Ukraine Strikes Back, Hitler Worship, Jan 6, Slavery History, Immigration

  • Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit points to largely unnoticed, subtle, evidence that Putin’s flagship in the Black Sea was sunk by Ukrainian missiles, not by some Russian accident, as Putinites would have us believe.
     
  • What goes on in the bully-boy mind of Vlad?
    He sends his military to an easy takeover of Ukraine. They get bloodied in one battle after another.
    He sends threats to keep NATO countries from supplying Ukraine. Their transfer of weapons accelerates.
    He sends his flagship, the pride and joy of the Russian navy, to shell Ukraine. Ukraine sinks the ship.
     
    In Hackwhackers, Vlad uses intimidation to keep Finland and Sweden out of NATO. Guess what happens!
     
  • Must seem like this:

  • Nojo finds what is possible to find on what ordinary Russians are discovering about Putin’s Ukraine invasion, what they believe, and why.
     
  • M. Bouffant at Web of Evil has the links as yet another Russian who dares to speak up gets harassed, poisoned, and finally arrested in Moscow.
     
  • Infidel753 has refrained from extrapolating Putin’s genocidal ways into any characterizations about rightists in other countries. Putin has seemed fairly close to uniquely evil. But Marine Le Pen in France and a few public figures in the US force a course correction.
     
  • In Letters from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson acknowledges the anniversary of the death of Abraham Lincoln and reviews the similarities in threats to the Republic, then and now, the foremost of which was and is fear of democracy.
     
  • There are receipts, then there is proof, and then there is this. tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors has more than documentation of what we pretty much already know. But this seems to seal the deal:
    Audio tapes of instructions issued to January 6 insurrectionists.
     
  • The Palmer Report contains a bit of well founded speculation about a new DOJ indictment and a prominent public figure who may be in legal jeopardy.
     
  • Grung_e_Gene takes a glance at an open push along a pathway to removing any democratic parts from democratic republic and tries to put a laptop into perspective.
     
  • Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged decides that, yes, you can sometimes take an incident involving an incidental public official and, from it, characterize the non-incidental nature of a political party. For example someone who lectures homeless people that they should model their lives after Adolf Hitler.
     
    One excerpt:
    When someone takes a look at the life story of Adolf Hitler, the takeaway should not actually be that, say what you will about the man, he was a real go‑getter.
     
  • Frances Langum takes notes as Jimmy Kimmel scores against Trump and Greene but completely stomps Mr. Gaetz into the ground.
     
    My thought:

Continue reading “Ukraine Strikes Back, Hitler Worship, Jan 6, Slavery History, Immigration”

Putin War Crimes, COVID, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Clarence Thomas

Let’s begin with a few moments of tearful joy:

Continue reading “Putin War Crimes, COVID, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Clarence Thomas”

Putin, Ukraine, Planning, Authoritarian, Tuck, Biden, KBJ, Slap, Covid, Madison

  • Putin propagandists accuse Ukraine of an air strike on a fuel depot within Russian borders. Green Eagle raises an obvious point.
     
  • Not all Russians buy into Putin lies:

  • Nojo finds a cute little cartoon video created by a Ukrainian girl about a tractor capturing and pulling a tank. Everyone singing and dancing as they roll merrily along. War enters everything.
     
  • Workforce managers have been boring their yawning staff members long before I became elderly, with useful aphorisms like Fail to Plan = Plan to Fail! And now, Putin ends up proving them right as rain!
     
    Bastard!
     
    Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit sees one reason Ukraine has been so successful so far in so kicking an invading bully in the tail. In several years of preparing for the conflict that Putin planned and Ukrainians anticipated, Ukrainians were astonishingly smart, and Putin’s group were comically witless.
     
  • Infidel753 suggests one source for Putin miscalculation. Intelligence failures can be caused by a single characteristic pretty much baked in to power grasping authoritarianism.
     
  • Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger points to an extreme percentage of the world living under authoritarian regimes and suggests an overarching reason Ukraine’s fight against Putin’s invasion has become especially important.
     
  • tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors has the numbers. It seems Tucker Carlson is unable to convince even his most ardent followers that Vlad Putin is the good guy in the Ukraine invasion.
     
  • There are other lessons to be learned as well: like how to be an authentic human:

  • In News Corpse President Biden is derisive about Peter Doocy’s demand that the President publicly reveal strategic contingency plans about what the US might do if Putin uses chemical weapons in Ukraine.
     
  • Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged explains that, in hearing President Biden’s “ad-lib” about Putin, we may want to keep in mind the target audience.
     
  • In Letters from an American, noted historian Heather Cox Richardson examines economic news. With no help, no votes, just foot dragging opposition from Republicans, President Biden presides over astonishingly fast job creation and record low unemployment. Inflation is high, but appears to be a global problem, not endemic to the US.
     
  • Republicans have been on this path at least since those wayback days when I was just a lad. Frances Langum reports they are still at it, as they once more unveil plans to slash Social Security and Medicare.
     
    And that is not all we may experience:

  • Mitch McConnell demands that Republicans oppose Ketanji Brown Jackson for the Supreme Court. Scottie is irritated at the lack of principle or even a coherent phony argument for his opposition.
     
  • Usually indecisive Senator from Maine will be voting for Ketanji Brown Jackson after all. Andy Borowitz reports that Senate Republicans are planning to punish Susan Collins by making her sit next to Rand Paul.
     
  • PZ Myers watches a police raid on the home of an anti-abortion activist, where they discover… Holy Mother of God!!.

Continue reading “Putin, Ukraine, Planning, Authoritarian, Tuck, Biden, KBJ, Slap, Covid, Madison”

War Crimes, Putin, Russian FSB Revolt, Zelensky, Ketanji Brown Jackson

Continue reading “War Crimes, Putin, Russian FSB Revolt, Zelensky, Ketanji Brown Jackson”

Ukraine, Putin Rally, War Crimes, Postage, Boycott, Fox, Both Sides

  • PZ Myers pays attention to the explicitly expressed, but under-reported, aims of Vladimir Putin quite aside from military invasion. He insists he will accomplish the purification of Russian society of non-traditional ideas. Those on America’s extreme right are loving the idea.
     
  • At The Moderate Voice, Mark Satta looks at Putin’s efforts to justify invasion through the extreme manipulation of language beyond its generally accepted meaning.
     
  • Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged tells us of a woman in Russia arrested for carrying a blank protest sign. The sign with nothing on it tells us something about freedom in Putin’s Russia.
     
  • There are strange goings on in Putin television. Russia being in Putkin-Control, it’s hard to get a straight story, which is one reason tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors becomes instantly valuable. He gathers the Twit-bits and News-pieces into a coherent narrative as the dictator tries to go all Trumper.
     
    Putin holds a massive rally with a crowd that Putin-folk insist numbers 200,000 screaming fans. The stadium only holds 81,000, so there’s that. Then, in mid-sentence, Putin’s mic goes out, the dictator disappears like a card from magician’s hand, and tengrain pieces together the mystery. Now for Putin’s next magical trick.
     
  • Want the Putin view of the pro-Putin rally of seemingly adoring fans crammed into a clown car of a stadium? M. Bouffant at Web of Evil runs to the nearest pro-Trump site to discover how charismatic, how effective, how popular a national leader Putin has turned out to be. Kind of a miracle.
     
  • In Letters from an American, noted historian Heather Cox Richardson has this to say: While Russia’s war on Ukraine continues in all its blistering horror, there are glimmerings that suggest Russia’s position in its assault on Ukraine is weakening.
     
  • Infidel753 points out that Putin’s invasion and his bullyboy targeted attacks on children’s facilities and hospitals for pregnant women is intended to be a show of strength. Instead he demonstrates profound national weakness. The creative title says it well.
     
  • I confess. At first I thought this was satire. Nojo tells us about Ukraine’s competition to design a new postage stamp, and the wonderfully profane winner.
     
  • I suppose any disaster will have grifters ready to take advantage. Scotties Playtime brings news of one of the worst possibilities operated by right-wing Americans right in Ukraine itself. Children are the targets.
     
  • Doing business with Russia sounds so antiseptic. Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger tells us a little about corporate complicity: Companies helping Putin murder Ukrainian citizens.
     
  • News Corpse reports on the public grateful praise Putin’s Foreign Minister expresses for the Fox Network.
     
  • As the Putin invasion of Ukraine continues, uniting the world, uniting most of the US, driftglass sees a new narrative in the both-sides-are-the same ideology: Putin has discredited his supporters on both extremes. The only fly in that ointment is that virtually all Putin support comes from the right.
     
    For myself, I’m okay with both-sides as a conclusion, backed by evidence or logic or both. A conclusion can be examined and debated.
     
    I reject it as a premise backed by nothing.
     
  • Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit points out that, in the US House of Reps, Vlad maintains his very own Putin Caucus.
     
  • It has been winding through the internet, and we can hope it somehow leaks into Russia. Hackwhackers relays from a Twitter feed the video of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s quietly impassioned message of love and admiration for the people of Russia, including a story of his boyhood hero, Yury Petrovich Vlasov, who later became his admired friend. The video is a plea and a challenge to reject Putin lies about the invasion of Ukraine. Hackwackers calls it a remarkable video: a fair description.
     
  • At Political Irony Vlad retaliates against worldwide actions with sanctions on several Americans. Hillary Clinton issues an ideal response.
     
  • Andy Borowitz has the details as Donald Trump offers his considerable experience and expertise in helping Russia file for bankruptcy.

Continue reading “Ukraine, Putin Rally, War Crimes, Postage, Boycott, Fox, Both Sides”

Vlad the Invader, Inside Putin, Zelensky Inspires, Ukrainians Suffer & Die, GOP

Police are heroes because they are willing to do exactly this, and occasionally they are called upon to do exactly this.

  • The two year period between 1989 and 1991 began with the tumbling of the Berlin wall and ended with the fall of the USSR. It is remembered by much of the world as a brief time of hopeful joy. The Palmer Report compares Vladimir Putin’s reaction to that time with that of another historical figure to another historical downfall. It may help explain a combative personal view that sees the world only in hostile nationalistic and racial terms.
     
  • In Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson has us remember FDR’s fireside chats, in which he explained the war by contrasting the growing philosophy of fascism with that of democracy.
     
    She suggests that Vladimir Putin may have provided a similar service in advance of his latest invasion.

    In 2019, Russian president Vladimir Putin told the Financial Times that the ideology of liberalism on which democracy is based has “outlived its purpose.” Multiculturalism, freedom, and human rights must give way to “the culture, traditions, and traditional family values of millions of people making up the core population.”

    Outmoded democracy and freedom must give way to what he sees as more traditional racial and ethnic family values.
     
    We can see how the Putin side of that contrast might appeal to a few media personalities and political figures here in America.

  • The Moderate Voice presents the speech by Ukraine’s President Zelensky to the British Parliament that inspired a standing ovation, along with a series of individual reactions.
     
  • This not fun and games. Hackwhackers displays three photos showing frantic efforts to prevent, then reactions to, a singularly tragic death in Ukraine.
     
    Putin is a murderer.
     
  • Nojo doesn’t catch much cable news and so misses the enthused drama. But he sees the reaction of friends, and catches what is on line and in print about the forty mile Putin army convoy stalled on the way to Kiev. He greets reports with a degree of skepticism.
     
  • Infidel753 explains with patient care, so even the dimmest bulbs among us can glow brighter with new understanding of why, no, we won’t have a no-fly zone over Ukraine. Spoiler alert: has to do with the end of the world as we know it.
     
  • M. Bouffant at Web of Evil explains that, while many major corporations are pulling out of Russia, Mr. Trump’s former bank says it would be impractical to give up all those profits.
     
  • Author John Scalzi has books that sell worldwide, including in Russia. So what are his thoughts on that, now that Putin has invaded Ukraine? Well… he does have a three point plan.
     
  • Andy Borowitz reports that Putin is upset to find Ukrainians are less obedient than his friend Trump.
     
  • Putin is having trouble invading Ukraine, but Dave Dubya explains how he had no trouble at all taking over the Republican Party.
     
  • Remember, when Donald Trump was President Trump, how he all but tripped over his tongue gushing love and servitude toward Vlad Putin, Kim Jong Un, and every other dictator and near-dictator he stumbled into? He admired and envied tough guys who could subdue their societies and kill their critics.
     
    tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors brings us the latest explanation from Donald Junior, Son of Don. Seems that gushing was all a trick to get on their good side and get them to agree to – well – things. Had me fooled. How about you?
     
  • I usually suspect at least a little exaggeration from anyone discussing someone from the opposition. I have heard that Trump was asked about Ukraine and went to windmills. He had to have given a few sentences to the question, then rapidly and awkwardly transitioned. But NOOooooo…. News Corpse has the video. Sure enough, the friendly, fawning interviewer asks Mr. Trump what he thinks will happen in Ukraine. Mr. Trump’s very next words are:
     
    Well, and I said this a long time ago, if this happens, we are playing right into their hands. Green energy. The windmills don’t work.
     
    Then he stumbles on about birds and visual landscapes and environmentalists. Yikes.
     
  • Ant Farmer’s Almanac has the headline as Mr. Trump has a new worry about the name of his new social media platform and Mr. Putin.
     
  • Pravda is the Russian word for Truth! Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit takes an old Russian saying about the official Putin News Agency and applies it to the Fox network.
     
  • Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger goes all third-party Elizabeth Barrett Browning on Putin lovers in the Republican party: counting all the ways they love him using their own words. Oh how they twist about in the aftermath of the current stalled Putin invasion. Ted does express the forlorn hope that they’ll take Russia’s Ukraine debacle as an object lesson and rethink their own hostility to democracy. But he is afflicted with more realistic expectations.
     
  • CalicoJack in The Psy of Life applies principles of group think to the actions of, and support for, Vlad Putin on the part of some.
     
  • Iron Knee at Political Irony sees some flipping and flopping as some Republicans try to figure out how to Putinize with support/oppose/predict he won’t/knew he would confusion about the invasion.
     
  • YellowDog Granny does seem to notice observations that possess the virtue of accuracy:
     

     
  • A prominent Republican, favored to become the GOP nominee for a Congressional seat in Michigan, boasts of advising his daughters, if rape becomes inevitable, to lie back and enjoy it. Yeah, he says it on video, in public, in front of God and everybody. Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged suggests this is just the latest manifestation of a growing Republican philosophy, and relates her own father’s very different advice.
     
  • Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson seems skeptical:

Continue reading “Vlad the Invader, Inside Putin, Zelensky Inspires, Ukrainians Suffer & Die, GOP”