumer’s promise that this proposal would be included in the stopgap funding bill was key to getting Manchin’s support. The difficulty for them both is that no one else was in on that agreement. Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer indicated that they generally support considering the idea, but that they made no commitment as to when it would be considered.
Manchin finally released the bill text late last week after weeks of talking about it to reporters in the halls of the Capitol, writing op-eds, and going on TV. You know, being Manchin. He had a solo press conference/pity party early last week even before the text was out, complaining about how everyone is opposed to his idea just because it’s his. He wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal over the weekend begging for support from both sides. He took that opportunity to attack Sen. Bernie Sanders and his supporters for their “radical agenda,” maybe thinking that that would make Republicans like him more.
It didn’t work. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is now actively whipping against it, possibly because he’s mad at Manchin. That makes it really unlikely that Manchin will find the dozen or more Republican votes he’s going to need to succeed.
He’s going to be hard pressed to get Democrats as well, even the not-radical ones. For example, his neighbor Tim Kaine who says Manchin never consulted him about the bill and the fast-track forcing of permits for the Mountain Valley Pipeline in West Virginia and Kaine’s state of Virginia. Kaine is clearly angry about that since some 100 miles of the pipeline would be in his state, but not making ultimatums over it yet.
“All I have said is, I am deeply opposed to the MVP provision and frankly, I think it would open a door that we do not want to open,” Kaine said on Thursday. “I’m not a threat-style person. Let me tell you where I am. Let me tell you what I think about this. Can we solve it?”
He’s right on the pipeline provision—it could set a dangerous precedent. “It’s just really bad public policy to basically break out a single project and say, ‘You’re going to be exempt,’” James Van Nostrand, director of the Center for Energy and Sustainable Development at the West Virginia University College of Law, told Roll Call recently. “That’s just horrible public policy.” Another law professor, Pat Parenteau at the Vermont Law School, said it would be “highly unusual and maybe unprecedented” for Congress to intervene to force the approval of the private sector project.
Kaine told Roll Call: “My constituents in Virginia have complained significantly about workmanship problems in the Mountain Valley Pipeline.” He added that state agencies have intervened to stop work on the project because of water pollution it’s caused. “I am not opposed to the Mountain Valley Pipeline,” he said. “I don’t think Congress should be in the business of approving pipelines or rejecting them.”
It appears as of now that the Senate is going to act first on the funding bill, then send it to the House where they’ll fast track it. As of now, it seems that Manchin’s bill is going to be an amendment to the continuing resolution, which means it will need 60 votes to break a filibuster, and it almost certainly won’t.
If that’s the case—if Manchin can’t get enough Republicans to make up for the Democrats he is surely going to lose on this—then the effort needs to end there. Schumer can tell Manchin he did what he promised and gave him a vote. Any effort to do more to appease Manchin right now would be disastrous, pitting Democrats against each other and the House against the Senate. It’s been bad enough already, but throwing in the threat of a government shutdown mere weeks ahead of the election would be a big mistake.
SC: Some do, some don’t. At least here in the US. My Hyundai Elantra came with a roadside emergency kit. And I just checked online and found the kit, on Hyundai’s shop for $69.99. Wasn’t on my car’s Maroni label, so maybe the dealership added it?
Subtitled video at the (Twitter) link. This is the part I can’t get over. I know I posted about the guide @ #254, but they’re really running away with it here!
The thread with images and videos from the protests in Iran continues: “Tonight in the city of Yazd, two women standing on top of a car throw their hijabs in the air while protesters cheer and clap, on the 11th night of unrest in Iran over the death of #MahsaAmini, 22, in morality police custody and a near total internet shutdown….”
Zelensky: Donetsk Oblast is Ukraine’s main priority.
In his nightly address, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine is doing everything to curb Russian activity in Donetsk Oblast.
“Constant attempts of the Russian offensive in the Donetsk region will surely go down in the history of wars as one of the most cynical murders of one’s own soldiers,” he also said.
ravensays
Russian soldiers dumped on the frontline without food and water. They can’t retreat, or they’ll get shot by Russian contract soldiers hanging back.
This is the message of a video made by Russian soldiers.
They were dumped in a forest with no equipment except for assault rifles. They don’t even have a radio. Their officers are long gone.
The Ukrainians are shelling their position.
And, the night is coming.
No wonder Russian casualties are so high and morale so low.
National Hurricane Center director calls Ian forecast a “near worst-case scenario” for the Tampa area
For residents in the Tampa Bay area, “it’s time to stop looking on the internet and hoping that it’ll go away. It’s time to start acting,” Jamie Rhome, the National Hurricane Center acting director, tells CNN.
The current forecast track for Hurricane Ian puts all of the Tampa Bay region on the right side of the storm, which would see winds push water northward into Tampa Bay, maximizing the inundation from storm surge. The current storm surge forecast for this area is up to 10 feet.
If this storm track and intensity materializes, he warns residents that “this is a near worst case approach angle coming in from the south and west and stalling,” Rhome said. “With it slowing down, this would be a near worst case approach angle.”
The forward speed of the storm as it passes Tampa on Wednesday into Thursday is less than 5 mph — about 1/3 of the current forward speed of Ian. This slow speed, in combination with the intensity of the storm could be devastating for this region.
“This would be the storm of a lifetime for many Tampa Bay residents,” he added.
“We’re at the action phase. We’re no longer at the ponder phase or think about it phase or hope it goes away phase. We’re at the action phase,” said Rhome.
Ian is projected to be the closest pass to Tampa Bay for a major hurricane since 1950. The current track puts the center of Ian passing within 25 miles west of the coastline as it parallels the coast.
Its path could change before then, of course.
It’s expected to hit Cuba tomorrow as a Cat 3. More than 19,000 people have been evacuated from western Cuba.
ravensays
“Under a bill they promoted, pregnant people could face murder charges even if they were raped or doctors determined the procedure was needed to save their own life. ”
This is the next step for the forced birthers/female slavers.
Making abortion equivalent to first degree murder.
Abortion already is a felony in Georgia, murder punishable by up to the death penalty.
Sooner rather than later, it will be a felony to get an abortion in all the Red states. They are always in a race to see who can be the most cruel and vicious. Because cruel and vicious shows that they have power, power over women, their lives, and their bodies.
And the activists and politicians leading the charge are nearly always men, CNN found.
I deleted most of this article. It was long but made the same point over and over again.
These male politicians are pushing for women who receive abortions to be punished with prison time
By Blake Ellis and Melanie Hicken, CNN
Updated 12:33 AM EDT, Wed September 21, 2022 edited for length
All but one of the laws would have passed with Republican votes alone, and a few were passed without a single vote from a Democratic lawmaker. Republican legislators almost always voted in favor of the restrictions, which experts say shows how the issue has been much more of a litmus test for Republican state lawmakers than it has for Democrats.
They were adamant that a woman who receives an abortion should receive the same criminal consequences as one who drowns her baby.
Under a bill they promoted, pregnant people could face murder charges even if they were raped or doctors determined the procedure was needed to save their own life. Doctors who attempted to help patients conceive through in-vitro fertilization, a fertility treatment used by millions of Americans, could also be locked up for destroying embryos, and certain contraception such as Plan B would be banned.
“The taking of a life is murder, and it is illegal,” state Rep. Danny McCormick told a committee of state lawmakers who considered the bill in May, right after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked.
Men at the helm
A faction of self-proclaimed “abolitionists” are seeking to make abortion laws more restrictive and the consequences of having the procedure more punitive than ever before.
And the activists and politicians leading the charge are nearly always men, CNN found.
This year, three male lawmakers from Indiana attempted to wipe out existing abortion regulations and change the state’s criminal statutes to apply at the time of fertilization. In Texas, five male lawmakers authored a bill last year that would have made getting an abortion punishable by the death penalty if it had gone into law. A state representative in Arizona introduced legislation that included homicide charges — saying in a Facebook video that anyone who undergoes an abortion deserves to “spend some time” in the Arizona “penal system.” And a male Kansas lawmaker proposed a bill that would amend the state’s constitution to allow abortion laws to pass without an exception for the life of the mother.
Scott Herndon, a bearded Idaho man and father of eight, once believed abortion was an issue that should be discussed “between a woman and her physician.”
One of his longterm goals if elected, he said, is to abolish abortion in the state.
Gunter, meanwhile, said he disagrees with the medical establishment and does not believe abortion is ever medically necessary.
Medical and legal experts told CNN this is a dangerous and inaccurate claim, saying there are plenty of situations that could result in women dying or being put through unnecessary bodily harm if explicit exceptions for the health and life of the mother are not included in the laws regulating abortion.
An immediate abortion may be needed if a pregnant person’s water breaks before 20 weeks, King said, or when patients have pre-existing conditions that could lead to heart or liver failure or they need aggressive treatment for a disease like cancer that would severely harm — if not destroy — the fetus. An “equal attempt to save the fetus” would require putting the life of the pregnant person at risk,” she said, adding that it is also not the well established standard of care.
Another Texas woman spoke out about being forced to carry her dead fetus for weeks after suffering a miscarriage. In Louisiana, a woman carrying a fetus without a skull was reportedly not allowed to get an abortion, while another was reportedly denied an abortion and instead forced into hours of labor when her water broke at 16 weeks, long before the fetus was viable.
When the bill reached the state Senate, 25 male legislators voted on party lines to enact it, and the state’s female governor signed it into law.
A federal judge blocked it from taking effect, but it had an immediate domino effect as other states followed suit. Most of the laws, including near-total abortion bans known as “trigger” laws and six-week “heartbeat” bills, weren’t able to take effect at the time either, but they are being implemented across the country now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned.
Men running for a number of statewide offices in Georgia have also vocalized their support of total abortion bans. “There’s no exception in my mind,” former football star Herschel Walker, a Republican who is running for the US Senate, told reporters.
Some big-city district attorneys vow not to prosecute abortion cases, setting up legal clashes in red states
Mastriano and Walker have not expressed support for prosecuting women who have abortions. They did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.
Paul K@247,
No worries! I always enjoy demonstrating how comprehensively the Vicar misunderstands and misrepresents UK politics. Incidentally, it begins to look as though Starmer just has to sit tight and make vague reassuring noises to win the next election, since the Truss-Kwarteng comedy duo have detonated a currency crisis by their unfunded tax giveaway to the rich, which is also massively unpopular in the country (see the entry at the link for 7.52). Adam Tooze suggests that their real aim is to generate huge pressure for “shrinking the state”, others have suggested they actually aim to lose the next election while leaving an incoming Starmer administration with an impossible situation. I don’t buy the latter – politicians, unless they are intending retirement, always try to hang on to power if they have it; and Tooze’s suggestion too leaves unexplained how they would plan to win the next election, so sheer ideologically-motivated stupidity looks more plausible. There are already rumblings among Tory MPs of an attempt to force a fresh leadership contest but then, there are probably enough “libertarian” headbangers in the parliamentary party to ensure that one of their number gets through to the two who are then presented to the Tory Party membership for a final decision – and they just chose Truss over the somewhat less deranged Sunak. We could even get the return of Johnson!
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
…Russian media have announced that “referendums” in four occupied territories of Ukraine are “valid” a day before voting ended, claiming the turnout had already passed 50%. Analysts have called those turnout claims “flagrantly falsified”.
Russian news agency Tass is reporting that two of the polling stations being used in the widely derided referendums in occupied Luhansk have been moved to reserve locations following “threats”.
President Vladimir Putin is scheduled to address both houses of Russian parliament on Friday 30 September, and may use the address to formally announce the accession of Russian occupied territories of Ukraine into Russia, the British Ministry of Defence has said in its latest intelligence update.
…
Sweden’s Maritime Authority said it had issued a warning of two leaks on the Russian-owned Nord Stream 1 pipeline in Swedish and Danish waters, shortly after a leak on the nearby Nord Stream 2 project was discovered. Nord Stream AG, the operator of the network, says three offshore lines of the Nord Stream gas pipeline system have sustained “unprecedented” damage in one day.
Dmitry Medvedev, the hawkish deputy chairman of the security council of Russia, has again threatened the west with the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine, and said: “Imagine that Russia is forced to use the most formidable weapon against the Ukrainian regime, which has committed a large-scale act of aggression, which is dangerous for the very existence of our state. I believe that Nato will not directly intervene in the conflict even in this situation. After all, the security of Washington, London, and Brussels is much more important for the North Atlantic Alliance than the fate of Ukraine, which no one needs, even if it is abundantly supplied with various weapons.”
Japan’s foreign minister, Yoshimasa Hayashi, has commented on the detention of the country’s consul, telling reporters that he was subjected to a “coercive interrogation” during his detention by Russia’s FSB security service and that Japan has demanded an apology. Hayashi told reporters on Tuesday that consul Motoki Tatsunori had not engaged in any illegal activity and described his detention, which lasted several hours, as “totally unacceptable”.
Refugees arriving from Ukraine have helped drive Germany’s population to its highest level, the Federal Statistical Office said, with more than 84 million people now living in the EU’s most populous country. Germany’s female population grew by 1.2%, significantly more than its male population, which increased by 0.8%, reflecting the fact that mainly women and children fled the war in Ukraine.
The Philippines is in talks with Russia to buy fuel and other commodities, according to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, who said the country’s national interests had to take precedence over politics.
As Florida prepares for Hurricane Ian’s menacing approach here is what you should know about the forecast and potential impact on the state.
On rainfall: Ian is expected to dump at least 2 to 3 months’ worth of rainfall by Friday. Totals are expected to be 12 to 16 inches with maximums up to 24” [!!!] in Tampa and West Central Florida. The average month of September brings about 6 inches of rain.
On people: More than 8 million people reside in the Hurricane Warning zone in West and Central Florida, meaning they are subject to hurricane-force winds of 74 mph or greater
Nearly 7 million people reside along the coast between Fort Myers and Clearwater, including all of Tampa Bay area are also under a storm surge warning, indicating a life-threatening storm surge of 5 to 10 feet is possible
On storm surge: Even the low range of storm surge currently forecast for Tampa/St. Pete/Clearwater would represent the highest water levels ever recorded. It could double their highest. 5 to 10 feet is the expected surge in Tampa Bay, St. Petersburg and Clearwater. The highest sea levels ever recorded reached around 4 feet high in Hurricane Elena in 1985 and the March 1993 “Storm of the Century.”
On rapid intensification: Hurricane Ian’s rapid intensification has continued on Tuesday. Ian was a 45 mph tropical storm on Sunday afternoon, but is currently a 125 mph Category 3 major hurricane. Rapid intensification is considered an increase of at least 35 mph in 24 hours, Ian has far exceeded that, increasing by at least 55 mph in a 24 hour period between Sunday afternoon and Monday afternoon.
Some history: The last major hurricane to make landfall in the US was Hurricane Ida (Category 4) in 2021 in Louisiana. The last major hurricane to make landfall in Florida was Hurricane Michael in 2018 (Category 5).
ravensays
This Ukrainian government source is stating that 1.5 million Ukrainians have been deported or transported to Russia. And now they can’t get back to Ukraine.
They also can’t be contacted.
Most of these people have been sent north to the arctic coast or into Siberia as far as the Sakhalin island near Japan.
If the past Russian pattern holds many of these people will end up disappeared and never heard from again.
FWIW, I’ve seen many photos of the people in the villages that the Ukrainian armed forces have liberated. There aren’t many of them left and they almost all seem to be very old people. The younger men are in one army or the other, or dead. The younger women and children are refugees in Russia or the EU.
Nearly 1.5 million Ukrainians unable to leave Russia for Ukraine
UKRAINSKA PRAVDA – MONDAY, 26 SEPTEMBER 2022, 00:40
Around 1.5 million Ukrainian citizens – mostly women and children – are currently in Russia without the possibility to return to Ukraine. Meanwhile, their relatives are unable to contact them.
Source: Olha Stefanishyna, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine, during a UN General Assembly side event on trafficking of women in the context of the war against Ukraine on 23 September
Quote from the press release on Ukraine’s government website: “Particular attention during the event has been paid to the issue of forced deportation of Ukrainian citizens from the occupied territories of Ukraine to Russia. The deputy prime minister stressed that around 1.5 million Ukrainians – mostly women and children – are currently on the territory of the Russian Federation without the possibility of returning home, and their relatives are unable to contact them.”
Details: Stefanishyna added that it is more important than ever to use all international human rights mechanisms and double down on the efforts to prevent forced exploitation of Ukrainians.
ravensays
Elizabeth Tsurkov🌻 @Elizrael
Russian men drafted into the 1st Tank Regiment were informed they will undergo no training whatsoever & will be dispatched to Kherson on September 29th to face off with the well-trained Ukrainian Army.
This is going to be the common experience of the new 300,000 or 1 million Russian men drafted.
Hard to say how much the Russian leadership can wreck Russian society before it collapses. Again.
ravensays
It turns out that Russian men don’t want to get killed in Ukraine for no good reason.
Russians are also becoming outcasts just about everywhere.
A lot of that is just self defense. Many countries are uneasy about having large populations of desperate Russians living there. It puts a lot of stress on them and having Russians living in your country can be dangerous. Ask Ukraine how that works.
It also doesn’t look like support for the war is all that high in Russia.
After a century of the Gulags, the KGB, and frequent deportations and disappearances, Russians are very good at repeating the party line and trying to keep from being noticed.
Opinion Russians Are Terrified and Have Nowhere to Turn
Sept. 27, 2022 NYTimes. By Ilia Krasilshchik
Edited for length
Mr. Krasilshchik runs Helpdesk.media, a website that offers advice and support to people affected by the actions of the Russian government.
“Hello, I have a pregnant wife and a mortgage. My wife is panicking, and I have no money to go abroad. How can I escape the draft?”
This is a message we received at Helpdesk.media, a website I and other journalists set up in June to help people — with information, legal advice and psychological support — affected by the actions of the Russian government.
In the days since Vladimir Putin announced a “partial mobilization,” clearing the way for hundreds of thousands of men to be conscripted into his failing war effort, we’ve fielded tens of thousands of messages like these. Some were plaintive; others were defiant. Some were simply defeated. Along with Russians desperately trying to board flights, crossing borders or attacking recruitment centers, they testified to the same desire: to avoid the draft.
The terrible truth is that Russians have become outcasts.
Such terror is at odds with the mass support the war supposedly enjoys. But the actual level of support is clearly significantly lower than that trumpeted by the Kremlin-controlled media.
People observing this horror from outside Russia are asking: Why don’t Russians protest? Well, many are. The first evening after the announcement was made, the Russian police detained over a thousand demonstrators in more than 30 cities across the country. Some protesters were severely beaten up. This is bravery beyond the imagining of those who have never experienced life in a dictatorship.
… even mild antiwar statements can land Russians in prison with a hefty sentence. I, for one, am facing criminal charges for writing on Instagram that the massacre in Bucha, Ukraine, was perpetrated by the Russian Army.
For Russians, there is no visible route to a better future.
Capital punishment may be forbidden in Russia. But for Mr. Putin’s decision, many people will pay with their lives.
Russian men drafted into the 1st Tank Regiment were informed they will undergo no training whatsoever…
I know the ancient Soviet-era AFVs Russia is still using are primitive by the standards of today’s tanks, but I don’t think driving and using the weaponry on those things is something you can pick up “on the job.”
These kids are cannon fodder.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 299
The fashies on social media are trying to cast anyone who criticizes Meloni as hypocrites: “Oh! Now you are opposed to strong independent women in political power?” They’re also denying that she’s a fascist, asking for “evidence,” as if her statements, policy proposals, and the history of her own damn party wasn’t enough.
Swedish seismologists registered explosions near the Nord Stream pipelines – reports
The Swedish national broadcaster SVT is reporting that seismologists registered explosions near the Nord Stream pipelines in the last 36 hours.
Ukrainian presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, has described the major leaks in two Russian gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea as a “terrorist attack”.
In a statement on Twitter, he called for more arms and said:
[“‘Gas leak’ from NS-1 is nothing more that a terrorist attack planned by Russia and an act of aggression towards EU. [Russia] wants to destabilize economic situation in Europe and cause pre-winter panic. The best response and security investment — tanks for [Ukraine]. Especially German ones…”]
Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, has already called the leaks “an act of sabotage” which he said “related to the next step of escalation of the situation in Ukraine.”
Facebook says it has identified and stopped a sprawling network of fake accounts that spread Russian propaganda about the invasion of Ukraine throughout Western Europe, AP reports.
Meta, its parent company, says the network created more than 60 websites that mimicked legitimate news organisations but parroted Russian talking points about Ukraine.
More than 1,600 fake Facebook accounts were used to spread the propaganda to audiences in Germany, Italy, France, the United Kingdom and Ukraine. Meta says it was the largest and most complex network linked to Russia that the California-based company has identified since the Ukraine invasion began.
The Russian Embassy in Washington D.C. hasn’t responded to a request for comment, the news wire said.
Ian’s forecast track shifts south, but exact landfall remains uncertain
Hurricane Ian’s center has emerged into the southeastern Gulf of Mexico late Tuesday morning, according to the 11 a.m. ET advisory from the National Hurricane Center.
Ian’s winds have decreased only slightly, down to 115 mph, as a result of the trip across western Cuba, which keeps the storm as a Category 3. Ian is expected to strengthen again later today and become a Category 4 before the end of the day.
The expected track for Ian has shifted around 25 miles south in the newest advisory, with landfall expected to occur north of Venice, Florida, around 6 to 12 hours earlier than previously anticipated. Ian is still expected to be a major hurricane when it makes landfall on Wednesday evening around 8 p.m. local time.
“On the forecast track, the center of Ian is expected to move over the southeastern Gulf of Mexico in a couple of hours, pass west of the Florida Keys later today, and approach the west coast of Florida within the hurricane warning area on Wednesday and Wednesday night,” the center said.
This also shifts the expected highest surge, with the highest surge expected to be 8 to 12 feet, occurring south of Tampa Bay and north of Bonita Beach, including Charlotte Harbor and the cities of Port Charlotte and Punta Gorda. Storm surge in and around Tampa Bay, including St. Petersburg and Clearwater, is still expected to be 5 to 8 feet.
“Ian is forecast to approach the west coast of Florida as an extremely dangerous major hurricane,” the center said.
Ian is moving north at 10 mph, and “a turn toward the north-northeast with a reduction in forward speed is forecast tonight and Wednesday,” it said.
“This is a life-threatening situation,” it emphasized.
“Persons located within these areas should take all necessary actions to protect life and property from rising water and the potential for other dangerous conditions. Promptly follow evacuation and other instructions from local officials,” according to the advisory.
Two members of Lev Tahor were arrested on suspicion of human trafficking and serious sexual offences, including rape, Israel’s foreign ministry said.
A three-year-old child removed from the compound has been flown to Israel.
Lev Tahor (Hebrew for Pure Heart) is known for extremist practices and imposing a strict regime on members.
It advocates child marriage, inflicts harsh punishments for even minor transgressions and requires women and girls as young as three years old to completely cover up with robes…
“BREAKING: John Strand, antivaxx Dr. Simone Gold’s partner and a major force behind the group America’s Frontline Doctors has been found guilty on all charges for his role in Jan 6.”
Paleontologists have discovered a bizarre worm-like creature from the Cambrian Period that has features associated with three groups of living animals. Just a half-inch long and covered in bristles, the armored Wufengella is providing clues as to how ancient filter-feeders evolved…
Swedish police said it has launched a preliminary investigation into possible sabotage related to the Nord Stream 1 gas leak in the Baltic Sea.
“We have established a report and the crime classification is gross sabotage,” a national police spokesperson said, according to Reuters.
It comes as the US said it is ready to provide support to European partners investigating the leak.
Pierce R. Butlersays
KG @ # 230 – Would write a serious reply, but have more urgent things to do with Hurricane Ian predicted to hit here tomorrow.
Suffice it to say that most likely everybody’s predictions will come to pass: disgruntled émigrés and émigré wannabes, spies and saboteurs, growing resistance in Russia, Russian talent pool draining to west, dogs and cats living together.
To all: unless I get a chance this evening before the power goes down, this may be my last message for several days. I have plenty of food, water, candles, etc, so no worries personally – y’all please make sure nothing major happens while I’m offline!
Pjotr Sauer, the Guardian’s Russia affairs correspondent, reports that Russia is to boycott the Oscars
Russia will not submit a film to the Oscars this year, the first time the country has boycotted the prestigious film awards since the fall of the Soviet Union, as Moscow’s cultural isolation deepens.
“The presidium of the Film Academy of Russia has decided not to nominate a national film for the Oscars award of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2022,” the Russian academy said in a statement on Monday.
The chairman of Russia’s Oscar nomination commission announced in a letter on Tuesday that he was resigning following the move, which he said was an “illegal” decision taken “behind his back”.
Paul Ksays
KG @ 293: Echo chambers, arrogance, and stupidity. What a combination. I feel strange as I read about all of these political things happening around the ‘Western’ world. It’s like observing the actions of aliens in some kind of fishbowl, cut off from the rest of reality and doing things in ways that are barely fathomable. They gain and cling to power with seemingly no other motivation than just that. I know this has always been true, but it seems faster and more extreme than what I’ve lived through and read in history. Social media, and all the algorithms meant to gain clickers and hang onto them, might be the explanation for the acceleration I’m seeing, but maybe it’s just my age and naivete. Still, the utter lack of scruples or brains in so many ‘leaders’ right now is both amazing to me, and, I have to admit, fascinating. I want to get it, but I don’t. I also just hope there is an opening out of the insanity, and that we make it there.
Well, this is just plain crazy.
The Nordstream 1 and 2 gas pipelines from Russia to Germany seem to both have been attacked and seriously damaged.
There are 4 pipelines and 3 of them are leaking.
It isn’t known who attacked the pipelines.
They aren’t going to even be that easy to attack since they are deep underwater in the Baltic sea. It was probably Russia though.
Ukraine doesn’t even have a navy and has no reason to blow up those pipelines.
The Russians do things like this all the time. False flag atrocities.
Someone keeps shelling the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and it is Russia which also occupies the power plant.
German officials reportedly believe the crucial Nord Stream natural-gas pipelines connecting Russia to Europe were sabotaged near a Danish island
Kate Duffy Tue, September 27, 2022 at 3:32 AM·3 min read Business Insider
The operator of the pipelines said Tuesday they’d suffered “unprecedented” damage in a single day.
It’s not yet known who, or what, might have caused the damage.
German officials reportedly believe the crucial Nord Stream natural-gas pipelines connecting Russia to Europe have been sabotaged.
Der Tagesspiegel, a newspaper in Germany, where the pipelines land from Russia, reported a government source as saying: “We can’t imagine a scenario that isn’t a targeted attack. Everything speaks against a coincidence.”
The Danish Navy has sent an Absalon-class frigate to site of the leaks for monitoring purposes and to warn ships to stay away, the Danish Broadcasting Corporation reported. A no-fly zone is in operation over the affected area, a German government official told Insider.
The Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipeline systems are the largest for transporting natural-gas from Russia to Europe. Each system consists of two pipelines.
Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, the newer Nord Stream 2 system, which at the time was filled with natural-gas but wasn’t operational, was suspended. And as the war has dragged on, Russia has gradually crimped supply through Nord Stream 1, which was fully-operational before the invasion.
The Danish Energy Agency said Monday it had discovered a leak in the Nord Stream 2 system near Bornholm, a Danish island in the Baltic Sea. The Swedish Maritime Authority said leaks had been detected in both Nord Steam 1 and Nord Stream 2 near Bornholm.
On Tuesday, Nord Stream AG, the operator of the pipelines, said: “The destruction that happened within one day at three lines of the Nord Stream pipeline system is unprecedented.”
Jakob Hanke Vela, a Germany-based reporter for Politico, tweeted: “Accident highly unlikely, officials in Berlin believe both pipelines have been attacked.”
Die Welt, another German publication, reported that the timing of the damage suggested sabotage, and was unlikely to be an accident.
Later Tuesday, Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen said the situation was “extraordinary” and it was “difficult to imagine” the damage was accidental.
Also later Tuesday, the Kremlin said it couldn’t rule out sabotage, per Reuters.
A spokesperson for Germany’s economy ministry told Insider it “doesn’t participate in speculation.” Germany’s energy regulator, the Federal Network Agency, said in an email it was in the process of clarifying the situation.
“It seems extremely improbable that the leaks on two different pipelines happen at the same time,” Mate usz Kubiak, energy analyst at the Warsaw-based Esper is consultancy, told Politico. “Therefore I think we should assume that it was intentional to create these leaks.” Kubiak added that he didn’t think it made sense for Ukraine or the West to sabotage the pipelines, per Politico.
Klaus Müller, president of Germany’s Federal Network Agency, wrote in a Twitter post Monday the situation was “tense” but Germany and the European Union were no longer dependent on Nord Stream 1.
Since Russia halted gas supplies to Europe in early September, no gas has flowed through Nord Stream 1, the Federal Network Agency said. It added that storage levels in Germany were rising and were around 91% at the time of writing.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) literally fled his home on Monday when a process server tried to serve him with a subpoena to testify in an abortion case. According to the Texas Tribune, his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, drove them both away in a truck…
Per an email to faculty, if they provide condoms, it has to be “for the purpose of helping prevent the spread of STDs but not for purposes of birth control.”
Busy day at court, with jury selection starting for 5 Oath Keepers charged w/ seditious conspiracy, sentencing this afternoon for Kyle Young — who pleaded guilty to assaulting Officer Mike Fanone — and, at 10, the verdict in Kyle Fitzsimons bench trial.
VERDICT: Judge Contreras finds Kyle Fitzsimons of Maine GUILTY on all 11 counts, including 6 felony counts: civil disorder, obstruction of an official proceeding and 4x of assault. Also finds Fitzsimons guilty of enhancement for causing bodily injury to Sgt. Aquilino Gonell.
ravensays
thedailybeast
Josh Fiallo
Tue, September 27, 2022 at 8:28 AM·2 min read
A Montana woman is under investigation after she bragged in a series of photos posted to Facebook that she’d shot a Siberian Husky, skinned it, and posed with the poor pup’s carcass.
The woman, Amber Rose, justified the slaughter by claiming she thought the Siberian Husky was a baby wolf. She wrote that it was a “great feeling” to text and share the killing with “her man.”
I’m out of touch with what is happening in Montana.
Then again, I’ve never been in touch with what is happening in Montana.
The article is accompanied by a photo captioned, “Russian conscripts arrive in Crimea after being trained extensively on riding a bus, Sept. 27, 2022.”
On Tuesday, buses began to arrive in Crimea carrying Russian conscripts called up during the mobilization. For some of these soldiers, training is apparently going to consist of a couple of days sleeping on cots, and whatever tips they could pick up in transit. Those troops immediately got a ceremony—a “departure ceremony”—as they were directed to the front lines. There are other reports of similar troops arriving in the Donetsk area. Considering how Russia’s attack on Bakhmut has sometimes consisted of simply sending wave after wave of unsupported infantry up the slope at entrenched positions, these men should do just as well as those with years of experience.
In general, over the last two days fighting in Ukraine has gone like this:
– Russia has made a number of attacks in the Soledar to Bakhmut area, most of which have been repelled but some of which have gained some ground, usually measuring in meters.
– Ukraine has continued to expand its area of control northwest of Lyman, liberating more towns along the east bank of the Oskil River and extending across the border between Donetsk and Kharkiv oblasts as it works to both the north and east in a counteroffensive that has now liberated 700 square kilometers in the Lyman area.
– Ukraine is pushing two additional bridgeheads across the Oskil that have captured a number of towns and engaged in what are described as very large battles with Russian forces. These battles so far seem to be going Ukraine’s way and offer a potential for an additional area of counteroffensive breakthrough.
– When it comes to operations in the south, whether in Zaporizhzhia or Kherson, there are reports of heavy artillery duels, long lists of locations shelled, and some fairly hefty amounts of Russian equipment and materiel reported destroyed, but I have nothing when it comes to significant changes on the ground.
[map at the link]
In the northeast area of Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine is expanding bridgeheads at Dvorichna and Kupyansk.
At Dvorichna, Ukraine reportedly has two major moves underway. One is toward Tavilzhanka, which is along a major highway that goes to a border crossing into Russia. Fighting there has been described as intense over the last two days, but Ukrainian troops have reportedly entered the western part of the town and found a large cache of that most vital Russian supply: stolen washing machines. Seriously, this is some kind of illness.
That bridgehead is also pushing to the south, where it’s reportedly reached the town of Lyman Pershyi. It’s unclear if they are seeing much pushback from Russia along this route, but the goal is clearly to connect this bridgehead with the one 15 kilometers south at Kupyansk.
That Kupyansk bridgehead as been the scene of some very serious fighting. Russia resisted this crossing heavily, and brought in reinforcements even as Ukraine was getting set up on the east side of the river and preparing to move. Ukrainian sources in this area are still citing operational security and giving only scant reports of activities in the area, but it’s clear there were a pair of large battles, one in the southeastern area of Kupyansk-Vuzlovyi (the location of an absolutely enormous rail yard) and another to the east at Petropavlivka. Russia apparently suffered some very major losses of troops in these fights, and this is another area where Russian forces were reportedly rushed to the front in infantry waves without having adequate support from armor or air. That Ukraine now controls these areas is made pretty certain by the fact that both locations have shown up in the morning list of areas shelled by Russia for the last two days.
As with the bridgehead at Dvorichna, the Kupyansk force is now reported to be moving south, in this case toward Kivsharivka, also known as the town that for nearly a week kept saying there were no Russian troops present. Whether Russia got any forces into place before Ukrainian forces arrived isn’t clear. At a pre-war population of 20,000, Kivsharivka is about the same size as Lyman, and it seems to have so far made it through the war with a lot less damage. Here’s hoping that continues today.
One other thing is interesting about the Ukrainian advance from Kupyansk: the P07 highway. If Ukraine is also continuing down the P07 to the southeast, there’s pretty much nothing in the way until they get to the area of Kyslivka, and even that’s far enough off the road that it could potentially be bypassed. There are no real indications that Ukraine is about to do a speed run down the P07 … except that this is the same road that Ukraine used on its three-day crossing from Balakliya to Kupyansk. And 50 km down that same highway is Svatove, which is now reportedly Russia’s major mustering point in the region.
So, the forces that have crossed at Dvorichna and Kupyansk could meet up and continue to push south, clearing the area along the river. Or they could each continue to expand their bridgeheads, liberating northeastern Kharkiv. Or they could mount up and fly down the P07 into Luhansk … and Russia has to be prepared to defend any of these options. [map at the link]
Over the last two days, Ukraine has continued to expand the liberated area north of Lyman. That includes both pressing up the highway directly east of the Oskil River and widening the liberated area to the north. But the most important thing that’s happened may have been reported in just the last hour—so recently in fact that I’ve just had to remake this map and redo several paragraphs of text.
On Sunday and Monday, Russia apparently reinforced positions in Lyman and pushed back into Drobysheve with some regular Russian army forces to back the mercenary group that had been holding the northern edge of that town. While Ukraine apparently did eventually move Russian forces out of Novoselivka (locals there report that Ukraine has set up checkpoints and is checking IDs in the town), Russia actually seemed to control more of Lyman than it did over the weekend.
In spite of Ukrainian forces fighting between Nove and Zelena Dolyna and the capture of major rail lines in the area, Russia still had one good highway running from Kreminna straight into Lyman on the east. That well-paved road has allowed them to keep Lyman supplied, and to move in new forces.
I had actually spent a good chunk of the morning looking at the territory between Zelena Dolyna and Torske, writing several paragraphs about what Ukraine would need to do to press down to this point from the north and west, cut off the road into Lyman, and actually encircle the Russian forces.
And then Ukraine built a new pair of pontoon bridges across the Siverskyi Donets River at Bilohorivka, rushed a new force over the river, and now has scouting forces near both Torske and Kreminna, all under what appears to have been perfect operational security. So thanks for ruining my article, Ukrainian Army!
Honestly, I’ve never been happier to get out the editing pen and start slicing. If reports from both Ukrainian and Russian sources are correct, we’re not going to be waiting days or weeks for that last road into Lyman to be cut. That road is cut right now. Russian forces have reportedly abandoned the forested area east of Torske and Yampil.
Lyman isn’t fully encircled, but considering the way Mud Season has moved into the area and reports that Ukrainian forces have managed to begin attacks on Stavky, there seems to be very little opportunity for Russian forces in this area to escape. Unless Russia can get to the area with enough strength to relieve pressure on that eastern road, the forces they just pushed into Lyman, Yampil, and Drobysheve are effectively encircled.
That is, of course, assuming that these reports of a significant Ukrainian force crossing the river and reaching Torske are correct. Let’s hope they’re correct.
In the meantime, over on the northwest corner of this map, there are reports that Ukraine has liberated Nyzhche, and that Ukrainian troops have entered the southern half of Borova. Russia has reportedly been preparing a new defensive line running roughly along that red line from Borova to Serhiivka, but if that line is about to be flanked, any preparations made there could be worthless.
Our correspondents Philip Oltermann in Berlin and Peter Beaumont in Kyiv have reported on the three separate leaks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines
Gas is pouring into the Baltic Sea from three separate leaks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, Denmark’s energy agency confirmed on Tuesday, amid claims by seismologists in Sweden and Denmark of two sharp spikes in undersea activity, possibly indicating explosions, and speculation about possible sabotage.
A seismograph on the Danish island of Bornholm, near where the leaks occurred, twice recorded spikes on Monday, the day on which the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines underwent dramatic falls in pressure, the German geological research centre GFZ said.
A Danish military flight over the leaks brought back striking images from the ruptures, including one showing an area of bubbling gas a kilometre wide on the sea’s surface.
The seismograph recorded near-silence until just after midnight GMT (2am local time), when there was a spike representing a tremor in the earth followed by a continuous hissing wave form. The pattern was repeated at 5pm GMT.
Amid the speculation over sabotage, suspicion immediately turned to potential culprits – with fingers pointed at Russia, whose pipelines were hit, suggesting a further weaponisation of energy supplies to Europe in the midst of the conflict in Ukraine. Not least it was seen as a possible message about the vulnerability of other marine gas infrastructure.
Norway will strengthen security at its oil and gas installations in the wake of gas leaks in the Baltic Sea and reports of drone activities in the North Sea, the Nordic country’s energy minister said on Tuesday.
“Based on the information we have seen so far, much indicates acts of sabotage,” Norwegian Oil and Energy Minister Terje Aasland said in a statement reported by Reuters.
The government had consulted with the armed forces and operators of oil and gas installations, both on land and offshore, it said.
On Monday, Norway’s Petroleum Safety Authority had urged greater vigilance over unidentified drones seen flying near Norwegian offshore oil and gas platforms, warning they could pose a risk of accidents or deliberate attacks.
The United States welcomes Russians seeking asylum from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “unpopular” war, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Tuesday.
“We believe that regardless of their nationality, they may apply for asylum in the United States and have their claim educated [evaluated?] on a case by case basis,” she said.
Some preliminary—and totally believable—results of the “referenda” in occupied territories. It’s expected that Vladimir Putin will give the final results when he speaks on Sept. 30. Sure to be a nail-biter.
No need to sit down, but 🇷🇺-installed officials have announced the preliminary results of their “referendums” in occupied Ukraine:
[…] On Monday, Newt Gingrich of all people decided to have a go at Fetterman. Was Newt going to push one of his famously calorie-free big ideas on Fetterman? Was he going to ask for forgiveness for his part in promoting Trump’s Big Lie in a naked push for power and relevance? Maybe Gingrich would ask Fetterman to help pay off some of his multimillion dollar debt in unpaid bills from his failed 2012 run for president? No, Gingrich was going to piggyback on Tucker Carlson’s last-ditch effort to smear Fetterman’s … tattoos. You know, tattoos.
Does Fetterman have a series of white power signs on his body? No. He has tattoos to mark reminders of the people from his town of Braddock, where he was mayor. Many of his tattoos timestamp the deaths of innocent citizens, frequently to gun violence, and it is an important permanent reminder for Fetterman: “My decision to mark these deaths with tattoos was inspired in part by their permanence—the fact that these people, their stories and my town will be with me forever. I get that etching art permanently onto your body isn’t how most politicians would express their connection to their communities. But I didn’t care about what anyone else thought. It felt right to me.”
Back to Gangreenich! Who wrote on Twitter, “Is Pennsylvania Democrat Fetterman’s tattoo ‘I will make you hurt’ based on his ties to the crips gang as reported by the Free Beacon or a reference to the nine inch nails heroin song ‘Hurt’. Fetterman won’t answer questions.” Gingrich really lit up the internet with his truly inane take on a great and sad song written by Pennsylvanian native Trent Reznor and famously covered by American icon Johnny Cash in his twilight years.
Gingrich’s decision to go on social media to try and frighten people who are so out of touch that the whiff of an idea of Black people could send them into a bomb shelter fell flatter than his 2012 campaign! (Insert your own rim shot sound effect.) It was a spectacular failure to add to the Fetterman versus Oz election cycle.
If the Gingrich who stole Christmas wanted to stun the online community with thunderous stupidity, he achieved something.
[Dr. Jorge Caballero] “We’re 2 tweets away from Newt blaming Fetterman for Biggie and Tupac’s murders.”
[snipped tweets and video showing Newt forcing his wife, who had a broken leg, to fetch him coffee]
A quick sociology class for Mr. Grinch.
It’s a Nine Inch Nails lyric. Some people who grew up in the ’80s & ’90s would get tattoos of their favorite lyrics.
If you think it’s weird, wait until you hear what Roger Stone has tattooed on his back. Now that’s nuts.
And someone made a nice visual aid for Gingrich. [Tweet and video at the link, it’s good.]
It isn’t known who attacked the pipelines.
They aren’t going to even be that easy to attack since they are deep underwater in the Baltic sea.
It was probably Russia though.
Don’t really buy that. While we can’t rule out Putin doing something that monumentally stupid, there’s absolutely no benefit for him to do so. He wants the pipeline running, to generate cash and European dependence. Blowing it up just guarantees that Europe will actually follow through on cutting Russian energy, even if we have a cold winter. If this was Russia, it’s the dumbest thing they’ve done all day.
I suspect that it’s some West-aligned group that wants to take the discussion of the pipeline off the table.
A fuckton of Republican buffoonery is headed straight for the FBI:
Since the FBI executed a court-approved search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump has been relentless in attacking the bureau. In recent weeks, the former president has lashed out wildly at the FBI and its agents, calling them “corrupt,” accusing them of “atrocities,” and telling his followers that the federal law enforcement officials are “mobsters,” “vicious monsters” and a “real threat to democracy.”
Trump’s Republican allies haven’t been quite this hysterical, but they’ve nevertheless been unsubtle in their criticisms of the FBI, falsely accusing the bureau of being politicized, peddling odd conspiracy theories, and in some instances, even calling for the agency to be defunded by Congress.
Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, went so far as to warn Fox News views in August of a “cabal“ within the FBI that she believes has politicized its work.
The GOP’s rhetorical push has faded a bit, but Politico reported that Republicans are still planning to make the FBI’s life “as difficult as possible next year if they win back the majority.”
GOP lawmakers are preparing a buffet of investigations aimed at touching every aspect of the agency’s decision-making, even floating a select committee to probe how the bureau handled the recovery of classified documents kept at Donald Trump’s Florida estate. That’s on top of talk of likely doomed-to-fail efforts by conservatives to dramatically curb the FBI’s reach and funding while other baked-in fights, like renewing the bureau’s surveillance permissions, wait in the wings.
Part of what makes this so odd is the fact that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has long been one of the single most conservative institutions in the federal government. To see Republicans go after the FBI is to see a stark reminder of just how radical the party’s politics has become.
But just as notable is the nature of the GOP’s pushback against the bureau. When House Republican leaders unveiled their “Commitment to America” blueprint last week, it included a section on government accountability that claimed there are “more than 14 whistleblowers” who have “come forward to publicly raise concerns about the FBI’s politicization.”
This was, to be sure, an interesting allegation. Whether these whistleblowers exist, however, is something of an open question.
As regular readers might recall, it was a couple of months ago when Republican Rep. Jim Jordan told Fox News, “Fourteen FBI agents have come to our office as whistleblowers, and they are good people. There are lots of good people in the FBI. It’s the top that is the problem. Some of these good agents are coming to us, telling us what is baloney, what’s going on — the political nature now of the Justice Department, God bless them for doing it.”
To hear the Ohioan tell it, Republicans effectively caught a lucky break: They were accusing the FBI, the federal government’s most politically conservative agency, of being biased against Republicans, and 14 insiders at the bureau came along to tell Jordan and his colleagues how right they were.
It’s possible that there are real whistleblowers who are aware of actual wrongdoing at the FBI, and all of this will lead to consequential revelations about federal law enforcement. It’s also possible that Jordan, whose track record as a serious lawmaker does not exist, has fallen for dubious claims from charlatans. Or perhaps he made all of this up. [I’m betting that he made it all up.]
While we wait for answers on this front, let’s not forget that there is a process in place for FBI employees to report wrongdoing, including the option of reaching out to the Justice Department’s inspector general’s office. There’s also a formal process in place for whistleblowers throughout the executive branch.
At this point, however, Jordan appears to have described something more informal: A group of supposed FBI employees, we’re being asked to believe, quietly circumvented official channels, went to a relatively powerless member of the House minority, and confirmed the GOP’s conspiracy theories about federal law enforcement.
And now the claims have worked their way into the party’s “Commitment to America” rollout, as Republicans prepare “a buffet of investigations” targeting the FBI. Watch this space.
Republican candidate for office being not just wrong, but stupid:
It was about a week ago when Kari Lake said she’d uncovered “some really painful, hurtful news” about her Democratic opponent, Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, which would presumably shake up their gubernatorial race. “My team is triple-confirming its [sic] true,” the Republican wrote on Twitter. “Tomorrow I will be releasing. Bad stuff!”
A day later, after the apparent triple-confirmation, the far-right candidate dropped her political bombshell: Hobbs, Lake claimed, fought to keep the Pledge of Allegiance, the National Anthem, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution out of Arizona’s public school classrooms.
The Republican seemed quite excited about the apparent revelation, releasing a video that went on and on about Lake’s patriotism and Hobbs’ outrageous record, complete with on-screen evidence. There was, however, one big problem:
Lake got the story wrong. As The Arizona Republic’s Laurie Roberts explained, the only thing the GOP candidate proved was that “Kari Lake doesn’t know how to read a bill.”
In 2018, the Arizona Legislature passed a bill addressing various American history materials that can be read or posted in Arizona’s classrooms. State law already allowed the pledge, the anthem, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and yes, even the Mayflower Compact to be read or posted, along with various other foundational documents. Senate Bill 1289 simply added the state motto (“Ditat Deus,” or God Enriches) to that list and clarified the wording of the already approved national motto (“In God We Trust”).
Democratic legislators, including Hobbs, balked at the idea of pushing religion in public school classrooms, but even a rudimentary review of the proposal shows that it would not have pushed the Pledge of Allegiance, the National Anthem, the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution out of schools.
The entire line of attack was the result of an apparent Lake campaign mistake. The Arizona Republic’s columnist added that the GOP candidate continued to insist that she was right, pointing to two other legislative measures, but “neither had anything to do with posting the pledge, etc., in classrooms.”
Chuck Coughlin, a Republican strategist in Arizona, expressed surprise[…] “It’s disappointing that somebody that’s running for governor can’t read state statute, especially for someone who claimed they triple-checked their facts,” he said.
Wes Gullett, who served as chief of staff to former Republican Gov. Fife Symington, said of Lake’s mistake, “That’s why we have campaigns because we see if people are qualified to be governor. Reading bills is a qualification of being governor. You have to know what a bill says, how a bill changes, how a bill becomes a law. Those are fundamentals that Kari Lake doesn’t understand.”
What makes a story like this one especially damaging is the broader circumstances in this race: Lake is a former local television anchor who has never held elected office at any level. She’s nevertheless telling voters that she’s ready to be governor and oversee the executive branch of a large and growing state.
It was against this backdrop that the Republican said she and her team were “triple-confirming” a claim to confirm its accuracy, only to fail to notice that the allegation was wrong.
Christian nationalism isn’t new. But its core components are dominating Republican politics.
Christian nationalism has been all over the news lately, but it is neither a new term nor a new phenomenon in American politics. The label gained greater usage during […] Trump’s presidency because of his mobilization of the Christian right around his strongman politics. Interest in the ideology — and the term — grew even more following the January 6 insurrection, where Christian nationalist rhetoric and symbols were on full display, sometimes violently. As Trump acolytes Michael Flynn and Roger Stone enthrall crowds with their Christian nationalist “Reawaken America” tour, and Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano fuses Trump’s stolen election lie with Christian nationalism, its threat to democracy has never been more vividly apparent.
[…] Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has embraced it, and even started selling “Proud Christian Nationalist” t-shirts. “I am being attacked by the godless left because I said I’m a proud Christian Nationalist,” she tweeted in response to criticism. “They hate America, they hate God, and they hate us.” […]
The Christian Founding Mythology
Christian nationalists believe that God had a “providential hand” in America’s founding. They contend that, carrying out God’s will, the founders intended America to be a “Christian nation.” They insist, falsely, that the founding documents prove both this intent and that the separation of church and state is a “myth.” God also intended government to play a limited role in people’s lives, they assert — but to the extent government carries out its functions, it should be done from a “biblical worldview.” That is why, in the Christian nationalist view, Christians should run for office, and voters should support them, so that America will be freed from what they claim is the anti-Christian overreach of a secular government.
[…] The impact of the perpetuation of this ideology is clear. A recent poll by the University of Maryland found that 61 percent of Republicans support officially declaring the United States a Christian nation. That number is far higher — 78 percent — among Republicans who identify as evangelical or born-again. [!!!]
Restoration
A corollary of the Christian nation founding myth is that if the founders were carrying out God’s will, then any erosion of America’s “Christian heritage” must be fought by patriotic Christians who seek to rescue America from ungodly forces and “restore” it to its Christian foundation. Based on claims that the Bible calls on Christians to “take dominion” over earthly institutions, Christian nationalists contend that it is the duty of Christians to run for office and seek political and judicial appointments to ensure the government crafts law and policy from a “biblical worldview.”
[…] the decades-long quest to elect “biblical worldview” representatives continues to bear fruit, and in increasingly radical ways.
Persecution
A key element of this dominionist vision is the claim that Christians are persecuted by social, cultural, political, and legal changes that they claim have undermined the Christian nation. Much of the supposed subversion of Christian heritage and values, and the attendant claimed persecution, stems from both conspiratorial thinking about political adversaries and apocalyptic claims about their ambitions. From the Cold War to the present, perceived enemies of the Christian nation have included Communism, Marxism, socialism, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., mainline Protestantism, atheism, secular humanism, feminism, abortion rights, the “homosexual agenda,” Islam, political correctness, President Barack Obama, “gender ideology,” COVID mitigation policies, the “deep state,” critical race theory, and “wokeness.” Many of these figures, beliefs, and policies might ostensibly have little in common, but they are imagined as conspiring to form a single movement to undermine America […]
In practical legal and political terms, these persecution claims […] have led to cataclysmic erosions of church-state separation, the reversal of Roe v. Wade, ongoing assaults on LGBTQ rights, and the accompanying elevation of religious freedom rights — for right-wing Christians.
In recent political speeches, DeSantis has been using a verse from Ephesians 6 (“Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes”), but with a notable substitution: instead of “the devil’s,” he has said “the left’s.” The meaning is not lost on evangelical audiences, who are well familiar with the actual words of the verse.
Anti-Democracy
Subversions of church-state separation, and the imposition of fundamentalist religion to deprive others of their civil and constitutional rights, are in and of themselves signs of a democracy in danger. But since the 2020 election, the Christian right’s embrace of Trump’s stolen election lie — fueled by the belief that Trump is a savior of the Christian nation — has contributed to direct threats to the electoral process itself. […]
The QAnon movement, which claims that a deep state cabal of satanic pedophiles is running a secret sex trafficking ring inside the government and seeks to drive Trump out of power, is not just a conspiracy theory. It is another means of energizing right-wing white Christian voters, who have been steeped in this kind of conspiracism for decades, to take extreme steps to “save” the Christian nation that (they believe) Trump has so ardently defended. Polling by the Public Religion Research Institute has found that QAnon adherents “express strong Christian nationalist beliefs,” […]
Finally: Is Donald Trump A Christian Nationalist?
The Bible is just a prop for Donald Trump, and, like autocrats throughout history, he uses religion and religious leaders to consolidate the support of enraptured followers. It doesn’t really matter whether Trump himself is a Christian nationalist, since he is a salvific figure to Christian nationalists, one who can achieve their long-sought goals by crushing the “godless left” and giving them more power. One of the leading contenders to be Trump’s successor, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, is abusing his current office to engage in fascistic crackdowns on migrants, public education, and LGBTQ kids while making direct Christian nationalist appeals. […]
It is becoming increasingly clear that the 2024 GOP presidential primary will be a competition to choose not just the party’s standard bearer, but its Christian nationalist battle commander as well.
Hurricane Ian shows signs of rapid strengthening as it moves into the Gulf of Mexico
Satellite imagery early Tuesday afternoon suggests Hurricane Ian — currently a Category 3 with winds of 120 mph — is strengthening as it moves into the ultra-warm water of the Gulf of Mexico.
Meteorologists have noted that it could be entering another period of rapid intensification.
Rapid intensification is precisely what it sounds like – a hurricane’s winds strengthening rapidly over a short amount of time. Scientists have defined it as a wind speed increase of at least 35 mph in 24 hours or less.
There are several things that meteorologists point to as evidence that Ian could rapidly intensify. The hurricane’s central pressure is falling and frequent lightning has been observed in and around the eye wall. Satellite imagery also depicts so-called “mesovortices” in the eye — smaller areas of circulation that spin within the eye like pinwheels — which can be a sign of a strong and intensifying storm.
Two ingredients must come together for rapid intensification to occur — both of which are present in the southeast Gulf of Mexico:
– Upper-level winds around the hurricane need to be weak, since strong winds can prevent a storm from intensifying or even tear a storm apart
– Warm ocean water must extend well below the surface, going hundreds of feet deep, to provide enough fuel for the hurricane to strengthen.
Rapid intensification has historically been a rare phenomenon, but is becoming more common as the climate crisis warms ocean temperatures and stacks the deck in favor of more intense hurricanes.
Police in India are searching for a teacher accused of beating a Dalit student to death over a spelling mistake, officers said amid violent protests triggered by the incident.
Nikhil Dohre was struck with a rod and kicked until he fell unconscious by his high school teacher earlier this month after misspelling the word “social” in an exam, according to a police complaint by his father…
Digital World Acquisition Corp., a “blank-check” SPAC, previously had an office address listed. Now, amid financial struggles, it has downgraded to a P.O. Box.
Less than a month after joining the legal team defending Donald Trump’s alleged possession of classified documents, Chris Kise is taking a back seat, CNN reports, citing two sources familiar with the move…
CNN reports that the reason for Kise’s changing role is unclear. He’s reportedly not heavily involved in Trump’s defense to the feds’ Jan. 6 probe either…
House Jan. 6 committee postpones public hearing because of Hurricane Ian
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol postponed its hearing scheduled for Wednesday in light of Hurricane Ian heading toward Florida.
The panel had originally scheduled a hearing for Wednesday to reveal new information it has uncovered since its last hearing on July 21, but the committee’s chair, Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, of Mississippi, and vice chair, Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, of Wyoming, made the announcement Tuesday afternoon.
“In light of Hurricane Ian bearing down on parts of Florida, we have decided to postpone tomorrow’s proceedings,” Thompson and Cheney said in a joint statement. “We’re praying for the safety of all those in the storm’s path. The Select Committee’s investigation goes forward and we will soon announce a date for the postponed proceedings.”
One of the committee’s nine members, Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy represents a district that includes parts of Orlando. CNN reported earlier that Murphy may not have been able to attend the hearing.
NEW: Germany’s reticence to send tanks to Ukraine causing growing rift between Berlin and eastern European powers
“If Germany would give to Ukraine proportionally what we have given to Ukraine, this war would be over,” Latvia’s Defense Minister says
Latvian defense minister: “Who speaks at this moment about the so-called Franco-German ‘engine of Europe’ anymore? Nobody really
They portrayed themselves as having the moral high ground in the EU. But look at the butchery in Ukraine…and how little they have given comparatively”
The question over whether Berlin will send battle tanks to Ukraine has become a form of litmus test in the eyes of Eastern allies on whether Berlin can transform its soft-power leadership role in Europe into a hard-power one
German officials shoot back that no other western power has sent Western-made battle tanks to Ukraine yet, and say what they’ve sent Ukraine so far (Howitzers, anti-air systems, multiple launch rocket systems) are already making a difference on the battlefield
Either way this is becoming a political hurdle for Olaf Scholz, both at home and abroad, as the future of Germany’s leadership role in Europe seems increasingly linked to what more it does on Ukraine
“In this long intercepted call, the Russian soldier in Kherson mentions significant losses in his regiment, the lack of morale, the blame they get for requiring mobilisation, how he hopes to get out with an injury, and much more….”
“Security forces in Ekbatan-Tehran shoot indiscriminately at the windows of the homes to prevent people from chanting ‘Death to Khamenei’ in their homes.”
Top Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov is quite upset with how Putin’s “partial mobilization” is going and everything the supposed “superpower” is lacking. So much in this video, just watch. It fits right in with what I described in my latest article…
DB link and subtitled video at the (Twitter) link.
“The combined tonnage of our oligarchs’ yachts would be envied by the navy of any large nation.”
“The time to evacuate is now,” Florida emergency management official warns
Officials in Florida are urging residents in the path of Hurricane Ian to follow evacuation orders.
““The time to evacuate is now,” Kevin Guthrie, Florida Division of Emergency Management director, warned Floridians ahead of Hurricane Ian.”
Standing beside Gov. Ron DeSantis and other officials, Guthrie left in no doubt that those who ignored the warnings would be courting possible disaster.
“I implore, I urge everyone that is in an evacuation zone that has been asked to evacuate – the time is now. You must evacuate now. There will be a time when it will not be safe to travel the roads,” Guthrie said.
“There will come a point in time when local public safety officials will not be able to respond to your cry for help. You may be left to fend for yourself. Again — the time to evacuate is now,” he added.
“#Ukraine: A captured Russian T-80U tank operated by the Carpathian Sich group (Already documented) towing a captured Russian 2A65 Msta-B 152mm howitzer in #Kharkiv Oblast.”
Video at the (Twitter) link (sound on! :)). The mud, it has started.
Many Florida rivers are already in flood stage before the arrival of Hurricane Ian
Several rivers across central and western Florida are already above flood stage before the arrival of Hurricane Ian.
More than double the normal amount of rain has fallen over southern Florida in the past two weeks, with amounts over 6 inches in many areas as a result of a stationary front that has been draped over the state.
The Peace River, which flows from central Florida in Polk County and empties into Charlotte Harbor, has several gauges above flood stage on Tuesday.
In Arcadia, the river is at 13.5 feet, which is already high enough to affect several dozen homes along the river, according to NOAA and USGS data. The river is expected to rise several more feet in the coming days as Ian’s rainfall flows into the river, bringing it to major flood stage.
The already high rivers will make river flooding even more of a threat as Ian dumps torrential rainfall over the next 48 hours. The hurricane’s winds could also push a dangerous surge up the Peace River, causing a bottleneck that would lead to even more flooding in Port Charlotte and Punta Gorda.
ravensays
More on the Nordstream Pipeline attacks.
There were three widely spaced leaks.
Swedish and Danish seismographs registered explosions.
This pipeline might be out for good, another casualty of Russia’s war.
“Russia and European partners spent billions of dollars building the pipeline….”
There go billions of dollars in capital investments.
I’m sure you can fix underseas pipelines and also sure it isn’t easy.
No one knows with any certainty who did it yet.
I can’t see that it was Ukraine though. They don’t even have a navy.
And it has to be somebody with access to explosives who is capable of working deep under water in the rough Baltic sea. That leaves out your average terrorist.
Russia accused of sabotaging Nord Stream pipeline as bubbles spew from Baltic Sea
Ukrainian presidential adviser Myhailo Podolyak said the leak was a terrorist attack planned by Russia and an act of aggression towards the EU
Scottishdailyexpress.com
ByAnna Savva September 27, 2022
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said sabotage could not be ruled out. “We are talking about three leaks with some distance between them, and that’s why it is hard to imagine that it is a coincidence,” she said.
and
It comes as seismologists in Denmark and Sweden registered powerful blasts in the areas of the leaks on Monday, Sweden’s National Seismology Centre told public broadcaster SVT. German geological research centre GFZ also said a seismograph on the Danish island of Bornholm had twice recorded spikes on Monday.
Maybe the Nordstream pipeline ‘accident’ was actually environmental terrorism. No, I mean the environment (well, denizens of the environment) did the deed.
Tethyssays
I am going to assume a submarine attacked the pipelines, since that’s the only denizen of the deep that typically uses explosives.
It seems like something Putin would do, as it’s a demonstration of power while also being a particularly wasteful and short-sighted strategy.
Oggie: Mathomsays
Tethys:
Trying for a little humour.
The simpler way to do it using the pipeline electronic control systems. Natural gas has weight which means that, when moving, it has momentum. Almost all pipelines (not sure when it comes to Nordstream) have valves, gates, that can isolate a piece of pipeline in the case of a leak. Suddenly closing a valve can either rupture the pipeline or destroy the valve (or both).
Russian computers are like any computers on earth — they can be vulnerable, usually because people are lazy (incidentally, xkcd has a comic about that today). Someone (possibly a western intelligence agency or, more likely, Russian intelligence) who breaks into the control computers for the pipeline could slam valves shut and, at the same time, leave other valves open and locked out of the system.
As to the why? Warfare against Western Europe? A false flag operation which they can blame on Ukraine to justify the use of unconventional weapons?
I really hope that the power companies in the US (as well as other businesses) are on their cybersecurity toes. Sounds like Russia may be on the offensive on a different front.
ravensays
Patrick Reevell @Reevellp
Unbelievable video. Russian officer telling newly mobilized men they will need to source their own sleeping bags, med packs. Tells them to go buy tampons from pharmacies to use as bandages.
“The only thing the army gives you in uniforms, armor. That’s it.”
The Russian army isn’t going to even give the newly mobilized soldiers equipment.
It is getting to be the cold East European winter and they don’t even issue them sleeping bags.
That they will issue them armor is mostly a lie. I’ve seen photos of some Russian body armor and it isn’t real armor. Some of it is sheet metal.
I learned from the video that tampons are good for stopping the bleeding from bullet wounds. You stick them in and they soak up the blood and swell up.
Who says Russian medicine is behind the times?
StevoRsays
The second epsidoe of ‘The Australian Wars’ is on tonight – 7.30 pm so short notice sorry – bothon NITV and on SBS one.
Details :
The Australian Wars
Wednesday, 28 Sep
7:30 PM – 8:35 PM [65 mins]ctc
The absence of public memorialisation of frontier warfare in Tasmania is incongruous in an island so characterised by its colonial past. This public amnesia is in stark contrast to the richly detailed records of war left by the colonial government in the Tasmanian archives. This government enacted elaborate military plans with the backing of martial law across the island in an effort to conquer the Tasmanian First Nations people. The First Nations people fought almost down to the last person before accepting the terms of an armistice, the terms of which were never honoured.
Powerful, informative and at times extrememly grim and emotional viewing.
KGsays
If this [Baltic pipeline sabotage] was Russia, it’s the dumbest thing they’ve done all day.
I suspect that it’s some West-aligned group that wants to take the discussion of the pipeline off the table. – LykeX@325
Could be. But there are possible motives for Russia. The pipelines belong to them, so they get to repair them. A nice justification for gathering lots of submarines and support ships in the area and keeping them there, obliging all the states around the Baltic to put resources into defending against a possible seaborne attack. And in repairing them, they can “discover evidence” that Ukraine, or one of the states bordering the Baltic, was responsible for the sabotage.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
The UK Ministry of Defence says in its daily intelligence briefing that “Russia is mounting a more substantive defence than previously” as Ukraine attempts to press forward “on at least two axes east”.
The US said overnight it will introduce a resolution at the UN security council calling on member states not to recognise any change to Ukraine and obliging Russia to withdraw its troops, US ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said. Russia holds a permanent seat on the security council that comes with a veto.
US embassy warns Americans to leave Russia ‘immediately’
The US embassy in Moscow has issued a security alert and urged American citizens to leave Russia immediately.
In a statement on its website, the US embassy warned that dual Russian-US nationals may be called up as part of the Russian government’s mobilisation in support of its invasion of Ukraine.
It said:
Russia may refuse to acknowledge dual nationals’ U.S. citizenship, deny their access to U.S. consular assistance, prevent their departure from Russia, and conscript dual nationals for military service.
The embassy warned that its citizens “should not travel to Russia” and that those residing or travelling in the country “should depart Russia immediately while limited commercial travel options remain”.
Commercial flight options from Russia are “extremely limited at present” and often unavailable on short notice, it warned.
It added:
If you wish to depart Russia, you should make independent arrangements as soon as possible.
The governments of Bulgaria and Poland are urging any citizens that remain in the Russian federation to leave urgently. That may be in anticipation of border crossings becoming much more difficult as routes out of the country close, and more people flee forced mobilisation in Russia.
Israel has strengthened its hitherto cautious stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying it will “not accept the results of the referendum in the eastern districts” of the occupied country and that it “recognises the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine”.
Israel, which relies on Moscow to facilitate its operations against Iranian-linked actors in Syria, has refrained from providing military assistance to Kyiv. It has instead focused on providing humanitarian aid and absorbing the thousands of Ukrainian and Russian citizens with Jewish ancestry who have emigrated to Israel since the war broke out in February.
Tuesday night’s statement from the Israeli foreign ministry has been received as an unprecedented show of support for Ukraine, and a rare Israeli rebuke to Moscow.
Israel is also thought to be displeased by Russia’s new deployment of Iranian armed drones.
Some Iranian-made drones were on Tuesday fired towards the central Ukrainian city of Uman, one of the most important pilgrimage centres in Hasidic Judaism.
Despite pleas from officials to stay away from the conflict zone, this week thousands of Israeli citizens travelled to Uman for the town’s Rosh Hashanah celebrations, which are often described as an all-male, Ultra Orthodox version of California’s Burning Man festival.
North Ossetia introduces travel restrictions to stop people feeling conscription entering Georgia – reports
The Moscow Times is reporting that authorities in the Russian region of North Ossetia, which borders Georgia, is putting in place travel restrictions to prevent people fleeing to Georgia to avoid conscription.
It cites a Telegram message from head of the region, Sergey Menyaylo….
National Hurricane Center forecasts storm surge of up to 18 feet for some parts of Southwest Florida
The Storm Surge Unit has increased peak storm surge inundation amounts in some parts of Florida, with the possibility of up to 18 feet of surge in some areas, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Life-threatening storm surge is expected along the Southwest Coast of Florida, it said in its latest update.
Areas from Englewood to Bonita Beach and Charlotte Harbor could see storm surge of up to 18 feet, it said.
This could be the worst surge forecast for this area on record.
“Russia’s children’s rights commissioner [!] on Wednesday said that Ukrainian children taken to Russia from Mariupol initially showed negative attitudes toward Russia, but now don’t wish to return home.
Kyiv has called [gaaaaaaaaaaaaah!] the forced relocations of Ukrainian children a war crime.”
Full, sickening quote at the (Twitter) link.
blfsays
Some uninformedspeculation on the Nord Stream pipelines, presuming what happened was deliberate: Both pipelines are dual-tube, i.e., there are four tubes in total. There seemed to be only three explosions. That suggests one tube is more-or-less intact. Why? It could be deliberate, but I’ve no idea why (or for that matter, why attack the pipelines in the first place). Or the “missing” fourth explosion was an accident, which suggests there is an unexploded bomb / mine somewhere along that fourth tube. (Or its detonation been deliberately delayed for some mysterious reason, or the mine-layer malfunctioned, or…)
Presuming a fourth bomb was laid, find it. It has a story to tell, and is perhaps strong evidence of who is behind the presumed sabotage, how the bomb was laid and (presumably supposed-to-be) triggered, etc.
German authorities fear that the Nord Stream 1 could become “unusable forever” after major leaks into the Baltic Sea, according to reports.
Tagesspiegel has cited government sources as warning that large volumes of salt water will flow into the pipelines and cause corrosion if leaks in the two lines are not repaired quickly.
The paper writes that due to the complexity of the attack, experts and those in government circles believe that it could only be carried out by a state actor.
Germany’s defence minister Christine Lambrecht has said the country’s navy is contributing to the investigation into the leaks, adding that the situation must be clarified and those responsible must be identified quickly.
In a statement, Lambrecht said:
The presumed sabotage of the Baltic Sea pipelines is yet another reminder that we are dependent on critical infrastructure, also underwater.
Russians who are managing to exit the country at the border with Georgia are being greeted by anti-war protestors with Ukrainian flags and protest banners.
Earlier ITV news editor Emma Burrows, who has been at the border, tweeted a picture of one of the banners, which reads “In surveys, most of you support the war. So why now are you leaving?” [kind of a logic problem here]
Russia intends to call a UN Security Council meeting over damage to two Nord Stream undersea gas pipelines, according to the Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova.
EU proposes new sanctions package to ‘make Kremlin pay’
The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has announced a fresh round of proposed sanctions on Russia.
The new package of Russia sanctions is designed “to make the Kremlin pay” for escalating the conflict in Ukraine through mobilisation and “sham referenda that are an illegal attempt to grab land and change international borders by force”, she said.
The proposed eighth sanctions package includes further import bans on Russian products, expected to deprive Moscow of an additional €7bn in revenues.
The EU will also extend export bans on key technology used for the military such as aviation items, electronic components and specific chemical substances. This will “weaken its capacity to modernise” Russia’s military base, she said.
The sanctions package will lay the legal basis for an oil price cap and ban EU citizens from sitting on governing bodies of Russian state-owned companies, she said.
Speaking to reporters, von der Leyen said:
We do not accept the sham referenda and any kind of annexation in Ukraine, and we are determined to make the Kremlin pay for this further escalation.
On the other side of the fence, a Truss-backing MP insists ‘I’m not panicking’
The MP says they’ve received only a handful of emails from angry/concerned constituents, vs hundreds over Barnard Castle
The MP also accuses media of hysteria, adding BBC coverage is ‘completely OTT’
ravensays
Tweet Amichai Stein @AmichaiStein1
#BREAKING: Germany fears Nord Stream Pipelines Potentially Out of Commission Forever –
@Tagesspiegel
That is what I’ve been thinking.
I’m sure the three large, widely spaced holes in the Nordstream pipeline are fixable.
It doesn’t look like they are going to be fixed though.
After the residual natural gas flows out, sea water will flow in.
Sea water which is corrosive.
For a pipeline that isn’t being used and will probably never be used again.
Fixed in what is rapidly turning into a war zone.
That could easily be blown up again by the “unknown” state level terrorists who blew it up before.
There go several billions of capital expenditures and a cash machine for the Russian government.
ravensays
Tweet Bill Browder @Billbrowder
Harrowing message from the US Embassy in Moscow:
“U.S. citizens should not travel to Russia and those residing or travelling in Russia should depart Russia immediately while limited commercial travel options remain.”
The US is recommending that all American get away from Russia and stay away.
This same message is being repeated by a lot of Western nations today as well.
I’m getting the impression we are looking at a Russian Götterdämmerung in the making right now.
Putin is cornered and losing big time and seems like he is going down and taking Russia with him.
He has destroyed the Russian economy for a long time. Russia is a petrostate and they lost their main market for natual gas, the EU. Crude oil is going down in price, today it is $80/barrel. Russian oil is selling at a discount to the world price.
Destroying the Nordstream pipelines is a senseless act.
(It was either the Russians or Ukrainians and the Ukrainians don’t have the motive or ability to do something like that.)
Calling up the random males and sending them to the front with no training or equipment is just a cruel and senseless act.
It is meaningless as a military act but will result in the deaths of many unwilling Russian men.
Russia has no allies left. Even their CSTO members are openly criticizing them.
The chances of something major and drastic happening is high here. Two of many possibilities.
.1. Russia starts bombing the Ukrainian nuclear power plants. They already occupy one and could destroy it easily.
.2. Use nuclear weapons, tactical nukes or larger nuclear weapons.
Cthulhu knows they are now making those threats every day. People aren’t even keeping track any more.
ravensays
around 80-110 metres
The pipelines have a constant internal diameter of 1.153 metres, according to Nord Stream. Sections of the pipelines lie at a depth of around 80-110 metres.1 day ago
Denmark says damage to Nord Stream pipeline in Baltic Sea …https://www.cbc.ca › news › world › nord-stream-pipeli…
The Nordstream pipelines are in water that is 262 feet to 361 feet deep.
That is deep enough that few people or organizations can operate at that depth.
They would be hard to blow up.
They are also going to be hard to fix.
NHC adds warnings to eastern coastlines and expects Ian to maintain strength as it crosses Florida
Ian’s expected intensity as it crosses Florida has been increased and is now forecast to maintain more of its overall strength as it moves across the state, according to the National Hurricane Center’s (NHC) 11 a.m. ET advisory. This will expose more people in the central and eastern portions of the state to damaging, hurricane-force winds.
“One important change is that Ian is likely to remain more intact as it crosses the Florida peninsula (due to both its stronger initial wind speed and its faster forecast forward speed), and this now increases the threat of hurricane-force winds on the east coast of Florida,” it said.
With that in mind, the NHC has also added hurricane warnings to the east coast of Florida. Additionally, it also updated several watches and warnings for Florida up through South Carolina.
This includes:
– A storm surge warning from the mouth of the St. Mary’s River to the mouth of the South Santee River, South Carolina.
– A hurricane warning from Sebastian Inlet, Florida, northward to the Flagler/Volusia County Line, Florida.
– A hurricane watch from the Flagler/Volusia County Line to the South Santee River.
– A tropical storm warning extended northward to Little River Inlet, South Carolina.
Storm surge from Hurricane Ian left 5 to 8 feet of water in parts of Cuba, CNN correspondent reports
Hurricane Ian pummeled Cuba before making its way to Florida, leaving at least two people dead. Currently, most — if not all — of the island is out of power, CNN correspondent Patrick Oppmann reports, and there is still a significant amount of flooding.
The storm “left behind some damage that will take weeks to recover from,” he said from Havana. “People don’t have electricity in their house. We’re able to broadcast because we have a generator, which is a privilege that most Cubans don’t have. That means food is spoiling in their houses and conditions will get worse going forward if power is not restored.”
On Tuesday night, Oppmann reported driving through five to eight feet of storm surge on the seaside — hours after the storm left.
“There was so much water on the road, you could feel waves rocking the car. I had to get quickly off that main avenue because the waves could have flipped the car or worse. You think it’s over, but it’s not. Very, very dangerous storm. People need to take the utmost caution,” he reported.
Tuesday was one of those days when things changed so quickly that a map of the battlefield in some areas in the evening barely resembled that of the same areas in the morning. In two different areas of northeastern Ukraine, towns and villages were liberated, the area under Russian occupation was diminished, and remaining Russian forces in the region were placed at a sharply higher risk.
Though there are other things happening that are certainly important, it’s hard not to look first at the areas where Ukraine made big moves in the last 24 hours—and where current maps are almost certainly several steps behind the situation on the ground.
As always, you’ll probably need to open the map in another tab to get an image large enough if you want to follow along [map at the link]. On this morning’s map, I highlighted the roads that had been providing supplies and reinforcement to the Lyman and Drobysheve area. Note the “had been.”
On Tuesday, Ukrainian forces north of Lyman continued to surge to the east, taking a southward turn to liberate Zelena Dolyna and Kolodyazi. Reports already suggest that this isn’t the actual extent of Ukrainian forces. Russian sources are already talking about Ukraine attacking from Kolodyazi to both south and east, and Ukrainian sources indicate that Ukraine has moved into Ivanivka.
That puts Ukrainian forces directly on the highway that brings supplies to Lyman from the north. However, this may not even have been required to complete cutting the area off. That’s because the surprise push across the Siverskyii Donets River to Dibrova has also proved to be more than just a scouting force. Russian sources are claiming that Russia has now retreated from the town of Torske, which would put Ukraine in control of the intersection that provides access from either east or north.
Late on Tuesday, Ukraine captured Serednje and Shandryholove. That leaves a small pocket—from Drobysheve to Lyman to Yampil—occupied by Russian forces. And they are totally cut off.
Russia is left with two options: They can try to retreat, an action that would likely require a relief force from Svatove to hold open the road, or they can surrender in place. Actually, there is a third option. They could keep fighting. Based on the way Russia keeps blanketing the hills east of Bakhmut with bodies, that’s probably the order to all the soldiers now in the Lyman area. Hopefully, none of them are foolish enough to follow those orders.
It’s not clear how many Russian forces remain in this closing pocket, or how long they can hold out if they choose to keep fighting. With Vladimir Putin set to give his big “everyone in Ukraine wants to be Russia” speech on Friday, it would certainly be nice if the capture of Lyman could come in the next two days. What happens in this area could come quickly, or it could drag on for some time. Ukraine is unlikely to waste a lot of people trying to force Russia out of Lyman, but freeing forces up from this area would mean a significant leap into new areas.
Last week, there were reported to be big fights in the area of Petropavlivka and Kupyansk-Vuzlovyi across the river from Kupyansk, and at Tavilzhanka across from Dvorichna. These battles appear to be over now, with each resulting in a Ukrainian victory. Ukrainian sources continue to state that there is high operational security in the area, and unlike the day-to-day moves around Lyman, there has been little visibility of what’s happening to the north. It’s very likely that this map reflects a conservative view of Ukraine’s liberated area on the east side of the Oskil River. [map at the link]
What is known is that Ukraine has now moved into Kivsharivka to the south and is reportedly trying to close the gap between these two bridgeheads. With the liberation of Kivsharivka, the two largest remaining Russian-occupied towns in Kharkiv Oblast are Lyman and Borova. There appear to be few defensive or geographic boundaries to prevent Ukraine from pushing Russia completely out of the oblast. In fact, there aren’t any real defensible lines for Russia until well over in Luhansk Oblast.
It’s still around a 30km trip if the forces across the river at Kupyansk mean to move down the eastern bank and hit Borova from the north, just as other forces have already moved into the city from the south. But there are only a few small locations on the way, so that might happen quickly, if it fits Ukraine’s plan.
And that might be the biggest clear signal out of everything this week—Ukraine is planning. It’s making coordinated moves between multiple units that are cooperating to both anticipate and react to Russia’s moves. When Ukraine set out to encircle the force at Lyman, it didn’t bull ahead. Where there was resistance, it moved around, shifting north, south, and east until some of those points of resistance were themselves surrounded, and Russian forces fled. They are not just launching people at Lyman every day and charting where the bodies fall, as Russia does at Bakhmut (That’s not accurate. Russia doesn’t bother to make a chart.)
However, since Russians are proving to be having trouble fighting Ukraine, they do have something of a new plan of their own—get Ukrainians to do it. As the BBC reports, Russia is warning Ukrainian men in occupied areas that they could be drafted to fight against Ukraine.
Russian soldiers are already going house to house in some villages and writing down the names of male residents, local residents say. They claim soldiers have told them to be ready for a call-up after the referendum.
Oh, yeah. That should fix everything.
Russian sources have good reason to worry. Indications are that Russian losses on the east side of the Oskil River were “horrific,” leaving the path to Svatove all but open along the P07 highway from Kupyansk. There are only a few towns and little topography along this route, and it’s a solid highway. Things could progress very quickly if Ukraine moves in this direction. [Tweet at the link]
There won’t be a government shutdown this weekend, because Sen. Joe Manchin decided to take his ball and go home, after weeks of petulant pity-parties in which he complained that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were opposing his bill just because they don’t like him.
The most controversial part of the “Continuing Appropriations and Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2023,” the funding bill that’s going to keep the government running until mid-December, was Manchin’s proposal to make the permitting process for energy development projects faster and easier, generally by sidestepping or accelerating environmental reviews and blocking lawsuits against them. Oh, and forcing the government to intervene to make a problematic pipeline in West Virginia happen.
It seems that Manchin, in his arrogant assumption that he is the one in charge in the Senate, stepped too far out of line with that one. He drew the fiery opposition of a fellow Democrat in the neighboring state of Virginia. “I strongly oppose the Mountain Valley Pipeline provision of this legislation, which would greenlight this pipeline without normal administrative and judicial review and ignore the voices of Virginians,” Sen. Tim Kaine said before a procedural vote on the bill Tuesday.
“If the [Mountain Valley Pipeline] owners are unhappy with a court ruling, they should do what other litigants do and appeal. Allowing them to fundamentally change federal law to achieve their goal would surely encourage other wealthy people and companies to try the same. I won’t participate in opening that door to abuse and even corruption,” Kaine said. That’s not an out-and-out accusation against Manchin for being corrupt, but it’s as close as we’re going to get in the Senate and it’s about damned time. About 100 miles of the pipeline goes through Virginia, and Manchin didn’t even bother to consult with Kaine about the bill.
Manchin was kind of right about how this was all about him—it was for Republicans who have been wanting to gut the permitting process for fossil fuel projects forever. They just didn’t want him to get the win for it. They wouldn’t even work with him, instead going all-Republican with a bill from his Republican West Virginia cohort, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito. This was Mitch McConnell making the decision to forego creating a big fight between Senate and House Democrats (the House hated this provision) and sending Democrats into disarray over shutting down the government. Instead, he decided instead to humiliate Manchin.
So Manchin pulled his bill out of the CR with a peevish statement blaming everyone who hates him and basically telling all his colleagues they were helping Putin. Literally. He said that “a failed vote on something as critical as comprehensive permitting reform only serves to embolden leaders like Putin who wish to see America fail.” [Tweet at the link]
That doesn’t mean Manchin and his bad idea are going away. By pulling it from the CR, he keeps it alive for the future. He might try to attach it to other must-pass legislation coming months. Since Republicans were happy to kill it this time around, Democrats as a whole were accepting—if not truly supportive—of the effort. The experience might be enough to make Manchin actually play nice with them and make some changes to the bill that actually would be helpful for alternative energy projects. Or not, so we’re going to have to keep an eye on Manchin.
The stop-gap funding bill has $12.4 billion in aid to Ukraine, $4.5 billion in natural disaster relief, $1 billion for the home-heating program for low-income people, and $20 million for Jackson, Mississippi, to help fix the water crisis. What it doesn’t have is any money for COVID-19 or monkeypox. That might be revisited come December and the next funding bill, depending on how bad COVID infections and deaths are this fall. Or it might not, since everyone in power seems to have been reconciled to the idea of 400 people dying every day from COVID.
The funding bill passed the first procedural hurdle in the Senate, 72-23, and is on track to be finished in the Senate and House, possibly even in time for everyone to not have to come to the Capitol on Friday. They hate being there on Fridays.
There’s also a hurricane leveling parts of Florida, so it is not a good time to shut down the government. (Not that there is ever a good time to shut down the government.)
Steve Bannon refused to cooperate with a congressional subpoena seeking his insights into the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and for that, he’s now facing a potential sentence of up to a year in prison. He will be sentenced on Oct. 21.
The right-wing bombast proclaimed his trial would be ruinous for U.S. prosecutors. He vowed to go “medieval” and “savage” on the Justice Department as he tried to fend off two counts of contempt of Congress. […]
Jurors returned their guilty verdict for Bannon after deliberating for less than three hours.
And for all the bluster, when given the chance to testify on his own behalf at trial, Bannon opted against it. He also didn’t launch any real defense of his actions in court. His attorney David Schoen told U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols this July that Bannon wanted to testify but ultimately would not because of how the court had hamstrung his defense.
At a pre-trial hearing, Nichols found the former Trump adviser could not argue that his refusal to comply with the subpoena from the Jan. 6 committee was permitted because of his purported concerns over violating executive privilege.
By the time Bannon was subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 committee in September 2021, he was far removed from working in the Trump White House, Nichols ruled, so privilege did not apply. Bannon left the White House in 2017.
Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel rulings around privilege that Bannon hoped would defend his noncompliance were actually unrelated to his case, Nichols found. [Correct!]
The Trump-appointed judge tossed Bannon’s attempts to subpoena lawmakers […] and he rejected Bannon’s arguments that he was effectively tricked into thinking he could evade the subpoena because he relied on shoddy legal advice.
[…] Bannon railed outside of the courthouse after trial dates and blubbered about the legitimacy of the Jan. 6 committee and its members.
[…] Bannon claimed the court gave jurors bad instructions and he also claimed his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights were violated because he was unable to subpoena lawmakers.
“The court disagrees,” Nichols wrote. [Ha! Succinct.]
[…] In addition to a possible maximum sentence of up to 12 months in prison—the minimum is 30 days—the two counts of contempt of Congress also pose a hefty fine of up to $100,000 each.
His legal troubles are far from over. Earlier this month, prosecutors in New York indicted Bannon on money laundering and conspiracy charges connected to the nonprofit organization “We Build the Wall.”
Per his indictment, U.S. attorneys say Bannon knew the group that promised to fund the construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border was bunk. […]
Bannon will be sentenced. He will be found guilty. Too early to say if he will do time in jail … or how much time if he does go to jail.
snarkratessays
You know, Bannon is one of those people who will actually be dressed better in prison than outside. And it doesn’t matter what the prison uniform is, even.
Norway’s prime minister has said its military will be more visible at oil and gas installations as politicians across Europe warned the suspected sabotaging of the two Nord Stream pipelines could herald a new stage of hybrid warfare targeting vulnerable energy infrastructure in order to undermine support of Ukraine.
Jonas Gahr Støre told a news conference Norway would step up its military presence at Norwegian installations after the country had become Europe’s largest supplier of natural gas.
He added that any attack on the Nato member’s offshore installations would be handled jointly with its allies.
Large amounts of natural gas have been pouring into the Baltic Sea since Monday through three separate leaks on the two Nord Stream pipelines built to deliver Russian gas to Europe. Seismologists recorded explosions in the Swedish and Danish waters where the pipeline passes the island of Bornholm on Monday morning and evening, suggesting the leaks were deliberate.
Donald Trump demanded that GOP senators reject any effort to reform the Electoral Count Act. Soon after, Mitch McConnell decided to ignore him.
After the House approved a bill last week to reform the Electoral Count Act of 1887, Donald Trump took his lobbying efforts to the next level. “REPUBLICAN SENATORS SHOULD VOTE NO!” the former president declared by way of his social media platform.
The Senate’s top GOP leader likely heard about Trump’s preference, but he apparently didn’t care. NBC News reported:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell came out on Tuesday in favor of legislation aimed at preventing election subversion, giving the bipartisan effort a major boost and putting him at odds with former President Donald Trump. “I strongly support the modest changes that our colleagues in the working group have fleshed out after months of detailed discussions. I’ll proudly support the legislation, provided that nothing more than technical changes are made to its current form,” McConnell, R-Ky., said on the Senate floor.
There have been some important legislative fights in this Congress, and reforming the Electoral Count Act of 1887 hasn’t generated as much attention as higher profile bills, but the closer this comes to passing, the better off we’ll all be.
[…] when Trump and his confederates launched a campaign against the 2020 results, they sought to overturn the election by exploiting alleged ambiguities in the 135-year-old Electoral Count Act — a law passed in the aftermath of a brutally messy election controversy, one that was designed to establish a congressional process for certifying electoral votes.
Leaders in both parties now agree that the law is due for an overhaul, including new clarity on the vice president’s ceremonial role in the certification process, as part of a broader effort to prevent future coup attempts.
But among the pressing questions is whether a reform package could become law. When only nine House Republicans — none of whom will be in Congress next year — voted for the bipartisan Presidential Election Reform Act last week, it was hardly reassuring: If support from Senate Republicans was proportionately similar, the initiative would die.
The good news for reformers — and the bad news for Trump — is that success in the Senate is now likely. McConnell’s endorsement is a major step forward for the legislation; proponents appear to have lined up a filibuster-proof majority; and when the Senate Rules Committee took up the bill yesterday, it cleared the panel 14 to 1.
The former president’s insistence that GOP senators should reject the legislation, at least for now, is going ignored.
As for the one member of the Senate Rules Committee who voted no, that was none other than Sen. Ted Cruz. The Texas Republican said yesterday, “I understand why Democrats are supporting this bill. What I don’t understand is why Republicans are.”
Cruz, it’s worth noting for context, was one of only eight GOP senators who didn’t vote to certify President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.
As for the Texan’s confusion, it’s really not that complicated. Why are so many Senate Republicans on board with reforming the Electoral Count Act? Because they saw what happened on Jan. 6 when opponents of democracy tried to exploit perceived holes in our laws, and they see value in a bipartisan effort to patch those holes and prevent future crises.
[…] Postscript: I’m holding off on delving into the legislative details for now, only because it’s still likely to be tweaked before it passes. That said, as we discussed in July, the main elements include clarifying the vice president’s role in certifying election results, making it more difficult for lawmakers to formally object to electors, and also making it more difficult for states to send fake electors.
In a new interview, Herschel Walker was asked about allegations that, on different occasions, he threatened to murder his ex-wife, including an incident in which he allegedly held a gun to his wife’s head. The Republican Senate hopeful in Georgia responded that his opponents are “talking about something I was a part of over 15 years ago.”
Texas A&M is one of the nation’s largest universities, but local officials took away an on-campus early-voting location — and yesterday, they said it won’t be returned ahead of this year’s elections.
In Alabama, state Republican Party Chairman John Wahl reportedly has an unusual problem: Some members of his family don’t vote because the state requires photo ID to cast ballots and they consider all biometric identification to be the mark of the beast foretold in the Book of Revelation.
Pennsylvania gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano is scheduled to do a campaign event with far-right commentator Jack Posobiec this weekend. Posobiec has collaborated with white nationalists and neo-Nazis and targeted Jewish people with antisemitic hate.
Mastriano is a QAnon conspiracy theorist and a January 6 insurrectionist. He has also shared toxic commentaries about Muslims; abortion; and gun safety; along with making other inflammatory remarks.
He has surrounded himself with numerous extremist media figures in his campaign for Pennsylvania governor. They include: antisemitic Gab CEO Andrew Torba; QAnon and antisemitic conspiracy theorists Allen and Francine Fosdick; “prophet” Julie Green, who has promoted an antisemitic conspiracy theory; and QAnon supporter and 9/11 conspiracy theorist Toni Shuppe. Mastriano also recruited Jenna Ellis, who has a history of anti-LGBTQ remarks and election denialism, as a senior adviser.
Mastriano’s ties to antisemitism were heavily scrutinized when it was revealed that he paid Gab — a social media haven for white nationalists and antisemites — for campaign “consulting.” In a newly filed campaign report, he disclosed that he accepted a $500 donation from Torba, who has said that “we don’t want people who are Jewish” in his movement.
Mastriano is holding an event with Posobiec on October 1 in Warminster, Pennsylvania. The event is the latest example of an alliance he appears to be forging with Posobiec:…
Almost half a million Jewish people live in Pennsylvania. 2.3% of the state’s population is Jewish.
The NRSC’s Medicare attack ads are almost impressive in their mendacity. Most normal people don’t have the wherewithal to come up with duplicity like this.
A couple of months ago, Sen. Rick Scott pushed a line of attack that was ridiculous, even by his standards. Democrats, the Florida Republican insisted, had just successfully “cut $280 billion from Medicare.”
Part of the problem was with the messenger — Scott used to oversee a company that committed Medicare fraud on a massive and historic scale — but the message itself was about as offensive. The GOP senator was referring to the Inflation Reduction Act, which included provisions that empower the Medicare program to negotiate lower prices for consumers on prescription medications.
Because seniors will pay less, and taxpayers will save money, Scott described it as a “cut.” As we discussed soon after, in the English language, there is no credible definition of “cut” under which this falls, but the Floridian pushed the line anyway.
What we didn’t know in August was that the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which Scott leads, would soon package this bizarre claim into attack ads. CNN reported yesterday:
One of the National Republican Senatorial Committee ads shows a senior sitting alone, looking sad, as a narrator claims Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia supported “deep cuts in Medicare spending.” A second ad shows a senior receiving help moving his legs as the narrator claims, “Warnock voted with Biden to slash Medicare spending.” A third ad features a claim that Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona “went along with nearly $300 billion less in Medicare spending for seniors.”
Routine dishonesty is an unfortunate part of practically every campaign, but it takes real effort and talent to deceive the public like this.
The Democratic measure will save taxpayers billions of dollars, while making it easier for consumers to afford prescription medications — and according to Scott’s National Republican Senatorial Committee this constitutes “deep cuts in Medicare spending,” as if the popular Democratic success would somehow hurt seniors, despite reality.
This is spectacularly dishonest. It’s also fresh evidence that GOP operatives recognize Medicare’s popularity, to the point that the party is trying to use deliberate deceit to swipe the issue away from Democrats by running ads that treat Americans like fools.
But Scott and his party also have to be careful what they wish for — because a debate over which party supports Medicare more isn’t likely to do Republicans any favors. Indeed, the Florida senator has a plan that would put all government programs — including Medicare — up for renewal every five years, necessarily putting its future on unstable and uncertain ground.
If the NRSC chair really wants to have a conversation about who Medicare’s true champions are, he might not like where the discussion ends up.
“‘United States is announcing an additional $1.1 billion package of weapons and equipment for Ukraine’, including 18 new HIMARS, hundreds of armored vehicles, radars, and counter-drone systems, @PressSec Karine Jean-Pierre says. ‘We will not be deterred from supporting Ukraine’.”
I thought cable news was doing better with this storm, but they can’t help themselves – featuring people in evacuation zones who chose to stay, endangering their correspondents and crews, etc.
How do you destroy a pipeline 300 feet under water in the Baltic sea?
I have no idea. My university didn’t offer that course.
Russia probably bombed Nord Stream pipeline with underwater drone, says defence source
Larisa Brown, Defence Editor thetimes.co.uk
Wednesday September 28 2022, 1.30pm BST, The Times
The view taken from a Danish F-16 interceptor aircraft of the Nord Stream 2 gas leak near Dueodde, Denmark, on Tuesday. This leak is one of three on the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea; the other two are located on Nord Stream 1 near Bornholm
A suspected Russian sabotage attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines was “probably premeditated and planned for” using an explosive device dropped into the sea weeks before it was detonated, according to a British defence source.
The European Union and Nato have described the large blasts in the Baltic Sea as a “deliberate act” of sabotage, with Russia labelled by Poland and Ukraine as the culprit, even as investigations continue.
The concrete and steel pipelines were torn open by apparent underwater explosions as strong as a minor earthquake, leading to three large gas leaks east of the Danish island of Bornholm. The blasts occurred in international waters, just beyond the territories of Denmark and Norway, and shockwaves were detected as far as 800 miles away. continues
It could have been an underwater drone dropped from a ship. It could have been there for weeks.
I don’t see how the Russians could tell their drone when it was time.
You couldn’t communicate with the drone that deep to tell it that it was time to blow up the pipeline.
One former minister said Kwarteng should go but said Truss could not escape responsibility. “They aren’t really Kwasi’s policies, they are her policies,” they said. “Where we are now is so catastrophic that it is hard to know what to demand that she does. Everything about this is unforced.”
Hurricane Ian could remain a hurricane for up to the next 24 hours, said Michael Brennan, the acting deputy director at the National Hurricane Center.
Hurricane Ian tied as the strongest storm to hit the West Coast of Florida, CNN meteorologist says
Hurricane Ian is now tied with Hurricane Charley in 2004 as the strongest storm to make landfall on the west coast of the Florida Peninsula, according to CNN meteorologist Brandon Miller. Both of those storms hit the coast with 150 mph winds.
Ian dropped slightly from 155 to 150 mph at landfall.
The storm surge has also set records for the highest water levels ever observed in several locations, according to Miller.
Water levels are still rising in Ft Myers as of Wednesday afternoon, but it is already higher than previous high water marks, with data going back to 1965. Naples water levels were already more than 2 feet higher than ever observed at 1pm, but the gauge stopped reporting data so it is unclear how high it reached, Miller said.
More than 1 million customers without power in Florida
Fort Myers experiencing record water levels amid storm surge, CNN meteorologist says
The water levels in Fort Myers, Florida, continue to rise even after the landfall of Hurricane Ian, as the storm surge is still to pushing inland.
Water levels have risen more than 6 feet over the past 7 hours, and still rising as strong winds push Gulf of Mexico water onshore.
Hurricane Ian has already pushed waters higher than ever observed in Fort Myers, which started measurements in 1965.
North and South Carolina governors declare state of emergency in preparation for impact from Ian
People trapped by water in their homes in Florida’s Collier County, sheriff’s office says
People are trapped by water in their homes, Florida’s Collier County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post Wednesday.
“Here’s some tough news you need to know. We aren’t holding back: We are in call triage mode. We are getting a significant number of calls of people trapped by water in their homes,” the statement said.
“Some are reporting life threatening medical emergencies in deep water. We will get to them first. Some are reporting water coming into their house but not life threatening. They will have to wait. Possibly until the water recedes,” the statement said.
According to the statement, Lee County’s 911 system is down and calls are being rerouted to Collier County Sheriff.
Here is a Financial Times article explaining why the Bank of England has had to make an emergency intervention to prevent the British economy disappearing up its own fundament. The key issue was apparently pension funds, which own huge assets – about $1tn in the UK – and because of the complicated financial arrangments they make to hedge against interest rate changes, the rise in the yield on long-term UK government bonds (“gilts”) meant they needed cash as collateral to ensure their right to buy some sort of assets so they could be sure of meeting their obligations (I think) – and the best way for them to get this cash fast was to sell gilts, pushing the price down and the yields further up, meaning they had to sell more… and if one or more big pension funds fell over, the entire UK financial system could easily follow. I don’t pretend to understand all this – but then, I’m not the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Unfortunately (for them, and potentially for the rest of us), it seems the Truss-Kwarteng comedy duo, having sacked the most senior Treasury civil servant, and advised by a bunch of swivel-eyed loons from the “libertarian” “think-tanks”, didn’t understand it either.
The US warned several European allies over the summer, including Germany, that the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines could face threats and even be attacked, according to two people familiar with the intelligence and the warnings.
The warnings were based on US intelligence assessments, but they were vague, the people said – it was not clear from the warnings who might be responsible for any attacks on the pipelines or when they might occur.
The CIA declined to comment…
… explains Terry Harrison, a professor of anthropology at New York University and one of the paper’s authors. “This new find extends the fossil record of hylobatids back to 7 to 8 million years ago…”
The fossil, discovered in the Yuanmou area of Yunnan Province in southwestern China, is of a small ape called Yuanmoupithecus xiaoyuan.
“Genetic studies indicate that the hylobatids diverged from the lineage leading to the great apes and humans about 17 to 22 million years ago, so there is still a 10-million-year gap in the fossil record that needs to be filled,” Harrison cautions…
Fort Myers mayor says Hurricane Ian is the worst storm he’s ever seen
Kevin Anderson, the mayor of Fort Myers, Florida, said this is the “worst storm” he has ever seen — with more of Hurricane Ian still yet to come.
The mayor described the scene downtown in the eye of the storm, just before the second wall is set to pass through. In the time that he was on a call with CNN on Wednesday, Anderson said he watched the water rise as much as six inches.
“I’ve been here since the mid-70s — this is actually by far the worst storm I have ever seen,” Anderson said.”
“It’s going to be a significant event… or it already is. Now we just got to wait and see. We’re coming out of the edge of the eye and who knows what the next couple hours will bring,” he said, adding that businesses are flooded and windows of buildings are blown out.
The mayor said there are some people who chose not to follow the evacuation orders, but now “they’re stuck.”
“The streets are flooded and emergency services couldn’t get to them if they wanted to,” he said….
Extreme wind warning issued for several parts of southwest Florida
An extreme wind warning is in effect for parts of southwest Florida until 7:30 p.m. ET.
At 5:26 p.m. ET, National Weather Service Doppler radar indicated extreme winds associated with the eyewall of Hurricane Ian. The winds were moving onshore over Charlotte County Airport, or near Punta Gorda, Florida.
The National Weather Service (NWS) also said there are extreme wind warnings in effect for Cape Coral, Lehigh Acres and Fort Myers.
The NWS said this is an “extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation” and urged people to move inside and “treat these imminent extreme winds as if a tornado was approaching.
Re: #376–“McConnell snubs Trump, backs bill to prevent future coup schemes”
With Senator Pat Toomey’s agreement to support the electoral reform bill earlier this week, the Senate Bill already has the votes to overcome a filibuster. McConnell may have had his own reasons (saving face, opposing Trump, who knows) but in that regard his big announcement comes after this particular political ship has sailed.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s spokesperson Sergii Nykyforov has said on Facebook that Ukraine’s president has called an emergency meeting. He posted:
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy convenes an urgent meeting of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine tomorrow. Agenda and other details will be announced later.
Finland is closing its border to Russian tourists following Vladimir Putin’s partial mobilisation order which prompted large numbers of people to flee the country.
From midnight Finnish time (9pm GMT), Russian tourists holding an EU Schengen visa will be turned away unless they have a family tie or compelling reason to stay.
Matti Pitkäniitty, head of the international affairs unit at the Finnish border guard, said each passenger seeking to enter Finland from Russia would be checked: “Why are you entering Finland? Do you have some kind of valid reason: family members? study? Some business that must be handled at the moment… And if not, then the entry is refused.”
Entry will also be permitted for humanitarian reasons, such as patients with an established relationship with Finnish doctors.
In an interview with the Guardian, he said the restrictions were necessary because entry for Russians with Schengen visas was harming Finland’s international reputation and undermining its support for Ukraine.
In this situation where we have Russia attacking Ukraine and Ukrainians don’t have a possibility to go abroad and have a nice meal and enjoy life. So the big dilemma is why can Russians [do this]?
For at least two decades, middle-class Russians from St Petersburg have been frequent travellers to Finland, using fast roads to go shopping and enjoy other leisure. Since the invasion of Ukraine and subsequent EU ban on flights to and from Russia, Russians also use Finland as a transit country to reach other European destinations.
Russians will be allowed to claim asylum in Finland, a process that may require them to stay in Finnish-state accommodation and restrict their freedom of movement, Pitkäniitty said.
In a question and answer document about the scheme, the Finnish government acknowledged that “it will become more difficult for people” seeking asylum and said it was studying the introduction of a humanitarian visa.
Under EU law, the Finnish government can prevent entry to non-EU citizens if it perceives “a threat to international relations”.
“The government has concluded that tourism from Russia to Finland is a threat to Finland’s international relations,” states a government document.
Separately Finnish authorities announced this week they are moving ahead with plans to build a border fence along the southern parts of its 1,340 km border with Russia. Pitkäniitty said the fence – likely to be constructed from metal, topped with barbed wire and lined with surveillance equipment – would be built along 130km-260km of the shared border.
The plans, agreed in July, predate the Russian mobilisation and were a response to growing “instrumentalisation of migration” he said.
Finnish officials believe their fenceless border is a vulnerability, after observing how Belarus’s authoritarian government lured migrants from the Middle East to EU borders in Poland and Lithuania, in apparent retaliation against EU sanctions against Minsk. “The fact that we don’t have any fencing at the border may become a pull factor,” Pitkäniitty said.
On state TV channel Russia 24, a countdown clock to President Vladimir Putin’s annexation of four territories from Ukraine features prominently on the screen.
Powerful Hurricane Ian crossed Florida from Wednesday into Thursday, leaving a path of destruction in its wake. As the now-tropical storm exits the state, the complete assessment of damage still needs to be seen, but here’s what we know:
Power outages: At least 2.5 million Florida energy customers are still without power, according to PowerOutage.us. In Lee County, which includes Fort Myers and Cape Coral, about 90% of all customers are in the dark. About 92% of customers in Charlotte County, home to Port Charlotte and Punta Gorda, are also without power.
Rainfall: Ian set records for the highest water levels ever observed in multiple locations such as Fort Myers and Naples in southwest Florida. Radar estimates and ground observation rainfall shows well over a foot of rain fell in just 12 to 24 hours across a swath the region. In some of the hardest-hit locations, this exceeds the rainfall rates for 1-in-1,000-year flood events, according to NOAA data. Storm surge reached 12 feet in some places. As of Thursday morning, a storm surge warning – meaning life-threatening surges could hit – was in place for a coastal stretch from northeastern Florida into an area north of Charleston, South Carolina.
Rescues: The Coast Guard and National Guard were “pulling people off of roofs in Fort Myers” with aircraft Thursday morning, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Brendan McPherson told CNN, adding air crews have rescued at least 13 people between Fort Myers and St. Petersburg since Wednesday. Officials are also especially focused on getting search teams into hard-hit Lee County amid concerns many still need rescuing there, Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell said Thursday morning. An official number of deaths and injuries are still unknown.
Watches and warnings: The storm on Thursday is expected to move into the Atlantic Ocean, threatening other states’ east coasts. Governors in Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina have already declared states of emergency….
Meanwhile in Russia: every state TV program is feasting on Tucker Carlson’s accusations that the Biden administration is somehow involved in causing the Nord Stream damage. Military expert loved Tucker’s idea about cutting undersea internet cables & said, “Sure, why not?” Watch:…
Subtitled video at the (Twitter) link. This is what Fox viewers in the US are watching every night – pure Kremlin propaganda.
I’ve been browsing Arabic tweets about the Nord Stream sabotage incident and I can tell you many Arabic speakers think it’s the US who’s behind it. A result of latent distrust of the US + effective Russian disinfo, but also many US right wing voices amplifying
Oggie: Mathomsays
On state TV channel Russia 24, a countdown clock to President Vladimir Putin’s annexation of four territories from Ukraine features prominently on the screen.
Which is also the countdown to Putin being able to claim that Ukrainian soldier’s presence in those provinces means that Ukraine has invaded Russia thus ‘legalizing’ Russian use of non-conventional weapons — poison gas, nuclear, and thermonuclear* and allows Putin to impress Ukrainian men into the Russian Army so that Ukrainians can commit genocide against Ukrainians. Never mind that much of the world has already stated, flat-out, that these referendums were an illegal sham (especially with the ‘please let us join Putin’s Russia’ vote running at 96% or more). And here in the US, I can guarantee that the conservative press will be following two different ideas: first, this would never have happened if Trump was still President (left unsaid: he would have finished destroying NATO so that Putin wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine to, among other things, destroy NATO) and, if we and the west had refused to send weapons to Ukraine, if we had refused to support Ukraine, if we had not sanctioned Russia and the oligarchs (sounds like a really bad punk band: Putin and the Oligarchs — Live in Concert!), if we had not refused to buy cheap Russian oil, then Putin would not be threatening to use nuclear weapons (because Ukraine would be fully occupied (with a low-level guerilla war which would last a long time (Ukrainian separatists (some of whom actually WERE fascists) were still active in the Ukraine at least through the 1950s and maybe later))) so if World War III breaks out, we can blame the Democrats and Biden forever (or at least until the survivors of the nuclear holocaust are too busy finding a way to survive to actually participate in politics (which would make it a win/win proposition for the forces of autocracy in the US and Europe)).
And I apologize to all the English teachers and professors I had in middle school, high school, and college, for that paragraph.
Ian has crossed Florida now and is strengthening again. It could hit Charleston tomorrow at hurricane strength.
ravensays
Ukraine’s defense minister is saying “It can explode right there” about Russia’s nuclear weapons.
We all know that the Russians aren’t real good at maintaining and updating their stockpiles.
I think he is just whistling past the graveyard here though. They likely haven’t maintained all of them but they only need to keep a few dozen going to cause huge problems for everyone.
His comment about the several thousand Ukrainian held nuclear weapons expiring in 1997 isn’t too useful either. I’m sure they were. I’m also sure they could be renovated without too many problems. The Ukrainians have a large base of knowledge about fissionables due to their nuclear power industry.
It can explode right there”: Ukraine’s Defence Minister on state of Russia’s nuclear weapons
UKRAINSKA PRAVDA – THURSDAY, 29 SEPTEMBER 2022, 11:40
Oleksii Reznikov, the Minister of Defence of Ukraine, said that Russia’s nuclear arsenal may be well beyond its date of expiry: “if you press the button, it can explode right there”.
Source: Oleksii Reznikov, in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine [news agency]
Quote from Reznikov: “There are always risks. With a neighbour with such a nuclear capability, there’s always a chance they’ll go crazy. What is that chance exactly? I can’t say. Do they still have nuclear warheads? Yes, they do. They can be delivered by Iskanders [tactical missiles], Kalibrs [cruise missiles] and aircraft. I do, however, have questions regarding their quality and condition.”
Details: Reznikov said that Russia’s nuclear weapons might have long since expired.
Quote from Reznikov: “I was once talking to Leonid Kuchma, the second president of Ukraine, who was overseeing the process of handing over [Ukraine’s] nuclear weapons to Russia. He stressed that even if [Ukraine] had not handed over those weapons, they would have expired in 1997. They would have had to be written off and disposed of anyway. We have handed it all over to Russia. So the question is: what’s the state of this junk in Russia?”
Details: Reznikov added that Ukraine-made Satana missiles are still in the Russian arsenal, though it is unclear who is in charge of servicing them, what documentation is available to make their servicing possible and “how old” the engineers who service them are.
“So you can press the button, but it will explode right there,” Reznikov concluded.
Background:
On 27 September, Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council said that Russia can launch a nuclear strike on Ukraine with impunity, since NATO countries will not take retaliatory steps, worrying about their own security.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine said that the Russian Federation should not be allowed to have nuclear weapons in light of threats made by the country to use nuclear weapons.
Oleksii Danilov, Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine, said that Russia’s use of nuclear weapons will not deter Ukraine from defending its territory.
ravensays
IMO, if Russia uses tactical nuclear weapons, it would be an attack on the whole world.
And the whole world knows it.
It normalizes the use of nuclear weapons to achieve national goals.
The rest of the world’s potential nuclear weapons states, which is at least 50 by now, would get the lesson that no one attacks countries with nuclear weapons. The converse however isn’t true.
And they all would quietly start their own nuclear weapons programs.
They aren’t hard to make, based on 1940s technology, with plans for them widely available.
Russian forces face “imminent defeat” in the key northeastern city of Lyman as Ukrainian soldiers continue their counteroffensive in the east of the country, according to a US think tank.
The Institute for the Study of War, citing Russian reports, said Ukrainian forces have taken more villages around Lyman, some 160 kilometres (100 miles) southeast of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.
Russian forces had captured Lyman, a key railway juncture, in May. The institute said a possible collapse of the Lyman pocket would allow Ukrainian troops to “threaten Russian positions along the western Luhansk” region.
Additional Russian losses would further erode morale amid the country’s mobilisation, the institute said.
More than half of Russians felt fearful or anxious after President Vladimir Putin’s mobilisation announcement, according to a new poll.
The poll by the independent Levada Centre, conducted from 22-28 September, showed 47% of respondents said they had felt anxiety, fear or dread after hearing that hundreds of thousands of soldiers would be drafted to fight in Ukraine.
Another 13% said they had felt anger, while 23% said they had felt pride in Russia.
Oggie: Mathomsays
England impresses me. Really. Y’all have managed to find political leadership who have done damage to the economy within one month that Trump and Covid managed in four years. Good job, y’all.
lumipunasays
Quotes from the Guardian via SC at 410:
Finland is closing its border to Russian tourists following Vladimir Putin’s partial mobilisation order which prompted large numbers of people to flee the country.
Regardless of Russian mobilization, this was bound to happen after the Baltic countries and Poland closed their own borders earlier this month, and then increasingly blamed Finland for acting as a transit country for Russian tourists.
Russians will be allowed to claim asylum in Finland, a process that may require them to stay in Finnish-state accommodation and restrict their freedom of movement, Pitkäniitty said.
Clarification: Claiming asylum is an inalienable right, and different from being actually granted asylum. As it is, Russian political dissidents might be granted asylum in Finland, men fleeing draft not so much.
Under EU law, the Finnish government can prevent entry to non-EU citizens if it perceives “a threat to international relations”.
“The government has concluded that tourism from Russia to Finland is a threat to Finland’s international relations,” states a government document.
This was indeed the best legal justification our government could find for the border closure. The Baltic countries were more flexible in their handling of the situation, and decided that Russian citizens are categorically a security risk, which justified their collective discrimination at the border.
Separately Finnish authorities announced this week they are moving ahead with plans to build a border fence along the southern parts of its 1,340 km border with Russia. Pitkäniitty said the fence – likely to be constructed from metal, topped with barbed wire and lined with surveillance equipment – would be built along 130km-260km of the shared border.
The plans, agreed in July, predate the Russian mobilisation and were a response to growing “instrumentalisation of migration” he said.
The development of this plan was indeed triggered by the recent migrant crisis at the Polish-Belarusian border, which was apparently machinated by Belarus at Russia’s tacit approval. Now, there’s growing concern that Putin might (at some point in the future) do something similar on Finnish border.
(If you see photos from current Finnish-Russian border, there may be a flimsy livestock fence on the Finnish side, not much of a barrier for humans, which is apparently why Pitkäniitty describes the current situation as “fenceless”)
The Pentagon announced a new $1.1 billion Ukraine aid package yesterday that included, “18 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and associated ammunition.” While the news generated a great deal of initial excitement, it didn’t take long for people to notice the fine print. “Unlike Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), which DoD has continued to leverage to deliver equipment to Ukraine from DoD stocks at a historic pace, USAI [Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative ] is an authority under which the United States procures capabilities from industry,” the Pentagon’s press release explained. “This announcement represents the beginning of a contracting process to provide additional priority capabilities to Ukraine in the mid- and long-term.”
In other words, the U.S. has given Ukraine money to go shopping, but such weapons deliveries arrive whenever the manufacturers can get that equipment to them. Items like Humvees are likely plentiful, and should arrive quickly. HIMARS, not so much, and might take as long as two years.
Yet that’s not the problem that many make it out to be. Ukraine’s bottleneck is the same it has always been—ammunition. The U.S. and allies simply don’t have enough HIMARS rockets to feed Ukraine’s insatiable hunger for more.
As of January 2021, 50,000 GMLRS rockets had been manufactured, or around 8,333 pods. The production rate last year was 9,000 rockets, or 1,500 pods. The United States used up many of those pods in Afghanistan and Iraq, and many went to allies who field MLRS or HIMARS systems. So the total available was significantly less than the number manufactured.
Ukraine has 16 HIMARS and 10 M270 MLRS launchers. Let’s pretend Ukraine had 10,000 GMLRS pods for the sake of math (which remember, is more than have been manufactured). Divide that by Ukraine’s 26 GMLRS-compatible systems, and that would be only 384 pods per unit. If each launcher fired 10 pods a day—much less than their daily capacity—Ukraine would exhaust the supply in 38 days. Ukraine’s real number of available GMLRS rocket pods is more likely in the hundreds. Adding more HIMARS launchers doesn’t magically multiply the available ammunition.
My estimate of “hundreds” has some support. Military expert Thomas Theiner on Twitter dug through Department of Defense reports providing insight into what has been sent to Ukraine. [Tweet at the link]
Ukraine got its first four HIMARS in June, doubled in July. So in the second month of operation, it look like they got 180 pods for their eight launchers. So for that entire month, each HIMAR launcher got just 22 pods. Now, those 1,080 rockets helped shut down the Antonovsky bridge, provided spectacular HIMARS o’clock imagery, and ground Russia’s Donbas advances to a halt. So this isn’t to say 1,080 GMLRS rockets was insufficient, just that it was more than easily handled by eight launchers.
Ukraine has 26 launchers now, odds are therefore good that the number of GMLRS pods has increased. But we’re not talking massive numbers. Other allies have likely chipped in. Germany has sent ammo of its own, including MLRS-launched rockets that seed anti-tank mines over a large area. There have been rumors Ukraine has gotten old-school unguided rockets it can use against prepared Russian defensive positions, but we haven’t seen any visual evidence of that, and would mean the use of cluster mines banned by international treaty.
Also remember that each pod of six rockets costs $750,000. Ukraine has had to budget for the equipment it has received under the presidential drawdown authority. The money is limited. Thus, it has had to balance its desire for GMLRS rockets, with its needs for regular 155mm artillery shells, body armor, night vision goggles, spare parts, rifle ammunition, grenades, Javelins, Stingers, trucks, Hummers, and all the virtually infinite desperately needed items to defend itself.
Meanwhile, the Department of Defense has set strict boundaries over how low its ammunition stocks can go given Chinese belligerence around Taiwan and the ever-present North Korean threat.
The good news is that the Pentagon is investing serious money to rapidly expand production of GMLRS rockets and HIMRS launchers. [Tweet with lists of many millions invested]
Well, it’s shit news given how that money could be used for peaceful endeavors, but it’s good news for Ukraine’s longer-term survival efforts.
“We have received nearly $400 million dollars to replenish HIMARS and GMLRS in DOD stocks,” said William LaPlante, undersecretary of defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, during a visit to the Arkansas factory producing these systems. “In addition, we are planning nearly $200 million to expand and accelerate production and are anticipating contract awards this fall and early next year.” Business will be booming at that facility for years, as countries line up to purchase the highly capable and proven system. Poland alone has ordered 500 HIMARS, just imagine what that ammunition order will look like! (Seems like there might also be demand for a much cheaper unguided version like the ones during my time working with MLRS).
Problem is, expanding a factory line takes time—time to build out the facilities, install the robotic and machining equipment, and hire and train staff to operate and manage the increased capacity (in a time of low unemployment). Until then, the current monthly production rate of 125 pods will barely make a dent in Ukraine’s demand.
All of that means that Ukraine has no use for additional HIMARS, and their public declarations confirms it. HIMARS are fun and effective and Twitter is in love with them and #NAFO make the cutest memes, but the ammunition just isn’t there to make full use of the launchers Ukraine already has. That’s why they’re asking for tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and F-16s instead.
And really, it’s past time to make those happen.
USA 🇺🇸 is reviewing whether to give Ukraine 🇺🇦 several Gray Eagle Combat Drones
It is likely that if USA will approve these drones for Ukraine it would occur after Ukraine has NASAMS defending the airports where the drones will be flown from. NASAMS are expected before December
These were announced a few months ago, but both Ukraine and the U.S. subsequently decided these $23 million drones were too vulnerable to Russian air defenses to make the investment worthwhile. Also, there were apparently concerns about Russia getting their hands on the technology. […]
But new Ukrainian air defenses have hit Russia’s underperforming Air Force hard the last week, and HARM anti-radar missiles have decimated Russian air defenses to the point that this is now possible:
216 days since Russia’s full-scale invasion, and the Ukrainian air force is still very much alive & kicking. Here two Su-24 attack jets support 🇺🇦 ground troops, by bombing Russian positions. [video at the link]
[…] Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said to expect good news from the front very soon. Telegram is full of Ukrainian sources barely containing themselves, claiming the same, but under strict operational silence. So while not much has officially moved around Lyman, things are certainly happening.
The Ukrainian advance east of Kupyansk is exciting. Russia spent several days trying to force Ukraine back to the western side of the Oskil river splitting the city in half. Russia’s efforts were happily for naught, as Ukraine is now expanding that bridgehead.
Meanwhile, pro-Russian sources were focused yesterday on a supposed Russian counter-counterattack in Kherson, claiming that they had broken the Ukrainian advance in the region. Ukraine claimed otherwise, and they’re not liars like the Russians. Regardless, Ukraine’s initial advance in Kherson helped mask their spectacularly successful push in Kharkiv, but it was a serious effort in its own right. Still, why would Ukraine reinforce that effort when it was having such incredible success in what Mark Sumner called the “Tri-Oblast-Area” (Kharkiv, Donetsk, Luhansk)?
Had Russian defenses collapsed in Kherson instead, reinforcements would be flooding there instead. Ukraine doesn’t have the means to wage two all-out attacks at once, nor should it. Remember, I spent the first two months of the war knocking Russia for trying to wage a multi-front war. So for now, Ukraine seems happy to merely HIMARS the f’ out of Russian forces and bridges in the area, forcing them to supply via inefficient barge and helicopter. Winter might take care of those Russian lines better than anything Ukraine can currently muster up. […]
Usually, Trump’s lawyers are running from having their client deposed under oath, but for some reason, this time, the former president is refusing to delay or move his deposition away from his beloved Mar-a-Lago estate.
According to Bloomberg, the former president is scheduled to be deposed Friday amid a lesser-known 2018 class action lawsuit related to a desktop videophone, an ACN product he hawked on Celebrity Apprentice. Trump, along with his three children, Ivanka, Eric, Donald Trump Jr., and the Trump Corporation, were all sued by investors after they claimed they were fooled into paying to become independent sellers of the failed phones.
Attorneys for the investors say they offered to postpone the hearing as Hurricane Ian hit the Florida coast, arguing that the situation was too dangerous to meet in person. But Trump’s lawyers fought back, saying they needed the former president to give his deposition under oath on Friday—and that he would only do it from Mar-a-Lago.
[…] Trump’s attorneys also rejected the suggestion of meeting via Zoom.
According to the lawsuit, Trump told investors about “tremendous” phones that were “at the forefront of innovation.” The phones were quickly replaced by smartphones and Skype, leaving investors high and dry and holding onto nothing more than Trump’s lies. Trump made $9 million promoting ACN products from 2005 to 2015, Bloomberg reported in February. […]
As Daily Kos’ Mark Sumner eloquently writes, Trump has perfected the art of delay.
“Even before stepping foot in the White House, Donald Trump had been involved in a jaw-dropping 3,500 lawsuits. From all that time in court spent stiffing contractors, dodging people who paid for condos that were never built, and feigning ignorance over tax fraud, Trump demonstrated his biggest superpower: delay. Given enough money, and an unscrupulous attorney, Trump found the legal system offered endless opportunities for motions, appeals, and requests. In a lesson that came straight from his racist father and his legal mentor Roy Cohn, Trump learned early that it was possible to ride out most any storm through the magic of delay,” Sumner writes.
Knowing that the business of cleaning up after Hurricane Ian will take time, one can bet on the fact that his lawyers may say he’s insisting on moving forward with his deposition, but the reality is Trump’s attorneys will likely opt for another delay.
Wonkette: “Guess Texas AG Ken Paxton Would Like ‘Threatened To Shoot A Process Server’ To Be A Three Day Story!”
Everyone has been very cruelly making fun of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for fleeing a process server Monday, when he repeatedly ignored the man’s attempts to serve him a subpoena to testify in a lawsuit. Paxton first insisted that he was being unfairly attacked for his decision to “avoid a stranger lingering outside my home,” then later escalated his version of events, suggesting that he’d have been justified in shooting the “strange man” who had “yelled unintelligibly, and charged toward me” without warning, because that’s how you Stand Your Ground.
Wednesday evening, the Texas Tribune reported that in fact, the plaintiffs in the lawsuit had tried for several days to serve Paxton the subpoena at his office, and that they had even notified Paxton’s office Monday morning that the process server was at Paxton’s home, before Paxton fled in a pickup truck driven by his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton. Paxton’s attorneys say that they had no idea that the subpoena would be served at Paxton’s home, and have even condemned the plaintiffs for putting the Paxtons in danger somehow. At this rate, we suppose someone might still end up getting shot.
On Tuesday, US District Judge Robert Pitman quashed the subpoena at the request of Paxton’s attorneys, but the plaintiffs have asked him to reconsider that decision and have Paxton testify at a later hearing. [Why? WTF]
The lawsuit, which seeks to throw out Texas’s prohibition on abortion funds that want to help Texans get abortions in other states, was filed in August, and names Paxton as one of the defendants. The plaintiffs wanted Paxton to testify at a hearing Tuesday on their motion for a preliminary injunction that would allow them to help Texans with travel and abortion costs until there’s a trial. The Tribunedetails the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ attempts to get Paxton to show up:
Four days before the hearing, on the morning of Friday, Sept. 23, Austin attorney Elizabeth Myers emailed assistant attorney general Amy Hilton, saying that since it was not clear whether Paxton intended to be at the hearing, they were going to issue a subpoena out of “an abundance of caution.”
“I assume you’d like for us to serve that through you, but will you please confirm by noon today that you will accept service,” Myers wrote. “Otherwise, we’ll start the personal service process. I’d really prefer not to have to do that, of course.”
Hilton didn’t confirm that, so the attorneys sent a process server to the AG’s office Friday afternoon. Then on Sunday, things got stupider when
attorneys from the Texas attorney general’s office told Myers that the subpoena was invalid because it was served through Paxton’s office but sought to depose him in his individual capacity, according to the plaintiffs’ motion before Pitman.
Attorneys for the state said that Paxton would be represented in his official capacity at the hearing by assistant attorneys general, and “declined to clearly indicate whether they would accept a revised subpoena,” according to that motion.
After some inconclusive back and forth on whether Paxton’s office would accept a revised subpoena, Myers emailed Hilton Sunday evening to ask her to “let me know ASAP if you are authorized to accept service so I can adjust our process server instructions.”
Paxton’s attorneys contend they had no idea at all that the plaintiffs intended to serve Paxton at home, which apparently can’t be done to important people. [LOL]
Then on Monday morning, process server Ernesto Martin Herrera arrived at the Paxton home in McKinney, Texas, with two subpoenas, just to cover all the bases. One called for Paxton to testify as an individual, and the other for him to testify with his official “I am the Attorney General” hat on.
In his sworn federal affidavit, Herrera says he’d knocked on the Paxtons’ door, which was answered by Paxton’s wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, and that he had told her he was there to deliver court documents, and had given her his card. That’s a far cry from Paxton’s contention that some weird incoherent shouty stranger rushed at him as he headed for a state Tahoe SUV that had come to pick him up — about an hour after Herrera had gone to the Paxtons’ door.
What’s more, the Tribune reports, the plaintiffs’ attorneys had also notified Paxton’s office to let them know a server was at the Paxton home:
About 45 minutes after the server arrived at the Paxton residence, Myers sent Hilton an email, titled in part, “General Paxton is refusing and evading service this morning.” Myers said that Paxton was refusing to come to the door and that she had instructed the server to remain and continue to attempt to serve the subpoena.
“I wanted to let you know of this development and that we’ll need to report that to the Court,” Myers wrote. “We remain happy to serve General Paxton through you, as counsel, of course.”
Just to confuse political bloggers, a whole ‘nother Hilton replied, this time assistant AG Christopher Hilton, who said no, we’re not authorized to accept a subpoena for Ken Paxton the individual, although Hilton was silent on Paxton the person, Paxton the agent, Paxton the settler, or even Paxton the corporation.
Hilton added that he’d be happy to discuss the matter further, “But under no circumstances will we agree to have the sitting Attorney General testify in court.”
And a bit after that email, the Paxtons made for their own pickup, with Angela Paxton heading out first to start it and Ken dashing out after — as one does when facing what one believes is a a life-threatening ambush. As Herrera tried again to serve the papers, they drove off, and Herrera left the subpoenas in the driveway, noting in his affidavit that given Paxton’s refusal to acknowledge him, he considered them served.
Later Monday morning, Christopher Hilton emailed Myers again to say that unless the plaintiffs were ready to reconsider having Paxton testify in any capacity […] the AG’s office would “simply take it up with the Court.” In another message, he said he looked forward to “reviewing the evidence of your purported service.”
Did things get even pissier? Why yes they did!
Once the process server’s affidavit was filed, Christopher Hilton filed an emergency motion to seal the document, citing concerns about Paxton’s unredacted address being shared publicly — though the address was already public information. In the filing, he echoed Paxton’s version of events.
“Because the Attorney General did not know the process server—again, because Plaintiffs’ counsel failed to identify him or warn the Attorney General’s Office in advance—the Attorney General justifiably feared for his personal safety and refused to engage with the strange man who was lurking outside of his home and repeatedly shouting at him,” Christopher Hilton wrote.
Also too, even though Judge Pitman quashed the subpoena, Hilton’s filing says the state will not concede that the papers were really served, you see, because Paxton never saw a “process server,” just a weird stalker (who’d left his card) shouting at him like a maniac and trying to KILL him.
Hilton also emailed Myers and co-counsel Jennifer Ecklund Monday evening to ask whether Herrera would be able to testify in court. You know, assuming the so-called “process server” even existed and wasn’t a dangerous ninja assassin. In yet another email, Hilton chided the plaintiffs for trying to get the Paxtons killed or something:
You never advised us that you would be attempting personal service on the attorney general at his home, and you’ve now endangered his and his family’s personal safety. […] I had thought you were simply careless but it seems you did so deliberately.
Ecklund, Crom bless her, wrote back and told Hilton to knock it off with the “accusatory tone,” although as a professional, she said “cease” instead.
We repeatedly tried to avoid having to serve your client personally, which I agree would have been preferable. Your staff and client necessitated this, and we even advised that he was evading service before it was ultimately completed, to avoid a result embarrassing to you and your client.
[…] We’ll keep you posted on further developments. […].
Lynna @ #424, I think about that suit almost once a week. I remember reading it when it was first filed (as a RICO suit) and being amazed at how well it captured how he operates. It had quotes, photos, descriptions of events where he spoke,… It got almost no TV coverage. I used to have a link; I can’t find it now, but it’s very worthwhile reading.
Biden: “This could be the deadliest hurricane in Florida’s history”
President Joe Biden spoke Thursday about the havoc that Hurricane Ian wrecked in Florida after it made landfall on Wednesday.
“It is still moving across the state today. This could be the deadliest hurricane in Florida’s history. The numbers are still unclear but we are hearing early reports of what may be substantial loss of life,” he said while speaking from the FEMA headquarters in Washington, DC.
Biden said he spoke to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, mayors and the commissioner, who, he said, are worried, but the President commended them for the “incredible” jobs they’re doing to “save their cities, their towns” and their infrastructure.
Biden also issued a message for Floridians.
“My message to people in Florida, at times like this: America comes together. We’re going to pull together as one team, as one America,” he said.
President Biden said the federal government will cover 100% of the cost that the state of Florida incurs for its emergency response efforts related to Hurricane Ian.
Fort Myers mayor: “It looks like a war zone”
Fort Myers, Florida, Mayor Kevin Anderson told CNN that the destruction from Hurricane Ian to his city is devastating.
“We’ve got extensive flooding in the downtown area, a lot of trees, damage to roofs. It looks like a war zone,” Anderson said to CNN’s Ana Cabrera. ”
Anderson said there have been no reported deaths in Fort Myers so far.
The water has subsided, so a massive cleanup is underway.
He urged people to stay inside.
“The traffic lights are not working, we have downed power lines, there are trees leaning on power lines that could take the line down at any moment. There’s traffic lights hanging. It’s not safe to be out moving about, but people are out there, wanting to take videos and record the damage,” he said.
“I have never seen a storm that has caused so much damage in this area before,” Anderson said.
Oggie: Mathomsays
From the WTF Seriously thread:
Meanwhile the lunatic fringe of the tories are supporting her policies and assigning blame to everyone else. Everything is a big conspiracy now.
England watched Trump and, somehow, decided that they wanted some of that. When the PM is forced pout, will the PM claim the vote was stolen?
Two American doctors have just been arrested by the FBI for trying to spy on the USA for Russia.
The wife seems to be a Russian immigrant of some sort or another.
.1. They don’t seem all that bright.
It didn’t take much for the FBI to arrest them.
.2. I doubt if they had any information that was the least bit useful to the Russians.
.3. If they really wanted to help Russia, they are both MDs. They could easily just catch the next plane to Europe and cross the borders into…Russia.
I’m sure Russia could use doctors to patch up their cannon fodder, of which there will soon be a whole lot.
Baltimorebanner.com
By Justin Fenton
Published on: September 29, 2022 at 11:17 am EDT
Johns Hopkins doctor and spouse, an Army doctor, indicted for trying to leak medical information to Russia
A Johns Hopkins anesthesiologist and her spouse, a doctor and major in the U.S. Army, were federally indicted for attempting to provide medical information about members of the military to the Russian government.
Anna Gabrielian and Jamie Lee Henry, who had a secret security clearance as a doctor at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, communicated and met several times with an undercover FBI agent who they believed was from the Russian embassy, offering sensitive medical information on military members and their families, the indictment alleges.
Gabrielian, 36, touted the Rockville couple’s access to the health records as “a useful long-term weapon.”
During an initial Aug. 17 meeting in a Baltimore hotel room, Gabrielian told the agent “she was motivated by patriotism toward Russia to provide any assistance she could to Russia, even if it meant being fired or going to jail.”
Her spouse had access not just to medical information, she said, but insight into how the U.S. military establishes Army hospitals in war conditions and about training the military provided to Ukrainian military personnel. Henry participated in a second meeting later that night. continues
Oggie @ #432, that reminded me of another thing that’s long angered me about these governors. They frequently deny the reality of climate change (even when they’re in states that are seeing the most damaging effects), refuse to do anything about it, and even block others from trying to address it. Then, when disasters inevitably and predictably strike, they get to play the role of serious steward and comforting presence. Mayors and communities praise and thank them for their help in rebuilding, and they do press events surrounded by emergency managers and first responders.
What a governor of a state like Florida or Texas should be doing (in addition, of course, to doing things that will protect people and infrastructure from harm) is the hard work of tackling climate change, which is going to be producing these catastrophic events with increasing frequency among the other serious long-term problems. Instead, DeSantis has been going around raising campaign money from rich donors, fucking up education and stigmatizing LGBT people, and spending badly needed state funds on vile and corrupt political stunts related to immigration. Meanwhile,
Chris Christie did the same thing in New Jersey, both before and after Sandy, and after he sort of acknowledged the reality of AGW (an actual news story reported by multiple outlets): “Chris Christie Leaves A Trumpian Legacy On Climate Change. But It Won’t Last.” But when Sandy hit, he milked it for all the PR he could get, walking around devastated communities in his fleece, hugging people, and promising to rebuild. This is still seen as some sort of finest moment by the political press: “Chris Christie, hurricane expert.”
“There’s literally nothing to come back to”: Fort Myers Beach council member says most homes are gone
Dan Allers, a council member in Fort Myers Beach, described devastation at a level “that no one really anticipated or expected” as he walked through the area Thursday after it was pounded by Hurricane Ian.
He said that he’s aware of at least three deaths reported in the town located on Florida’s Estero Island.
Allers did not know the total number of fatalities.
He estimated that 90% of the island is gone, including businesses that had been there for decades and had weathered several hurricanes.
“When I say gone, it’s not just the insides of the houses — it’s brick homes, it’s houses that were on stilts, wood homes,” Allers said. “It’s gone.”
“It’s total devastation,” he said.
Most of the streets are blocked off by debris and homes that have been uprooted and moved by the storm, according to Allers. He said some houses on the beach side of the main thoroughfare have broken away and fallen into the Gulf of Mexico.
“Essentially if your home is not built out of concrete, to FEMA standards over the last five years, it’s pretty much gone. There’s literally nothing to come back to,” Allers said.
Judge Cannon overrules the order by her special master that would have forced Trump’s lawyers to lodge objections to the accuracy of the DOJ’s inventory, effectively forcing him to prove his ‘planting claims’.”
Trump doesn’t need to do that any more, she rules.”
USGS predicts Ian will cause significant changes to the coastlines of Georgia and South Carolina
South Carolina and Georgia’s coastlines could be significantly impacted by storm system Ian, according to a new US Geological Survey coastal change forecast released on Thursday.
At 5 p.m. on Thursday, the National Hurricane Center forecast that newly strengthened Hurricane Ian would hit the South Carolina coast as a Category 1 storm on Friday. Storm surge is anticipated to reach between 4 to 7 feet in South Carolina from Edisto Beach to Murrells Inlet, including Charleston, it said.
USGS researchers are forecasting the waves and surges caused by Ian may cause 11% of South Carolina’s and 1% of Georgia’s dunes along sandy beaches to be inundated — meaning continuously covered by ocean water.
“This is the most severe type of storm effect on coastal beaches, with flooding behind the dunes that may impact coastal communities,” the USGS said.
In addition, approximately 43% of South Carolina’s and 24% of Georgia’s dunes along sandy beaches are expected to be overwashed by Ian. Overwash is considered the second most severe level of coastal damage, taking place when water levels reach higher than the top of dunes.
“When a beach is overwashed, sand can be pushed and deposited inland, causing significant changes to coastal landscapes and blocking roadways,” the USGS said. “Overwash can reduce the height of protective sand dunes, alter beach profiles and leave areas behind the dunes more vulnerable to future storms.”
In South Carolina 99% of the dunes and in Georgia 77% of dunes are projected to face some level of erosion caused by Ian, the USGS said. Erosion at the base of sand dunes is considered the least severe level of storm damage on sandy shorelines.
The mood of Russia’s top propagandist, Vladimir Solovyov in this clip can be summed up as “Hello darkness, my old friend.” He demands some victories and complains that people are running away from Russia. He also sighs. A lot.
Subtitled video at the (Twitter) link.
tomhsays
Re: #437
Cannon also extended the Oct 21 deadline the Special Master had set to Dec 16.
Tethyssays
that no one really anticipated or expected” as he walked through the area Thursday after it was pounded by Hurricane Ian.
Um, Florida is well known for lax building codes and decades of a building boom that ignored all common sense by removing the mangroves and allowing all those luxury homes to be constructed within the flood plain
Climatologists have been warning the world about this exact thing for decades, so it beggars belief that the long forecasted event of a powerful devastating hurricane happening is somehow “unanticipated or unexpected”.
Oggie: Mathomsays
My in laws, when they were looking to move out of their old (25-year-old) house, looked at southwest Florida. One of the selling points by a real estate agent was that, due to geography and the shallowness of the ocean, hurricanes don’t his southwest Florida. They did not buy it.
“They grabbed me by the hair & showed me a photo of him naked, beaten & covered in blood.” We talk to Sasha, whose fiancé, anti-war poet Artyom Kamardin, was reportedly raped by police when arrested in Moscow….
To summarize, several Russian telegram channels are warning that the battle in Lyman is at a critical point and that Ukraine is advancing from the north and southeast. Possible that the pocket collapses tonight or tomorrow, which would overshadow the annexation announcement.
It also sounds unlikely that Russia will be able to conduct a withdrawal without heavy losses.
More war news.
This is the fundie xian War on Halloween.
This years theme is Rainbow fentanyl something something cancel Halloween something.
It is Fox NoNews so making sense out it isn’t possible.
Next up is the War on Xmas.
Seems like the War on Xmas comes earlier every year.
Huffpost War On Halloween! Fox News Wants To Cancel Holiday In Latest Right-Wing Freakout
Ed Mazza Wed, September 28, 2022 at 1:34 AM·6 min read
Fox News has found its latest thing to panic over.
The right-wing network is warning viewers about drugs disguised as candy ― especially Halloween candy. Some Fox News personalities are even calling for a halt to traditional Halloween activities.
The network’s warnings are based in part on a DEA bulletin issued last month about “rainbow fentanyl” that looks like candy and which the agency described as “a deliberate effort by drug traffickers to drive addiction amongst kids and young adults.”
“I don’t think people will be giving these pills out as Halloween candy,” Joseph Palamar, an associate professor in the department of population health at NYU Langone Health, told CNN. Palamar, who has studied trends in illicit fentanyl, said the colorful pills have been around for years and that the real concern isn’t Halloween. It’s that the people who use the pills may leave them around at home, where children may find and take them.
Rolling Stone also reported that the colorful pills were neither new nor aimed at children.
“The idea that because [the pills] are colorful means that [cartels] must be trying to force fentanyl or ply children or their Halloween candy is markedly ridiculous,” Mariah Francis of the National Harm Reduction Coalition told the magazine.
The new scare fits in with years of largely unfounded reports and urban legends about hard drugs being distributed as Halloween candy.
Pierce R. Butlersays
Reporting back from periphery of Ian’s swath: lost juice for only 23 hours; had three trees fall on the access road; one neighbor’s truck stuck but pulled out; local airport reports >50 mph gusts, but no sustained winds at official Tropical Storm levels.
The people and land to the south who took the hit expected here will probably have grumpier responses. We’re just lucky Ian didn’t hit larger cities or stall over land (here: coastal Georgia/Carolinas get their chance next…)
Demonstrators are organizing large protests to take place after Friday prayers on Sept. 30.
Zelenskyy also made a video directly appealing to people from the North Caucasus to join Ukraine in the struggle for freedom.
ravensays
Dan Allers, a council member in Fort Myers Beach, described devastation at a level “that no one really anticipated or expected” as he walked through the area Thursday after it was pounded by Hurricane Ian.
LOL.
Oh really?
They’ve been told multiple times every day for 30 years by all the world’s climatologists that CO2 was rising, the ice at the poles is melting, the globe is heating up, sea levels are rising, and hurricanes are becoming more powerful.
Climate change will happen whether you believe in it or not. Reality doesn’t care what you believe.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
A civilian convoy of cars heading to pick up relatives trying to flee Russian occupied territory in Ukraine has been hit by Russian forces near the city of Zaporizhzhia, with initial reports saying at least 25 people were killed and 50 people injured. Footage posted on social media showed a horrific scene with dead and injured people lying on a road on the south-eastern outskirts of the city.
The governor of Zaporizhzhia region, Oleksandr Starukh, said in a statement: “The enemy launched an attack on a civilian convoy and the outskirts of the city. People were standing in line to leave for the occupied territory to pick up their relatives and to deliver aid. There are dead and wounded. Emergency services are at the site.
According to locals, 60 cars had gathered on a road in two lines after registering for a convoy that was due to take people back into the Russian-occupied territories in the south, some planning to return to homes in places such as Mariupol, others planning to fetch relatives and bring them to government-occupied territory for fear that Russia will prevent people from leaving. In the hours before the attack, Russia launched strikes on several cities, including the centre of the nearby city of Dnipro.
The attack on the convoy on Friday morning came amid a feared Russian escalation in its war in Ukraine, as the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, prepared to publicly sign annexation orders for four regions.
Putin will sign accession documents at the Kremlin before delivering a speech. A pop concert is also planned on Red Square, where a stage and screens have been set up. The territory Russia controls amounts to about 15% of Ukraine’s total area.
The Kremlin said again on Friday that it would consider attacks against any part of the regions of Ukraine that it is about to annex – Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – as acts of aggression against Russia itself.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Russia would “de jure” incorporate parts of Ukraine which are not under the control of Russian forces. Of the four regions, Luhansk and Kherson are the only territories that Russia is close to having total control over.
…
Ukrainian forces have secured all of Kupiansk and driven Russian troops from their remaining positions on the east bank of the river that divides the north-eastern Ukrainian city. Most of Kupiansk, a strategic railway junction, was recaptured earlier this month as part of a counteroffensive by Ukrainian troops. AFP reported that those Russian troops who held out on the east bank of the Oskil river have been driven out….
More on the attack on the civilian convoy:
The Guardian’s Peter Beaumont reports from Zaporizhzhia, after a civilian convoy of cars was hit by Russian forces this morning:
Even five hours after the attack it remained a scene of utter carnage with broken bodies spread around the site.
Many, it appears, had been standing outside of their vehicles, not far from a registration point with white tents and a desk when the missile flew in exploding some 10 metres from the cars leaving a huge crater.
In one car, a victim sat slumped dead with one hand gripping his steering wheel, the windows blown out.
Another body was slumped on its knees, covered with a blanket next to the luggage the person was pulling a few metres away.
Volodymyr Marchuk, a spokesperson for the governor’s office, explained to the Guardian what had happened:
It’s a logistics hub to allow people go into the temporarily Russian occupied territories. The Russians only accept 150 cars a day so that’s why we created a programme, where people could come register and get their number in line.
So at 7.15 in the morning there were a large number of cars waiting for the turn to cross, mostly people who want to go to and drop off aid to relatives and maybe pick up people who want to leaver on the way back.
They hit that queue with an S-300 missile. There’s no doubt it is a deliberate war crime. They always say they are aiming at a military object and hit something else. But there are no military objects near that site. That’s why there’s no doubt that’s it’s a terrorist act.
Patriarch Kirill has Covid and won’t be at the Kremlin for Putin’s “annexations” today. Attendees have been undergoing PCR testing for several days now, long before the planned ceremony was announced.
“It’s a perfect illustration of Putin’s Russia: the official annexation ceremony in the Kremlin, pathetic speeches on the imperialistic absorption ‘of what used to be Ukraine’, but meanwhile in the ground — thousands of Russian soldiers dying in a catastrophic pocket in Donbas.”
Now I am in that part of Kyiv, where Imam Shamil, the hero of Dagestan and the entire Caucasus, lived in the 1860s. As you can see, Ukraine knows how to honor your heroes. We preserve the memory of those places that combined the cultures of our peoples.
This is the center of our capital. One of the hundreds of Ukrainian cities against which the Russian authorities direct missiles, bombs and troops. The Caucasus knows what this means. The Caucasus saw it.
For 218 days, we have been defending ourselves against those who have more missiles and people than we do, but who are completely devoid of decency. This is a vile war on the part of Russia, a criminal one. And we do everything to protect our people and the independence of Ukraine. This is our sacred duty. Duty to our parents. Duty to our children. Duty to all generations of our people – those who lived and those who will live on our land. We don’t need what’s not ours!
Already 58,500 Russian soldiers have died in Ukraine. They came to kill us and died. You are not told this number. You are being lied to about the alleged death toll of about six thousand. 58.5! That’s the truth. All of them died because one person wanted this war. Only one, which many people serve.
Peoples of the Caucasus! All peoples on the territory of Russia! You have no reason to be among these many who still serve the one who wants this war. You do not have to die in Ukraine. Your sons do not have to die in Ukraine. You have no such obligation. Not to your parents, not to your children, not to your future, not to the future of your land. And you know it.
We see that you are resisting the criminal mobilization with which the Russian authorities want to cover up their failure. The failure of their regular army, their criminal orders. You are being lied to that there are allegedly no such failures.
Instead of ending the senseless war for Russia, the Russian authorities are trying to send new people to replace the dead. What awaits them all? You know the answer.
Ukraine will continue to defend itself and will win in this war waged against us. Because we are on our land. The truth is on our side. And the whole civilized [sic] world is with us. We are fighting for what is true for any people on the planet – for life and freedom, for the right to happiness for all our families, for all our children.
Russia was left alone. It is already isolated and will be condemned for this war. “Anyone who raises a weapon against the truth raises it to his own destruction,” the Kremlin seems not to be aware of these words by Imam Shamil. But these words should be known in the Caucasus. They should be heard in Siberia and in all other lands from which people are being sent to this war.
And now there’s mobilization. Fight to avoid death! Defend your freedom now in the streets and squares, so that later you don’t have to fight in the mountains and forests simply for your right to live, when the Russian authorities start the next waves of mobilization.
Did you believe that they would take only 300 thousand people? The one who started this war will not stop at the first wave of mobilization, there will be more. He will try to take other lives as well.
He doesn’t care about people. He respects neither the living nor the dead…
Thousands of bodies of dead Russian soldiers from various regions remain in Ukraine. They rot in the fields, they are stored in morgues.
Those that were not burned by the Russian army itself. The only army in the world that carries around mobile crematoria to dispose of the bodies of its fallen soldiers when it has time to do so. But now it is fleeing so fast that it even leaves tanks and MLRS behind, not just the bodies of the dead.
Just think about what it has come to! We are forced to start informational work on conveying to the citizens of Russia, who are being mobilized now, a special thesis: at least get a tattoo with your name and surname so that we know how to find your relatives when you are killed and do not even have an army token with you. The Russian authorities send people to this war without army tokens, often without documents! They do this on purpose to make it easier to lie to you about how many people actually die here. This is their special operation. Special operation on lies, terror, extermination of indigenous peoples.
During the first week of criminal mobilization, more men fled from Russia than the Russian authorities were officially going to send to war. And how does the Kremlin react to this? It is sending troops to the border of Russia against the very citizens of Russia! This is a disgrace! And lies with some sham referenda, with some confessions and annexations will end in even greater disgrace for Russia.
No one has to take part in a disgraceful war. Dagestanis do not have to die in Ukraine. Chechens, Ingush, Ossetians, Circassians and any other peoples who came under the Russian flag. In total, almost 200 different peoples… You know who sends them to Ukraine. The one who sends wants to make them “cargo 200”.
Do you want that? No? I’m sure you want to live. I’m sure you’re tired of being lied to. I’m sure you know that it is necessary to fight now!
In order for Russian citizens to go to war, they are artificially driven into poverty. Into loans. People are intimidated by repressions, harassed by propaganda. You can change it. You just need to understand who is a real symbol for you, who is a hero for you, who is the pride of your history, and who just wants to take advantage of you.
“Ukrainian war correspondent Yury Butusov says a Russian column is about to try its luck fleeing Ukrainian encirclement in Lyman, The road out from Zarichne is monitored by Ukrainians and in range. Column of military and stolen civilian vehicles. Photo done just over 1 hour ago….”
8 years ago, ru-military surrounded our near Ilovaisk. Our guys agreed to surrender without weapons. But Russia broke its word. The column was shot. Today RF will have to ask for an exit from Lyman. Only if, of course, those in Kremlin are concerned with their soldiers.
ravensays
Just in time for Halloween, another Russian horror atrocity.
They have been just randomly firing missiles into civilian areas.
This one hit a house with 4 people, mom, grandmother, two kids. It’s just rubble. The old family dog is sitting on top of the rubble pile crying and won’t leave.
The dog isn’t in great shape either, caught in the edge of the blast.
I’m not linking to it.
If you want you can find it easily.
You probably don’t want to watch it though if you want to sleep at night.
The story behind the viral video: Krim was found crying and howling on the rubble of his home. A Russian missile killed his family – a mother, a grandmother, a 12-year-old girl, an 8-year-old boy and a puppy. Later, the father, a Ukrainian soldier, returned to find everything he loved, gone.
On Christmas Day three years ago British businessman Marc Bennett was found dead in his four star hotel room in Qatar. He’d been successfully working on the country’s tourism industry but died in unexplained circumstances after being arrested and allegedly tortured by the country’s police. A British coroner ruled there was no evidence of suicidal intent. So what happened?
Zelenskiy: Ukraine ‘ready for talks with Russia, but with a different president’
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said he is “ready for a dialogue” with Russia, but it would be “impossible” to do so under its current president, Vladimir Putin.
In his video update, Zelenskiy says:
Ukraine was and remains a leader in negotiation efforts. It was our state that always offered Russia to reach an agreement on coexistence on equal, honest, decent and fair terms.
It is obvious that this is impossible with this Russian president.
He does not know what dignity and honesty are.
Therefore, we are ready for a dialogue with Russia, but already with another president of Russia.
In a separate statement following the announcement of new US sanctions against Russia, the US president, Joe Biden, condemned Russia’s “fraudulent” attempt to annex sovereign Ukrainian territory.
Biden said:
Make no mistake: these actions have no legitimacy. The United States will always honour Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders.
The new sanctions will impose costs on individuals and entities “that provide political or economic support to illegal attempts to change the status of Ukrainian territory”, Biden said.
He added:
I urge all members of the international community to reject Russia’s illegal attempts at annexation and to stand with the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes.
Ukraine formally submits application for Nato membership
Ukraine has formally submitted its application to join the Nato alliance, its president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has announced.
About 20 members of a Jewish sect held at a facility in Mexico after a police raid on their jungle base have fled.
Footage showed men, women, and children streaming out of the site in Huixtla, in the west, on Wednesday night.
They had been there since the raid last Friday when two members were arrested on suspicion of human trafficking and serious sexual offences.
The sect, Lev Tahor, is known for extremist practices and imposing a strict regime on its followers.
It advocates child marriage, inflicts harsh punishments even for minor transgressions and requires women and girls as young as three years old to completely cover up with robes.
raven @450, they have to fulminate about something. So now it is Halloween and “Rainbow fentanyl.”
I saw a report that some dealers are selling individual pills containing fentanyl for $48. I doubt that anyone would give away $48 pills to kids as Halloween treats.
This looks like hysteria being whipped up over nothing.
Fentanyl is a problem, and deaths from opioid overdoses in the USA are at staggering levels. Doesn’t have anything to do with Halloween, nor does it have anything to do with supposed leftist cabals going after children.
Vladimir Putin’s decision to sign treaties annexing four occupied regions in Ukraine marks the largest forcible takeover of territory in Europe since the second world war.
Taken together, Russia is annexing at least 40,000 square miles of eastern and southern Ukraine, about 15% of Ukraine’s total area, equal to the size of Portugal or Serbia.
Is it, though? In reality? Not that it makes any difference in terms of the illegality, but they don’t even really control this land. They can hardly forcibly take over places that have been, are currently being, or will soon be liberated by Ukraine. To paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld, anybody can just declare an annexation.
As of now (8:30 AM ET, 3:30 PM in Kyiv), Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is in the middle of his speech. As expected, Putin has announced the annexation of four areas of Ukraine into the Russian Federation. Also, he’s declared that Ukraine was always part of the old Russian empire, so Russia owns it anyway. He then announced that Russia was now open to negotiations—so long as Russia got to keep all the area it had claimed. It’s unclear from the way this was phrased if Putin means just the area now occupied by Russian forces, because it really sounds like he’s laying claim to the entire oblasts, cities and all, even in areas where Russia has never come close.
“I want the Kyiv government and their real bosses in the West to hear me,” said Putin. “Residents of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson are becoming our citizens forever.”
Putin then called on Ukraine to lay down arms, and realize that these territories are now part of “their true historical fatherland.” Any fighting in these areas will be the same as fighting in Russia, and Putin declared that he would defend “our people” with “all the means at our disposal.”
Following this section, Putin hasn’t so much as mentioned Ukraine over the last 15 minutes. Instead, he’s been on an extended rant about the horrors of the West, which, says Putin, “wants to turn Russia into a colony.” According to Putin, he is the real voice of democracy and freedom, and it’s the West which mistreats people who disagree with authority (quick, someone get Alexei Navalny on stage for a comment). This was followed by a litany of crimes, including the bombing of cities in World War II. There was a special focus on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but bombing Nazi Germany was apparently also a crime that needed to be repaid. Also the Korean War, where apparently the crime was not allowing the north to win. Oh, and Putin slipped in that the United States “forces people to change gender” and gets them hooked on drugs.
Putin could easily give this speech at a Trump rally and gather a lot of applause.
As might be expected, Putin has devoted a good deal of the speech to claiming the West is “racist” because it is “spreading Russophobia.” A pretty good argument might be made that fear of Russia was caused by Russia continually invading and subjugating its neighbors. But apparently, Putin missed that point.
Eventually, after a prolonged generalized attack on the colonial, racist, undemocratic, forced gender-changing, Nazi bombing West, Putin also got around to a specific grievance—the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines. It’s obvious that Russia bombed these pipelines to give itself another bloody shirt to wave, and Putin waved it. He blamed the sabotage on “Anglo Saxons,” which was followed by an extended attack not just on the U.S. and the U.K., but also on the AUKUS alliance. Shoutout to Australia!
Putin then spent some time talking about how Russia now has Europe right where he wants them, because “you can’t heat homes with paper Euros.” And without Russian gas, Europeans are going to be freezing, their economies collapsing, and then he darted over to how they’re practicing “outright Satanism.” If you were hoping that Putin would expand on that last point, prepare to be disappointed, because that’s the only Satan appearance so far. [JFC]
From there Putin has swung full force into how Russia has to take action against the West. How it has to “lead the anti-colonialism movement” by conquering territory and making it part of Russia. Which may not be quite the way most people think of anti-colonialism. But Putin is being extremely forceful in statements that Russia doesn’t just intend to take Ukraine, but to crush the entire West.
“We need to turn this disgraceful page. Western hegemony will be smashed. This is inevitable. We must do this for our people, the great historical Russia.” Hopefully anyone who is cheering Russia for its anti-colonialism position is reading to the end of that sentence.
[Max Seddon] I’ve watched a lot of Putin speeches over the last 10-15 years and this is the most anti-US one by a really long way.
If I were a western policymaker wondering if he’d really use nuclear weapons – and he hasn’t even got to them yet – I’d be very concerned.
Finally, Putin has stepped away from the microphone, and the actual paperwork for annexation is underway. The dutiful crowd—which looks to have been imported from a Brezhnev speech circa 1964—is clapping and standing at all the right points.
As all this is going on, hundreds, if not thousands, of Russian forces, are engaged in either dying or being captured at Lyman. [!!]
—————————
As the first wave of the big counteroffensive in Kharkiv Oblast came to a thundering conclusion with the liberation of Izyum and Kupyansk, there were initial reports that Lyman had also been liberated, opening the way to a push into Luhansk. But it soon became apparent that Russia had positioned some of the forces fleeing from Izyum on the northern edge of Lyman. In the next few days, Russia pushed even more troops into the area, creating a line that was intended to block Ukrainian progress to the northeast. In Drobysheve, Lyman, and Yampil, Russia created a fortified location, with some of their best remaining troops in position, backed by ranks of artillery, and roads from both north and east capable of bringing in supplies and reinforcements. Then they waited for Ukraine to smash against this anvil.
Over the last two weeks, Ukrainian troops have stayed outside this line, and they have launched attacks on the Russian forces inside. But that was only a small part of the overall Ukrainian action. The greater part of Ukraine’s forces in the area moved north along the banks of the Oskil River, then turned east, then turned south, approaching Lyman from the opposite side. Then, just two days ago, a second Ukrainian force launched a surprise advance across the Silverskyi Donets River, cutting off the supply lines to the east, and approaching Lyman from yet another angle. [map at the link]
On Friday, Ukrainian forces cleared Russian positions in both Yampil and Stavky. Russian troops in both those areas reportedly were unable to escape the tightening Ukrainian encirclement and instead retreated into Lyman. At last report, positions in Drobysheve had also been abandoned, though it’s not clear if Ukrainian forces had moved into that location.
Russian sources report that the forces inside Lyman—a number that ranges from 500 to 3,000 depending on the source—are now preparing an attempted breakout. A remaining Russian garrison at Torske had reportedly been instructed to hold the road open there for an attempted escape. Already a platoon of Russian forces has been seen making an unsuccessful attempt to flee into the woods north of the city.
Any attempt to withdraw is unlikely to be in any sense orderly. It may not even be possible. But if it’s going to happen, it has to happen very, very soon, or there will be no force remaining in Lyman to make the attempt. Considering the delay between events on the ground and reports trickling back through Telegram and Twitter, the battle of Lyman may have already been resolved.
The enthusiastic crowd for Putin’s speech in occupied Luhansk. (as Mark Sumner put it.) [hilarious video of a guy on stage, big speakers, big video screen, one guy in the audience. Russian language not translated, but the point is obvious. The public square is empty.]
Additional Ukrainian update, (link in comment 471].
[…] In addition to reports that Russia has been forced from Drobysheve and Yampil, there are also reports that Ukrainian troops have advanced into the rail complex in the center of Lyman. [map at the link]
Following reports that Russian forces in Lyman intend to attempt a breakout to the east, there are now reports of heavy fighting near Zarichne as Ukraine moves to close the door on any Russian escape. There are reports on Telegram channels that Russian attempts to get reinforcements to Torske have failed.
Consider all of the above unverified, however things do seem to be moving quickly toward a conclusion at Lyman. There has been some discussion about the possibility of Russian forces negotiating for withdrawal. It’s not clear if this is based on anything actually happening or is more in the area of wishful thinking.
Reginald Selkirksays
My Best Friend’s Exorcism Is Freaky But Too Familiar
High school can be hell even without any supernatural interference. But what happens when an actual demon invades and threatens even the most devoted of teenage alliances? My Best Friend’s Exorcism takes us through this unholy scenario, with a charming cast that almost makes up for its overly familiar story…
[…] MAGA activist Ginni Thomas, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife, stuck to the Bie Lie even while testifying under oath in front of the House Jan. 6 Committee on Thursday, according to committee chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS).
While speaking to reporters after Thomas’ four-hour voluntary interview with the panel, Thompson was asked if the far-right activist still claimed the 2020 election was stolen from ex-President Donald Trump.
“Yes, she said that,” Thompson replied, per CNN.
Though the Democrat didn’t offer much detail on Thomas’ testimony, he did say she answered “some questions.”
“The information was typical of a lot of information we received from other people who were involved in this effort around Jan. 6. A lot of: ‘Well, I believed something was wrong,’” Thompson said, per Politico. “She was one of those people we wanted to talk to and, ultimately, we eventually got there.”
The committee chair said the panel might include Thomas’ testimony in its next yet-to-be-scheduled public hearing “if there’s something of merit.”
Thomas tried to create some distance between her husband and her own election steal efforts during her testimony, according to a copy of her opening statement obtained by the Washington Post.
She claimed that the Supreme Court justice was “completely unaware” of her desperate texts to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows pleading with him to keep trying to overturn the election results.
Thomas also vaguely denied having influence over her husband’s deeply conservative decisions in the high court.
“I can guarantee that my husband has never spoken with me about pending cases at the Court,” Thomas said. “It’s an iron clad rule in our home.”
“Let me also add, it is laughable for anyone who knows my husband to think I could influence his jurisprudence–the man is independent and stubborn, with strong character traits of independence and integrity,” she continued.
Mark Paoletta, Thomas’ attorney, said in a statement on Thursday that his client was “happy to cooperate with the Committee to clear up the misconceptions about her activities surrounding the 2020 elections.”
“As she has said from the outset, Mrs. Thomas had significant concerns about fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election,” Paoletta said. “And, as she told the Committee, her minimal and mainstream activity focused on ensuring that reports of fraud and irregularities were investigated.”
Posted by readers of the article:
Not surprising that Ginni Thomas still believes that the 2020 election was stolen. She still believes her husband did not sexually harass Anita Hill (and others). Self delusion is tenacious.
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Totally leaves an opening that she talked to him about cases.
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J6: Did you believe that the election was stolen?
GT: YES!
J6: Do you STILL believe that the election was stolen?
GT: YES!
J6: Have you ever talked to your husband about the election that you believe was stolen?
GT: No.
People with brains: OK
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What an amazing marriage of best friends that never talk about perceived existential threats to the country, missions from God, work, or mental health for that matter.
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So she lied so much she believes her own lies.
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So her defense is, that she is not a lying sack of crap, she’s a stupid sack of crap. I thought she was more like her husband, you know a lying sack of crap. But I guess she is going to go with the stupid excuse.
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A fool is one thing, but a dangerous fool is another.
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It’s the Trump era “alternative reality”. Double down when caught in a lie and never let them see you sweat.
Trump will no longer have to say whether he really believes that the FBI planted evidence.
After twisting federal criminal and national security law to help former President Trump fend off the Mar-a-Lago investigation, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon for the Southern District of Florida has given him another boost.
In a Thursday order, Cannon smacked down an attempt from the special master […] that would have forced the former President to back up multiple claims of malfeasance that he’s made against federal law enforcement.
Among other things, Trump has claimed that the FBI “planted” or otherwise faked records that it seized from Mar-a-Lago pursuant to a search warrant in August.
U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie […] proposed a schedule for the case that would have seen Trump verify the DOJ’s inventory of what was taken. But Cannon overruled that provision of the special master’s plan.
“There shall be no separate requirement on Plaintiff at this stage, prior to the review of any of the Seized Materials, to lodge ex ante final objections to the accuracy of Defendant’s Inventory, its descriptions, or its contents,” Cannon wrote in her ruling, adding that her earlier order appointing Dearie “did not contemplate that obligation.”
The move helps Trump avoid having to say whether or not the records that the FBI took were all in his possession before the raid. He will no longer have to state his objections to the accuracy of the DOJ’s inventory in court, where perjury is a crime, at least until he can review what the FBI took.
It’s not the only thing that Cannon did in the order which potentially made Trump’s life easier.
The new schedule that Cannon created for Dearie extends the amount of time that the special master will have to review the records until Dec. 16 – more than four months after FBI agents seized reams of government records, some highly classified, from Mar-a-Lago.
Cannon referred to it as a “modest enlargement” that was needed due to “the circumstances as they have evolved since entry of the Appointment Order.”
Trump’s big deadline, however, will be Nov. 4. Then, Cannon ordered, he will have to state, document-by-document, what privileges he claims apply to the records seized at Mar-a-Lago. Cannon ordered that Trump could lodge objections based on attorney-client and work product privileges, and on claims of Executive Privilege on whether the records are presidential or personal records per the Presidential Records Act.
The Supreme Court has ruled that executive privilege has to be asserted by a sitting President. Joe Biden has not asserted that the privilege applies to the records previously held by Trump.
[…] Cannon’s decision […] lengthens the impediment to the DOJ’s investigation, and gives Trump some cover until after the mid-term elections. […]
There is an appearance, here, of ex parte communications between Trump’s team and the judge.
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She just understands what Trump is trying to do here – delay, delay, delay – and is eager to enable it.
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Scheduling orders are not appealable.
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“He doesn’t have to tell you what to do. You just know.”
— Aileen “Loose” Cannon
Oh, wait. My bad. Michael Cohen said that.
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at least she isn’t still claiming Trump’s reputational harm outweighs our national security
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She bought him another month. Dearie isn’t going to do this forever and Trump is paying $500/hour to get bent over in court. He’ll probably request an end to the special master before any of these deadlines even hit the way he’s going.
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I have no doubt she’ll fire Dearie for “reasons” if Trump asks.
[…] Special masters do work on behalf of the judge. At the end of the process he can make recommendations and she can simply not take them. So she is not acting beyond her authority in the narrow sense. But the point of the exercise is to have a respected outside party review evidence and make recommendations to the judge. By jumping in and overruling entirely reasonable and unremarkable decisions about how the review will be conducted she’s removing whatever pretense was left that she is there to oversee the case under the law as opposed to protect Trump. It’s not the worst of her orders in this ruling. Others are much worse on substance. But Special Master Dearie said he needed x amount of time to conduct the review. She jumps in and says, no actually you need to until past the election. […]
Did the FBI really retrieve 200 pages of documents from Mar-a-Lago, as Team Trump claims? Probably not, though we know why lawyers are pushing the figure.
In recent weeks, as the Mar-a-Lago scandal has advanced, a couple of key figures have become familiar. There’s been a lot of talk, for example, about the number 100: That’s the rough tally of classified, secret, and top-secret documents the FBI recovered from Donald Trump’s property.
Another familiar number is 11,000: That’s supposed to be the total number of documents retrieved from Mar-a-Lago, including materials that are related to government secrets.
This week, however, the former president’s legal team introduced us to a new and unfamiliar number in a court filing: 200,000. As NBC News reported:
[District Court Judge Aileen] Cannon also pushed back the deadline for [special master Raymond] Dearie to complete the review, to Dec. 16, citing both the delay in getting the documents to Trump’s team and his lawyers’ contention that the 11,000 documents taken from Mar-a-Lago amount to about 200,000 pages. Dearie had previously been expected to complete his review by Nov. 30.
The point of pushing such a figure is part of Team Trump’s delay tactic. After all, if the special master, his associates, and relevant lawyers have to review 11,000 documents, that will take weeks. If that total is actually 18 times larger, then the Republican and his lawyers might be able to credibly argue that the process will need vastly more time.
The trouble is, the 200,000 figure is very likely a wild exaggeration. A Washington Post analysis walked through the practical concerns — given the number of boxes used, it’s just not realistic — before concluding that the number appears “impossible to defend.” The piece added:
Trump’s attorneys want to throw roadblocks in the path of the Justice Department and are using this claim of the scale of what was recovered to demand more time for their review. Not only do they admit that the total is secondhand, but they also have a reason to want the number to be as high as possible. So the idea that the FBI walked out of Mar-a-Lago lugging hundreds of thousands of documents seems to be pretty clearly inaccurate.
The entire legal strategy behind asking for a special master already appeared to be backfiring. With each passing day, the case appears increasingly misguided.
Ted Budd, North Carolina’s Republican nominee for Senate, is one of two sitting U.S. congressmen to own a gun store, and his advertises on its website an insurance provider that supports gun owners who face domestic violence charges. Some advocates and family members of gun violence victims have called insurance plans like this—which have also been advertised by the NRA—“murder insurance.” …
As a freshman congressman in 2013, Ron DeSantis was unambiguous: A federal bailout for the New York region after Hurricane Sandy was an irresponsible boondoggle, a symbol of the “put it on the credit card mentality” he had come to Washington to oppose. “I sympathize with the victims,” he said. But his answer was no.
As the Times’ report noted, the far-right Floridian is now offering the public “tonal whiplash,” insisting that the kind of disaster aid he used to vote against is the same kind of disaster aid the people of Florida now need.
But this isn’t the only example of the GOP governor’s “tonal whiplash.” As my MSNBC colleague Ja’han Jones noted, “DeSantis has portrayed himself as a foil to the Biden administration, filing lawsuits to undermine President Joe Biden’s agenda while taking public — and personal — potshots at the president.”
This week, however, the governor has been downright polite, not only in his direct interactions with the Democratic president, but even in public when describing the cooperative, coordinated response to Hurricane Ian.
The Times’ report added, “The present circumstances have inspired a less swaggering posture toward a leader whom Mr. DeSantis has long called ‘Brandon’ as a recurring troll, aimed at the man he might like to succeed. ‘Dear Mr. President,’ the governor’s request for a major disaster declaration and federal assistance began on Wednesday.”
The same article quoted former Rep. David Jolly, who served in Congress alongside DeSantis as a Florida Republican, saying, “Ironically, there’s nobody in America that Ron DeSantis needs more than Joe Biden.”
[…] My point is certainly not to criticize DeSantis for taking the high road as his state begins to pick up the pieces in the wake of a deadly disaster.
But it occurs to me that the governor doesn’t actually need to play nice — because Biden is the kind of president who’d do right by Florida anyway.
As regular readers may recall, during Donald Trump’s presidency, the Republican used to complain bitterly about California’s approach to forest management — an issue he only pretended to understand — and at one point published a tweet claiming that he had ordered FEMA to send the Golden State “no more money.”
While there was no follow-through on the presidential chest-thumping, Trump continued to make related threats, saying on Twitter that Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom should “no more” turn to “the Federal Government for $$$ help.”
Around the same time, Miles Taylor, a Republican political appointee who served as chief of staff to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, claimed that Trump had previously directed DHS officials to deny wildfire relief aid to California because the state didn’t support the then-president politically.
The message to officials everywhere was unsubtle: If your state is suffering, the delivery of disaster aid might depend on whether Trump sees you as a loyal ally.
The idea that Biden would be in any way similar to his predecessor is obvious madness. It’s not as if DeSantis called the Oval Office yesterday and was told he’d have to rake Floridian leaves more effectively if he expected post-Ian aid to arrive.
[…] Biden is the sort of leader who’d deliver for a state that didn’t vote for him simply because it’s the right thing to do.
[…] high schoolers from the East Baton Rouge School District in Louisiana signed up for a school-sanctioned college and career fair… only to be sent to a church, where they were subjected to transphobic and misogynistic rhetoric. According to The Advocate, students—who attend public schools, mind you—asked their parents to sign permission slips that allowed them to miss class in order to attend a career fair. Instead, they were subjected to hyper-conservative lectures and sermons at the Living Faith Christian Center as part of the church’s Day of Hope event.
You. might be thinking: Okay, that’s terrible, but how many kids could it have been? Fifty? One hundred? Friends: It was thousands.
Students were bussed to the event under the impression they’d get some free food and insight into life after high school. Instead, according to biology teacher Brittney Bryant, who attended the event, students were separated by their sex assigned at birth, and her only trans student was told they couldn’t go with the other boys.
Bryant wrote in a Facebook post that while boys did push-ups and games in one area (which Bryant says was actually outside and in “extreme heat”), girls listened to speakers encourage them to forgive their rapists. Bryant said some students were so upset, they ended up crying in the bathroom. Bryant alleges some students poured water over the heads of trans students without repercussions.
[…] One student who attended the event, Alexis Budyach, said an adult read a Bible verse on stage at the beginning of the event. This is inappropriate for a number of obvious reasons, but it’s especially important to note as it directly contradicts what the school district has said. The East Baton Rouge school district insists this wasn’t a religious event, and that any prayer was initiated by students and not planned ahead of time.
Lawyers are reportedly poised to bring a lawsuit over possible civil rights violations and emotional distress, as covered in this local news story from WBRZ. [video at the link]
[…] the Day of Hope event was in partnership with the school district and included more than $9,000 from the school district to cover busses for the 2,000 students and to produce the event.
“Everywhere I went, I was told story after story about imprisonment and torture.”
When the Soviet Union still existed, Anatolii Harahatii made his career as a photographer in the small village of Savintsi in northeastern Ukraine. Snapshots of him as a younger, sharply dressed man appear on many surfaces in the cozy, one-story house he shares with Natalya, a former nurse and his wife of over 40 years. In photos from just a few years ago, he appeared happy and healthy, posing with Natalya and their two adult children.
As was the case for most Ukrainians, Anatolii’s life was forever upended on February 24 when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of their country, and by early March troops had occupied Savinsti. Russia’s goal, which its government justified with an often head-spinning mix of falsehoods, was nothing less than to topple Ukraine’s democratically elected government and install a puppet regime in its place. As Ukrainian resistance proved to be more formidable than Putin had anticipated, Russian troops escalated their attacks on private citizens. Anatolii was one of them.
Anatolii intensely followed the frightening and chaotic news of the early days of the war. Several months later, we sat in his kitchen, as he recalled seeing the news of grandmothers standing up to Russian armored columns, blocking their path as they tried to make their way through small villages across Ukraine.
“It was heroism,” Anatolii told me, referring to the Ukrainian civilians’ attempts to physically block Russian tanks with their bodies. When he awoke one morning, he decided to find the columns of tanks, which he filmed. He then posted the footage online. At the end of May, Russian soldiers in masks, likely intelligence officers, arrested the 68-year-old pensioner. They considered his act of filming the tanks dangerous, likely due to the information it might provide to others in Ukraine, and believed he was in some way acting against the Russian authorities.
He was imprisoned for weeks, and tortured by beatings and electric shocks as his captors tried to elicit information since the Russians believed he had been telling Ukrainian troops their positions. Sometimes, it was punishment for saying some Ukrainian words rather than Russian ones as he was being interrogated. Anatolii, like many Ukrainians, speaks both languages.
At some point in the summer, likely in June, Russian intelligence officers presented Anatolii with a choice. He could record a video in front of a bombed house in which he would blame Ukraine for the damage and praise Russian President Vladimir Putin. Or he could be shot.
Beaten to a pulp and fearful for his life, Anatolii agreed to make the video and was returned to his cell in the former police station where he was incarcerated with six other Ukrainian prisoners. After a sleepless night, he decided that he couldn’t betray Ukraine. Acquiescing to Russian demands would stain his soul forever. He resigned himself to death.
The next day, he told the officers that he had changed his mind. “Ok, get ready, we’ll shoot you in an hour,” he said they told him. He waited an hour for his execution, then a day, then ten. In three weeks, they once more offered him the chance to appear in the video. Again, he refused. “Then you’ll sit here forever,” they warned.
Forever turned out to be 100 days, from May to September 4th, far longer than the average 30 to 40 days that others served—based on interviews with those who had been held and their acquaintances. The prison was never empty. When some prisoners left, others would arrive. At some point, he was told he would be released if he agreed to be filmed saying that he thought Stepan Bandera—a Ukrainian nationalist from World War II and after, heralded by some and despised by others—was not a hero of Ukraine. He agreed on the condition that it not be published online. Nevertheless, he had to wait several more weeks before being released, and even then, it’s not clear why.
During this time, Ukraine’s outgunned forces gradually brought Russian forces to a standstill throughout the eastern part of the country. As the US ramped up the supply of weapons, the tide slowly turned in Ukraine’s favor. On September 6th, two days after the Russians freed Anatolii, the Ukrainian army counterattacked and rolled back Russian forces all the way to the Russian border, freeing some 3,000 square miles of territory. After seven months of occupation, Savintsi was free.
Sitting at his kitchen table recounting his story, Anatolii frequently broke into tears. At one point his emotions proved too much for him, and he reached for Natalya who was standing nearby. “Everything will be alright,” she murmured as she held him.
I arrived in Ukraine in late July to cover the war, and on September 12 came to the frontline city of Kharkiv, to cover the historic liberation of the territory. I then spent several days driving and hitchhiking around the town of Balakleya, about a two-hour drive from Kharkiv, and everywhere I went, I was told story after story about imprisonment and torture by the Russians.
If anything, the people with whom I spoke were just at the edge of a dark shadow cast by Russia’s occupation. According to a recent United Nations report on Russian war crimes committed from February to March, the UN had identified many instances of Russian forces executing, raping, and torturing Ukrainians. These included the regions of Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, and Kharkiv, where I was based. The occupation from March to September is only now being investigated.
The UN report comes after widespread earlier reporting about Russian war crimes in the northern Kyiv suburb of Bucha, which Russia occupied in March during its attempted assault on the capital. When Russian forces pulled back, news outlets and human rights advocacy groups found numerous instances of Russian soldiers executing, torturing, and raping civilians and prisoners of war. A total of 458 bodies were eventually found. Richard Weir, a researcher for the advocacy group Human Rights Watch wrote in a report, “The evidence indicates that Russian forces occupying Bucha showed contempt and disregard for civilian life and the most fundamental principles of the laws of war.” […]
A tide of Russians flowed toward Red Square as Vladimir Putin declared his annexation of Ukrainian territory that would herald a shining new era of perpetual war with Ukraine and the west.
“Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Russia! Together for ever!” read the banner hanging on Manezh Square by the Kremlin.
There were busloads of tough men from a factory near Moscow alighting by the statue of Karl Marx to celebrate, university teachers passing out invitations to a pop concert to their students, workers lugging armfuls of Russian flags to distribute. Some of the tricolours bore the image of Putin.
This is the Russia that Putin envisions after 22 years in power: united, simple, cynical and slavish. But real life is not a staged rally. And as Putin gathered his lackeys and satraps in the gilded Grand Kremlin Palace, across the country, from the minority ethnic republics of Dagestan and Buryatia to the hinterlands of Pskov and Penza, to cosmopolitan Moscow, communities are in turmoil.
Hundreds of thousands of men are leaving their homes, some contracted and mobilised into fighting in Ukraine, and still more fleeing for the borders to dodge the draft. In both cases, they do not know when they will come home.
Tensions have not been as high as they are now in Russia for decades, according to a new poll from the state-run Public Opinion Foundation. Of those surveyed by the centre this week, 69% said they had felt “stress”, nearly double the 35% who told the pollster they felt tense before Putin announced his mobilisation.
“I feel we are going into the unknown, going into nowhere,” said Anton, a Moscow resident who had passed into Georgia after waiting more than three days on the border. He described men desperate to reach the border before Putin spoke on Friday, with fears that the annexations would set off a tit-for-tat response with the west leading to a potential border closure.
I can’t conceive of words that could convey how bad these rappers are.
This concert is en epic festival of talentless cringe. The same trite slogans over and over. The only theme, endlessly repeated, is unity. Gleichschaltung backed by grocery-store-soundtrack-quality ballads.
On the vote to prevent a shutdown, one House Republican helped negotiate the terms of the bill, but rejected it anyway for reasons she couldn’t explain.
No one on Capitol Hill seemed to think a government shutdown was likely this week, and sure enough, a stopgap spending package is on its way to the White House for President Joe Biden’s signature. NBC News reported a couple of hours ago:
The House passed legislation to keep the government running until Dec. 16, a final act of business before both chambers of Congress recess for six weeks until the midterm election. The Friday vote was 230-201, with 10 Republicans joining Democrats to pass it.
The legislation wasn’t exactly controversial. The stopgap measure — technically called a “continuing resolution” (or “CR”) — keeps government operations going until mid-December, while providing additional resources for Ukraine and domestic disaster relief.
A day earlier, the Senate voted 72 to 25 to pass the same bill, and while most Republicans opposed it, 22 GOP senators supported — which by 2022 standards, wasn’t bad.
The House tally was different in that Republicans in the lower chamber appeared far more likely to reject the bill for knee-jerk reasons. Only 10 GOP House members broke ranks, and most of them won’t be returning to Capitol Hill next year.
One of my favorite anecdotes from this afternoon came by way of Politico, which asked Rep. Kay Granger, the top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, if she could explain why she voted against the bill she’d helped negotiate.
“No,” the Texas lawmaker replied, “I can’t.”
Also notable was Republican Rep. Yvette Herrell, who boasted just minutes before the vote that said she was “proud to have worked across the aisle” to secure funding under the bill that would “compensate people hurt” by a fire in her home state of New Mexico.
As The Washington Post noted, Herrell then stuck with her party and voted against it anyway, complaining that the stopgap measure included “reckless spending.”
Once Biden signs the bill, the government will be funded through Dec. 16, at which point the political world gets to do this again.
Right now, Russian sources on Telegraph are evenly divided. Half of them are convinced that Russia is sending, or has already sent, massive reinforcements that will keep Lyman in Russian hands forever. You can take your pick on whether these are Wagner forces rushing in from Kreminna, or “tactical rescue teams” that have swooped down from Svatove, or four units of the “58th army” cruising down from the north to save the day; these folks are convinced that these forces already are, or soon will be, planting that Russian flag in Lyman forever.
The other half of Russian sources are busy reporting that Russian forces are already abandoning their last positions in Lyman, and describe heavy fighting near Zarichne as the Russian forces that formerly held Drobysheve, Yampil, and Lyman make a last-ditch effort at escape.
Here’s what we know for sure. This is Drobysheve: [Tweet and video showing Ukrainian troops with a flag.]
This is Yampil. [Tweet and video showing Ukrainian troops in the area of and in Yampil, Donetsk Oblast.]
The sources that have been most reliable in the past indicate that Russia is attempting to hold the road out of Lyman open with “all available resources.” That accounts for the heavy fighting at the intersection between Zarichne and Torske. But it seems far more likely those forces are holding the road open in an effort to get people out, than they are trying to get more people into a position that has become an obviously unsustainable deathtrap. Putting more men into Lyman would be nothing short of murdering them. Even for Russia, that would be next-level foolish.
If Russia is doing anything right now, it’s a salvage operation, in hopes of getting as much equipment out of Lyman as possible before it all ends up with a new Ukraine-themed paint job. [map at the link]
What even more sources are talking about is: What comes next? And most Russian forces fear that what comes next is a Ukrainian move toward Svatove.
As things draw to a close in the Lyman area, Russia is reportedly reinforcing a number of towns to the north east, in an attempt to prevent a Ukrainian advance on Svatove from the direction of Lyman. That includes hardening at least four towns—Pershotavneve, Serhiivka, Kovalivka, and Makiivka—which have been marked on the map with special “Russia is reinforcing here” squares. Whether these reinforcements are more real than the east-west line that Russia was supposedly building at Borova remains to be seen.
The problem for Russia in defending Svatove is that, while it can be reinforced and resupplied from many directions, it can also be attacked from almost any direction. If Russia reinforces that narrow highway running north past Zarinche, Ukraine might choose to move east to Kreminna, take that city, then move up the much nicer P66 highway. They might even decide, while they’re in the neighborhood, to take a look at Rubizhne, Lysychansk, and Severodonetsk.
That’s just the southern side of things. Over along the Oskil River to the north, Ukraine has been solidifying an expanding the bridgehead made at Kupyansk and Dvorichna (off map to the north). In the past few days, they’ve been systematically fighting off Russian attempts to roll back their gains in this area, while continuing to move down river. That includes liberating Kivsharivka, the third-largest city in Kharkiv Oblast east of the Oskil.
There are reports on Friday that Ukraine has already liberated Hlushkivka and Kolisnykivka, bringing this southward advance into the area directly across from Senkove. That places them just 15 kilometers north of Borova. Other Ukranian forces moving up the river from the south entered the south edge of Borova two days ago. As the area around Lyman gets cleaned up, expect Borova to get extra attention from both directions—and for Russia to once again be in a position of deciding not how to hold the city, but how best to get out.
There is a road running east out of Borova to Pershotavneve. As long as that remains open, Russia can extract its troops. But Lyman has demonstrated once again that Ukraine is able to maneuver to cut off lines of supply and communication. Borova likely has days, not weeks, before the garrison there has to surrender or flee.
With Borova clear, Ukraine can go … anywhere it wants, really. Russia may feel that Svatove is the obvious target, and since that is reportedly the site of most of the troops and equipment that Russia managed to pull out of Kharkiv in the face of the counteroffensive, taking Svatove would seem to be a very serious blow.
On the other hand, both at Lyman and Balakliya, back at the start of the counteroffensive, Ukraine did not do the Russian thing of hurling themselves headlong at the most fortified position. They did the smart thing, bypassing Russia’s “hard point,” getting into the weakly protected backfield, and using quick, decisive actions to isolate and weaken the fortified position before returning to pick it up almost as an afterthought.
The same thing could happen with Svatove. Even if Ukraine makes this location its next target, don’t expect them to just roll up to the city and sit under Russian guns. Expect them to hit Russia where it’s weakest, and to take Svatove when it’s ready to fall.
However, softening up that city, or any other, may be made a lot easier by some crates of new ammo seen lingering in Ukraine. [Tweet and image showing new rockets received by Ukraine]
[…] it’s hard to get a sense of what an impact these weapons have on the battlefield. This isn’t the kind of rocket that’s designed to take out Russian bridges or Russian supply depots. It’s the kind that’s designed to take out Russians. And you really need to watch the following video to get some understanding of just how frightening it is. [Tweet and video with viewing warning available at the link]
This is a weapon that is designed to clear enemy forces from an area greater than 100 meters by 100 meters with one shot. And it can be delivered with a range up to 90 kilometers. It doesn’t seem that Ukraine has so far used the M30A1 in action because otherwise, clusters of soldiers like those which were holding out in Lyman … probably wouldn’t exist.
What does this weapon mean for those who have pondered its use in Ukraine? It means that a full pod of these rockets on an M270 could do this. [Tweet at the link]
Meanwhile, this is how Russia is using its few high-precision weapons. {Tweet and video about civilians killed in Zaporizhzhia Oblast as they waited in line.]
[…] in the last few minutes as I’ve been writing this, reports have come in that both the remaining forces at Lyman and the forces trying to hold the road open are now surrounded. [map at the link]
This is a good look at that one road that may or may not be in Ukrainian hands, but in any case, is an easy artillery target:
Lyman is now surrounded and cut off after a week of Ukraining pushing. One road to the east is the single evacuation point for 5k (or so) Russians with zero cover. There’s a primary Russian supply line. Here’s that road. [image at the link]
I’d hate to run that gauntlet. (Take “5K Russians” number with a grain of salt. The numbers I’ve seen are more like 2,000-3,500, but even those seem to be wild-ass guesses.)
Nobody is going to support Putin on this. [referendums]
BREAKING: China and India abstains in resolution at the UN to condemn #Russia’s referendums in Ukraine
Russia invaded Ukraine. No one invaded Russia. So how is it that Europe is now dealing with 1.3M Russian refugees?
Latest on 🇪🇺-🇷🇺 borders:
🔹66 000 Russian citizens have entered the EU over the past week, a 30% increase in comparison to the preceding week
🔹Most of the Russian citizens are entering the EU through Finnish and Estonian border crossing points
More […]
In an entirely expected development considering the poisonous hatred being spewed by leading MAGA Republicans about immigration and immigrants, two men have been arrested in the Thursday shootings of two undocumented migrants in rural west Texas. One of the migrants was killed and another is recovering in a hospital in El Paso. According to the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), the migrants were attacked while they were among a group getting water near a road in Hudspeth County, roughly 90 miles east-southeast of El Paso.
One of the suspects, Mike Sheppard, had been the warden of a private immigration jail, the West Texas Detention Center, run by LaSalle Corrections, a private prison company based in Louisiana. The jail operates under contract with the federal government. The company said Sheppard had been fired from that position following the shootings. The other suspect, Mark Sheppard, was the twin brother of the former warden. [JFC]
And here’s another surprise that also isn’t the least bit surprising: The detention center has been the subject of multiple allegations of abusive and violent treatment of immigrants, according to The Intercept. [sheesh]
As of yet, the accused killers, who have inexplicably only been charged with manslaughter, haven’t been guests on Tucker Carlson’s show, perhaps because producers are still arranging to have an appropriately grand parade float built for them.
We’ll just go with the account of Thursday’s shootings in the New York Times, which is based on investigators’ affidavits. The migrants had been crossing through the desert about 16 miles north of the US-Mexico border, walking
in a group along a roadway near Sierra Blanca around 7 p.m. when they stopped at a water tank, according to the affidavits. As the pickup truck approached, the group, which included at least four people, tried to hide. The truck drove by and then stopped and backed up, according to the filings.
The driver then left the pickup truck, according to the affidavits.
During interviews with federal agents, the migrants said that they had heard one of the men shout in Spanish for them to “Come out,” peppering his language with profanity, before revving the engine of the truck, according to the affidavits. The revving of the engine led the migrants to believe that the truck was leaving, at which point, they told investigators, the two shots were fired, according to the affidavits.
The driver leaned on the truck’s hood and fired two shots at the group of migrants before climbing back in and driving away, according to the affidavits. One shot hit one of the migrants in the head, killing him; another shot hit a female migrant in the stomach, the official said. She was taken to a hospital, where she was recovering, according to a statement from the Texas Department of Public Safety, which is investigating the case.
The Bad Sheppards told police that they had been out hunting for animals to shoot, and that they pulled over because they thought they’d seen javelina, desert-dwelling critters similar to wild boars that are native to the Southwest.
Mark Sheppard said that they had stopped the truck because they believed they had spotted a javelina, according to the affidavits, and he said his brother had left the truck with a shotgun and had fired two times. Neither of them went to check on whether they had struck anything, he said, according to the affidavits.
He denied to the police that either man had yelled anything before opening fire, according to the affidavits, and afterward, the men left to attend a county water board meeting.
All very innocent-like because when you go shooting at wild game that you don’t necessarily care about eating, you don’t even look to see if you hit anything, especially if it screams like a human, we would assume.
In a press statement for the ages, LaSalle Corrections spokesperson Scott Sutterfield managed to say that Mike Sheppard had been shitcanned following the shootings, although you wouldn’t know that from the statement, which didn’t name Sheppard or mention anything about a shooting, migrants, or death. Sutterfield “explained” that
the warden at the West Texas Detention Center (WTDC), Sierra Blanca, TX has been terminated due to an off-duty incident unrelated to his employment.
The TexasTribune also summarizes what a fine operation Mike Sheppard ran until he was fired literally yesterday, because apparently you can keep running a private immigration jail no matter what you’re publicly accused of, as long as there’s no criminal charges:
A 2018 report found officials at the Sierra Blanca facility had grievously abused 80 men who were detained at the center. Over a week, the men faced beatings, racial taunts and sexual abuse at the hands of the center’s officials who were under the leadership of Mike Sheppard at the time. The Intercept reported the allegations more than four years ago.
Mike Sheppard was accused of punching a man in the face and kicking him while he was handcuffed on the ground in solitary confinement, according to The Intercept.
Before the 2018 incident, the West Texas facility came under scrutiny from Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Office of Detention Oversight, citing health services deficiencies and a lack of training on how to use nonlethal weapons. Inmates at the time resorted to using plastic bags for toilets and had to kill a rattlesnake found in their sleeping quarters when officials failed to respond.
That 2018 report that sparked the Intercept story was investigated and written jointly by RAICES, the Texas A&M Law School’s Immigrant Rights Clinic, and the U of Texas Law School’s Immigration Clinic. It details numerous human rights abuses against the African migrants, including sexual assault, beatings, indiscriminate use of pepper spray, denial of medical and mental health care, and retaliatory use of solitary confinement — in one case after a man had asked for socks and underwear. The same man said he’d been locked in a “cage” for one or two hours, wearing only boxer shorts, after “talking too loud to the Warden” — again, Mike Sheppard.
The report also says Sheppard regularly used racist language toward the migrants:
For instance, the warden told Tafia, “Shut your black ass up. You don’t deserve nothing. You belong at the back of that cage” when he asked for underwear and socks. The Warden also picked Dalmar out a group of detainees that had been pepper sprayed and threatened, “Boy, I’m going to show you. You’re my [B-word].” Yuusuf also reported hearing the Warden say “now you belong to me, boy” to another Somali detainee.
Other officers also regularly used racial slurs, because of course they did.
The Tribune notes that its reporters hadn’t been able to determine, as of late yesterday, “what, if any, action federal officials took after the report was released and published.” Sheppard certainly managed to keep his job.
Also unclear at this point is why the brothers were only charged with manslaughter in the killing; law enforcement agencies just aren’t saying much of anything so far.
We’re sure that the nonstop demonization of migrants by rightwing officials and media figures had nothing to do with this incident, which couldn’t possibly be predicted after years of undocumented immigrants being called invaders who are literally making war on the USA. And certainly not after Donald Trump himself fantasized on multiple occasions about shooting people at the border. Just rogue lone wolves, wholly disconnected from a rightwing media environment that dehumanizes undocumented immigrants. Besides, they illegally crossed the border, which is a misdemeanor, making them criminals.
Now all we have to wait for will be Tucker Carlson getting very resentful that anyone would suggest that patriots like him, Greg Abbott, Ron DeSantis, and Donald Trump are in any way responsible for the actions of a crazy racist who happens to agree with them, the end.
blfsays
SC@487, One of replies to that twittering is this twittering (quoted in full after converting the JPEG image to text via OCR and a few manual fix-ups & formatting tweaks):
In front of the Black Gate
– Carlo Musso
Putin declared the annexation to Russia of the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia (largely under Ukrainian control) following the (false) referendum held in recent days. The immediate consequence Dmitry Peskov — the Mouth of Putin — said, is that any Ukrainian counterattack in the occupied territories will henceforth be considered an attack on Russia. Which would also allow the use of the nuclear option…
This situation reminded me of chapter 10 of book 5 of The Lord of the Rings, where the Mouth of Sauron crosses the Black Gate to give the Men of the West its ultimatum:
These are the terms, said the Messenger, and smiled as he eyed them one by one. The rabble of Gondor and its deluded allies shall withdraw at once beyond the Anduin, first taking oaths never again to assail Sauron the Great in arms, open or secret. All lands east of the Anduin shall be Sauron’s for ever, solely. West of the Anduin as afar as the Misty Mountains and the Gap of Rohan shall be tributary to Mordor, and men there shall bear no weapons, but shall have leave to govern their own affairs.
Annexation, demilitarization … same things then and now
But also Zelenskiy’s statement: “Russia’s recognition of the pseudo-referendum as ‘normal’ and yet another attempt at annexation of Ukrainian territory mean that there is nothing to talk about with the current Russian president”, recalls Gandalf’s answer to the Mouth of Sauron:
“As for your terms, we reject them utterly. Get you gone, for your embassy is over and death is near to you. We did not come here to waste words in treating with Sauron, faithless and accursed”.
The parallel between history and reality, however, stops there… In reality there is no ring to destroy in the lava of Mount Doom to end the realm of evil, but at the same time Putin is not at all powerful as Sauron, although perhaps just as evil as him…
At this point it would be useless, dangerous and even surreal even to think of opening any kind of discussion with those who, from the beginning, have always behaved as a liar, deceiver and untrustworthy.
There is only one winning strategy for the West, and that’s to ensure Ukraine the military support necessary for a complete victory, with the recovery of all stolen territories, including Crimea, while also preparing for a deeper and more direct involvement in case of a final escalation by the Russians.
If we want the values of freedom and democracy on which we are still struggling to build a better world not to be trampled on by those who think they are imposing their will with the use of force and the abuse of lies, we cannot be frightened even by worst threats.
On the contrary, we must respond like Aragorn in front of the Black Gate, when, while thinking that all hope was lost, it was still necessary to fight for the just cause, even at the cost of one’s life:
“Let the Lord of the Black Land come forth! Justice shall be done upon him. For wrongfully he has made war upon Gondor and wrestedits lands. Therefore the King of Gondor demands that he should atone for his evils, and depart then for ever”.
A rift has emerged in the Danish royal family following a decision by Queen Margrethe to strip four of her eight grandchildren of their royal titles in order to “future-proof” the monarchy…
Everyone on Twitter was talking about what CPAC tweeted, but they then deleted it so I didn’t know what it was in full.
Finally someone posted a screen shot:
Vladimir Putin announces the annexation of 4 Ukrainian-occupied territories. Biden and the Dems continue to send Ukraine billions of taxpayer dollars. Meanwhile, we are under attack at our southern border. When will Democrats put #AmericaFirst and end the gift-giving to Ukraine?
It’s amazing that they tweeted this right after “The U.S. and the Holocaust” aired.
ravensays
When will Democrats put #AmericaFirst and end the gift-giving to Ukraine?
They are putting America first.
Russia is a huge threat to the whole world right now, including us.
And just who is giving gifts here?
We are supporting Ukraine with money and what money buys, which are weapons.
They are spending the lives of their children, killed and wounded by the tens of thousands in close combat with the Russian army.
Money is just money, it comes and goes and is replaceable.
Once you are permanently injured or dead, that is forever.
Ukraine is paying by far the higher price.
If we spend $40 billion on Ukraine this year, my share is a whole $121, I spent more than that on rock concert tickets this summer. I spend more than that in coffee houses per year.
It is the best $121 I can think of to spend.
I question the morality of fighting to the last Ukrainian though on something that seriously concerns us all.
The Wagner-linked Telegram channel Grey Zone says that “until recently it was possible to withdraw from Lyman and preserve personnel, but due to Putin’s speech, they weren’t allowed to lose”
“Unprecedented” measures are now being taken to deblockade them
“Ukrainian morale +1,000,000”
“215 Ukrainians for 55 Russians and just one Viktor Medvedchuk”
“Another life lost… 16 yr old #ZakariaKhial has been shot by #Iran’s security forces on Tuesday, in Piranshahr. He was protesting the death of #Mahsa_Amini…”
RIP.
Fuck you, theocratic murderers.
LOL:
Leave room for a white flag!
“Amazing how Zelensky just stole the show the same day Putin said he was calling in the cavalry. Now the ultras in Russia are pissed and everyone else is trying to flee the country.”
Julia Ioffe: “It seems a protestor, a young woman, in Moscow has been killed by police who clubbed her in the head.”
Video from the scene at the (Twitter) link.
IANAH and don’t even play a historian online.
But I’ve learned a lot about Ukraine just by following the war.
And yeah, the Russians have spent centuries trying to destroy the Ukrainian cultural identity. That is a lot of what the current invasion is about.
Stalin made an attempt by arresting all the Ukrainian writers and artists he could find and just killing them. This even has a name, the executed Renaissance of Ukraine.
The Russians did this everywhere they conquered, killed and deported the native intelligensia, notably the Baltic states. They are still doing it in Belarus where the Belarussian language is under continual attack and fading away.
Elliot Higgins: “Sounds like Russian nationalists aren’t taking the prisoner swap well.”
:)
“This wave of persecution in the book publishing industry rolled on top of another one the year before.” The dictator of Belarus has shut down the book publishing businesses in the Belarusian language.
“On the night of October 29, 1937, which is now remembered as the Night of the Assassinated Poets, more than a hundred Belarusian writers, poets, artists and scientists were executed in Minsk on the orders of Joseph Stalin and his associates.”
Where have we seen this before?
Hardly anyone speaks Belarusian any more. Polls show 10% of the population uses it in their day to day life.
Christopher Miller:
“Breaking: @CNN reporting 11th Circuit court of appeals panel has quickly ruled in favor of DOJ and against Trump. DOJ can proceed with documents investigation, and not disclose classified docs to Trump team. Expect Trump to delay by asking for full court to review en banc.”
WARNING tl/dr for former Military Intelligence and still an historian.
About 15 years ago, the Russian Army decided to make a major change. They decided to recreate the Russian Army in the Western mold.
Western armies, including the United States Army, actually, all NATO armies, are based, at least somewhat, on the pre-World War I German army. Specifically: a professional officer class with higher education, a professional non-commissioned officer (NCO) corps, an active-duty army and a reserve army which are both trained to (reasonably) to the same professional standards. In the US, this means that officers often have masters, or doctorate degrees in their specialties. It means that NCOs are long-term professional soldiers, often holding college degrees (one of my Drill Instructors at Fort Leonard Wood had an MS in psychology and a PhD in public management). And these two groups, the officers and NCOs, are of similar experience, education and professional development in both the reserves and active duty forces. In the US Army, the officer decides what needs to be done and, if he or she is worth his or her salt, leaves it to the NCOs, who always have more experience than junior officers (up to and including Majors and Lieutenant Colonels), to decide the proper tools and methods to achieve the desired result. Almost all the training is handled by the professional NCO corp. And the NCOs have both the academic knowledge and the experience to handle most things that come up in, or out, of a combat situation. The sergeants are the institutional memory of the Western armies. Two of my DIs were Vietnam veterans. They had seen the elephant almost 20 years before. Additionally, the Western army has a huge tail — supply, ammunition, repair, food, etc. — with only about 15% in actual combat positions and 85% in support positions. This may seem like a bad thing, but it means that those fighting — sailors, marines, soldiers, airmen — actually have the tools needed for almost any situation.
Soviet-bloc armies are also based on a professional officer corp. And the similarity ended there. All enlisted personnel were short term soldiers — a two-year enlistment — with new classes entering the military every six months. NCOs, the sergeants, are the brightest or most enthusiastic recruits and are given a little specialist weapons training. So, for a recruit in a Soviet-style army, the first six months are spent learning how to be a soldier, think like a soldier, react like a soldier, and how to handle the tools. For the last six months of the two-year enlistment, in most units, the senior soldiers got first call on duties, food, clothing, everything. The final quarter soldiers, in many units, also hazed the newbies, sometimes resulting in deaths. The sergeants had no authority and, more important, no institutional memory. The junior officers filled the role of the NCOs in the Western armies. Which means that they had about the same experience with weapons and tactics as the soldiers (and sometimes less), but also had no institutional memory. The Red Army/Soviet Army had to learn the same lessons every time the junior officers were promoted. The junior officers not only had to be the junior officers, but also the junior and senior NCOs. And the logistical tail of the Soviet-style army was about 20% (compared to 85% in the US military). This situation continued into the early 2000s.
Around 2005, Russia decided that they wanted a professional army, similar to the German, French, Italian, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, British, American and Canadian armies. The massive stores of equipment — guns, tanks, IFVs, APCs, AAA vehicles, etc. — were no longer maintained as, with a Western-style army, a unit of a given size would have much better training, better equipment (because they didn’t need as much), better morale (because of better training and pay), and much higher combat capabilities than the same size unit in the Soviet-style army. This was seen as a way to develop a much more effective military at a lower cost (fewer soldiers and weapons) so that Russia, with its much-reduced post-empire borders, would be able to match NATOs combat power.
The programme failed. Yes, there were now some professional soldiers, but the living conditions were still so harsh, the pay so bad, that very few saw any future in a career as an enlisted soldier. So they filled it in with short-term recruits and draftees. Who were still in for a very short time. And the stores, the equipment, was scrapped or ignored (which is worse than scrapping). Plus, the Russians never addressed the logistical issues.
To me, what happened to the Russian Army in Ukraine came as a mild surprise. I was aware of the issues with Russia’s army both before and after the restructuring. I thought Russia would have problems with the tail — supply, ammunition, medical care, food — but I didn’t realize it would be this bad.
Putin’s decision to bring 300,000 ex-soldiers back into the army will be an even bigger disaster. Remember, these are the people who decided that a career in the army was not in the cards. These are the recruits who went in, learned the minimum, and got the hell out. With no professional NCO corps to train these ‘reservists’ (who really are not reserves, just ex-service members) in new weapons (the few the Russians have been able to actually build), tactics, lessons learned from the battlefield, or any of the hundreds of things that an experienced professional soldier knows and, if they are good, teaches, these soldiers will be cannon fodder. And the logistical tail, shrunk severely by interdiction missions by the Ukraine Army, just got even smaller. Three hundred thousand out-of-shape ex-soldiers equipped with poorly stored weapons, partial uniforms, no combat experience, and no supplies? Sounds like a recipe for an even bigger disaster.
Russian military leaders are worried. When this surge fails, Putin will want bigger weapons — nukes. However, nuclear weapons, even sitting on a shelf in a controlled environment, degrade. Explosives are, by definition, unstable. The shaped charges used to compress the fissionable material into a critical mass degrade and become problematic after as little as 20 years. Fissionable materials, themselves, are radioactive, which means that the actual chemical composition of the nuclear part of the weapon actually changes over time, building up, in some cases, poisons which will impede nuclear fission. Fusion weapons, the thermonuclear weapons, depend on tritium which is, short term, not very stable. Will they work? Will they splutter in partial fission? No one knows. Because the Russians have not been able to afford the expertise to actually maintain the nuclear force.
Does that mean it is a paper dragon? No. I’m sure some would work. Enough to cause massive casualties and enough to ensure return bombardments (Russian weapons would have to be aimed at large targets (cities) because of poorer targeting hardware and software. The Soviets made up for this by using much larger throw weight. US weapons tend to have much lower throw weight and much more precise targeting.) So if Putin decides to hit Germany or England (most likely aimed at cities) the return would be aimed at missile launch facilities, military targets, and command, control, communications and intelligence (C3I). The fallout would still be deadly but we in the west can assuage our conscience by knowing that we didn’t actually target the civilians.
No matter what, Putin’s current trajectory is, at best, a death sentence for tens of thousands of Russian soldiers. At worst, well, think Alas, Babylon, or On the Beach. Or maybe Putin is very close to deciding to commit suicide.
Not sure if any of that is helpful, but it has been percolating in my mind since the talk about the escalation of the war and I just needed to write it down.
Hitler and Stalin both did the same thing to Poland’s intelligentsia after the partition of Poland. Hitler to remove any leaders from a nation of slaves, Stalin to destroy the potential leaders of an anti-Soviet resistance.
I strongly recommend Bloodlands. It is well-written, includes personal stories to illustrate the larger plot, and is truly horrifying.
Damn. I worship at the feet of Tpyos, and hir accolyte, htmailia.
Good news: Appeals court allows DOJ to resume review of classified records in Trump case
NBC News:
Senator Elizabeth Warren made the point that the Federal Reserve only has one tool, changing interest rates. However, there are problems that need to be addressed with other tools. There’s the COVID pandemic, which is still affecting economies on a worldwide basis, and still hobbling supply chains. Congress should provide more funds to combat COVID, and the Biden administration should continue the push for booster vaccinations, testing, treatment, etc. There’s the war in Ukraine, which affects food supplies, energy supplies, etc., etc. And, she said, there are still some corporations that are price gouging.
Senator Warren made the point that raising the interest rate will also increase unemployment in the USA, so that raising of interest rates should not be the only tool being used.
Oggie, FYI – Timothy Snyder is on MSNBC with Alex Wagner right now.
Snyder’s course “The Making of Modern Ukraine” at Yale this semester is also available on YouTube. Each class is posted two or three days after it meets.
Laughable.
Link
Well that’s understandable: she’s still dead!
@Oggie:
That was a very good read!!
Update to my 495 on the previous page: According to this story (in Finnish) there is modest increase in traffic from Russia to Finland since yesterday:
https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-12634326
This is like weekend level traffic, not any unusual rush. Thus far, Russian border officials aren’t trying to stop men/reservists from leaving the country.
Also, this thread (in English) explains in more detail what I meant by the likely impending “border closure”:
https://twitter.com/minna_alander/status/1572837745143291904
Three former SSRs, have said it is a felony crime for their citizens to go fight in Ukraine on the side of the Russians. The penalty is 5-10 years in prison.
This is the day after Russia said it would give citizenship to foreigners who fight in Ukraine.
Two of these countries, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, are members of the Russian NATO equivalent, CSTO.
It’s clear that the CSTO doesn’t do much and also clear that they aren’t on Russia’s side at all.
It seems like they know that if Ukraine falls, they are next.
Putin wants to recreate the USSR and they were once part of…the USSR.
@23: This is the day after Russia said it would give citizenship to foreigners who fight in Ukraine.
Wow, what an incentive.
/s
Yes it was.
There is a lot of information coming out of this war about Russia and Ukraine.
Some of it of dubious reliability.
To take one example, Ukraine gives the number of Russian dead soldiers as ca. 50,000 and the US estimate is more like 25,000. The Russians are claiming 6,000.
The Russians always lie so we can ignore their number.
I have no way of knowing whether the Ukraine or US estimates are correct.
Philadelphia Flyers Mascot Gritty on His ‘Abbott Elementary’ Cameo: ‘I’m Not in the Business of Explaining Myself’ (EXCLUSIVE)
At least the Russian are on time.
This is the daily threat from the Russians to kill me and my cat with nuclear weapons. Along with a few million of my closest friends.
Medvedev is a loon and a troll.
He is also a very high ranking Russian official and is a former President of the Russian Federation.
Russia is what you get when internet trolls run a country.
FWIW, a recent paper in Nature analyzed what happens in an all out nuclear exchange between Russia and the West.
Five billion people will die in the aftermath.
Russian President Vladimir Putin
Putin claimed that Western countries had “crossed every line” and tried to “blackmail” Russia with nuclear weapons.
Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev gives an interview at the Gorki state residence outside Moscow, Russia, January 25, 2022. (credit: SPUTNIK/YULIA ZYRYANOVA/POOL VIA REUTERS)
Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev gives an interview at the Gorki state residence outside Moscow, Russia, January 25, 2022. (credit: SPUTNIK/YULIA ZYRYANOVA/POOL VIA REUTERS)
“We are talking not only about the shelling of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, which is encouraged by the West, which threatens a nuclear catastrophe, but also about the statements of some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO states about the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction against Russia – nuclear weapons,” said Putin.
“To those who allow themselves to make such statements about Russia, I would like to remind you that our country also has various means of destruction, and for some components more modern than those of the NATO countries. And if the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people. It’s not a bluff.”
“Those who are trying to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the wind can turn in their direction,” warned the Russian president, adding that Russia will use “all available means.”
Putin claimed that the West is trying to “weaken and destroy Russia,” adding that “When the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people. This is not a bluff.”
Is nuclear war possible?
A senior Biden administration official dismissed Putin’s nuclear-charged language on Wednesday, saying “we have heard him before wave around the nuclear card, and we heard it again in his speech today. And, in fact, the language and formula he used today is quite similar to how he’s spoken before.”
Tags Nuclear Russia ukraine Ukraine-Russia War
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YitzIsrael
2 hours ago
Russia can choose its own path within its own borders. It cannot invade other countries, such as the Ukraine, and force its path on them.
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1 Putin announces partial mobilization, NATO deems it ‘reckless’ People gather at a tram stop in front of a board displaying a portrait of Russian service member Sergei Tserkovniy in Saint Petersburg, Russia September 21, 2022. A slogan on the board reads: “Glory to heroes of Russia!”
2 Egyptian mummy cheese? Researchers find 2,600-year-old cheese at necropolis Montgomery’s cheddar cheese
3 Israeli archeologists discover ‘once-in-a-lifetime find’ of ancient pottery under beach The vessels from 3,300 years ago discovered at Palmachim Beach.
4 WHO ‘strongly advises against’ use of two COVID treatments A logo is pictured outside a building of the World Health Organization (WHO) during an executive board meeting on update on the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Geneva, Switzerland, April 6, 2021.
5 Donald Trump offered Israel’s West Bank to Jordan’s King Abdullah in 2018 – report Trump and Abdullah
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That 5 billion killed in a nuclear war isn’t just pulled out of the air.
We now have a good understanding of what fires and soot do in the atmosphere due to global warming research and weather research.
WARNING–DARK HUMOR ALERT
A full nuclear exchange would also exacerbate atmospheric CO2, of course, contributing to ocean acidification, but, look at the bright side: global warming would slow, or even reverse, for a couple of years.
You really can not make this shit up:
So does that mean that the documents are still classified because Trump really doesn’t do thinking stuff? Does the responsible agency magically pick up the mental vibes from the President? Or do the thoughts of the President change the actual classification on the documents themselves?
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Here’s a link to the tweet from Shaun Walker, with the subtitled video. Well done.
Guardian – “Iran blocks capital’s internet access as Amini protests grow”:
Sec. Blinken:
Rob Lee:
Guardian liveblog:
Christiane Amanpour:
Could also have been an opportunity for more Holocaust denial, so there’s that.
“Russian MP Vitaly Milonov, author of the notorious ‘gay propaganda’ law, says there are big benefits for Russians going to fight in Ukraine
He says they’ll be able to pay off their mortgages early and now have the chance to show that they’re ‘real Russian men'”
Subtitled video at the (Twitter) link. Clown.
Guardian liveblog:
I’ve seen a number of similar reports:
Yeah, it sure will.
There aren’t even that many Buryats in Russia.
It is a small minority of 461, 389 people who make up a much larger proportion of the Russian military in Ukraine.
They are being used as cannon fodder and they know it.
Julia Davis:
Subtitled video and link at the (Twitter) link. “If there’s a Leopard 2 on their side and on ours a T-62, that is not a very persuasive picture.”
Link
Too farcical — can’t top it with satire.
Mykhailo Podolyak:
More on the Russian mobilization.
The actual number is up to 1 million people to be mobilized.
Russia doesn’t have the money to support and arm 300,000 people much less 1 million people. Not without raising taxes and cutting services anyway.
This isn’t going to go over well in Russia.
Republicans getting it wrong regarding immigrants and immigration laws:
Link
Floridians, vote for Democratic Rep. Val Demings. She is running against Marco Rubio. She would make a far better Senator to represent Florida.
What Marco Rubio said as recently as April:
Now Rubio has changed his tune. He has decided to lie. He has decided to promote disinformation about Venezuelan asylum seekers.
Highway hypocrisy trips up Ted Cruz in embarrassing fashion
The Texas Republican was delighted to brag about delivering a “great victory” for his constituents. He neglected to mention that he voted against it.
House Republicans reject bill to prevent future coup attempts
In theory, the bipartisan Presidential Election Reform Act should’ve passed with an overwhelming majority. In practice, Republicans had other ideas.
Ukraine update: The celebrated Azovstal defenders from Mariupol are free, and so are American POWs
More at the link.
The release of defenders of Ukraine from captivity was met with a long line of ambulances, and with a large group of first responders who helped the wounded into ambulances.
Link
What Trump said yesterday:
Trump knew about the process required to declassify documents:
Link
Andrew Roth in the Guardian – “‘It’s a 100% mobilisation’: day one of Russia’s drive to build its army”:
Much more at the link.
Lynna @ # 45: … Democratic Rep. Val Demings… would make a far better Senator to represent Florida.
After living in Florida more than half my life, I have to quibble with this.
While Rep. Demings would certainly make a better Senator than Marco Rubio, she seems basically sane and grounded in factuality, and thus would not represent Florida as well as the incumbent deranged dishonest dingbat.
He thinks he’s a Sith Lord.
Ukrainian MFA Dmytro Kuleba was on with Colbert last night (YT link) – “‘We Know How To Win. And We Will’. – Dmytro Kuleba, Minister Of Foreign Affairs, Ukraine”:
OMG Hallie Jackson is interviewing Trevor Reed (US Marine freed from Russia in April in a prisoner swap) on MSNBC right now and he’s wearing a NAFO/OFAN t-shirt.
Oggie: Mathom @12: I found this post very helpful. I have been following the war since before it started, and get most of my leads as to where to read from posts here. As things move from moment to moment, having a more distant view of the how and why just makes pieces slip into place in my mind.
If only empathy and longing for good outcomes worked the way prayer is supposed to, this would all be over. I feel helpless in the face of all that’s going on in the world, but am grateful to know as much as I can about those who are giving their lives to try and save it. Thanks, as always, to the folks here who keep us informed!
Republicans block bill requiring dark money groups to reveal donors
Wonkette: “Law Closing In On Brett Favre” [and others]
The BBC has a piece giving some background on the hijab protests in Iran – “Iran protests: Mahsa Amini’s death puts morality police under spotlight”:
Much more at the link.
Christopher Miller:
From BBC reporter Shayan Sardarizadeh’s ongoing thread about the protests in Iran:
What a photo.
Put up or shut up:
Washington Post link
Clipped from The Atlantic , but it shows up all over the place:
So how many wins did Trump have this week? or the week before? Or during August? Or during this whole year?
Miami Herald – “Company hired to arrange DeSantis’ migrant flights is tied to high-level state official”:
Louisiana ‘Career Fair’ Turns Into Church Group Telling Teen Girls to Forgive Rapists
Central Park ‘Karen’ Loses Lawsuit Over Being Fired for Racism
“Dozens of political activists and journalists have been arrested on Thursday evening as protests continue in #Iran. According to a human rights organisation at least 30 people are killed but the number is expected to be higher.”
They’re arresting and killing people because it’s so important to them that women put fabric on their heads. Find a productive use of your time and leave women alone.
David Rohde of the New Yorker just told Alex Wagner that he has information that the FBI is investigating Trump potentially having been showing people classified documents at Mar a Lago, among other unconfirmed leads.
“Night after night tucker Carlson spews out Kremlin propaganda”
Sorry – #70 is a Twitter link with a video clip.
Ukraine update: Ukraine reportedly breaks Russian lines east of Oskil River
Humor from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
Some great breaking news here :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-23/un-finds-australia-violated-torres-strait-islanders-rights/101470524
Although not sure how much impact it will have both here and internationally?
For those who watch free to air telly in Oz – perhaps very small group here but still – some good docos on TV tonight. (23rd Sept 22.) DOCO ALERTS : C96 (9Rush) tonight from 9.30 pm ‘Through the Wormhole’ on parallel universes & then 10.30 pm ”How the Universe Works’ on deadly stars includiing supernovae, rogue stars and vampire stars plus more. Details via ABC’s online TV Guide :
How The Universe Works
Friday, 23 Sep
10:31 PM – 11:32 PM [61 mins]pg
The universe is home to real-life Death Stars that could destroy planet Earth. The latest science reveals the terrifying secrets of NASA’s six deadliest: vampire stars, supernovas , and unpredictable stars gone rogue.
&&&
Through The Wormhole With Morgan Freeman
Friday, 23 Sep
9:31 PM – 10:31 PM [60 mins]pg
Scientists explore the possibility of parallel worlds and parallel versions of reality; intelligent life in these alternate worlds might be trying to send us messages.
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/tv/epg/#/
With Nine minute clip ondead stars excerpt of the show here
.
And Trump is probably surprised that being President helped to bring this on.
Silly grand jury. Right wingers are above the law.
The only difference is he didn’t use code words or dog whistles.
DeSantis to face trial. In court. Where reality actually matters.
On another note, Wife and I sit our granddaughters (3 1/2 year old twins) four days a week. Which means that we have been tuning in to PBS children’s programming. Most of it is meh. However, Donkey Hotay is really well done. And it even has easter eggs for the adults: King Friday the XIII, for instance.
I have discovered that I can sing Dr. Suess’s ABC book. All except for W. W does not fit the ABC melody.
I am also working on adapting Green Eggs and Ham for a cappella voice. One voice for Sam I Am, one voice for the one who won’t eat Green Eggs and Ham. If I can get the melodies right, I’ll send it to my dad and sister who sing in a chorale. I bet it would work.
Currently making ham and bean soup to celebrate actually closing the windows and putting on a flannel shirt.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
The US has noticed that Putin/Russia keep threatening to kill us all.
They’ve been warning the Russians that this isn’t a good idea.
To state the obvious, if Putin starts using nukes, even tactical nuclear weapons, that is an admission that Russia has lost its war of genocide in Ukraine. Winners wouldn’t have to use nukes.
And we will somehow retaliate.
“The Biden administration generally has decided to keep warnings about the consequences of a nuclear strike deliberately vague…”
Oh well, not only did they not ask me, the Biden administration isn’t going to tell me either.
PS: This is bringing up all sorts of memories, none of them good.
I grew up during the Cold War in nuclear weaponsville.
We lived near a Trident nuclear submarine base, an ICBM assembly plant, and not too far from a plutonium producing reactor complex.
We knew if there was a nuclear war, we would be vaporized first.
I was 5 years old when I started asking my parents about our bomb shelter.
Marina Hyde in the Guardian – “If you are poor, it’s time to ask yourself: have you thought of simply being rich?”
By the way, before meeting with Truss on Tuesday Biden tweeted:
“A freshly recruited alco-battalion in Sakhalin prepares for deployment to the front
In the video (amidst lots of obscenities) they say they’re on their way to a short stint of training in Kamchatka before heading to Ukraine…”
Video at the (Twitter) link. I…
Wife and I feel much the same way. She grew up just north of DC and vividly remembers duck and cover drills. I spent middle school and high school near Hagerstown, MD — Fairchild Industries (manufacturers of A-10 Warthogs), Mack Truck (heavy equipment transmissions) were both in Hagerstown; up near Smithsburg was Fort Richie (a major communications hub for the military) and Camp David; and down towards Leesburg were ‘secret’ installations for military command and control during war — and we didn’t even bother with duck and cover drills. We figured we were toast. Lets face it, though — the whole east coast, between targets and fallout from western strikes, I, and my family, would be toast pretty much no matter what we do. Depressing to be thinking about this again.
Storm news:
CNN – “Hurricane Fiona strengthens as it heads toward Canada’s Atlantic coast”:
NBC – “Tropical Depression Nine path: Track storm as it heads to Florida”:
For those like me who are interested in the Artemis 1 -SLS launch :
https://www.space.com/artemis-1-moon-rocket-september-23-update-preview
But who, unlike me , didn’t know about this yet obvs..
Also :
https://www.space.com/spacex-starship-super-heavy-booster-7-rollback-video
Whilst : https://www.space.com/china-probes-jupiter-uranus-same-launch
This just keeps getting worse.
They are up to 1.2 million men conscripted now, definitely a full mobilization no matter what they call it.
Russia doesn’t have the resources to feed, support, and equip this number of soldiers. Especially with the winter coming up.
They are also destroying their economy to do this by taking workers out of necessary jobs.
Reports are that they will be given a few weeks training and minimal and obsolete weapons and sent to the front in Ukraine.
Where they will promptly end up as dead cannon fodder by the Urkainians.
This won’t end well for the Russians.
(They are trying to replay World War II where Stalin used human wave tactics to defeat the Germans. It worked but…”The Soviet Union lost around 27 million people during the war, including 8.7 million military and 19 million civilians.” 9 million soldiers dead is a lot.
This isn’t WWII though. Instead of resisting the German attack, the Russians are the Germans and they are trying to genocide the Ukrainians.) Will it work this time?
I don’t see how but we are about to find out the hard way.
PS: If the conscripts start taking heavy casualties, I don’t see why they don’t just start shooting their officers. It is clear none of them want to be there.
Ukraine update: ‘Partial mobilization’ becomes ethnic cleansing in Russia’s outlying areas
More detail, Ukraine update:
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1573330995474042882
Utterly shocking photo. That’s reality.
The Russian Army conscripts are not only getting ancient equipment dragged out of long term storage, but they will be going up against Ukrainian soldiers who have better weapons, have developed tactics to defeat Russian tactics, have learned how to integrate armour, artillery, air and infantry into the old Soviet Army idea of combined arms tactics, and are also the survivors more than half a year of combat operations. In short, neophytes with poor weapons, tactics and knowledge versus veterans with decent weapons, well-learned tactics, and intimate personal knowledge of how to be soldiers in combat.
Putin reminds me of the king in Schreck: “Some of you may die, but that’s a chance I’m willing to take.”
To the surprise of no one, Herschel Walker seems to be lying about his companies’ charitable giving
The Truss regime is remarkable both for the way it has repudiated the economic policy followed by previous versions of this Tory government*, and in the frankness with which it favours the very rich and despises the poor. It is a front for “libertarian” “think tanks”, which in turn are funded by oligarchs and corporations. What is even more alarming than the suffering their policies will cause, is the thought of what they will do when faced by the resulting unrest. They have already passed or planned a range of laws to criminalise dissent, and Starmer has made clear he will not support strikes or direct action..
*I’m not going to call it a “new government”, because it isn’t one: Truss and many of her ministers were in office under Johnson, May, and even (like Truss herself) Cameron.
Bits and pieces of news, as summarized by Steve Benen:
Hair Furor fulminated:
Commentary:
Link
Fomenting violence and stupidity:
Link
‘Dilbert’ Dude Declares War on Sustainable Investing, Is Terminally Unfunny About It
The ‘Estate’ of a Woman’s Aborted Embryo Is Suing Her Doctors
Some rare good news here.
The badly misnamed Project Veritas of James O”keefe has lost again in court, jury trial.
This happens a lot.
They deceptively edit their videos until they are fiction, get sued, and lose in court.
Guardian liveblog:
“#Iran: streets of #Tehran are unstoppable.
#مهسا_امینی”
This is the most recent in a thread of videos of protests in Iran. It’s from about 20 minutes ago.
Yashar Ali: “The family of Mahsa Amini is being pressured by the Iranian government to call on people not to attend demonstrations, and to give an interview with state TV absolving police of blame for her death.”
IranWire link at the (Twitter) link.
Canadian Hurricane Centre says Hurricane Fiona will be ‘historic, extreme event’
Laver Cup interrupted after protestor sets arm on fire while wearing ‘end UK private jets’ shirt
I think he should have chosen a form of protest which does not emit greenhouse gases.
“In response to Russia’s use of Iranian drones, @MFA_Ukraine strips Iran ambo of accreditation & orders diplo personnel to be ‘significantly’ reduced. ‘Supplying weapons to Russia to wage war against Ukraine is an unfriendly act that deals a serious blow to Ukraine-Iran relations'”
Cross stitch designer from Ramsgate says portraits of King Charles III less popular than Queen Elizabeth which could be a ‘sign of things to come’
BBC – “Ukraine ‘referendums’: Soldiers go door-to-door for votes in polls”:
Ukraine update: Ukraine is across the Oskil, and across the Oskil, and across the Oskil, and …
Steve Rosenberg, BBC:
Video at the (Twitter) link. Oy.
Trump fighting a ‘secret war’ in the courts to keep witnesses from testifying
Tweet o’ the day. That is a mood.
Trump is threatening to flee to Hungary and to relocate his business there. Excerpt:
Somebody added a #Satire-ForNow tag, so who knows what the heck is going on.
Iranian “security” forces shooting at protesters. The world sees you.
Projection. Lying. Anti-women. Or we can just say whack-a-loon conservative.
But if she and Graham and all the rest get the majority . . .
re Lynna @111: Bye!! Seeya!! Please do it!! And take all the MAGATs with you!!
Colbert on Trump Secret Documents, NY Fraud Case, Hannity, and Squirrels
Scroll down to view the video.
Lynna @ #115, I watched that earlier and giggled at “The Count of Mostly Crisco” all day.
YEAH. (Twitter link.)
The song is “Fuck It” by xryce. YT is asking me to sign in to confirm my age, LOL.
Humor from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
NBC – “Elijah McClain’s death caused by ketamine injection, amended autopsy report says”:
June, 2020 – “Riot Police Confront Peaceful Violin Vigil For Elijah McClain With Pepper Spray.”
July, 2020 – “Violin vigils held for Elijah McClain.”
I just watched the evening news and, watching the footage of the Russian soldiers holding the ‘referendum’ and I kinda wonder just how long it will take before a GOP candidate uses this footage in an add complaining about Democratic operatives collecting mail in ballots.
Seriously. Watching that was scary. Even Giuliani would look at that and say that it might not be really legal.
It’s so strange to watch some of the videos from Iran and think how much they look like protests here, and then to remember the bravery this takes and the reason for the protests.
“Oshnavieh, a Kurdish-majority city of about 40,000 in Iran’s West Azerbaijan province, has apparently come under the control of protesters.
Roads going into the city are being blocked by fire and the police station was attacked a couple days ago.
The overrunning of local government municipality buildings in Mazandaran, in Iran’s north, was already unprecedented. Even if this control will be brief, I’ve never heard of this happening in any protest movement in Iran in living memory.”
Video at the (Twitter) link.
ABC – “Arizona judge: State can enforce near-total abortion ban”:
I think the lines between the people for freedom and the people for oppression are being more clearly drawn around the world every day.
“these videos are horrific. Kids getting drafted into an army of occupation with no officer corps remaining and leftover equipment. they’re going to get mulched. utter madness”
Video at the (Twitter) link. Also, sabotage is a thing.
KG @ #92, thank you for that link:
From your comment:
I’m baffled by this. Even people in Biden’s cabinet have joined picket lines (which is unusual in the US). What good is a labo[u]r party that doesn’t stand by workers? I honestly don’t get it. How is this not a dealbreaker?
“Sabotage.”
Tehran.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/india/russia-losing-india
Russia Is Losing India
How Putin’s Ukraine Gambit Doomed a Long Partnership
More at the link.
Politico:
Talking Points Memo:
Wall Street Journal:
Washington Post:
Gaetz sought a pardon from Donald Trump last year. He didn’t get a pardon. Looks like he going to get away with whatever sketchy stuff he did.
Kevin McCarthy and his team had 15 months to prepare for the rollout of their “Commitment to America” blueprint. It has not gone smoothly.
Fox News host says homeless should be ‘banished,’ sent ‘to asylums and put them in strait jackets’
Australia has spent $9.65 Billion (yes with a B!) on offshore torture & imprisonment camps against Refugees.
From the front page of ‘The Saturday Paper’ Sept 10th – 16th article by Mike Seccombe titled “I am hopeless now’ : Australia’s $9.65 billion torture camps” quote :
Source : https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2022/09/10/i-am-hopeless-now-australias-965-billion-torture-camps#hrd
Paywalled online sadly.. I do have a physical copy FWIW.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
“Just some totally normal voters casting their totally democratic ballots in Russia’s ‘referendum’ in occupied Zaporizhzhya Region…”
Video at the (Twitter) link.
“Elbegdorj Tsakhia, President of the World Mongol Federation, has expressed support for #Ukraine and called on the ethnic minorities, including Buryats, Kalmyks, and Tuvans, to come to #Mongolia to avoid conscription….”
Video at the (Twitter) link.
SC@125,
Starmer won the Labour leadership by promising to unite the party and retain most of the policies in Labour’s 2019 manifesto (tested individually and without a party label, almost all were popular). Once elected, he has comprehensively trashed those promises, attacking the left of his party with far more venom than the Tories, and taking Peter Mandelson – the notoriously corrupt aide to Blair – as one of his main advisors. The most generous interpretation of his behaviour (i.e, assuming he’s not simply a Tory who happened to end up in the worng party) is that he believes this is the way to win the next election – by appealing to centrists (although polls indicate widespread support for strikers, unsurprising as the vast majority of the electorate are suffering a cut in their real incomes), and denying the right-wing press any issue on which they can demonise him. Hence the refusal to support strikers, and also his declaration that he won’t form a coalition with the LibDems if Labour does not win an overall majority, and won’t even talk to the SNP. This won’t work: Murdoch and the like don’t need any facts to work with in order to launch a hate campaign. And in courting centrists, Starmer is ignoring the danger that those who supported Corbyn (especially the young) will either stay at home, or vote Green. At present, Labour have enough of a lead that they would likely be close to an overall majority in a general election held now, but short of getting one, and if Starmer held to his promise of no coalition (a big if, given his past performance!), he would have to form a minority government and wait for an opportunity to call a fresh election. My guess is that this is his plan, if he can’t get an overall majority.
Wow, KG, I try to keep up a bit with UK politics, but I didn’t know just how fucked you are over there. I figured that, with the way the Tories have ruled, and how it just keeps getting worse, they would so easily be destroyed when the next general elections come, and that things would have a chance to improve. How can Labour keep Starmer as their leader if he has these obvious — even to me — flaws?
Already the Russian mobilization isn’t going well.
They are just grabbing anything male and under 70 right now, preferably nonRussian minorities. Few of these have any military training.
And…they aren’t going to get much of any military training, two weeks is a common number quoted.
The Russians also don’t seem to have a whole lot of equipment left either.
There is a video circulating on the net of Russians commenting on their newly issued AK 47 rifles. They are all heavily rusted and probably don’t even work.
The old Mosin-Nagant bolt action rifles they are also issued are probably far better.
And oh yeah, the cold far east European winter is coming soon.
This isn’t going to end well for the Russians.
SC… @ # 136: … four of the five EU countries bordering Russia announced they would no longer allow Russians to enter on tourist visas.
The central and western European nations don’t seem to have thought this through very deeply.
Would they rather pay Russian men’s room & board bills in cheap hotels, or pay for the munitions for the Ukrainians to blow them up?
From the latest summary at the Guardian liveblog:
Slight correction to #85 above: I suggested that the storm apparently heading to the Gulf of Mexico would probably be Hermine, but Hermine already exists, so that storm is Ian.
Guardian liveblog:
Yashar Ali:
Ukraine update: Welcome to the Army of Russia!
The article is topped by a photo of a female Ukrainian soldier: “NOT a Russian soldier. A Ukrainian soldier on the front line at Kupyansk. Because Russian Army is not for women. It is for big, tough 65 year-old drunks. September 24, 2022.”
More at the link, including this:
Scroll down at the link to see Ukrainian Special Forces looking like walking trees and shrubs (Ents :-)) as they join the fight against the forces of Mordor.
Donald Trump has already lost everything he wanted from a ‘special master’
“Russians massively give army summonses to Crimean Tatars”
Are they planning to supply them with weapons? Because they might not have thought this through.
@149: They will be armed with tartar sauce.
“Protests have started early on day nine of unrest in Iran over the death of #MahsaAmini in morality police custody. In the city of Shiraz, a young woman stands on a car, waves her hijab and leads chants of ‘death to the dictator’….”
Video at the (Twitter) link.
Veterans fight fascism with special report on Patriot Front showing prosecutors how to go after them.
News of some of President Biden’s good deeds:
BOMBSHELL: 60 Minutes Reporting White House Switchboard Connected Call to Rioter on January 6th.
Trump’s Truth Social takes another hit as big-money investors head for the exits
September 24. That’s today!
Link
Well, it does make a change from Putin threatening to nuke everyone.
Kushner Company Agrees To Pay At Least $3.25 Million To Settle Claims Of Shoddy Apartments And Rent Abuses
“Ukraine shoots down 4 Russian aircraft.
Ukrainian forces have recently shot down two Russian Su-30 jets, one Su-25 and one Su-34, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said in its evening briefing on Sept. 24.”
Seems like a lot.
Followup to comment 157.
Posted by readers of the article:
California man admits he threatened to bomb dictionary offices over inclusive definition of ‘woman’
I’m not sure their decision is right, but there are arguments for it:
1) Many of those entering on tourist visas are actual tourists, who will mostly be among the elite, who support the regime but like to have access to the EU.
2) Those who are fleeing the draft wouldn’t be joining the war for some time, won’t be effective if and when they do, and may cause Putin more problems if they can’t leave Russia than they would by fleeing abroad.
3) We can be certain spies would be among those “fleeing”, and very likely saboteurs as well.
KG @ # 161: Many of those entering on tourist visas are actual tourists…
Quick: which causes more harm to the EU – depriving Putin’s army of a soldier or allowing an oligarch’s mistress to buy perfume in Paris?
Those who are fleeing the draft wouldn’t be joining the war for some time…
Two weeks, according to all reports. Two. Weeks.
… may cause Putin more problems if they can’t leave Russia …
Despite Zelensky’s exhortations, I doubt many conscripts will carry out much sabotage or espionage.
… spies would be among those “fleeing”, and very likely saboteurs as well.
That one comes straight out of the anti-refugee talking points echoed across Europe – c’mon, can’t you do better than that?
Tweet o’ the day.
Aiden Aslin just tweeted: “just want to let people know I’m slowly coming back onto the Twitter account but will be sharing it with my friend to continue bringing news and information etc, let us not forget those who are still kept in captivity and help them return home to their family’s”
Pierce R. Butler@162,
Setting aside your unnecessarily nasty and self-righteous tone, all the expert commentary I’ve seen indicates that the conscripts will not add significantly to Russia’s military capability for months if at all, and indeed, may reduce it – they will be unwilling, untrained or badly trained, and poorly equipped. They don’t need to engage in active sabotage to cause Putin problems at home while evading the draft – the process of hunting them down will itself generate further discontent. As for:
C’mon, can’t you do better than that? The fact that similar things have been said by anti-immigrant bigots, doesn’t mean it’s not an issue that needs to be considered. Do you actually think Putin won’t use any opportunity to send spies and saboteurs? After the assassinations his agents have already carried out outside Russia – in the case of the Salisbury poisoners, agents posing as tourists?
KG @ # 165: … your unnecessarily nasty and self-righteous tone…
Feeling snowflakey today? We’ve both gotten a lot ruder here before.
…the conscripts will not add significantly to Russia’s military capability for months if at all…
A draft-dodger at large in Western Europe badmouthing the current regime will do Russian more harm than a reluctant grunt.
Do you actually think Putin won’t use any opportunity to send spies and saboteurs?
I feel pretty sure the FSB has more and better ways to place actual agents than cramming them into long backed-up lines – and that anyone planted in that way won’t get much opportunity to spy on anything other than fellow emigrés.
Definitely, valid arguments exist on both sides of this debate – but everything I’ve seen about it indicates the EU (+ UK, etc) has reacted so far only on knee-jerk xenophobia (or pandering to the parts of the population exhibiting same), but with very little visible thought on the advantages of assisting wannabe Russian exiles, which I suspect would pay numerous long-term dividends.
Eugene Finkel:
@#167, SC (Salty Current):
Unfortunately, there’s also Option 5: Putin realizes he’s been backed into a corner, can’t call off the war without being assassinated and replaced by the ultranationalists he has surrounded himself with, can’t continue the war without sacrificing the existence of Russia through economic suicide and popular uprising and probably getting killed anyway, and thus he personally has nothing to lose, and launches preemptive nuclear strikes on all the NATO/EU states on his way down to his bunker, and nobody in the chain of command is willing to disobey him, and we all die. MAD only serves as a deterrent when the people who control the nukes believe they have a viable future.
@#140, Paul K:
Same way the Democrats can keep having the same incompetent center-right cretins in charge since 1992: shady funding, internal power struggles, and Boomer nostalgia for the Reagan era.
Is it just me or do the words “tropical storm” have no place in the same sentence as “Canada” unless used in the negative sense e.g. “Canada is too far north to experience tropical storms?”
See latest news story :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-25/tropical-storm-fiona-hits-canada/101471912
is that just me?
@167. SC (Salty Current) :
&
Emphasis added.
Really? Is it too much to hope for that a Russian coup removing Putin would be lead by people who do want peace or at least are realistic enough to know that Putin’s invasion cannot suceed and who will therefore end the war even if de facto not de jure to save face i.e. we’re calling a pause and withdrawing our troops without officially surrendering and making an official acknowledgement that we’ve lost?
(Sorta like the end of the Korean war / Chinese Civil War?)
Is that option 7 / 8 / 4c at all plausible / realistic?
Russia is waging an open war of genocide.
Of course, the Ukrainians will keep on fighting.
What other choice do they have?
They live there.
The US Secretary of Defense said what everyone says.
If Russia lays down their arms, the war ends.
If Ukraine lays down their arms, Ukraine ends.
@#171, StevoR:
You have to remember: anybody who disagrees with Putin on the basics of how the country should run has long since been — at the very least — removed from the portion of the chain of command that stands any chance of getting close enough to him to pull off a coup. In order to cancel the war with a coup you would need a fairly large number of highly-placed people who are all willing to risk their lives together to end the war, and that seems unlikely. From what I’m seeing, Putin has been surrounding himself with people who thought about Ukraine the way the GWB administration thought about Iraq: it’ll be a cakewalk, we can win without even trying, the people will reject their government and embrace us and it will all be a fait accompli to the rest of the world, and this is such a brilliant idea that we don’t have to do any planning for contingencies. (You’d think they would have learned from watching the Iraq invasion, but apparently no government in the entire world, including the Obama administration, learned anything from that — or, at least, if they did they haven’t been showing it.) That’s who is around Putin, and they even now have supporters in the general public — just as with Iraq, or with Brexit, or the 2016 Clinton campaign, there are people in Russia who are still convinced that the failure wasn’t because it was a dumb idea in the first place, it’s because things weren’t done as extremely as in their fantasies.
Pierce R. Butler@166,
Well, I’m glad to see you’ve dropped your unnecessarily nasty and self-righteous tone! Thanks for that.
Really? Both the media and public opinion in Western Europe are already overwhelmingly anti-Putin, with only Tankies and the far right supporting him. Putin’s strategy in relation to the Russian public has been depoliticisation. His announcement of conscription is a major defeat for this strategy, and the presence of draft-dodgers hiding out in their localities could be a lot more troublesome than the same draft-dodgers fleeing abroad. After all, he could close the borders today if he wanted – he may prefer to leave this pressure-valve open, although there would clearly be other costs in shutting it.
A I’ve already pointed out, it’s already used tourism as a cover for assassins. And why would Putin not want to plant spies in emigré communities?
I agree, as I made clear @161, nice to see you acknowledge it.
In fact neither the EU nor the UK has banned tourists from Russia – the UK doesn’t have a separate “tourist visa” category, Russians can still apply for a standard visa, the problem may be that there’s a cost (as there has always been) and Visa and Mastercard have made it hard for Russian to use their cards for foreign purchases (I don’t recall the details). That’s no problem for oligarchs of course – they will have foreign bank accounts. The measures imposed by 4 of the 5 countries bordering Russia are in response to the EU’s refusal to ban Russian tourists, although it has made it harder for them to obtain visas. Zelenskyy has asked for a full ban. I’m certainly not denying that xenophobia is rife in the EU, and specifically in the countries that have imposed the ban – although many EU countries including IIRC those four have welcomed Ukranian refugees. I’ve come across, and opposed, online denigration of everyone and everything Russian – not here, but on Daily Kos (where I’m KnoGo). This kind of blanket condemnation of “enemy” nationals and culture is always an unpleasant feature of war, even the kind of partial economic war currently being waged between Russia and NATO/EU states, and the main argument for admitting Russian draft-dodgers is simply that they should not be forced to take part in the war.
StevoR @ #171, gah. Those stupid numbers at the beginning. I removed, as I generally do, the numbers at the end of each (the “(1/6),” etc.) since they’re distracting and unnecessary when the whole thread is quoted together. But he for some reason also numbered some at the beginning, and I consider this part of the text. They’re pointless and confusing since he also includes numbered options, yes. I thought of replacing them with ellipses as I do with “Why it matters:…” and the other useless and annoying lead-ins at Axios, but I thought that might confuse so I left them in. In any case, the numbers at the beginning are evidently for each thought (or set of thoughts) rather than each option – as you can see, he doesn’t begin listing the options until #5.
Well, it’s his sense that it’s unlikely, and TBH I’ve seen a number of others who have the same assessment. Even Putin’s biggest domestic opponent Navalny has historically been a nationalist. People in positions to conceivably foment a coup haven’t shown any indication of leanings or movement in that direction, and would probably (reasonably) fear that if they tried it they’d be “removed” by the staunch-imperialist hardliners pretty quickly.
I don’t think there’s a contradiction between
and
I think what he’s saying is that a coup, if it were to happen, is more likely to lead to the end of the war by creating chaos which then causes the Russian army to collapse or be destroyed than by people seizing power who would willingly withdraw Russian forces from Ukraine.
In any case, it’s only one view, albeit that of an area expert. I try to share a range of views. It’s always difficult with closed authoritarian systems to have a clear sense of what’s happening behind the scenes, though, so…
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From there:
Peter Pomerantsev in the Guardian – “The nuclear threat might change the mood in Russia itself, stoking widespread fear.”
Ruth Ben-Ghiat in the Atlantic – “The Return of Fascism in Italy.”
VoteVets:
Link to their petition at the (Twitter) link.
“Some Russians citizens of mobilisation age are forbidden to leave the country prior to receiving any notice. Happening both on the ground borders and in airports.
More illegal border crossing to follow”
Re 179: There have been increasing hints and predictions that Russia will very soon systematically ban reservists (if not all military age men) from leaving the country.
https://twitter.com/mediazzzona/status/1573975543938179072
Pierce R. Butler at 166:
Also my thoughts, generally speaking. The matter is complicated.
KG at 174:
Currently, Finland is just about to join the border closure as the fifth country. The purpose is to make it more difficult for Russian tourists to enter the EU generally, and to direct the entry route away from Finland specifically.
In principle, this shouldn’t prevent Russians from getting a humanitarian visa to Finland or other “frontline” EU country if they have sufficient grounds for that.
In principle, those Russians who apply for a visa (or have an existing one) to some West European country, could still fly there via third countries – if they have enough money.
In practice, the visa application process or even an existing valid visa presumably wouldn’t be useful for those who are already being actively drafted and pursued by authorities. They’d be stopped by Russia’s own border security before they can apply for asylum. At most, it might be useful if we decide (against general international principle) that a mere possibility of being drafted is grounds for asylum.
In practice, this is all moot anyway, as it now seems Russia is closing its borders from the inside for anyone they might consider drafting. The question is then, on what grounds we should grant asylum for those who cross the border illegally through the woods into Finland or Baltic countries. It’s not about visa/border rules anymore, with regard to draft avoiders.
From Meduza, Pro-Kremlin bloggers downplay mobilization by comparing conscripts to
candy[cannon fodder]:Multiple independent sources have guessestimated the actual figure at at least 1 million, largely, it seems, press-ganged from non-Slavic (i.e., not ethnic Russian) regions / peoples (plus protestors and other Putin-designated “undesirables” who aren’t defenestrated).
And I rather doubt Douglas Adams would be too thrilled about the hijacking of “Don’t Panic”.
I kept reading “gummies” (the candy) as “Gumbys” (the Monty Python characters, used in this very blog to mark
<blockquote>d ). And, of course, being compared to a snack to be eaten is perhaps not motivational, at least if one’s goal is to calm people’s concerns; the usual (bogus) comparisons are to creatures like lions, which do the eating.KG@174, “I’ve come across, and opposed, online denigration of everyone and everything Russian — not here, but on Daily Kos […]”.
Yes! Thank you. That tendency also annoys me greatly about both dKos and twitblithering (and probably other sites I don’t now recall). As far as I can recall, at dKos, the “Ukraine Update” series (specifically) avoids that “denigration of everyone and everything Russian”, albeit the (reader’s) comments, and some other dKos articles, do not.
IMHO, a very annoying aspect is there has been some really good comments, worth dredging through the muck for… but then there’s also the armchair-Kissinger / -Chomsky / -Corban pseudo-expert comments. None of those fools have actually called for Ukraine to invade Russia (as far as I know), but that invade-Russia nonsense is at least as stoooopid as those persons’s insistence Ukraine should agree to a ceasefire or whatever, both “freezing” Putin’s “gains” in Ukraine and ignoring Ukraine’s suggested resolutions.
Liz Cheney says she will not remain a Republican if Donald Trump is GOP nominee in 2024
Just think of all the awful things the Republican Party has done, supported and encouraged, some of them done by her father; and the one straw that will tip the camel over is Donald Trump running again.
I am not impressed.
Pink Floyd’s founder won’t tour in Poland after a backlash to his remarks on Ukraine
How Steven Seagal Became Known as the Worst Host in ‘Saturday Night Live’ History
KG @ 174: Both the media and public opinion in Western Europe are already overwhelmingly anti-Putin…
Glad to hear that – the US media’s “both-sides!” fetish had given me the impression that significant head-in-the-sand blocs persisted. (So who are the “tankies”, and what motivates them – ideology or money?)
… the presence of draft-dodgers hiding out in their localities could be a lot more troublesome than the same draft-dodgers fleeing abroad.
Dodgers hiding won’t have much political influence. Dodgers demonstrating might, but unless the cops switch sides (by which point the Putin-czars analogy will have reached completion), that wouldn’t last long; cops kicking down doors to meet press-gang quotas may generate productive backlash, but I find it hard to imagine a positive endgame from that scenario.
… he could close the borders today if he wanted…
As lumipuma @ # 181, and others, have noted, he’s finally getting around to that. I wonder that he didn’t do so together with the mobilization order – another indication of Putin’s info silo, perhaps.
… [Russia]’s already used tourism as a cover for assassins.
Do you doubt the FSB (et al) have whole cabinets full of forged EU/UK/US/etc passports and fake identities?
… why would Putin not want to plant spies in emigré communities?
Just as easy to turn actual émigrés into spies by threatening stay-behind family members, etc.
… neither the EU nor the UK has banned tourists from Russia …
Apparently I misunderstood various reports about “Schengen”-area restrictions and/or confused demands for shutdowns for implementations of same, then. Given the size of the Baltic nations, I can more easily understand why their governments would fear inundation.
…online denigration of everyone and everything Russian – not here, but on Daily Kos …
I’ve seen some, ahem, overbroad generalizations here too. As for DK – {sigh}
… the kind of partial economic war currently being waged between Russia and NATO/EU states…
Very weird, that. No doubt the upper echelons in each capital have regularly updated comprehensive balance-of-trade reports; I’d sure like to see some.
… the main argument for admitting Russian draft-dodgers is simply that they should not be forced to take part in the war.
I doubt humanitarian incentives count for much among said upper echelons, but surely even they must see some of the potential advantages in accelerating Russian economic decline, exploiting brain drain, and westernizing those who will likely someday return to Russia. Of course, they have to weigh that against short-term economic stresses, and short-term thinking usually prevails everywhere outside Beijing (and perhaps Seoul & Pyongyang – can’t think of other possible exceptions right now).
lumipuma @ # 181 – thanks for the update and up-close perspectives!
It is starting to look like support by the Russian people for the Ukrainian invasion isn’t all that high.
This article below doesn’t have a lot of data on this question but that type of data is going to be hard to get.
Russia is a dictatorship in trouble which means it isn’t going to be doing a lot of polling, and people aren’t going to be answering those polls anyway.
Being antiwar in Russia is a crime with a prison sentence of up to 15 years.
We can still see get an idea though.
.1. A lot of Russians are leaving any way they can. The border crossings are backed up, plane tickets to anywhere are expensive and hard to get.
.2. In a country with a huge Gulag and security police forces, there are now a lot of anti-draft riots and protests.
This is far more dangerous than in the West. A lot of draft age men are immediately being hauled off to..join the Russian
armycannon fodder forces..3. After the last century, Russians are used to not giving their real opinions on anything much less politics. In recent times past, that could get you sent to the Gulags or just flat out killed.
I’ve seen estimates that maybe 25% of the Russians are nationalists who want to bring back the USSR, 25% are pro-West who want to look like an EU country, and half the people are apolitical and don’t care.
Or they didn’t care until Sasha got pulled out of college and sent to the front in Ukraine.
@ 186
Oh, that article doesn’t mention the worst: During the writer’s meetings for his appearance, Seagal came up with a idea for a sketch where he portrays a psychologist treat a rape victim play by a pre-Christo-fascist Victoria Jackson. At the end of the skit, Seagal’s character rapes Jackson’s. That’s what Seagal considers “funny.”
Guardian liveblog:
Ukraine update: Russian lines north of Lyman reportedly ‘collapsing’ as Ukraine continues advance
“#Dagestan telegram channels: a massive crackdown on protesters in Dagestan going on right now.
Many arrests.”
Trump shows a lot of disrespect for fellow Republicans.
https://thehill.com
Trump calls McConnell a ‘piece of s—‘ in Haberman book
Followup to comment 193.
https://thehill.com
Dmytro Kuleba:
Jupiter to appear biggest and brightest it has been in 59 years Monday
Washington Post link
It will be the brightest natural object other than the moon in the night sky
See also:
https://twitter.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/1571234004090900480
Julia Davis:
Sorry – the (Twitter) link @ #198 has a video.
Zelenskyy has reportedly said on CBS that Ukraine has now received NASAMS (National/Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System) from the US.
“Dagestan. Police shooting in air try to control crowd”
Video at the (Twitter) link.
Francis Scarr:
Video at the (Twitter) link. Even by the standards of silly religious getups it’s an extremely silly getup.
During the Second World War (sorry, the Great Patriotic War), and Soviet soldier who surrendered was treated as a traitor and, upon repatriation, imprisoned. It didn’t matter how he, or she, surrendered. Soldiers who were captured while unconscious were subject to the same punishments as those who waved a white flag. Those who were part of a large group of soldiers whose officers surrendered — as happened in the summer of 1941 quite a few times (some encirclements bagged hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers) — were subject to prosecution and punishments just as severe. Those who managed to escape captivity, or sneak out of encirclements, were closely questioned by NKVD special officers and had an 80% chance of being assigned to a punishment battalion. After the war, those few who returned from German captivity were sent to the gulag for 5-to-15-year terms. Their families were also punished through denial of rations, evicting them from housing, internal deportations and terms in the gulag. More than half of soviet POWs died in German captivity (German soldiers had a similar fatality rate in Russian POW camps and gulags) and those who came home faced a 1 in 4 chance of dying in the gulags.
I bring this up to point out that Putin’s comments regarding Russian soldiers who surrender is reminiscent of Stalin’s views on those who voluntarily surrender (which was any Russian soldier who surrendered).
Three-year terms on on tap for those who voluntarily surrender. Of course, it will be the judgement of the authorities regarding who surrendered voluntarily. If they are first time offenders, they can redeem themselves by going back into combat (hello, punishment battalions?).
Putin was raised in the post-Stalin USSR, a time when communism was still viewed as the wave of the future. He excelled and entered one of the most coveted career paths. Putin was trained as a KGB officer under the tutelage of those who survived the pre-war purges, the Great Patriotic War, the post-war purges, the post-Beria house-cleaning, and decades serving a repressive system which took Czarist dehumanization to new heights. He was taught and trained by those who implemented the 1930s purges and the removal of potentially disloyal minorities. He not only survived under these ‘teachers’, but he thrived. And he came to the professional maturity of his job during the 1970s and 1980s, a time when the Great Patriotic warriors were beginning to fade. And ultimately fail to continue as a ruling caste.
Ultimately, Putin never left his upbringing behind. I don’t think he ever cared one way or the other for communism, but he certainly learned the lesson that authoritarianism, whether the authoritarianism of the Czar, the authoritarianism of the cult of personality or the authoritarianism of the politburo, is what made Russia great. And he is seeking to recreate that.
The repressive laws rubberstamped by the parliament, whether affecting the military or the rest of the country, are Stalinism light. So far, he has not resorted to terror campaigns reminiscent of the 1930s, but he appears to be heading that direction. So far, his killings have been retail and (clumsily) hidden (how many ‘suicides’ this year?). Right now, soldiers, draftees, those protesting the call-ups/round-ups, and, most recently, minorities, seem to be the most likely victims. Will this spread to other parts of society?
Guardian – “‘A way to get rid of us’: Crimean Tatars decry Russia’s mobilisation”:
And SC’s quote fits right in with my wall of text. Thank you for the timely serendipitous post, SC.
“Russia’s northern republic of Yakutia(#Sakha) is protesting against Putin’s mobilisation and war in #Ukraine: people are changing: ‘No to genocide!'”
(TIL there is a Mammoth Museum.)
Kyiv Post:
Guardian liveblog:
Meduza – “New wave of arsons at military enlistment offices and local administrations unfolds across Russia”:
TheNationalMemo
Trump Allies Challenging Georgia Voters To Suppress Midterm Turnout
Steven Rosenfeld / September 25, 2022
Herschel Walker and the race to the bottom of the barrel.
Trump has called several GOP donors who contributed money to Ron DeSantis asking them to stop boosting the Florida governor: report
They’re both horrible people, Trump doesn’t care about that. All Trump cares about is that DeSantis is getting attention that should be reserved for himself. He will give him the Fauci treatment.
A ‘born and bred racist’ recounts how he became a best-selling Christian author
The headline implies there is some sort of conflict between those two things. Not buying it.
“Something extraordinary is happening in Iran, a moment of political and social evolution that transcends the protests themselves and may have a profound impact on Iranian society and politics for years to come….”
Link and thread with news and video from tonight’s protests at the link.
Masih Alinejad:
Tweet o’ the day.
When an octopus kills, it is stealthy and calculating
Reginald Selkirk @ # 213 – Your link goes to a 2020 Pharyngula post with no detectable connection to that headline (well, that’s what I got – the link itself specifies “report” on this page).
But will these rich fiends be able to keep him out of prison?
I think the piece RS reported @ # 213 is here:
Keep him & his “reconciliation” away from me, please.
I keep seeing pro-Traitor . . . Sorry. Pro-Trump banners that proclaim “Trump 2024: No More Bullshit! Kinda nice to see that the courts really are taking ‘No More Bullshit!” seriously. (this is more of an overview article, but it is pretty good.)
Rasha Al Aqeedi:
Correction to #215: the woman tying her hair at the beginning of the video is a different woman, who is alive.
Italy. Fuck. What the hell are you doing?
An excerpt from the Institute for the Study of War (USA).
It just says what everyone has already concluded, the Russian mobilization isn’t going to work very well.
They will get bodies but not soldiers with training and equipment to the front with Ukraine. It isn’t even obvious that they are geared up to feeding them.
To no ones surprise, there is a measles epidemic in Africa. Again.
It started in an antivax fundie church.
The African fundie xian churches got that from the US churches that they just copy.
I’m sure we will see the same thing in the USA and soon.
Already we have a polio outbreak.
There have been several measles outbreaks in the USA in the last few years. They started and spread through…antivax fundie xian churches.
This has happened everywhere the Russians have been.
I’ve seen video of the ones around Mariupol.
There are at least thousands of people buried there.
Vicar, you really don’t know shit about the UK. Internal power struggles: sure; shady funding: possible, although sources of donations over a certain size have to be declared, and aside from public funds, Labour’s biggest source of funding is generally some of the big unions; “Boomer nostalgia for the Reagan era”: er, no. Any UK “Boomer” nostalgic for that era would (a) be in the Tory Party or one of the far-right fragments such as Reform, UKIP, etc. and (b) think of it as the Thatcher era.
@#228, KG:
Starmer is a Blair acolyte (and is actively trying to rehabilitate Blair and bring him back into the party). Blair got his start at the end of the Reagan/Bush era, and support for Starmer’s right-of-centrism is driven by the idea that the whole “New Labour” push-to-the-right thing was good. That’s where Starmer’s support comes from, people whose idea of the best possible policy is what you got from Blair. That’s why he kept nodding along with Johnson over and over again and is still only lukewarm about resisting Truss; it’s emblematic of Starmer’s Labour that no Labour conference has ever sung “God Save The King/Queen”, but they’re requiring delegates to do it this time. So, in short, perhaps you should take a closer look at what your country is doing and pull your head back into some long-overdue sunshine? (And why would I call it the Thatcher Era? It’s like expecting me to go into mourning for your queen, which apparently some of your fellows expected from the rest of the world.)
(Incidentally: I give you full permission to make the most tasteless jokes possible upon the death of any and all US public figures. Even the ones I like. Nothing would cheer me up more than if something went catastrophically wrong at the funeral of one of the sociopaths who have governed us and we got a joke along the lines of Carrero being called “the first Spanish astronaut”.)
Pierce R. Butler@187,
Well this is getting speculative, but as I said, Putin’s strategy has been to depoliticise both the war, and Russians generally. The presence of draft-dodgers will often beome known locally (“Where is Sergei? He doesn’t seem to be around, but his mother is still buying for two…), and will face neighbours with a dilemma – turn him in or not? If Sergei gets dragged away, and happens to be a well-liked guy, that will cause resentment. Putin wants to minimse how much ordinary Russians think about the war as anything other than a comfortably distant spectacle of good (Russia) versus evil (“Ukronazis”). Notice that there are already complaints from some fairly high-up people in Russia about the conscription of people who should not be eligible.
No, but do you doubt that EU/UK/US authorities are on high alert for such infiltrators. Where better to hide agents than among a large-scale flow of tourists andor refugees?
A coerced amateur is not going to be as effective as a trained agent.
Investors ‘inclined to regard Conservative Party as a doomsday cult’, says analyst. Truss and Kwarteng, the comedy duo currently in charge of the UK economy, are really bringing the house down with their “fiscal event” sketch.
Vicar@229,
You ridiculous numpty, of course I know Starmer is a Blairite – he’s appointed Mandelson as one of his main advisers, FFS.
Oh, it’s no longer the “Reagan” era, but the “Reagan/Bush” era, is it? Depends what you mean by “got his start”. He was born in 1953. He was elected to Parliament in 1983, standing on a “soft left” platform, quite different from the policies he pursued once he became party leader in 1994, during the Clinton era, and if he was basing himself on any American model, it was clearly Clinton, not Reagan or Bush. But go on, parade your ignorance some more.
Because you were talking about UK politics, specifically, reasons Starmer retained the leadership of the UK Labour Party, of course, and that’s how any relevant people nostalgic for that era would think of it. And you ignore the more important point: that any such people would not be in the Labour Party anyway. The nostalgia involved is for the Blair era, i.e. when Blair was in power, 1997-2007. Starmer and his cronies want to replace the Tories as the “natural party of government” by removing any policies and individuals that could be perceived as threatening radical change, and making clear he will allow inequality to go no increasing but smooth down the sharpest edges of raw “neoliberal” capitalism as pushed by Truss. That was Blair’s formula, which kept Labour in office for 13 years, and Starmer thinks enough of the capitalist/media elite will buy into it to allow him his turn.
First, I don’t need or want your permission for anything whatever. Second, you still appear to be under some bizarre delusion concerning my politics, as shown both by your pathetic attempt to educate me on matters I know far more about than you, and by this irrelevant nonsense related to the death of Elizabeth Windsor.
@218: The link work for me. The article is on CBC.
When an octopus kills, it is stealthy and calculating
Meadows texts reveal direct White House communications with pro-Trump operative behind plans to seize voting machines
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian liveblog. From there:
Today’s Guardian has an entertaining oped in…particle physics, by Sabine Hossenfelder – “No one in physics dares say so, but the race to invent new particles is pointless”: “In private, many physicists admit they do not believe the particles they are paid to search for exist – they do it because their colleagues are doing it…”
“Kazakhstan’s foreign ministry says it will not recognize the sham referendums in the occupied Ukrainian territories, supports ‘the principle of territorial integrity’.”
Langston Taylor, Tampa Bay Times:
Link, screenshots, images at the (Twitter) link.
“Looks like the Dagestan authorities are sending in thugs to beat up locals who are protesting against the war….”
Video at the (Twitter) link.
Why Liz Cheney is willing to campaign for Dems for the first time
Republicans desperately want to avoid a debate over health care — except for their eagerness to raise the price of prescription medications.
If Republicans take the House majority, Kevin McCarthy knows exactly what the GOP’s first bill would be. The trouble is, it’s a misguided mess.
Tweet (thread) o’ the day.
More on the mobilization. It isn’t working.
This source is a Russian source.
Reports are that a lot of the trainers have already been sent to the Ukrainian front.
No one knows what Putin is doing or thinking these days.
Except that he is getting desperate.
“An anti-#Ukrainian protest in #Poland organized by Karolina Pikula of the nationalist Confederation as part of the ‘Stop the Ukrainization of Poland’ in a town near Poland’s border with Ukraine attracted zero participants.
Pic and source: Notes from Poland”
Photo at the (Twitter) link. Beautiful.
Francis Scarr:
Subtitled video at the (Twitter) link.
SC@236
Sorry, but I think Hossenfelder’s take on particle physics is bullshit. First, theoretical physicists do have a good reason for positing many of the particles they are considering. Indeed, it is similar to much of the reasoning that underlay the Higgs’ Boson hypothesis–namely they are hoping that they make some of the divergences that occur with the Standard Model go away. They are hoping to bring together the Standard Model with General Relativity and gravity. And yes, most of these efforts will lead nowhere, but to get anywhere you have to explore the possible worlds that could correspond to ours.
It’s not that there is anything wrong with particle physics. This is just what science looks like when you are not in the midst of a revolution.
@KG 232: Sorry my comment raised the Vicar. Their take on anything is so rife with unreality as to be useless, even when I [very rarely] find something of truth in something they say.
I guess it’s easier for me to be dumbfounded by the happenings in another place than by very similar things in my own. Over here, in the good ole’ US of A, the idea that Republicans have a chance of winning against Democrats, even in statewide elections for offices like Governor or US Senate (as opposed to in more local, gerrymandered districts), even in ‘purple states’, should be inconceivable, but it’s not. Democrats at the national level are mostly not willing to urgently, openly, and aggressively back ‘radical’ ideas like universal healthcare and wealth equality, even though most people here support them. They just don’t inspire passion because they seem to live in a bubble somewhere in the past.
New War On the Rocks – “Russia’s Plan to Stay in the War”:
snarkrates @ #246:
No need to apologize to me! I know I’m not remotely capable of evaluating her thesis. I was hoping some physicists would weigh in.
NYT
Top State Judges Make a Rare Plea in a Momentous Supreme Court Election Case
The Supreme Court is set to hear a case that could radically reshape how federal elections are conducted.
By Adam Liptak / Sept. 26, 2022
Paul K @ #247:
LOL.
Ukraine update: As Russia mobilizes, here’s what a well-trained army looks like [Photo at the link]
Rioter who received call from White House landline on Jan. 6 ID’ed
So, why was someone in the White House calling that guy?
Meduza (Meduza granted open access to their reporting on the invasion of Ukraine) – “‘Blame the West and scapegoat the commissars’ The Kremlin’s latest propaganda guide (mobilization edition)”:
Perla (who the fuck is Perla?):
Link
SC @254, that #DontPanic hashtag just makes me laugh every time. It is, of course, also horrifying.
In other news: The ‘biggest J6 event to date’ draws tens of insurrectionists to rally hosted by MAGA talking heads
Ha! “tens of insurrectionists.”
Poll:
snarkrates @246:
Postulating the Higgs boson (more accurately, the Higgs mechanism) had nothing to do with divergences. It was a solution to the question “how do fundamental particles acquire mass?”. While not the only possible solution, it was a leading contender, and so justified theoretical and experimental investigation.
The degree to which the proposed particles listed by Hossenfelder justify investigation can be debated, but none of them come close to the “we probably need this particular particle” level, which applied to the Higgs (and before it, the t quark).
Maybe she just wants to stimulate debate.
Italy Elects Lady Mussolini Prime Minister
Re 235 (SC quoting the Guardian):
The final count of Russians entering Finland over Saturday and Sunday was about 17,000, about half of which was estimated to be tourism and other normal traffic, while the other half were men apparently leaving Russia for the time being. As of Monday, the peak of traffic seems to have passed but smaller numbers of draft refugees keep coming in.
I’m seeing the estimate that (rather ironically) closer to 300,000 men have “mobilized” themselves into leaving Russia. The vast majority of these have been clogging the border crossings to Russia’s southern neighbors (from Georgia to Mongolia). I think it’s because Russians can travel to those countries without visa. In practice, only those who had existing visa to some Schengen country were able to rush out via Finland. There are reports that Russian military thugs are preparing to screen outgoing travelers on the southern border, while Kremlin pretends to not have “yet” made the decision for border closure. Presumably, Putin is trying to avoid further panic until the border closure goes into effect.
Thus far, fewer than 100 Russian draft refugees have applied for asylum in Finland. It is thought more will do so on a slightly longer term, but most of those who have entered the EU via Finland will seek asylum in other EU countries. Even if their asylum claim is considered unviable, the process will keep them out of Russia for a while.
From last night (YT link) – “Bolsonaro: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)”:
(It’s great aside from the sexist slur. A “no sexist slur” policy really would be simple enough.)
From the closing (I think) summary at the Guardian liveblog:
Swastika-wearing ex-pupil kills 15 in Russian school shooting
Nazis in Russia! Someone needs to invade and remedy this problem.
OMG, pot calling the kettle black: Trump reportedly rips DeSantis as ‘fat’ and ‘phony’ and ‘whiny’
“The influx of Russians into Georgia is getting a lot of attention but it’s not even close to the whole story of this exodus – just been told by a Russian man queueing to cross into remotest desert western Kazakhstan that there are people there who’ve been waiting three days.”
Everything’s definitely fine in Russia when people are waiting three days to get across the border to remotest desert western Kazakhstan.
SUNDAY SHOWS! Republicans, More Republicans, And Ugh Chuck Todd
Eva Hartog:
I’m tossing the whole article up here just because this is such great news. It really shows how nominating the extreme Christian-Nationalist right candidates doesn’t really work in the general election.
Oggie @ #268, if only his ancestors had stayed in Italy – this would have been his moment.
SC: Mussolini, Mastriano, schlemiel, schlimazel, potato, tomato, potahto, tomahto, let’s call the whole thing off.
Rail Bosses Said No to Paid Sick Leave—So We’re Still on Track for a Strike
Dmitri (wartranslated):
Subtitled video at the (Twitter) link. Sorry, guys, your tourniquet money was spent on the stripper pole in Putin’s palace, which could well be in use right now.
Sheesh.
Link
Humor from Anand Giridharadas:
New Yorker link
P.E.I.’s iconic Teacup Rock is gone after post-tropical storm Fiona
Link
Do all European cars come with medical kits? (Come to think of it, do cars in the US? Does my car have a medical kit I’m not aware of?)
“Protest in the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic of Russia. There are about 500,000 Kabardians and 100,000 Balkars in the region. Putin is sending the young men of these indigenous groups to die in his imperial war….”
Subtitled video at the (Twitter) link.
SC: Some do, some don’t. At least here in the US. My Hyundai Elantra came with a roadside emergency kit. And I just checked online and found the kit, on Hyundai’s shop for $69.99. Wasn’t on my car’s Maroni label, so maybe the dealership added it?
Youtube has a live ystream of the DART mission impactingan asterpoid moon here.
“‘Remember the Battleship Potemkin’ says Simonyan!”
Subtitled video at the (Twitter) link. This is the part I can’t get over. I know I posted about the guide @ #254, but they’re really running away with it here!
#DontPanic
Thanks, StevoR @ #280. Impact in about 11 minutes!
@278: Kabardians? If I were a reality TV producer, I would be all over that.
2 minutes!
Holy shit, that was incredible!
The thread with images and videos from the protests in Iran continues: “Tonight in the city of Yazd, two women standing on top of a car throw their hijabs in the air while protesters cheer and clap, on the 11th night of unrest in Iran over the death of #MahsaAmini, 22, in morality police custody and a near total internet shutdown….”
Kyiv Independent:
This is the message of a video made by Russian soldiers.
They were dumped in a forest with no equipment except for assault rifles. They don’t even have a radio. Their officers are long gone.
The Ukrainians are shelling their position.
And, the night is coming.
No wonder Russian casualties are so high and morale so low.
From CNN’s Hurricane Ian liveblog:
Its path could change before then, of course.
It’s expected to hit Cuba tomorrow as a Cat 3. More than 19,000 people have been evacuated from western Cuba.
“Under a bill they promoted, pregnant people could face murder charges even if they were raped or doctors determined the procedure was needed to save their own life. ”
This is the next step for the forced birthers/female slavers.
Making abortion equivalent to first degree murder.
Abortion already is a felony in Georgia, murder punishable by up to the death penalty.
Sooner rather than later, it will be a felony to get an abortion in all the Red states. They are always in a race to see who can be the most cruel and vicious. Because cruel and vicious shows that they have power, power over women, their lives, and their bodies.
And the activists and politicians leading the charge are nearly always men, CNN found.
I deleted most of this article. It was long but made the same point over and over again.
Ian is still like 100 miles south of Cuba and already having effects in Florida. It’s big and in the worst-case scenario will crawl over Florida.
Hahaha. (Twitter link.)
Paul K@247,
No worries! I always enjoy demonstrating how comprehensively the Vicar misunderstands and misrepresents UK politics. Incidentally, it begins to look as though Starmer just has to sit tight and make vague reassuring noises to win the next election, since the Truss-Kwarteng comedy duo have detonated a currency crisis by their unfunded tax giveaway to the rich, which is also massively unpopular in the country (see the entry at the link for 7.52). Adam Tooze suggests that their real aim is to generate huge pressure for “shrinking the state”, others have suggested they actually aim to lose the next election while leaving an incoming Starmer administration with an impossible situation. I don’t buy the latter – politicians, unless they are intending retirement, always try to hang on to power if they have it; and Tooze’s suggestion too leaves unexplained how they would plan to win the next election, so sheer ideologically-motivated stupidity looks more plausible. There are already rumblings among Tory MPs of an attempt to force a fresh leadership contest but then, there are probably enough “libertarian” headbangers in the parliamentary party to ensure that one of their number gets through to the two who are then presented to the Tory Party membership for a final decision – and they just chose Truss over the somewhat less deranged Sunak. We could even get the return of Johnson!
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian (support them if you can!) Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
From today’s CNN Hurricane Ian liveblog:
This Ukrainian government source is stating that 1.5 million Ukrainians have been deported or transported to Russia. And now they can’t get back to Ukraine.
They also can’t be contacted.
Most of these people have been sent north to the arctic coast or into Siberia as far as the Sakhalin island near Japan.
If the past Russian pattern holds many of these people will end up disappeared and never heard from again.
FWIW, I’ve seen many photos of the people in the villages that the Ukrainian armed forces have liberated. There aren’t many of them left and they almost all seem to be very old people. The younger men are in one army or the other, or dead. The younger women and children are refugees in Russia or the EU.
This is going to be the common experience of the new 300,000 or 1 million Russian men drafted.
Hard to say how much the Russian leadership can wreck Russian society before it collapses. Again.
It turns out that Russian men don’t want to get killed in Ukraine for no good reason.
Russians are also becoming outcasts just about everywhere.
A lot of that is just self defense. Many countries are uneasy about having large populations of desperate Russians living there. It puts a lot of stress on them and having Russians living in your country can be dangerous. Ask Ukraine how that works.
It also doesn’t look like support for the war is all that high in Russia.
After a century of the Gulags, the KGB, and frequent deportations and disappearances, Russians are very good at repeating the party line and trying to keep from being noticed.
Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Ted Cruz under fire for celebrating Italian far-right victory
@ 297
I know the ancient Soviet-era AFVs Russia is still using are primitive by the standards of today’s tanks, but I don’t think driving and using the weaponry on those things is something you can pick up “on the job.”
These kids are cannon fodder.
@ 299
The fashies on social media are trying to cast anyone who criticizes Meloni as hypocrites: “Oh! Now you are opposed to strong independent women in political power?” They’re also denying that she’s a fascist, asking for “evidence,” as if her statements, policy proposals, and the history of her own damn party wasn’t enough.
Guardian liveblog:
CNN liveblog:
Children removed from Jewish sect’s jungle compound in Mexico
“‘We will never allow Putin’s threats and imperialism to succeed. We will stand alongside Ukraine’s people, fighting on the frontlines.
So let this entire conference say together: Slava Ukraini!’
Standing ovation for Sir Keir Starmer on Ukraine. An absolutely emphatic response.
A Labour government led by Sir Keir Starmer will continue to arm our allies in Ukraine, the message is loud and clear.”
“BREAKING: John Strand, antivaxx Dr. Simone Gold’s partner and a major force behind the group America’s Frontline Doctors has been found guilty on all charges for his role in Jan 6.”
500-Million-Year-Old Fossil Reveals a Worm Covered in Bristles
Guardian liveblog:
KG @ # 230 – Would write a serious reply, but have more urgent things to do with Hurricane Ian predicted to hit here tomorrow.
Suffice it to say that most likely everybody’s predictions will come to pass: disgruntled émigrés and émigré wannabes, spies and saboteurs, growing resistance in Russia, Russian talent pool draining to west, dogs and cats living together.
To all: unless I get a chance this evening before the power goes down, this may be my last message for several days. I have plenty of food, water, candles, etc, so no worries personally – y’all please make sure nothing major happens while I’m offline!
Guardian liveblog:
KG @ 293: Echo chambers, arrogance, and stupidity. What a combination. I feel strange as I read about all of these political things happening around the ‘Western’ world. It’s like observing the actions of aliens in some kind of fishbowl, cut off from the rest of reality and doing things in ways that are barely fathomable. They gain and cling to power with seemingly no other motivation than just that. I know this has always been true, but it seems faster and more extreme than what I’ve lived through and read in history. Social media, and all the algorithms meant to gain clickers and hang onto them, might be the explanation for the acceleration I’m seeing, but maybe it’s just my age and naivete. Still, the utter lack of scruples or brains in so many ‘leaders’ right now is both amazing to me, and, I have to admit, fascinating. I want to get it, but I don’t. I also just hope there is an opening out of the insanity, and that we make it there.
Be safe, Pierce! Pop in and let us know you’re OK after the storm!
Church of Scientology Tapped Nicole Kidman’s Phone, According to New Exposé
Well, this is just plain crazy.
The Nordstream 1 and 2 gas pipelines from Russia to Germany seem to both have been attacked and seriously damaged.
There are 4 pipelines and 3 of them are leaking.
It isn’t known who attacked the pipelines.
They aren’t going to even be that easy to attack since they are deep underwater in the Baltic sea.
It was probably Russia though.
Ukraine doesn’t even have a navy and has no reason to blow up those pipelines.
The Russians do things like this all the time. False flag atrocities.
Someone keeps shelling the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and it is Russia which also occupies the power plant.
Texas’ Top Law Enforcement Officer Literally Ran Away From Subpoena in Abortion Case
University of Idaho Told Faculty They Could Be Fired for Providing Condoms or Even Talking About Abortion
News:
I’m out of touch with what is happening in Montana.
Then again, I’ve never been in touch with what is happening in Montana.
I don’t think I want to know more.
Ukraine update: A surprise move could change everything in the battle for Lyman
The article is accompanied by a photo captioned, “Russian conscripts arrive in Crimea after being trained extensively on riding a bus, Sept. 27, 2022.”
Guardian liveblog:
Followup to comment 319.
More Ukraine news:
Newt Gingrich tries to attack John Fetterman’s tattoos and it goes hilariously badly for Newt
more at the link
Cartoon: Harmacy
I lost track, is he still on number three?
Don’t really buy that. While we can’t rule out Putin doing something that monumentally stupid, there’s absolutely no benefit for him to do so. He wants the pipeline running, to generate cash and European dependence. Blowing it up just guarantees that Europe will actually follow through on cutting Russian energy, even if we have a cold winter. If this was Russia, it’s the dumbest thing they’ve done all day.
I suspect that it’s some West-aligned group that wants to take the discussion of the pipeline off the table.
A fuckton of Republican buffoonery is headed straight for the FBI:
Link
Republican candidate for office being not just wrong, but stupid:
Link
The Key Ingredients Of Christian Nationalism
Christian nationalism isn’t new. But its core components are dominating Republican politics.
CNN liveblog:
India teacher allegedly kills Dalit student over spelling mistake
The Shell Company Trying to Buy Trump’s Truth Social Is Now Based at a UPS Store Mailbox
Lawyer Paid $3M to Lead Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Defense Is Sidelined Just Weeks In
I thought this was probable – CNN liveblog:
Robbie Gramer, FP:
“In this long intercepted call, the Russian soldier in Kherson mentions significant losses in his regiment, the lack of morale, the blame they get for requiring mobilisation, how he hopes to get out with an injury, and much more….”
Subtitled audio at the (Twitter) link.
“Security forces in Ekbatan-Tehran shoot indiscriminately at the windows of the homes to prevent people from chanting ‘Death to Khamenei’ in their homes.”
Video at the (Twitter) link. WTF?!
Julia Davis:
DB link and subtitled video at the (Twitter) link.
“The combined tonnage of our oligarchs’ yachts would be envied by the navy of any large nation.”
Get a fucking grip, Reuters and AP.
CNN liveblog:
“#Ukraine: A captured Russian T-80U tank operated by the Carpathian Sich group (Already documented) towing a captured Russian 2A65 Msta-B 152mm howitzer in #Kharkiv Oblast.”
Video at the (Twitter) link (sound on! :)). The mud, it has started.
CNN liveblog:
More on the Nordstream Pipeline attacks.
There were three widely spaced leaks.
Swedish and Danish seismographs registered explosions.
This pipeline might be out for good, another casualty of Russia’s war.
“Russia and European partners spent billions of dollars building the pipeline….”
There go billions of dollars in capital investments.
I’m sure you can fix underseas pipelines and also sure it isn’t easy.
No one knows with any certainty who did it yet.
I can’t see that it was Ukraine though. They don’t even have a navy.
And it has to be somebody with access to explosives who is capable of working deep under water in the rough Baltic sea. That leaves out your average terrorist.
Tweet o’ the day.
Maybe the Nordstream pipeline ‘accident’ was actually environmental terrorism. No, I mean the environment (well, denizens of the environment) did the deed.
I am going to assume a submarine attacked the pipelines, since that’s the only denizen of the deep that typically uses explosives.
It seems like something Putin would do, as it’s a demonstration of power while also being a particularly wasteful and short-sighted strategy.
Tethys:
Trying for a little humour.
The simpler way to do it using the pipeline electronic control systems. Natural gas has weight which means that, when moving, it has momentum. Almost all pipelines (not sure when it comes to Nordstream) have valves, gates, that can isolate a piece of pipeline in the case of a leak. Suddenly closing a valve can either rupture the pipeline or destroy the valve (or both).
Russian computers are like any computers on earth — they can be vulnerable, usually because people are lazy (incidentally, xkcd has a comic about that today). Someone (possibly a western intelligence agency or, more likely, Russian intelligence) who breaks into the control computers for the pipeline could slam valves shut and, at the same time, leave other valves open and locked out of the system.
As to the why? Warfare against Western Europe? A false flag operation which they can blame on Ukraine to justify the use of unconventional weapons?
FFS, landfall is predicted to coincide with high tide.
And a pipeline rupture due to unsafe closing of a valve would possibly show up on seismometers as an explosion.
Yashar Ali:
Video at the (Twitter) link.
“Kazakhtelecom announced DDoS attacks from abroad on information sources of Kazakhstan”
“Abroad” = Russia.
SC:
I really hope that the power companies in the US (as well as other businesses) are on their cybersecurity toes. Sounds like Russia may be on the offensive on a different front.
The Russian army isn’t going to even give the newly mobilized soldiers equipment.
It is getting to be the cold East European winter and they don’t even issue them sleeping bags.
That they will issue them armor is mostly a lie. I’ve seen photos of some Russian body armor and it isn’t real armor. Some of it is sheet metal.
I learned from the video that tampons are good for stopping the bleeding from bullet wounds. You stick them in and they soak up the blood and swell up.
Who says Russian medicine is behind the times?
The second epsidoe of ‘The Australian Wars’ is on tonight – 7.30 pm so short notice sorry – bothon NITV and on SBS one.
Details :
On ABC iView as well if people can watch that – at least the first episode is here : https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-series/the-australian-wars
Powerful, informative and at times extrememly grim and emotional viewing.
Could be. But there are possible motives for Russia. The pipelines belong to them, so they get to repair them. A nice justification for gathering lots of submarines and support ships in the area and keeping them there, obliging all the states around the Baltic to put resources into defending against a possible seaborne attack. And in repairing them, they can “discover evidence” that Ukraine, or one of the states bordering the Baltic, was responsible for the sabotage.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
From today’s CNN Hurricane Ian liveblog:
“Russia’s children’s rights commissioner [!] on Wednesday said that Ukrainian children taken to Russia from Mariupol initially showed negative attitudes toward Russia, but now don’t wish to return home.
Kyiv has called [gaaaaaaaaaaaaah!] the forced relocations of Ukrainian children a war crime.”
Full, sickening quote at the (Twitter) link.
Some uninformed speculation on the Nord Stream pipelines, presuming what happened was deliberate: Both pipelines are dual-tube, i.e., there are four tubes in total. There seemed to be only three explosions. That suggests one tube is more-or-less intact. Why? It could be deliberate, but I’ve no idea why (or for that matter, why attack the pipelines in the first place). Or the “missing” fourth explosion was an accident, which suggests there is an unexploded bomb / mine somewhere along that fourth tube. (Or its detonation been deliberately delayed for some mysterious reason, or the mine-layer malfunctioned, or…)
Presuming a fourth bomb was laid, find it. It has a story to tell, and is perhaps strong evidence of who is behind the presumed sabotage, how the bomb was laid and (presumably supposed-to-be) triggered, etc.
Guardian liveblog:
Lucy Fisher, Times Radio:
Oh – part 2 of #360:
That is what I’ve been thinking.
I’m sure the three large, widely spaced holes in the Nordstream pipeline are fixable.
It doesn’t look like they are going to be fixed though.
After the residual natural gas flows out, sea water will flow in.
Sea water which is corrosive.
For a pipeline that isn’t being used and will probably never be used again.
Fixed in what is rapidly turning into a war zone.
That could easily be blown up again by the “unknown” state level terrorists who blew it up before.
There go several billions of capital expenditures and a cash machine for the Russian government.
The US is recommending that all American get away from Russia and stay away.
This same message is being repeated by a lot of Western nations today as well.
I’m getting the impression we are looking at a Russian Götterdämmerung in the making right now.
Putin is cornered and losing big time and seems like he is going down and taking Russia with him.
He has destroyed the Russian economy for a long time. Russia is a petrostate and they lost their main market for natual gas, the EU. Crude oil is going down in price, today it is $80/barrel. Russian oil is selling at a discount to the world price.
Destroying the Nordstream pipelines is a senseless act.
(It was either the Russians or Ukrainians and the Ukrainians don’t have the motive or ability to do something like that.)
Calling up the random males and sending them to the front with no training or equipment is just a cruel and senseless act.
It is meaningless as a military act but will result in the deaths of many unwilling Russian men.
Russia has no allies left. Even their CSTO members are openly criticizing them.
The chances of something major and drastic happening is high here. Two of many possibilities.
.1. Russia starts bombing the Ukrainian nuclear power plants. They already occupy one and could destroy it easily.
.2. Use nuclear weapons, tactical nukes or larger nuclear weapons.
Cthulhu knows they are now making those threats every day. People aren’t even keeping track any more.
The Nordstream pipelines are in water that is 262 feet to 361 feet deep.
That is deep enough that few people or organizations can operate at that depth.
They would be hard to blow up.
They are also going to be hard to fix.
CNN liveblog:
CNN liveblog:
CNN liveblog:
“Re. Lyman: Not if but when (& I suspect soon.)
map: @War_Mapper”
Map at the (Twitter) link. This was retweeted by Michael Kofman.
Ali Velshi is reporting from Naples (Florida). It’s just the beginning and cars are already floating around.
Ukraine update: Counteroffensive continues. All roads to Lyman now under Ukrainian control
Ukraine update, continued.
https://twitter.com/AndrewPerpetua/status/1575126883557064705
Full of recriminations, Manchin gives up on his fossil fuel giveaway, for now
There’s also a hurricane leveling parts of Florida, so it is not a good time to shut down the government. (Not that there is ever a good time to shut down the government.)
Bannon will be sentenced. He will be found guilty. Too early to say if he will do time in jail … or how much time if he does go to jail.
You know, Bannon is one of those people who will actually be dressed better in prison than outside. And it doesn’t matter what the prison uniform is, even.
Guardian liveblog:
McConnell snubs Trump, backs bill to prevent future coup schemes
Donald Trump demanded that GOP senators reject any effort to reform the Electoral Count Act. Soon after, Mitch McConnell decided to ignore him.
Ignoring Trump is good news.
Bits of news, as summarized by Steve Benen:
Kevin Sorbo lets you know he’d be nominated for an Oscar if he deigned to play a “pedophile terrorist”
MMFA – “Doug Mastriano is holding an event with Jack Posobiec, who has collaborated with neo-Nazis and spread antisemitism”:
Almost half a million Jewish people live in Pennsylvania. 2.3% of the state’s population is Jewish.
Republicans try to redefine ‘cut’ in bizarre Medicare attack ads
The NRSC’s Medicare attack ads are almost impressive in their mendacity. Most normal people don’t have the wherewithal to come up with duplicity like this.
“‘United States is announcing an additional $1.1 billion package of weapons and equipment for Ukraine’, including 18 new HIMARS, hundreds of armored vehicles, radars, and counter-drone systems, @PressSec Karine Jean-Pierre says. ‘We will not be deterred from supporting Ukraine’.”
I thought cable news was doing better with this storm, but they can’t help themselves – featuring people in evacuation zones who chose to stay, endangering their correspondents and crews, etc.
Herschel Walker Says Trans Kids Won’t Go to Heaven
How do you destroy a pipeline 300 feet under water in the Baltic sea?
I have no idea. My university didn’t offer that course.
It could have been an underwater drone dropped from a ship. It could have been there for weeks.
I don’t see how the Russians could tell their drone when it was time.
You couldn’t communicate with the drone that deep to tell it that it was time to blow up the pipeline.
M&M’s Debuts Purple Candy, Its First New Color in 10 Years
As campaign struggles, Doug Mastriano plans ’40 days of fasting and prayer’
Would you like some Tater Tots with that?
‘We’ll vote for Bolsonaro because he is God’
Well, I can’t disagree with him there!
On the Tory MPs’ response to the gobsmackingly stupid actions of the Truss-Kwarteng comedy duo:
Authorities Investigating Couple Who Dyed Waterfall Blue for Gender Reveal
CNN liveblog:
“Lara Trump and son during the storm, in what she calls a ‘character building’ exercise.”
Video at the (Twitter) link.
Here is a Financial Times article explaining why the Bank of England has had to make an emergency intervention to prevent the British economy disappearing up its own fundament. The key issue was apparently pension funds, which own huge assets – about $1tn in the UK – and because of the complicated financial arrangments they make to hedge against interest rate changes, the rise in the yield on long-term UK government bonds (“gilts”) meant they needed cash as collateral to ensure their right to buy some sort of assets so they could be sure of meeting their obligations (I think) – and the best way for them to get this cash fast was to sell gilts, pushing the price down and the yields further up, meaning they had to sell more… and if one or more big pension funds fell over, the entire UK financial system could easily follow. I don’t pretend to understand all this – but then, I’m not the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Unfortunately (for them, and potentially for the rest of us), it seems the Truss-Kwarteng comedy duo, having sacked the most senior Treasury civil servant, and advised by a bunch of swivel-eyed loons from the “libertarian” “think-tanks”, didn’t understand it either.
US Troops Are Volunteering to Fly Abortion Seekers Across State Lines
@392: Oh, you meant the most recent hurricane, not “The Storm.”
US warned European allies this summer that Nord Stream pipelines could be attacked
Earliest Gibbon Fossil Found in Southwest China
North Korea Launches Mass Covid-19 Vaccination Campaign
CNN liveblog:
Reginald Selkirk @ #395, yeah, the “character-building exercise” during The Storm would be cheering as Democrats are murdered.
Nitrous oxide emissions from Corn Belt spike when soils freeze and thaw
@ 383
So much for your Gawd’s omniscience, Herschel.
NBC – “Romance novel model pleads guilty to dragging officer down Capitol steps on Jan. 6”: “Bodybuilder Logan Barnhart, who was identified with the help of online sleuths, admitted that he fought police officers on the western front of the U.S. Capitol….”
LOL, my name for him when I was looking through the FBI photos was “hot guy.” I had no idea they’d caught him or that he was a “romance novel model.”
Tweet o’ the day.
I like this one. Of course, most of the US Supreme Court seems to agree regarding both guns and abortion.
“Iranian women — no Hijab — sing the Farsi version of Bella Ciao, the anti-fascist anthem of the Italian resistance during WW II…”
Video at the (Twitter) link.
“Terrapin Station.”
Re: #376–“McConnell snubs Trump, backs bill to prevent future coup schemes”
With Senator Pat Toomey’s agreement to support the electoral reform bill earlier this week, the Senate Bill already has the votes to overcome a filibuster. McConnell may have had his own reasons (saving face, opposing Trump, who knows) but in that regard his big announcement comes after this particular political ship has sailed.
Good article via Al Jazeera here :
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/9/28/what-ethiopia-can-teach-america-about-abortion-rights
Disturbing news here :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-29/mirarr-traditional-owners-appalled-by-jabiluka-mine-suggestion/101486190
Which I hope doesn’t happen and there’s a good analysis piece here :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-25/queen-elizabeth-death-indian-colonial-past-analysis/101469144
On the silencing of dissenting views on the monarchy following the British Queen’s death here in Oz,
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From there:
From today’s CNN Hurricane Ian liveblog:
Julia Davis:
Subtitled video at the (Twitter) link. This is what Fox viewers in the US are watching every night – pure Kremlin propaganda.
Iyad el-Baghdadi:
Which is also the countdown to Putin being able to claim that Ukrainian soldier’s presence in those provinces means that Ukraine has invaded Russia thus ‘legalizing’ Russian use of non-conventional weapons — poison gas, nuclear, and thermonuclear* and allows Putin to impress Ukrainian men into the Russian Army so that Ukrainians can commit genocide against Ukrainians. Never mind that much of the world has already stated, flat-out, that these referendums were an illegal sham (especially with the ‘please let us join Putin’s Russia’ vote running at 96% or more). And here in the US, I can guarantee that the conservative press will be following two different ideas: first, this would never have happened if Trump was still President (left unsaid: he would have finished destroying NATO so that Putin wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine to, among other things, destroy NATO) and, if we and the west had refused to send weapons to Ukraine, if we had refused to support Ukraine, if we had not sanctioned Russia and the oligarchs (sounds like a really bad punk band: Putin and the Oligarchs — Live in Concert!), if we had not refused to buy cheap Russian oil, then Putin would not be threatening to use nuclear weapons (because Ukraine would be fully occupied (with a low-level guerilla war which would last a long time (Ukrainian separatists (some of whom actually WERE fascists) were still active in the Ukraine at least through the 1950s and maybe later))) so if World War III breaks out, we can blame the Democrats and Biden forever (or at least until the survivors of the nuclear holocaust are too busy finding a way to survive to actually participate in politics (which would make it a win/win proposition for the forces of autocracy in the US and Europe)).
And I apologize to all the English teachers and professors I had in middle school, high school, and college, for that paragraph.
Ian has crossed Florida now and is strengthening again. It could hit Charleston tomorrow at hurricane strength.
Ukraine’s defense minister is saying “It can explode right there” about Russia’s nuclear weapons.
We all know that the Russians aren’t real good at maintaining and updating their stockpiles.
I think he is just whistling past the graveyard here though. They likely haven’t maintained all of them but they only need to keep a few dozen going to cause huge problems for everyone.
His comment about the several thousand Ukrainian held nuclear weapons expiring in 1997 isn’t too useful either. I’m sure they were. I’m also sure they could be renovated without too many problems. The Ukrainians have a large base of knowledge about fissionables due to their nuclear power industry.
IMO, if Russia uses tactical nuclear weapons, it would be an attack on the whole world.
And the whole world knows it.
It normalizes the use of nuclear weapons to achieve national goals.
The rest of the world’s potential nuclear weapons states, which is at least 50 by now, would get the lesson that no one attacks countries with nuclear weapons. The converse however isn’t true.
And they all would quietly start their own nuclear weapons programs.
They aren’t hard to make, based on 1940s technology, with plans for them widely available.
“#Ukraine troops have broken through Russian Defenses in several sectors of the front line near Kherson, says senior advisor to President Zelenskyy.”
Guardian liveblog:
Wow:
More at the (Twitter) link.
“Do you think Kwasi Kwarteng is doing a good job or a bad job as chancellor?
Good job: 7 (-3 from end of last week)
Bad job: 60 (+24)”
Guardian liveblog:
England impresses me. Really. Y’all have managed to find political leadership who have done damage to the economy within one month that Trump and Covid managed in four years. Good job, y’all.
Quotes from the Guardian via SC at 410:
Regardless of Russian mobilization, this was bound to happen after the Baltic countries and Poland closed their own borders earlier this month, and then increasingly blamed Finland for acting as a transit country for Russian tourists.
Clarification: Claiming asylum is an inalienable right, and different from being actually granted asylum. As it is, Russian political dissidents might be granted asylum in Finland, men fleeing draft not so much.
This was indeed the best legal justification our government could find for the border closure. The Baltic countries were more flexible in their handling of the situation, and decided that Russian citizens are categorically a security risk, which justified their collective discrimination at the border.
The development of this plan was indeed triggered by the recent migrant crisis at the Polish-Belarusian border, which was apparently machinated by Belarus at Russia’s tacit approval. Now, there’s growing concern that Putin might (at some point in the future) do something similar on Finnish border.
(If you see photos from current Finnish-Russian border, there may be a flimsy livestock fence on the Finnish side, not much of a barrier for humans, which is apparently why Pitkäniitty describes the current situation as “fenceless”)
Ukraine update: New HIMARS are not headed to Ukraine, not imminently, and that’s okay
Link
Wonkette: “Guess Texas AG Ken Paxton Would Like ‘Threatened To Shoot A Process Server’ To Be A Three Day Story!”
Farce … with Paxton as the central character.
Lynna @ #424, I think about that suit almost once a week. I remember reading it when it was first filed (as a RICO suit) and being amazed at how well it captured how he operates. It had quotes, photos, descriptions of events where he spoke,… It got almost no TV coverage. I used to have a link; I can’t find it now, but it’s very worthwhile reading.
CNN liveblog:
From the WTF Seriously thread:
England watched Trump and, somehow, decided that they wanted some of that. When the PM is forced pout, will the PM claim the vote was stolen?
Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Husband Files for Divorce
Maybe we can save her husband some money. Are any of those Stinger SAMs that Reagan sent to Afghanistan still around?
Ukraine-Russia war: US army doctor and wife charged with Russia spying
I know that this probably comes under the heading of water is wet, fire is hot, Trump is a criminal, but this” , from DailyKos, is notably emblematic of modern conservatism: DeSantis is happy to receive emergency aid that he callously voted to deny Hurricane Sandy victims.
Two American doctors have just been arrested by the FBI for trying to spy on the USA for Russia.
The wife seems to be a Russian immigrant of some sort or another.
.1. They don’t seem all that bright.
It didn’t take much for the FBI to arrest them.
.2. I doubt if they had any information that was the least bit useful to the Russians.
.3. If they really wanted to help Russia, they are both MDs. They could easily just catch the next plane to Europe and cross the borders into…Russia.
I’m sure Russia could use doctors to patch up their cannon fodder, of which there will soon be a whole lot.
MacKenzie Scott files for divorce from second husband, teacher Dan Jewett
Oggie @ #432, that reminded me of another thing that’s long angered me about these governors. They frequently deny the reality of climate change (even when they’re in states that are seeing the most damaging effects), refuse to do anything about it, and even block others from trying to address it. Then, when disasters inevitably and predictably strike, they get to play the role of serious steward and comforting presence. Mayors and communities praise and thank them for their help in rebuilding, and they do press events surrounded by emergency managers and first responders.
What a governor of a state like Florida or Texas should be doing (in addition, of course, to doing things that will protect people and infrastructure from harm) is the hard work of tackling climate change, which is going to be producing these catastrophic events with increasing frequency among the other serious long-term problems. Instead, DeSantis has been going around raising campaign money from rich donors, fucking up education and stigmatizing LGBT people, and spending badly needed state funds on vile and corrupt political stunts related to immigration. Meanwhile,
from June: “By focusing only on ‘resilience,’ Florida’s governor ignores climate change’s deadly heat.”
from July: “Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to bar state from considering climate change in investments.”
Chris Christie did the same thing in New Jersey, both before and after Sandy, and after he sort of acknowledged the reality of AGW (an actual news story reported by multiple outlets): “Chris Christie Leaves A Trumpian Legacy On Climate Change. But It Won’t Last.” But when Sandy hit, he milked it for all the PR he could get, walking around devastated communities in his fleece, hugging people, and promising to rebuild. This is still seen as some sort of finest moment by the political press: “Chris Christie, hurricane expert.”
It’s infuriating.
CNN liveblog:
“New—
Judge Cannon overrules the order by her special master that would have forced Trump’s lawyers to lodge objections to the accuracy of the DOJ’s inventory, effectively forcing him to prove his ‘planting claims’.”
Trump doesn’t need to do that any more, she rules.”
CNN liveblog:
Julia Davis:
Subtitled video at the (Twitter) link.
Re: #437
Cannon also extended the Oct 21 deadline the Special Master had set to Dec 16.
Um, Florida is well known for lax building codes and decades of a building boom that ignored all common sense by removing the mangroves and allowing all those luxury homes to be constructed within the flood plain
Climatologists have been warning the world about this exact thing for decades, so it beggars belief that the long forecasted event of a powerful devastating hurricane happening is somehow “unanticipated or unexpected”.
My in laws, when they were looking to move out of their old (25-year-old) house, looked at southwest Florida. One of the selling points by a real estate agent was that, due to geography and the shallowness of the ocean, hurricanes don’t his southwest Florida. They did not buy it.
“IMPORTANT NEWS
This video of singer Shervin Hajipour singing tweets by Iranians who share why they’re fighting for freedom went viral with tens of millions of views.
The Islamic Republic has forced Shervin to delete the video and they have arrested him
Translation: @BBCArdalan”
Beautiful video at the (Twitter) link.
One of the tweets reads: “Because of innocent, outlawed dogs.” I posted about this horror in July but had forgotten about it.
Steve Rosenberg, BBC:
Video report at the (Twitter) link.
After first look of damage, DeSantis says Sanibel saw ‘biblical’ destruction
Idiot. It’s anti-Biblical. If he even read the Bible, does he remember the bit about how YHWH promised Noah not to do it again?
Tweet o’ the day.
Tom Bonier:
Rob Lee:
Thinking of this today for some reason.
More war news.
This is the fundie xian War on Halloween.
This years theme is Rainbow fentanyl something something cancel Halloween something.
It is Fox NoNews so making sense out it isn’t possible.
Next up is the War on Xmas.
Seems like the War on Xmas comes earlier every year.
Reporting back from periphery of Ian’s swath: lost juice for only 23 hours; had three trees fall on the access road; one neighbor’s truck stuck but pulled out; local airport reports >50 mph gusts, but no sustained winds at official Tropical Storm levels.
The people and land to the south who took the hit expected here will probably have grumpier responses. We’re just lucky Ian didn’t hit larger cities or stall over land (here: coastal Georgia/Carolinas get their chance next…)
Pierce @ #451, thanks for checking in! Glad you’re unscathed!
New Lines – “As Protests Erupt Over Putin’s Draft, a More Ominous Threat Surfaces”: “Demonstrators in the mostly Muslim North Caucasus are hinting at secession…”
Zelenskyy also made a video directly appealing to people from the North Caucasus to join Ukraine in the struggle for freedom.
LOL.
Oh really?
They’ve been told multiple times every day for 30 years by all the world’s climatologists that CO2 was rising, the ice at the poles is melting, the globe is heating up, sea levels are rising, and hurricanes are becoming more powerful.
Climate change will happen whether you believe in it or not. Reality doesn’t care what you believe.
Here’s a link to today’s Guardian Ukraine liveblog. From their latest summary:
More on the attack on the civilian convoy:
“Russian state TV has been airing a trailer for a new film co-produced by Yevgeny Prigozhin which glorifies the Wagner group
It’s called The Best in Hell”
Subtitled video at the (Twitter) link. “We know that we will go to hell, but in hell we will be the best.”
Andrew Roth, Guardian:
“It’s a perfect illustration of Putin’s Russia: the official annexation ceremony in the Kremlin, pathetic speeches on the imperialistic absorption ‘of what used to be Ukraine’, but meanwhile in the ground — thousands of Russian soldiers dying in a catastrophic pocket in Donbas.”
More re #453 – here’s the text of Zelenskyy’s address in English translation – “Address by the President of Ukraine to the indigenous peoples of Russia: Fight to avoid death, defend your freedom in the streets and squares”:
LOL. (Twitter link.)
“Ukrainian war correspondent Yury Butusov says a Russian column is about to try its luck fleeing Ukrainian encirclement in Lyman, The road out from Zarichne is monitored by Ukrainians and in range. Column of military and stolen civilian vehicles. Photo done just over 1 hour ago….”
(Twitter link.)
Mykailo Podolyak:
Just in time for Halloween, another Russian horror atrocity.
They have been just randomly firing missiles into civilian areas.
This one hit a house with 4 people, mom, grandmother, two kids. It’s just rubble. The old family dog is sitting on top of the rubble pile crying and won’t leave.
The dog isn’t in great shape either, caught in the edge of the blast.
I’m not linking to it.
If you want you can find it easily.
You probably don’t want to watch it though if you want to sleep at night.
The Times – Stories of Our Times podcast – “Death in Qatar: What really happened to British businessman Marc Bennett?”:
Jurassic Park Ride Damaged By Hurricane Ian
O Noez, I hope the velociraptors didn’t escape – again.
Guardian liveblog:
Sunken Gardens flamingos, still in a St. Petersburg bathroom, are doing fine
Lev Tahor Jewish sect members held in Mexico escape
raven @450, they have to fulminate about something. So now it is Halloween and “Rainbow fentanyl.”
I saw a report that some dealers are selling individual pills containing fentanyl for $48. I doubt that anyone would give away $48 pills to kids as Halloween treats.
This looks like hysteria being whipped up over nothing.
Fentanyl is a problem, and deaths from opioid overdoses in the USA are at staggering levels. Doesn’t have anything to do with Halloween, nor does it have anything to do with supposed leftist cabals going after children.
Guardian liveblog:
Is it, though? In reality? Not that it makes any difference in terms of the illegality, but they don’t even really control this land. They can hardly forcibly take over places that have been, are currently being, or will soon be liberated by Ukraine. To paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld, anybody can just declare an annexation.
Ukraine update: Putin says occupied areas are part of ‘historical fatherland,’ threatens war on West”
Max Seddon livetweeting the concert in Moscow:
Video at the link. LOL.
Followup to SC @470:
https://twitter.com/Cellodidas89/status/1575823548144582658
Additional Ukrainian update, (link in comment 471].
Under Oath, Ginni Thomas Stuck To Big Lie Script
Posted by readers of the article:
Judge Cannon Does Trump Another Solid
Trump will no longer have to say whether he really believes that the FBI planted evidence.
Followup to comment 477.
Posted by readers of the article:
Followup to comments 477 and 478.
Josh Marshall:
Why Team Trump is now talking up 200,000 pages of Mar-a-Lago docs
Did the FBI really retrieve 200 pages of documents from Mar-a-Lago, as Team Trump claims? Probably not, though we know why lawyers are pushing the figure.
Ted Budd, GOP Senate Candidate, Advertises Insurance for Domestic Abusers at His Gun Store
Ron DeSantis=hypocrite:
Link
Link
Interrogations, Electric Shocks, Detention—This Is What Russian Occupation of Ukraine Looks Like
“Everywhere I went, I was told story after story about imprisonment and torture.”
More at the link.
Guardian liveblog:
Ilya Lozovsky:
Tweet o’ the day.
As Congress prevents a shutdown, Republicans balk for odd reasons
On the vote to prevent a shutdown, one House Republican helped negotiate the terms of the bill, but rejected it anyway for reasons she couldn’t explain.
Ukraine update: Russia prepares for defense of Svatove as U.S. provides powerful new rockets
Wonkette:
SC@487, One of replies to that twittering is this twittering (quoted in full after converting the JPEG image to text via OCR and a few manual fix-ups & formatting tweaks):
Our Cancers Are Filled With Fungi
Rift in Danish royal family after Queen strips four grandchildren of royal titles
ZOMG. (Twitter link.)
Everyone on Twitter was talking about what CPAC tweeted, but they then deleted it so I didn’t know what it was in full.
Finally someone posted a screen shot:
It’s amazing that they tweeted this right after “The U.S. and the Holocaust” aired.
They are putting America first.
Russia is a huge threat to the whole world right now, including us.
And just who is giving gifts here?
We are supporting Ukraine with money and what money buys, which are weapons.
They are spending the lives of their children, killed and wounded by the tens of thousands in close combat with the Russian army.
Money is just money, it comes and goes and is replaceable.
Once you are permanently injured or dead, that is forever.
Ukraine is paying by far the higher price.
If we spend $40 billion on Ukraine this year, my share is a whole $121, I spent more than that on rock concert tickets this summer. I spend more than that in coffee houses per year.
It is the best $121 I can think of to spend.
I question the morality of fighting to the last Ukrainian though on something that seriously concerns us all.
Screenshot of #495 (Twitter link).
“Ukrainian troops have entered Lyman”
Video at the (Twitter) link.
Francis Scarr: