Friday, September 30, 2022

Putin's cruelty upon Ukraine backfires onto Russians; Remembering Queen Elizabeth II, and a lot more from September


DEATH OF HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II

Queen Elizabeth dies at 96; Britain’s longest-serving monarch. {NYT 9/08} 

King Charles III says he feels 'weight of history which surrounds us' in first address to parliament as monarch. {Sky News 9/12}

J.D. Tuccille: Maybe a constitutional monarchy can show the way to a less powerful state - ‘Harmlessly satisfying an appetite for pomp while threatening nobody's liberty is a decent attribute for any institution.’ {Reason 9/12}

Prince Andrew heckled by protester along the procession from Holyrood Palace to St. Giles’ Cathedral -  Not condoning what Prince Andrew *allegedly* did (which should go without saying) but that little puke in Edinburgh yelling ‘dirty old man’ during the middle of a funeral procession deserves a good thrashing. Not the time and place. {Sky News 9/12}

Anti-monarchist arrests spark criticism in Britain - Seeing there are some extremely over-the-top fabrications being spread online - best I can tell, mostly by Americans - alleging that British citizens were being arrested for speaking out against the monarchy. Cut the crap: These individuals - of which there were only a scant few out of millions of Britons - were not detained for their precious ‘free speech,’ but for disorderly conduct. A criminal offense even in a country of loud and belligerent imbeciles such as America. Disorderly conduct: Meaning, one is expected to conduct themselves properly and respect others while out in public, especially during a time of mourning. We know that many people have lost all perspective and common sense when acting like a monkey in public is demanded to be a fundamental human right. Crying ‘tyranny’ when there is none is a grave insult to those individuals in this world who are suffering real oppression and deprivation. {France 24 9/13}

WATCH: Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral in full. {Sky News 9/19}

Andrii Marienko

PUTIN’S WAR OF AGGRESSION AGAINST UKRAINE

Putin announces partial mobilization, Russia’s first since World War II, and threatens nuclear retaliation in escalation of his war on Ukraine. {The Guardian 9/21}

Leading Russian economist warns his nation’s economy will ‘die by winter’ as a result of the mobilization - No scenario now where Russia can avoid catastrophe, such is the path their insane leader has taken. {Fortune 9/26}

A ‘bald-faced land grab based on lies.’ Putin announces Russia will be illegally annexing Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia. {AP 9/29}

Open anti-semitism on the rise in Russian state media as war effort falters. {Jerusalem Post 9/29}

Mass grave discovered in the liberated town of Izium; over 400 bodies found. {DW 9/15}

Russians murder civilians out of desperation as they retreat from numerous Ukrainian towns, a direct violation of the Geneva Convention - Declare Russia a state sponsor of terrorism and Putin a war criminal, starting yesterday! {Business Insider 9/13}

Liberated villages describe Russian troops dropping rifles and fleeing. {WaPo 9/11}

Russian reservists 'told to find their own first aid supplies' - Putin cannot even provide basic supplies for his troops, forcing these men to leave home and making them pay out of their own pockets for the privilege. {The National News 9/30}

Leo Correa/AP

Confirmed number of Russian equipment losses in Ukraine greater than the total inventory of the UK, France, or Germany - The key word there being ‘confirmed,’ as real losses are believed to be substantially higher. Ukrainians have captured and repurposed many of these vehicles, and possess intimate knowledge of their workings. Frankly, it is stunning to see what was a feared military being exposed as a paper tiger, while Ukraine is showing itself to be one of the world’s great fighting forces. But a wounded animal is the most dangerous one: Russia’s only chance of winning this war will be to resort to the unthinkable - the only leverage they have left - and Putin flat-out told the world this past week that he will use all means of destruction at his disposal. {Yahoo! 9/23}

Sham referendums calling for annexation to Russia held in four Donbas regions under partial Russian occupation, residents forced to vote at the barrel of a gun. {Reuters 9/23}

Ordinary Russians stuck between a rock and a hard place: Estonia warns Russian nationals they will be banned from the EU if they answer Putin’s draft notices; meanwhile, Finland is set to ban Russian tourists from entry. {Sky News 9/24}

Citizens in the country of Georgia protest against allowing in more Russian dissenters. {AFP 9/28}

U.S. intelligence: ‘Russia is looking to address the shortage of troops in part by compelling soldiers wounded earlier in the war to return to combat, recruiting personnel from private security companies and even recruiting from prisons.’ {AP 8/31}

‘Germany has announced a €65bn (£56.2bn) package of measures to ease the threat of rising energy costs, as Europe struggles with scarce supplies after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.’ {BBC 9/04} 

Despite not having a shred of proof, Russia formally presses for investigation in Geneva on whether the U.S. violated the 1975 Biological Weapons Convention by placing bio weapon labs in Ukraine. {NYT 9/04}

At least twenty-three civilians dead and twenty-eight wounded following Russian missile attack on convoy of cars in Zaporizhzhia. {Reuters 9/30}

Putin always chooses escalation - A quote on the mood in Russia: ‘People are ready to lead their children, husbands and sons to the slaughter. It’s downright evil… People don’t need therapists anymore; they need psychiatrists.’ {The Moscow Times 9/29}

Sergei Supinsky/AFP/Getty Images

Bret Stephens: Ukraine’s achievement is President Biden’s, too - The White House has been ‘providing Ukrainians with the kind of battlefield intelligence that enables them to maneuver, target, strike and evade in ways they otherwise couldn’t.’ Untold numbers of Ukrainian lives have been saved, and much infrastructure spared, because the Ukrainian military is receiving much of the firepower needed to repel the invaders (though more is needed still.) If the Ukrainian military were not composed of some of the world’s fiercest and most determined fighters, and if Western nations were not providing aid and support, Putin *would* have achieved his stated goal of taking over Kyiv in mere days. Just imagine how emboldened Putin would be had his forces secured the quick victory that he was counting on. Poland, the Baltic Republics, and perhaps Finland would all possibly be under attack by now. All of whom are either current or likely soon-to-be NATO countries; meaning all of NATO would be obligated to enter the fray and, with it, the start of World War III. Yet, most #Muricans haven't a clue as to what is at stake, and millions are embracing Putin and Ukrainophobia (funny, since most couldn’t point out Ukraine on a map or know a damn thing about the place other Trump and company told them it is a ‘Nazi’ state ostensibly housing secret U.S. bioweapon labs.). I never cease to flabbergasted these days; but back in normal times (say, prior to the mid-2000s and the backlash against the ‘neocons,’ and before Putin’s propaganda machine was up-and-running in earnest) the country would have understood the stakes and have acknowledged their president is doing his part to prevent armageddon. But #Muricans today are too busy arguing over a cartoon character’s skin color, whining about gas prices, and banning classic novels from school libraries because some lilly white kids may feel bad after learning the actual history of this country. What a disgrace. Glory to Ukraine! {NYT 9/13}

GEOPOLITICS

Mikhail Gorbachev is laid to rest in Moscow; Vladimir Putin does not attend the ceremony. {Times of Israel 9/03}

Putin and the Saudis conspire to prop up global oil prices - Just keep on being the great Americans you all claim to be, #Cult45; blaming President Biden for high gas prices even as all evidence points toward America’s mortal enemies as the culprits. {NYT 9/14}

‘President Biden’s nominee to take over the U.S. military’s nuclear arsenal and missile-defense operations warned on Thursday that China’s rise as a nuclear power poses historic threats and challenges requiring a reevaluation of current policies.’ {WaPo 9/15}

UK: Liz Truss wins Conservative Party leadership race, will take over as Prime Minister - Can this one be trusted to stand up to Vladimir Putin as strongly as Boris Johnson has? Time will tell, but my gut says Labour will be back in power sometime in the near-future. {BBC 9/05}

British Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng announces a controversial tax cut package, and the UK pound sterling promptly falls to a 37-year low. {DW 9/23}

Reuters

Italy elects right-wing populist Giorgia Meloni as its leader - Giorgia Meloni: A name we’re going to be hearing a lot of, and decidedly a bit easier on the eyes than Mussolini. As is the case with just about every neo-Fascist movement in today’s world (including and especially #Cult45 in the U.S.), Meloni and her supporters insist they are ‘conservatives’ and take offense at being labeled for what they really are; even as they lap up and circulate every conspiracy theory thrown out there, and even as they endlessly rage against immigrants and persist in extreme natalism. Likely to become Italy’s first woman leader, and almost certainly its most dangerous since the aforementioned ‘Il Duce.’ Let it be noted that this one is very much on the radar of #Cult45 leaders, having appeared at CPAC and at the National Prayer Breakfast. A severe warning to this duplicitous woman, and to the Italian people: We are not going down this route again, and there are going to be severe consequences if you step out of line. {Ruth Ben-Ghiat, The Atlantic 9/23}

Spanish Foreign Minister on Giorgia Meloni’s victory in Italy: ‘Populism always ends in catastrophe’ - Truer words have rarely been spoken, yet human beings never learn their lesson. {SBS News 9/26}

The European Parliament declares Viktor Orbán’s Hungary is no longer a democracy, but an ‘electoral autocracy’ - Another reminder that this is the model the GOP and #Cult45 openly wishes to impose on the United States. {New Voice of Ukraine 9/15}

Teacher shortages in Hungary and Poland - Borderline theocratic governments that have put so many restrictions on teachers, and pay them so poorly, that nobody wants to teach anymore. Sound familiar? I wonder how these governments, and the GOP in #Murica, are going to explain it to their nativist citizens, in about ten years or less, when they’re being forced to recruit teachers and medical personnel en masse from wherever they can be found - India, the Orient, sub-Saharian Africa - just to keep the schools and hospitals running. {AP 9/03}

The U.S. Treasury places sanctions on Iran’s so-called ‘morality police’ following the death of a young woman in their custody and subsequent mass protests in Tehran. {Reuters 9/22}

Argentina: VP Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner unharmed after point-blank assassination attempt. {Reuters 9/02}

Getty Images

POLITICAL S**TSHOW IN #MURICA

President Biden calls out Trump supporters for conducting themselves as Fascists; Trump supporters so enraged they immediately set out to prove the president correct with death threats, calls for violence - As hard as it for my cynical self to believe, maybe there are a subset of #Cult45 that are being sincere in their rage over being called out by the president. Perhaps they really don’t realize what they’ve become or fully understand what it is they are supporting. Perhaps, as ridiculous as it appears to even consider, they really are naive and haven’t figured out that this whole Trump thing has basically been nothing more than a giant ‘f**k you’ from a large plurality of the nation to the rest of it, right from the moment Donald Trump came on the political scene. Trumpism is certainly not any sort of valid governing philosophy, but merely an endless airing of grievances. Populist types all around us - left and right - run purely on emotion and almost never on logic, and that’s a big part of how we got to this place. It has long been my experience in life that the willfully ignorant, bullies, and other assorted reprobates never appreciate being called for what they are. (Perhaps, to be fair, I’ve even been among those reprobates at certain times and places, but never when it came to Trump: The record shows I recognized he and his cult for what they were well prior to him receiving the GOP nomination in 2016; yes, I am proud of this and will boast, yet am also supremely frustrated and sickened that six f**king years later we are still having to argue with these people over the bloody obvious.) In some cases it is because they haven’t come to terms with reality, but with most of these people it is just plain gaslighting and bullying. ‘I’m not touching you!’ Most of #Cult45 are plenty aware of what they are, but rarely will most any admit it. Maybe some are very internally conflicted, but let me not risk giving anybody too much credit here. The point is, if gaslighting the rest of us wasn’t so much fun and remained so effective, perhaps they would just proudly admit they are Fascists by now. Beginning with Trump himself. Any and all pretenses are disappearing in spite of their denials, and will continue to do so. In the meantime, those of us who don’t need a national daddy figure should nonetheless be grateful we have a man in the White House vowing to defend the constitutional republic at a time when it hasn’t been under this level of internal threat since the 1850s. {Yahoo! News 9/02}

Trump vows pardons, government apology to Capitol rioters if elected - The man is openly and boldly claiming that he is financially supporting some of the defendants (whether that is actually true or not, Lord only knows), that the attack was not a crime or an act of insurrection, and that judges are merely being ‘mean’ to said defendants out of spite. Yet, we’re supposed to believe he did not coordinate January 6, and wanted to call in the National Guard before hand, but Speaker Pelosi stopped him; or that the rioters were far-left agitators posing as ‘conservatives,’ or whatever crap excuse or conspiracy theory any given #Cult45 member is spewing on any given day? When people are going to absurd lengths to defend blatant absurdities, it is because they’re desperate for ‘protection,’ such as it is, against a society they hate and believe has failed them. Virtually all Donald Trump supporters at this late stage know exactly what he is and what they’ve become (Fascists), but they continue to double down and stay loyal because this man gave them license to openly hate you and I - anybody who does not share their populist worldview, anybody who they perceive as weak, anybody who live lifestyles they do not approve of, anybody who is not a white Christian. Hurting the other half of society is paramount to everything, and bullying, intimidation, and gaslighting are their modus operandi. They’ll continue to keep spitting in the face of reality, and they will play up their phony indignation at being called ‘Fascists’ to the hilt, because they have no respect for the majority of their fellow citizens’ intelligence. It cuts a lot deeper than simply a lack of respect: As long as human beings exist, the innate desire to dominate others will be with us. As will charismatic charlatans who stand ready, willing, and waiting to take advantage of malcontents for the sake of self-aggrandizement and personal enrichment. In other words, Trump and #Cult45 really do deserve one another, and deserve to fall together. {WaPo 9/01}



Former U.S. attorney details how the Trump-era DOJ pressured him to bring cases against Trump’s enemies in new book - Good going, #Cult45. You elected a man who, at every turn, used or attempted to use taxpayer dollars to settle personal grudges. That anybody is still conned by such an obvious conman, or wishes to play along with the con, makes my Anglo-Saxon blood boil. {ABC News 9/12}


Author Luke Mogelson on the far-right, the militia movement, and the threat of Trumpism - The pity party never ends. Appealing to grievances and crying oppression are timeless and nearly-foolproof ways tyrants win popular support. Populist movements always collapse in time, but only after causing great damage to their countries. History has shown this repeatedly, but #Muricans are really not very good students of history. {Lit Hub 9/12}

Mass. woman charged with making fake bomb threat to Boston’s Children Hospital, motive being some sort of misinfo and/or disinfo on the hospital’s transgender surgery program - Do not let them or anyone else sugarcoat it: #Cult45 is quite invested in demonizing, and even terrorizing, various sectors of society. Not just liberals, blacks, or illegal aliens, but anybody at all deemed to be a threat to their largely-fictional and feeble-minded conception of the American way of life. They seem particularly determined to make transsexuals and homosexuals the Jews to their Nazis. An ancient prejudice that will never die so long as individuals feel confusion and shame about their personal identities. Or, for that matter, as long as people are incorrigible busybodies and self-righteous moralists. When was the last time we’ve heard these people rage against Islamist terrorists, the murderers who slaughtered close to 3,000 Americans on that fateful day in 2001? Maybe about 2014, 2015 when ISIS was at the peak of its reign of terror and Obama was still in the White House? Not anymore, as now they’re too busy raging against their fellow Americans. Anyone who isn’t completely in lockstep with their nationalist populist pity party and doesn’t march in lockstep with their orange demagogue is viewed as an enemy of the state. A large plurality of society has been radicalized, with their mission being to dehumanize the rest of us. How can such a brainwashed and hate-filled force ever be reasoned with? I fear especially for all of the LGBTQ folks, for they’re in greater danger than even most of them likely realize. Furthermore, a lot of people who are not gay, lesbian, or trans are going to be falsely accused and targeted. All Hades is breaking loose, and if I had the means I would have been gone from this collapsing country several years ago. {WBUR 9/15}

Right-wing media figures claimed bomb threat against Boston Children’s Hospital was a false flag up until the FBI named a suspect - A rudimentary but effective tacit of disinfo agents anytime there is an ‘inconvenient’ occurrence (for lack of a better way of putting it): Just cry ‘false flag’ and ‘fake news,’ and millions will follow your lead. Never mind facts, never mind evidence, the narrative is all that matters to propagandists, bigots, zealots, and hopeless partisans. {Media Matters 9/16}

Sandy Hook parents describe the horrifying impact of conspiracy theories and lies accusing them of being ‘crisis actors’ in alleged government plot to revoke Second Amendment rights - Alex Jones is fortunate he will only have to pay monetary damages, and his acolytes who sent death threats to grieving parents will not face justice. In a sane and moral country, they’d all be in prison, or hanging from the gallows. {NYT 9/29}



Fear of violent crime and mass shootings leads to a massive drop in the number of Chinese citizens planning to visit the United States - And I don’t think the Chinese are the only ones staying away in droves. {South China Morning Post 9/13}

Javier Cruz Acosta/Shutterstock

#Murica: ‘If current trends continue, Christians could make up less than half of the population, and as little as a third, in 50 years’ - Any wonder why people are turned off when 95% of the purported ‘Christians’ in this sick country so gullibly follow a world-class a**hole and decidedly non-Christian conman as their protector? While also working overtime to silence opposition and impose Fascism on the rest of us? If this is supposed to be who ‘Jesus’ is, then naturally normal people are not going to want anything to do with that guy or his followers. No more than they would want anything to do with the Prophet Muhammad after witnessing decades of Islamic Jihad around the world (exactly the path these heretics are going down; J6 was just a start.) {WaPo 9/13}

Louisiana gym teacher accused of offering $5.00 to students to beat up a classmate - A woman, no less. I do not know if this was a Trump supporter (it is the South, so highly possible), but this is a prime example of the atmosphere of cruelty, degradation, criminality, and immorality Donald Trump has - more so than anyone else - made acceptable in the United States. A grown adult putting out a hit on a child, get me the hell off of this sinking ship: The USS #Murica. {Shreveport Times 9/14}

Trump-endorsed election denier wins GOP Senate primary in New Hampshire - Even here in the liberal Northeast, Republican voters are putting on their tin-foil hats and goose-stepping toward Fascism. {NYT 9/14}

Trip Advisor

Planeload of Venezuelan and Colombian migrants arrives at Martha's Vineyard Airport, and Florida’s governor takes credit for sending them - Here’s an idea. Since these yahoos consider all migrants to be dangerous criminals - which some of them inevitably will be; I’m not advocating for wide open borders and universal amnesty here - and whereas simply leaving purported or actual criminals on another state’s doorstep without notice or permission is apparently acceptable now: Alright, let’s send some of the prisoners in facilities across the Northeast to places like Key West, FL, or South Padre Island, TX, and tell the natives, ‘good luck with that, your problem now.’ I don’t think that would be very well-received, would it? Bullies never like getting a taste of their own medicine. The people of Martha’s Vineyard are being very generous, but obviously this is not a sustainable situation. Massachusetts or any other northern state ultimately bears no legal responsibility for these individuals. Take care of your own problems, stop pointing fingers and diverting responsibility, you bellicose hayseeds. {Vineyard Gazette 9/14}




South Dakota’s ambitious governor spent $200,000 in taxpayer funds to pay a noted fundamentalist loon to overhaul the state’s social studies standards - Whitewashing the country’s history and promoting the blasphemous notion of ‘American exceptionalism,’ holding that no nation in all of history could possibly have ever been so great and so blessed from on high. Meanwhile, the kids are rendered ever more dumb and void of critical thinking skills, and #Murica becomes ever more of a global embarrassment and laughingstock. Yeah, we’re exceptional alright. {AP 9/12}

COVID-19

President Biden declares the COVID-19 pandemic over - No basis in reality, just simply telling people what they want to hear. Disappointing, but not surprising: The man is a career politician, and is given to expediency. The opposition is just that awful, and most of his own party are utterly inept and useless, so this president looks very good next to them, and he really is our last best hope. I like President Biden, but he is only a man and not without flaws. This is a really bad call and will come back to haunt him. COVID is not going away, no matter how much anybody tries to pretend otherwise. We may not have even seen the worst of it yet.  {BBC 9/19}


Local wastewater tracker shows COVID-19 cases on the rise again in the Boston-area - Department of Public Health: ‘(C)ases are rising the fastest in kids and teens between the ages of 10 and 19 years old.’ {WFXT 9/29}

AP

CLIMATE CHANGE

Portions of Southwest Florida’s electric grid will need to be rebuilt following the Category 4 landfall of Hurricane Ian - Outages are going to last months. Perhaps all these Floridans sitting in the dark may take a moment to ask themselves why their favorite political party did everything in their power to derail and, ultimately, water-down President Biden’s infrastructure reforms, while failing to come up with any viable plan of its own. #JustSaying. {Protocol 9/29}

Jackson, MS: Troops hand out over a million water bottles in less than 24 hours due to ‘long-running water supply issue’ - So many municipalities in this country are struggling to maintain basic services in recent years, and often in these ultra-’red’ states where Republicans hold nearly full sway. Yes, it happens in other poor areas where Democrats continually dominate elections as well. Another sign, perhaps, the mass stagnation we are experiencing is another ramification of the absurd tribalism #Muricans are giving themselves over to more than ever before. ‘If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking,’ as Gen. Patton wisely stated. And when people are not thinking, not much is going to get done, will it? Right at this moment - when one of the two parties is clearly more dangerous than the other, and is boldly attempting to install a ChristoFascist dictatorship (or are in denial of such) while standing behind a clear psychopath and traitor - is not the best time to be talking about a third party, but long-term we damn well better start getting smart and stop acting like herd animals, for we’re seeing right before our eyes that nothing good comes of it. Absolutely nothing. {BBC 9/02}





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