Politics, Everyday, All day... morning, noon and night....II

[Canoe]

I came across this claim some hours ago, but neither twitter nor google would cough up any references, so I don't think I posted it here. Now I found one. And of course it's from hours ago...

Mariupol council: Russian occupiers forcibly move thousands of Mariupol residents to Russia.

The civilians were allegedly taken to camps where Russians checked their phones and documents and then forcibly moved some of them to remote cities in Russia.

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/sta ... 3434639360

[DVD Burner]

The Shit I knew, way back then...

[Simon of the Playa]

“Koch Industries is shamefully continuing to do business in Putin’s Russia and putting their profits ahead of defending democracy,” the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, and Senator Ron Wyden, said in a joint statement. “As the democracies of the world make huge sacrifices to punish Russia for Putin’s illegal and vicious invasion of Ukraine, Koch Industries continues to profit off of Putin’s regime.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... s-pressure

[Canoe]

Mariupol council: Russian occupiers forcibly move thousands of Mariupol residents to Russia. ...
https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/sta ... 3434639360

more

Ukrainian authorities have said Moscow’s forces bombed an art school in Mariupol where more than 400 people had taken shelter, amid further reports that civilians from the devastated southern city were being forcibly transported to Russia.

Days after Russian shells struck a theatre in the city also being used as a shelter, local authorities said Mariupol’s G12 art school had been destroyed while women, children and elderly people were inside. There was no immediate word on casualties. ...

... the country’s human rights spokesperson, Ludmila Denisova, accused its forces of kidnapping Mariupol residents and taking them to Russia.

“In recent days, several thousand Mariupol residents have been deported to Russia,” Denisova said on Telegram. After processing at “filtration camps”, some were then transported to the Russian city of Taganrog, about 100km from Mariupol, and from there sent by rail “to various economically depressed cities in Russia”, she said. Denisova said Ukrainian citizens had been “issued papers that require them to be in a certain city. They have no right to leave it for at least two years with the obligation to work at the specified place of work. The fate of others remains unknown.”

Russian news agencies have said hundreds of people Moscow calls refugees have been bussed from Mariupol to Russia. Denisova said the “abductions and forced displacements” violated the Geneva conventions and the European convention on human rights and called on the international community to “respond … and increase sanctions against the terrorist state of the Russian Federation”.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... ys-ukraine

Ukraine: a visual diary of horrors in Hostomel
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... n-hostomel

The destruction of Mariupol, refugees head to the Polish border, the funerals of dead soldiers in Kyiv and the desperate flight from Irpin: photographs from the third week of the Russian invasion of Ukraine
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesig ... f-the-week

[Canoe]

10 million people lost their homes in 3 weeks. Among those our family in Kharkiv, my friends' families in Kharkiv, Odessa, Kyiv. The younger ones are leaving or left. The older ones are lost, and crying, and cannot evacuate because they r old & not healthy.

According to the latest UN estimates, roughly one-fourth of all Ukrainians have been forced to abandon their homes because of Russia’s invasion. Almost 10 million refugees and IDPs. Another 12 million people are caught in active war zones but cannot escape. Insane.
https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/statu ... 9578548231

https://twitter.com/SolNataMD/status/15 ... 6576765962

[from March 6, 2022 protest in Moscow]
Mother of a Russian soldier speaks at an anti-war protest.
She says that says that the Russian losses in Ukraine are horrific.

'She says he was moved to a hot spot after being told he was going for drills.'
"Thank god he is alive," she says, "only ten people are left from his regiment."
"Please stop this bloodshed. Return my son. And return to other mothers their sons. Stop it!"
"Look. He's just a boy. He's just a child."

https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1 ... 9137259524

Today St. Petersburg. Hackers inform Russians about dead soldiers. We need initiatives like this. This Russian society needs to wake up and get rid of man who destroying their lives, their children's lives and the lives of #Ukrainians and their children's lives. STOP WAR!

[electronic notice board on building]

"14200 RU military personnel have died. The captured and dead [are] on the Telegram channel rf200_now. Glory to ВСУ !!! Glory to Ukraine!!!"

[warning: Telegram channel rf200_now (https://t.me/s/rf200_now https://t.me/rf200_now_world) includes very graphic images, showing dead, primarily Russian soldiers.
More general, but also some graphic https://twitter.com/rf200_now]

https://twitter.com/GalinaAksakova/stat ... 4039600128

(Ukraine government organization)
Best thoughts and prayers are donations for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Donate today with Ukraine’s most trusted volunteer initiative "Come Back Alive".

"Hello, International Office of Thoughts & Prayers, how may I help you?"
https://twitter.com/Ukraine/status/1505513001742487555

[Canoe]

Reports now suggest (including from Russian side) that 331st Guards Airborne Regiment from Kostroma is no longer exist

Video: Russian army airborne troops unit was destroyed
https://twitter.com/Liveuamap/status/15 ... 3824800769

Video of that Russian air assault operation on Hostomel airport on the first day of the war. I count 21 Mi-8AMTSh and Ka-52 helicopters.

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1505539875105345537

This will forever remain as the worst, most shameless and most immoral lie uttered by a Russian official. I can't believe that a person this cruel exists. And no, there's no way he didn't know he was lying.

https://twitter.com/christogrozev/statu ... 0439685126

It takes about 10 seconds to verify that the two pregnant women are NOT the same person "who changed clothes". There is 0% chance this @rusembassynl was sent to this TV program without being briefed this was a different woman. He went on the air specifically planning to to lie.

https://twitter.com/christogrozev/statu ... 2889291795

An overwhelming percentage of Ukrainians believe Russia will be defeated, and do not support a ceasefire unless Russia fully retreats from Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/christogrozev/statu ... 1315284993

[Russians digging in]
https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/stat ... 7358577664

Russian censors blocked access to http://Agentura.ru. Our website has existed since September 2000 as a project to make Russia’s secret services more accountable. Right now, it is a very unpopular idea in Moscow.
But we will keep going.

https://twitter.com/AndreiSoldatov/stat ... 1820777472

The people we watched crawl out of the rubble today told us their relatives in Moscow didn't believe them. Videos of their destroyed home were met with 'it's a fake' or 'Nazis did it.' *Every* bond between Ukrainians & Russians - familial, cultural, historical - is being broken.

https://twitter.com/NeilPHauer/status/1 ... 1337089025

[some seeing eye]

Putin Bans Critical Ukraine Theory

Russians should not feel guilty about Syria, Georgia, Chechnya, or Ukraine.

All those people wish to join or support Russia, just like Africans came to America between in the 16th-19th Century to seek a better life.

It is not permitted to talk about the special liberation operation because it didn't happen.


BTW Stalin is back https://www.reuters.com/world/us-envoy- ... 022-03-20/ Russia is reportedly resettling kidnapped Ukranians to small towns [plantations] in Russia to work. One would argue the Chinese strategy of Hannification used in Tibet and Xinjiang is more brutally effective than kidnapping. Sadly Tibetan freedom is back to expressing itself by burning man. So that Hannification is not exactly working out.

Linked from Simon's post

“Koch Industries is shamefully continuing to do business in Putin’s Russia and putting their profits ahead of defending democracy,” the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, and Senator Ron Wyden, said in a joint statement. “As the democracies of the world make huge sacrifices to punish Russia for Putin’s illegal and vicious invasion of Ukraine, Koch Industries continues to profit off of Putin’s regime.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... s-pressure

I'm way out in Oregon. When Sen Wyden calls you out, you have been very bad.
Here is the link from the Guardian of companies leaving/staying in Russia: https://som.yale.edu/story/2022/over-40 ... ome-remain

[Simon of the Playa]

8CB1F618-A8D5-4A38-BCE8-EDF8E55A3EB9.jpeg

[Canoe]

Angry (and fearless) crowd confronting Russian troops in the occupied Ukrainian city of Energodar (home to the nuclear plant).
A Russian soldier fires his rifle over his head but the crowd doesn’t flinch.

https://twitter.com/Reevellp/status/1505566638153809923

* God damn, you don’t duck w these people. Go watch winter of fire.

Some of you might remember this photo going around in early March. @MashaFroliak and I figured out what those Russian soldiers were doing in that elevator — holding hundreds of civilians hostage.

https://twitter.com/brenna__smith/statu ... 2983958531

One group of soldiers used rifles to smash open the front door of an apartment building. Once inside, they entered the elevator and destroyed its security cameras. In some buildings, soldiers went floor by floor tearing doors off hinges and raiding apartments, residents said. Within a few hours, according to the seven residents The Times spoke to, Russian soldiers had seized the entire complex and trapped close to 200 civilians inside various buildings.

“People were kicked out of the apartments,” said Elena Anishchenko, who was planning to celebrate her 33rd birthday with neighbors the day the soldiers arrived. “They didn’t ask anyone anything, they would just tell them to go to the basement.” Many of the residents had their phones and laptops confiscated or destroyed. “They told us — ‘Don’t be mad at us, but if we find your phone, you will be shot on the spot,’” Ms. Anishchenko said.

Ms. Borodyuk and others in her basement were permitted to go to their apartments to get food and warm clothes to help withstand the cold of the brick basement. Neighbors were permitted to cook together and intermingle. The Russians guarding Ms. Anishchenko’s basement were more strict. They allowed the residents only short, supervised visits to their apartments to get food and supplies for everyone.

Ms. Borodyuk recalled a more senior Russian officer attempting to comfort a girl in the basement where they were detained. “He said: ‘My daughter is 8 years old too. I love her very much. I miss her. Don’t be afraid, little girl, we will liberate you from Nazis.’”

Ms. Borodyuk said some of the younger Russian troops didn’t even know why they were in Ukraine. When captives asked one soldier why he was here, he replied, weeping: “Where am I? What should I do?”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/20/worl ... asion.html

The aftermath of another strike today in a residential area in Kyiv.

https://twitter.com/Reevellp/status/1505539576672182272

@SecDef, speaking on @FaceTheNation just now, says Russia has resorted to targeting civilian areas because he has been unable to achieve his goals as rapidly as he wanted.

"This is really disgusting."

https://twitter.com/DanLamothe/status/1 ... 0598191105

According to the Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine, there is growing opposition to Vladimir Putin among political and business circles advocating for his urgent removal from power and restoration of economic and diplomatic ties with the West.
* At the same time, the political elite of the Russian Federation rely on the head of the FSB Alexander Bortnikov, who has already fell into Putin's disfavor after the enormous miscalculations in the so-called military operation in Ukraine.
* According to Ukrainian intelligence, Bortnikov and other influential circles of the Russian elite are considering all options of removing Putin from power, not ruling out physical elimination under the guise of poisoning or another "eventuality".
* It is possible, that the recent "leak" regarding the location of the Chechen units North of Kyiv, can be the FSB attempt to either weaken the influence of Kadyrov in Russia, or find the common ground with the Ukrainian government after the elimination of Putin.

https://twitter.com/AseyevStanislav/sta ... 0453634050

Slovakia starts deploying Patriot air defence system | Reuters

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/stat ... 8418100229

[German Navy P-3C Orion circling off the coast of Kaliningrad]

https://www.reddit.com/r/flightradar24/ ... onigsberg/

[Canoe]

BREAKING - Russia's defense ministry: Ukraine has until early hours of March 21 to give Russia its answer on surrendering Mariupol - RIA

https://twitter.com/phildstewart/status ... 7728089092

* I mean what will Russia do otherwise, continue to level the city?
* Or what? They’ll cut off the power, food and water, reduce the city to rubble, bomb shelters with children in them and fire on fleeing civilians?

Russia has given Ukraine until 5am to surrender Mariupol, after which it says it'll let the 130,000 remaining civilians leave.

The language it uses for Kyiv's forces – "nationalists," "foreign mercenaries," "bandits" – leaves little doubt about what Russia has in store for them.

https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/15 ... 2769449985

* "let them leave" - to labour camps in Russia

UK foreign minister: Russia resorting to desperate attacks.

“I am appalled by Russian atrocities in Mariupol, including attacks on schools sheltering civilians,” Liz Truss wrote on Twitter. “Putin is resorting to desperate measures as he is not achieving his objectives.”

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/sta ... 5788996617

Greece's Consul General to Mariupol:

“Mariupol will become part of a list of cities that were completely destroyed by war; I don*t need to name them- they are Guernica, Coventry, Aleppo, Grozny, Leningrad"

https://twitter.com/SamRamani2/status/1 ... 1076393987

Deputy commander of the Russian Black Fleet, formerly deputy commander of Russian forces in Syria, about to be promoted to rear-admiral, killed in action in Mariupol, Russia confirms. Born and raised in Kyiv!

https://twitter.com/yarotrof/status/1505586651896160261

6 European countries begin investigating Russian war crimes.

According to Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova, they include Estonia, Lithuania, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, and Sweden. Ukraine is working with these countries to exchange “information and evidence.”

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/sta ... 6903890950

[Zona]

Politics is: "Who gets what, where, and when."
~Someone famous.

[Token]

Politics is: "Who gets what, where, and when."
~Someone famous.

Politics is: I’m going to pick up ~ 20# of flour before it runs out.

I’m definitely not famous.

[Canoe]

woooooh boy!
Single source, but wow

Irrespective of who said what, the bottom line is that some NATO members are thinking about intervening in the conflict. If those NATO members forces are attacked by Russia, once in Ukraine, then Article V - and Article VI - has to come into play.

https://twitter.com/Dr_M_Davis/status/1 ... 3156474880

An ammonia leak is being reported in Sumy. Russia released a false flag warning of an imminent Ukrainian chemical attack involving ammonia storage facilities in Sumy yesterday

It is too early to say what caused the leak, but the coincidence is striking and should be explored

https://twitter.com/SamRamani2/status/1 ... 7311266818

* Chemical plant wherein large cisterns containing liquid ammonia are stored was shelled. Ammonia cloud of approximately 5 kilometers is reported.

[Simon of the Playa]

MARIUPOL, Ukraine (AP) — The bodies of the children all lie here, dumped into this narrow trench hastily dug into the frozen earth of Mariupol to the constant drumbeat of shelling.

There’s 18-month-old Kirill, whose shrapnel wound to the head proved too much for his little toddler’s body. There’s 16-year-old Iliya, whose legs were blown up in an explosion during a soccer game at a school field. There’s the girl no older than 6 who wore the pajamas with cartoon unicorns, among the first of Mariupol’s children to die from a Russian shell.

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukrai ... 8d090e38e3

[Canoe]

The Russians were hunting us down: the war on journalism in Mariupol

The Russians were hunting us down. They had a list of names, including ours, and they were closing in.

* We had been documenting the siege of Mariupol by Russian troops for more than two weeks and were the only international journalists left in the city. We were reporting inside the hospital when gunmen began stalking the corridors. Surgeons gave us white scrubs to wear as camouflage. Suddenly at dawn, a dozen soldiers burst in: “Where are the journalists, for fuck’s sake?” I looked at their armbands, blue for Ukraine, and tried to calculate the odds that they were Russians in disguise. I stepped forward to identify myself. “We’re here to get you out,” they said.
* The doctors pleaded with us to film families bringing in their own dead and wounded, and let us use their dwindling generator power for our cameras. No one knows what’s going on in our city, they said.
* Impunity is the second goal. With no information coming out of a city, no pictures of demolished buildings and dying children, the Russian forces could do whatever they wanted. If not for us, there would be nothing. That’s why we took such risks to be able to send the world what we saw, and that’s what made Russia angry enough to hunt us down.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... n-mariupol

[Canoe]

Russian "tactical" helmet is actually WWII "tin can"... already punctured

https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasf ... i_tin_can/

[Canoe]

Russia tells U.S. ambassador that ties on verge of being severed - Reuters

https://twitter.com/phildstewart/status ... 6229662724

Russian Foreign Ministry: Russia exits talks to negotiate a peace treaty with Japan. Revoking visa-free regime for Japanese citizens at southern Kuril islands. Exits dialogue on southern Kuril islands
[citing sanctions and un-friendly Japan]

https://twitter.com/Liveuamap/status/15 ... 6085141509

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has recognized Transnistria (part of Moldova) as a zone of Russian occupation
https://twitter.com/Hromadske/status/15 ... 2172598277

Blood on the main square of Kherson. Looks like Russian occupation forces opened fire at a peaceful protest, after dispersing previous ones by shooting in the air and throwing flash-bangs.

https://twitter.com/yarotrof/status/1505879929749217286

[Canoe]

Russian Ministry of Defence release video appearing to show Ukrainian multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) using the shopping mall to park that was then struck by a Russian ballistic missile last night

A few of observations;
The strike was almost certainly a SRBM.
It hit a number of hours after the first drone video, probably 5-7.
Because of the lack of aircraft PGMs, Russia was forced to use a ballistic missile to destroy something like 5 vehicles.

I also don’t think this video may come across as Russia intended, it shows them destroying a mall with a ballistic missile in order to take out 4-5 Ukrainian vehicles.

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/stat ... 1621618698

* Shooting a ballistic missile at places where a vehicle was 7 hours earlier seems real desperado
* I think it's funny that people think Ukraine is storing massive munitions caches in stores when the country is literally riddled in ex-Soviet nuclear defense facilities and hundreds of missile silos.

Drone video of Russian 'Iskander-M' ballistic missile striking a part of a Ukrainian shopping mall that Ukrainian forces were using to store vehicles.

https://twitter.com/Globe_conflicts/sta ... 2652390407

Berdiansk, #Ukraine. Five Ukrainian ships with tens of thousands of tons of grain disappeared from the city’s port. Witnesses say they were towed by russian ships.

Modern Holodomor – genocide of #Ukrainians. Stealing bread from a prospering now suffering nation. Horrifying.

https://twitter.com/DariaSipigina/statu ... 1697299459

[Canoe]

The Russians were hunting us down: the war on journalism in Mariupol
...
* Impunity is the second goal. With no information coming out of a city, no pictures of demolished buildings and dying children, the Russian forces could do whatever they wanted. If not for us, there would be nothing. That’s why we took such risks to be able to send the world what we saw, and that’s what made Russia angry enough to hunt us down.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... n-mariupol

On the heels of calling youtube a terrorist organization...

A Moscow court bans Meta (and by extension Facebook and Instagram) as an extremist organisation. That's on par with neo-nazis, al-Qaeda, and the Navalny movement.

https://twitter.com/felix_light/status/ ... 6269574150

[Canoe]

Russian TV reporter (dressed in military garb) reports from Ukraine, with a Russian APC & Russian naval vessel behind him, & talks about the “demilitarised port of Berdiansk.”

https://twitter.com/BBCSteveR/status/15 ... 8767543297

[Canoe]

The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to begin its historic confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who'd be the first Black woman on the Supreme Court. Democrats narrowly controlling the Senate hope to wrap up her confirmation by mid-April.

https://twitter.com/AP_Politics/status/ ... 5346247690

How Ketanji Brown Jackson’s path to the Supreme Court differs from the current justices

https://twitter.com/Eugene_Scott/status ... 3621092354

We’re about to witness history. For the first time since the Supreme Court was established in 1789, a Black woman is about to start her nomination hearings. You can disagree with her judicial philosophy all day long, but arguing she’s not qualified is disingenuous….at best.

Judge Jackson has 8.9 years of prior judicial experience.
* That's more than four current Justices (Thomas, Roberts, Kagan and Barrett) had combined
* It's also more than 4 of the last 10 Justices had at their confirmations

https://twitter.com/ananavarro/status/1 ... 4066165766

The American Bar Association just unanimously awarded Ketanji Brown Jackson with the highest possible rating of her qualifications to serve on the Supreme Court.

https://twitter.com/NoLieWithBTC/status ... 0750520329

Just so you know. When Republicans talk about Ketanji Brown Jackson’s experience, they’re deflecting. Amy Coney Barrett Is the Least Experienced Supreme Court Nominee in 30 years.

https://twitter.com/dshanisc/status/1505623148196089856

Seems like an appropriate time to remind people that the FBI ignored over 4,500 tips about Brett Kavanaugh.

https://twitter.com/KaivanShroff/status ... 3166288897

Still no answer to this question: Who paid off Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s $92,000 country club fees plus his $200,000 credit card debt plus his $1.2 million mortgage, and purchased themselves a SCOTUS seat?

https://twitter.com/Strandjunker/status ... 8868252672

May I remind you that Brett Kavanaugh is a rapist sitting on our Supreme Court?

It's not about medicine or science, it never has been. It's about power and control and subjugation. It always has been.

* Conservatives: A mistake a 17 year old boy makes shouldn't follow him for the rest of his life.
* Also Conservatives: If the 17 year old girl that 17 year old boy raped gets pregnant she must be forced to live with his mistake for the rest of her life...

https://twitter.com/allarebananas/statu ... 8430698499

* Remember when its young 17 year old “boys” when they SA but when a member of congress pays a 17 years old she’s a “woman”.

[Canoe]

Russian news slip.

Komsomolskaya Pravda, the pro-Kremlin tabloid, says that according to Russian ministry of defense numbers, 9,861 Russian soldiers died in Ukraine and 16,153 were injured. The last official Russian KIA figure, on March 2, was 498. Fascinating that someone posted the leaked number.

https://twitter.com/christogrozev/statu ... 9298593833

* Ten seconds after I checked, the news story was already deleted.

Captured russians are loading dead Russians.

https://mobile.twitter.com/RF200_NOW/st ... 6849211396

Some perspective on these Russian military losses: assuming the Russian MoD-supplied figured of 9,861 deaths was on the date of the article (3/20/22), then over the 24 days since the conflict started, that would be an average of about 2900 deaths *per week* (~3.4 wks).

For comparison, over the 195 weeks of the Second World War - across both the Pacific and European theaters - the U.S. lost 405,399 personnel, an average of 2078 per week.

Similar calculations for other U.S. wars:
Korea: 336/wk
Vietnam: 102/wk
https://twitter.com/tshugart3/status/15 ... 3958791168

[Canoe]

"Clear evidence that Russian forces are committing war crimes" - Pentagon

The US defence department just held a news briefing and accused Russian forces of committing war crimes in Ukraine and said it would help gather evidence of them, as it accused the Kremlin of carrying out indiscriminate attacks as part of an intentional strategy in the conflict, Reuters reports.

“We certainly see clear evidence that Russian forces are committing war crimes and we are helping with the collecting of evidence of that,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told a news briefing. “But there’s investigative processes that are going to go on, and we’re going to let that happen. We’re going to contribute to that investigative process. As for what would come out of that, that’s not a decision that the Pentagon leadership would make.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/ ... 17b53740db

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/pe ... 022-03-21/

A 96-year-old prisoner of Nazi concentration camps Borys Romanchenko survived Buchenwald, Peenemünde, Mittelbau-Dora and Bergen-Belsen, but was killed by a russian missile in his own apartment in Kharkiv, #Ukraine.

How long can this terror last? #CloseTheSky
https://twitter.com/DariaSipigina/statu ... 1820536839

"Putin is taking action against people from the apparatus whom he knows personally": he expected police action in Ukraine rather than war - now Putin is disappointed and the secret service agents have to pay for it, the expert explains

'The Kremlin ruler is obviously disappointed with the Russian security authorities. First his anger hit the notorious FSB, now the National Guard. Secret service expert Andrei soldatov explains the connections.'
[then paywall]
https://twitter.com/mathieuvonrohr/stat ... 0133742602

[Canoe]

The intent to invade Ukraine isn't a recent development...

Don't forget: AFTER he lost election, Trump unilaterally withdrew from the Open Skies Treaty, giving Putin cover to withdraw too. Ukraine begged us not to, because it would rob the west of the best surveillance should Putin invade. Now we don't have it. Another gift from Trump.

[Canoe]

The intent to invade Ukraine isn't a recent development...

Don't forget: AFTER he lost election, Trump unilaterally withdrew from the Open Skies Treaty, giving Putin cover to withdraw too. Ukraine begged us not to, because it would rob the west of the best surveillance should Putin invade. Now we don't have it. Another gift from Trump.

Then with the wide-spread of the Putin-love by the usual disinformation mouths on the right, I wonder about pre-agreement for:

• GOP: January 6th is not Insurrection. Is "Legitimate Political Discourse".
• Putin: Invasion of Ukraine is not Invasion. Is "Special Military Operation".

and who called for it?

[The Rod]

yeah but between 1939 and 1945 the Russians sustained an estimated 8,800,000 military casualties, dead or missing. Over the course of 312 weeks thats something like 28,000 a week. Their historical context for war is totally different than ours, something which Putin is trying to exploit..

[Canoe]

Don't know about that, but it's been said that in WWII when they were short of parachutes, they had their planes fly really really low and troops went out onto the wings and slid off into the snow. Something like 50 % survival rate for the 'jump'. Safety Third? Sorry, no safety, not on list.

But it appears Putin is a little bit fearful now about a certain aspect to Russian tolerance of death...
Perhaps if he hadn't had so many 'enemies' poisoned.
Wonder if he ever goes out on any balconies now.

Putin replaced 1,000 personal staff members in February over fears they would poison him, report says

According to a source who works in the upper echelons of a Russian ministry, Putin in February allegedly sacked the some 1,000 people—from cooks to launderers to secretaries to bodyguards—who catered to his daily personal and professional needs, and replaced them with a new group of attendants.

“Putin is of course aware someone is coming after him,” says the Frenchman. “Killing Putin is not an easy task, but Putin knows it can be done, and that’s guaranteed to scare him.”

Scheduling is everything. Would-be assassins like to “gather information. Determine habits. Correlate all of Putin’s back-up options,” the covert operator adds, ticking the boxes. “Doubt Putin will travel far by vehicle. There’s no armored vehicle that can survive a few tons of explosives buried under the street.”

The former DGSE black-operations planner says any hit on Putin most likely will have someone in his inner circle, or a phantom just outside the perimeter, as the trigger man. “It will be an expensive job, a fortune,” he says. “In my experience, I’d wager an asset is already in place. There always is.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/ex-black- ... et-his-end

https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine ... ort-2022-3

[Canoe]

Trump nominated 9+ judges who were rated "not qualified" by the American Bar Association.

Biden is nominating a judge who has the HIGHEST possible rating from the American Bar Association and happens to be a Black woman.

Guess which one Republicans are mad about.

[Canoe]

TRIGGER WARNING

This is about a video tweet I saw a number of days ago, say a week +, on a twitter account that had been a source for me early in Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It was a good source, as he showed some of what was happening on the ground (so we knew some of the what, and that it was happening), and he also reposted similar from other sources. At no time did I consider posting this video. Kept my mouth shut. And as I expected, within two days of the video tweet, the account was permanently terminated. I've been torn on disclosing what the video was that got that account permanently terminated, but to give a more complete view of the kind of crap going on in war, here is a discription of the video.

A number of video tweets had been going around showing dead Russian soldiers laying on the ground with some snow. Some claimed they had frozen to death (well bundled, some with weapon close or even in hand, no visible injuries). This video started and showed looking down on a dead Russian soldier, waist up, in full kit laying on his back in the snow. We don't know the story; common with this poster. The setting & soldier looked very familiar, so I expect I saw this dead soldier before, in the same pose, and most likely from this poster. But now there was an uneven light coating of snow on top of the soldier, up to maybe a half inch deep, including covering his face. Then the snow on his face was getting washed off. Then the yellow stream coming in from the bottom of the frame gave away how the snow was getting washed off.

[Canoe]

Get this! The ONLY tank manufacturer in Russia has reportedly STOPPED PRODUCTION due to a lack of foreign-made components, as a result of Western sanctions.

“The only tank manufacturer in Russia has stopped working

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reports that Uralvagonzavod has stopped its work due to a lack of foreign-made components.

It is the only Russian company that carries out assembly series of tanks.”

https://twitter.com/jon96179496/status/ ... 9283149826

https://twitter.com/joncoopertweets/sta ... 1965591553