One bloviating, likely compromised, U.S. Senator delays billions in vital aid to Ukraine

Pavel Golovkin/AP

Swine bag senator and Putin toady Rand Paul takes advantage of absurd procedural rules to delay the U.S. Senate voting on $40 billion aid package to Ukraine  - Populists on the left and right need to stop bemoaning U.S. aid to Ukraine. It is a vital national security imperative that we support the first line of defense against Vladimir Putin and his designs for global tyranny. Or, worse, nuclear armageddon. Of course it is all deficit spending and the country is going to go broke, but attending to global security is not frivolous when there is a nuclear-armed madman on the loose. Only someone beholden to Putin - remember this is the bastard who went to Moscow and hand-delivered a note from Trump to Putin - would work this hard to hurt the Ukrainian people. But public sentiment in the United States does appear to be drifting in Rand Paul’s direction on the issue of Ukraine, and I think the American public is feeling burdened with the situation and wants nothing more to do with it. The longer this goes on, the more resentful the American public will grow toward the Ukrainian people - not toward Putin, they respect and fear him, but toward the victims. #Murica. (Washington Post 5/13)

U.S. director of national intelligence Avril Haines warns that Putin is prepared for prolonged conflict in Ukraine (New York Times 5/10)

Thomas Friedman: President Biden said to be ‘livid’ that certain American officials have been loose-lipped concerning their role in helping Ukraine kill Russian generals and destroy Russian warcraft (New York Times 5/06)

Ukrainian forces wipe out nearly an entire Russian battalion while the Russians attempted crossing a river in the Donbas (Times of London 5/12)

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Zelenskyy, CIA Director warn the world that Putin will use nukes, while Russia has plunged most of the world into recessionary conditions, and a COVID-inspired kidnapping plot is foiled in Germany

Desktop Nexus

Happy Easter to one and all. He is Risen!

CIA Director William Burns: U.S. cannot afford to take Russian nuclear threat lightly (Reuters 4/14)

President Zelenskyy warns Ukraine and the world must be prepared for Putin to use tactical nuclear weapons - Yes, nothing can be put past Putin. And if Putin does resort to such desperate and sickening tactics, then NATO is going to have to respond. At which time, Mother Russia becomes a war zone. Perhaps Putin’s ultimate goal is the destruction of all humanity, for he appears intent on achieving it. (CNN 4/15)

The IMF lowers its economic forecast for 143 countries as a direct result of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine - Putin is not only destroying Ukraine and has not only sealed his own country’s fate, he is wrecking the global economy. Obvious to anybody paying attention, except to the Russians, of course. And in #Murica, where anything that goes wrong is President Biden’s fault and, “golly gee, that Putin fella’ is a genius, just like Trump told us.” (The National 4/15)

Trump endorses nationalist populist J.D. Vance in Ohio GOP U.S. Senate primary race (CBS News 4/15)

Jens Schlueter/AFP/Getty Images

German coronavirus protesters accused of plot to kidnap the health minister - The entire world really must be going crazy. Even in what is, today, the sanest country on earth, we still have echoes of their Nazi past and - albeit, to a lesser extent, for now - #Murica’s current reality. Only in Deutschland, I do not believe the courts will be foolish enough to acquit these individuals, as a Michigan court recently did in the case of two men charged with plotting to kidnap the governor. (Washington Post 4/14)

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Axis of Evil: Western intelligence services determine that China asked Russia to hold off on Ukraine invasion until Beijing Olympics concluded

Sputnik/Reuters

Putin has consistently courted China and Xi as allies. Xi does not want Russia standing in the way if and when China makes its move on Taiwan. Xi is likely pleased that Putin is testing global outrage – and the limits of the international response – of a such a bold invasion in modern times. Both wish to severely weaken and even all-out destroy America, the European Union, and Western allies, and we’ve known as such for years. So it is not a shock that the Chinese are reported to have had some degree of foreknowledge of Putin’s designs on Ukraine, and perhaps the Russians know something about what Xi may be cooking up. Russia, China, and probably India, Iran, and a handful of lesser aligned powers, are forming a new Warsaw Pact style organization to counter the NATO nations. So long as they wish to destroy the West instead of living in peace with it, this is a marriage of necessity for the belligerents. Russia and China have not always been allies, and are not very likely to always remain in harmony with one another in the long-term. Ukraine is ground zero, and I fear Taiwan will be next, in their unholy war on humanity. And what is the Western world going to do about it, other than taking up arms in a wider war that would almost certainly end all life on this planet? Via the New York Times -

WASHINGTON — A Western intelligence report said senior Chinese officials told senior Russian officials in early February not to invade Ukraine before the end of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, according to senior Biden administration officials and a European official. 

The report indicates that senior Chinese officials had some level of direct knowledge about Russia’s war plans or intentions before the invasion started last week. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia met with President Xi Jinping of China in Beijing on Feb. 4 before the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Moscow and Beijing issued a 5,000-word statement at the time declaring that their partnership had “no limits,” denouncing NATO enlargement and asserting that they would establish a new global order with true “democracy.” 

The intelligence on the exchange between the Chinese and Russian officials was classified. It was collected by a Western intelligence service and considered credible by officials. Senior officials in the United States and allied governments passed it around as they discussed when Mr. Putin might attack Ukraine. 

However, different intelligence services had varying interpretations, and it is not clear how widely the information was shared. 

One official familiar with the intelligence said the material did not necessarily indicate the conversations about an invasion took place between Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin. Other officials briefed on the intelligence declined to give further details. The officials spoke about the report on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the intelligence. 

Given the close nature of the relationship between Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin, senior Chinese officials are likely to have briefed Mr. Xi on any important exchanges between officials of their nations in the period around the leadership summit, analysts say. 

When asked by email on Wednesday whether Chinese officials had urged Russian officials to delay an invasion of Ukraine until after the Olympics, Liu Pengyu, the Chinese Embassy spokesman in Washington, said, “These claims are speculation without any basis, and are intended to blame-shift and smear China.” 

China held the closing ceremony of the Olympics on Feb. 20. The next day, Mr. Putin ordered more Russian troops to enter an insurgent-controlled area of eastern Ukraine after state television broadcast a meeting between him and his national security council and, separately, a furious speech in which he said Ukraine should be a part of Russia. Early on Feb. 24, the Russian military began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, including carrying out attacks on cities with ballistic missiles, artillery and tanks. (Read more)

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NBC News reports that President Biden is considering launching cyber attacks to disrupt Russian aggression in Ukraine

Getty Images

All for any course of action that is going to thwart these evil bastards. The problem here is that the Russians will retaliate, but they are likely to conduct cyber attacks against America anyway in response to sanctions. Nothing can be put past Putin now. - 

President Joe Biden has been presented with a menu of options for the U.S. to carry out massive cyberattacks designed to disrupt Russia’s ability to sustain its military operations in Ukraine, four people familiar with the deliberations tell NBC News. 

Two U.S. intelligence officials, one Western intelligence official and another person briefed on the matter say no final decisions have been made, but they say U.S. intelligence and military cyber warriors are proposing the use of American cyberweapons on a scale never before contemplated. Among the options: disrupting internet connectivity across Russia, shutting off electric power, and tampering with railroad switches to hamper Russia’s ability to resupply its forces, three of the sources said. 

“You could do everything from slow the trains down to have them fall off the tracks,” one person briefed on the matter said. 

The sources said the options presented include pre-emptive responses to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, irrespective of whether Russian launches its own cyberattacks on the U.S. in retaliation for sanctions. They said most of the potential cyberattacks under consideration are designed to disrupt but not destroy, and therefore fall short of an act of war by the United States against Russia. They say the idea is to harm networks, not people. Officials are debating the legal authorities under which the attacks would take place — whether they would be covert action or clandestine military activity. Either way, the U.S. would not publicly acknowledge carrying out the operations, the sources say. U.S. Cyber Command, the National Security Agency, the CIA and other agencies would have a role to play in the operations, the sources said. 

“Our response will be harsh and measured, but not so severe as to encourage Putin to take more drastic steps,” one U.S. official said. 

The White House did not initially respond to a request for comment. After publication, Emily Horne, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, said in a statement, “This report is wildly off base and does not reflect what is actually being discussed in any shape or form.” 

The person briefed on the matter said there was a significant divide within the U.S. government, with one camp fearful of escalating and another urging a strong cyber response. (Read more)

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Expert on global political instability: United States ‘closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe,’ ‘no longer the world’s oldest continuous democracy’

Jose Luis Magana/AP

Yours truly recommends that one immediately blocks all nutjobs and obvious trolls on social media, before they are given the opportunity to bother one (or worse.) Never mind trying to set anybody straight, or taking pleasure in fighting with them, for civil war is coming and it is time to protect ourselves from the malevolent and stupid. That means the Trump supporters, the anti-vaxxers, the religious zealots, the conspiracy theorists, the far-left ‘woke’ mob, those overly obsessed with pop culture, and who else am I missing? Anybody spouting dangerous rhetoric – and pure stupidity is dangerous – must be avoided at all costs. We don’t have time to fool around anymore. Via Dana Milbank -  

If you know people still in denial about the crisis of American democracy, kindly remove their heads from the sand long enough to receive this message: A startling new finding by one of the nation’s top authorities on foreign civil wars says we are on the cusp of our own. 

Barbara F. Walter, a political science professor at the University of California at San Diego, serves on a CIA advisory panel called the Political Instability Task Force that monitors countries around the world and predicts which of them are most at risk of deteriorating into violence. By law, the task force can’t assess what’s happening within the United States, but Walter, a longtime friend who has spent her career studying conflicts in Syria, Lebanon, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Rwanda, Angola, Nicaragua and elsewhere, applied the predictive techniques herself to this country. 

Her bottom line: “We are closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe.” She lays out the argument in detail in her must-read book, “How Civil Wars Start,” out in January. “No one wants to believe that their beloved democracy is in decline, or headed toward war,” she writes. But, “if you were an analyst in a foreign country looking at events in America — the same way you’d look at events in Ukraine or the Ivory Coast or Venezuela — you would go down a checklist, assessing each of the conditions that make civil war likely. And what you would find is that the United States, a democracy founded more than two centuries ago, has entered very dangerous territory.”  

Indeed, the United States has already gone through what the CIA identifies as the first two phases of insurgency — the “pre-insurgency” and “incipient conflict” phases — and only time will tell whether the final phase, “open insurgency,” began with the sacking of the Capitol by Donald Trump supporters on Jan. 6.  

Things deteriorated so dramatically under Trump, in fact, that the United States no longer technically qualifies as a democracy. Citing the Center for Systemic Peace’s “Polity” data set — the one the CIA task force has found to be most helpful in predicting instability and violence — Walter writes that the United States is now an “anocracy,” somewhere between a democracy and an autocratic state. (Read more)

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'U.S. intelligence officials are warning European allies of a potential Russian military incursion into Ukraine'

Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons/OSCE

Putin is on the march again - 

U.S. intelligence officials are warning European allies of a potential Russian military incursion into Ukraine, with the likelihood of one increasing as the weather gets colder. An incursion is weather-dependent, but could happen in a matter of weeks, barring intervention from the West, U.S. officials briefed on the matter told CBS News. 

Tens of thousands of Russian troops have amassed at the Ukraine border -- months after thousands of troops assembled at the border in the spring. But unlike last spring's buildup, which was regarded as a show of force, U.S. intelligence officials are warning that this one could be in preparation for an actual incursion into the Donbass region of Eastern Ukraine. 

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday the alliance was closely monitoring a "large and unusual concentration of Russian forces" near Ukraine's border. 

"It is urgent that Russia shows transparency about this military build-up, de-escalates and reduces tensions," Stoltenberg said following a meeting with outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel. 

Both American and British intelligence has been shared with European stakeholders. (Read more)

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Are American diplomats and intelligence officials being targeted with a mysterious illness by a foreign adversary?

Bianca Bagnarelli

Falls under the category of conspiracy theory, as nothing has been proven outright; but it’s also entirely plausible and the bio-terrorist threat must be taken seriously. The Russians, in particular, are not above this sort of thing. And that is putting it kindly. Jerusalem Post -  

A suspected case of "Havana syndrome" was detected in Colombia last week, the most recent in a series of suspicious attacks that appear to target US diplomatic and intelligence personnel. This latest incident appeared to happen just days before the visit of the US secretary of state. What this means is that these attacks may be targeted and timed – that they are not random and that a powerful adversary of the US is using them systematically.   

“US embassy staff in Bogota may have been injured by the mysterious illness, which causes a painful sound in the ears, fatigue and dizziness,” the BBC reports. “First reported in Cuba in 2016, US diplomats around the world have since reported cases of the syndrome. Its origins are unknown, with some speculating it is a type of weapon.”  

The Wall Street Journal reported the most recent attack, which included “unexplained health incidents,” according to an email sent by US Ambassador to Colombia Philip Goldberg. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was supposed to visit this month.   

In August, US officials said “the Vietnam leg of US Vice President Kamala Harris' South Asia trip had to be delayed by a few hours due to reports of two US diplomatic personnel coming down with the mysterious combination of ailments that have come to be known as Havana Syndrome.” 

The embassy said that there had been a "possible anomalous health incident in Hanoi," a phrase Washington has used to describe the syndrome. The incidents began in Cuba in 2016 but have also been identified in Germany, Austria, Russia and China, according to reports. 

EARLIER THIS year it was reported that the US State Department would gather more information on the health of diplomats after complaints they were not taking this seriously. According to The Independent, “US diplomats who have suffered from the mysterious “Havana Syndrome” tore into Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a recent meeting, arguing that the government hasn’t done enough to help victims and has brushed off their concerns as vague unexplained health incidents (UHIs).”  

There is some dispute within the US government and between recent administrations about what is happening. Some 200 diplomats and intelligence members have been affected. Although details are classified, there is a question over whether these are random "incidents" or targeted attacks. According to a New York Times report, more than half the victims of the syndrome are CIA officers. That report on October 1 said there are 100 CIA officer victims. According to another Times report, the CIA even recalled its Vienna station chief over the handling of the incidents. US lawmakers have backed changes to address the syndrome's victims, and the CIA is trying to increase attempts to confront the incidents. (Read more)

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United only in hatred for humanity: ISIS-K, offshoot of the world’s deadliest Islamist terror group, but also sworn enemy of the Taliban

NYT

Say, didn’t the former administration claim to have destroyed ISIS? What is ISIS-K? The terror group believed to be behind Kabul airport explosions -  

Washington: Explosions outside the Kabul airport that have caused multiple casualties come as Biden administration officials have been alarmed in recent days by threats at Hamid Karzai International Airport by IS-K or ISIS-K, a terrorist group that is a sworn enemy of the Taliban. 

A senior US intelligence official said while no formal attribution has been made, all signs — and recently gathered intelligence — point to IS-K, an offshoot of Islamic State, as the culprits. 

US officials, including President Joe Biden, had been warning of the threat of Islamic State terror attacks at the Kabul airport, which is being guarded by the Taliban as Americans and Afghan allies seek to leave the country. 

Douglas London, the CIA’s former top counterterrorism chief for the region, including Afghanistan, said the threat posed by IS-K is now higher because of the vacuum created after the Taliban toppled the Afghan government within a matter of days. 

The Pentagon inspector-general, in a report released last week, noted IS-K had lashed out in the last months of the now-ousted Afghan government, seizing on its weakness. 

“[IS-Khorasan] exploited the political instability and rise in violence during the quarter by attacking minority sectarian targets and infrastructure to spread fear and highlight the Afghan government’s inability to provide adequate security,” the report said. (Read more)

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