Finland to clarify next steps on possible NATO entry within weeks
I read Russia made threatening remarks about the possibility of Finland or Sweden entering NATO. I told Jim it would be nice for the Swedes to join. But it the ones we really, really, really should want are the Finns! Fingers crossed on this!
Do you consider Finland (as a NATO member) more desirable simply because of geography, as it borders Russia? Or do you have a soft spot for Finns for some other reason?
They are a nation of badasses. Look.
And they live there all the time.
They’ve got good military aircraft, a bunch of F-18’s which they are in the process of replacing with F-35’s.
They kicked the hell out of the Soviets during the Winter War.
Angry Birds (Rovio Entertainment) got started in Finland.
You’ve got to reckon with the Finns…
Not to mention the Moomins.
HaroldW,
The Finn’s have balls of steel. The Swedes do not.
lucia, mark — Thanks!
I was unaware of the difference in metallic content of their orbs.
HaroldW,
Mind you, I won’t mind at all if the Swedes join. They have good intelligence abilities, tech and so on. But the Finns are fierce.
All of the Finnish Air Force aircraft are NATO aircraft with the backbone being 55-Boeing F/A-18s and on order 64- F-35 Lightning IIs
Finland has a representative at NATO with an active twitter account: Finland at NATO @FinMissionNATO
https://twitter.com/FinMissionNATO
The Finns may be as tough as a bucket of 16 penny nails, but their winter weather doesn’t seem much worse than Chicago’s …. and without the hot weather in summer.
https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/usa/chicago/climate
https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/finland/helsinki/climate
SteveF,
For some reason no one really gives the US credit for it’s horribly bad weather. Chicago’s is horrible. We do have good central heating though.
Steve,
Yeah. The bit about the banner was too good not to mention, but I don’t really think Finland is any worse in that regard (the cold) than lots of other places as you correctly note.
Lucia,
“For some reason no one really gives the US credit for it’s horribly bad weather.”
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I certainly do. That’s why I spend 7 months a year in Florida.
Looks like heavily vaccinated New Zealand will top out at ~20 deaths per day from covid (equal to ~1,300 per day in the USA), and total deaths are unlikely to go past 1,500 on a population of 5 million…. so ~1 person in 3,300 will die from covid in New Zealand, a tenth the overall death rate in the USA. Similar story in heavily vaccinated Australia…. maybe 1 in 2,600 will die from covid. The vaccines really do dramatically reduce deaths, even though they don’t stop infections.
Reported low low covid death rates in many places are incorrect…. actual excess deaths are often 5 to 10 times higher than reported: https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(21)02796-3.pdf
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The only criticism I have of the paper is that it does not address the large impact of age demographics: places with higher elderly populations will automatically suffer higher death rates than places with low elderly populations (all else equal). I suspect that an age-normalized analysis would present a very different picture of how well (or poorly) different places handled the pandemic.
Here is the impact of age normalization (fraction population over 65) on the state by state reported death rates:
https://i.postimg.cc/L63KxvSv/godbadugly.png
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States with lower over-65 populations are actually doing much worse than the un-normalized numbers suggest. States with really high rates all have lower vaccination rates in their elderly population. The most draconian lock-down state of all (California) has a normalized death rate that is almost identical to the least lock-down abused state (Florida). All the abusive state rules did nothing. Vaccines made a difference.
My mother-in-law was a full blooded Finn. I recall a guy in college who knew her and knew I was dating her daughter. He would asked how I could get along with her because he said she scares the heck out of me. She evidently had a soft spot for me as we got along just fine.
My father-in-law was a pharmacist and owned a drug store and on occasion when a late night call would come in for a prescription fill he would oblige, but if my mother-in-law would answer a call like that and she knew the caller was not a customer of their store she would tell them to look up the number of their regular store and call them.
I also remember a time when my in-laws were playing bridge with a couple who were neighbors and friends. When the husband of the couple dropped a card he ask my mothe-in-law to pick it up and she told him to pick it himself. My father-in-law and the other couples wife offered to pick up the card but it some how got to the point where either the other couple’s husband or my mother-law- law had to pick up the card for the game to continue. Neither did and the playing stopped, they had their usually after-the-game snack and said good byes very cordially. In context the other couple’s husband was a spoiled rich kid who was spoiled in turn by his wife and I am quite sure he was testing my mother-in-law.
Now I do not know if not taking crap from anyone is a Finn thing or just my mother-in-law and further I do not know how that would work in a war, but I do know I admired that attribute in her and in my half Finn wife.
Shanghai Has Recorded More Than 130,000 Covid Cases—and No Deaths
https://www.wsj.com/articles/shanghai-has-recorded-more-than-130-000-covid-casesand-no-deaths-11649588402
“In a Covid-19 outbreak that has locked 25 million people at home, the city of Shanghai has reported more than 130,000 cases since March 1, but says there have been no deaths and currently only one patient with severe illness.”
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This reporting by the WSJ is a bit credulous to say the least. Just throw out years of global statistics and blindly believe numbers from the Chinese government that are self serving and impossible. Their population has no serious illness from covid but they are locking down the entire city and testing the entire population. Oh brother.
April 10th, 2022 at 9:52 am
Germany has finally figured out that Russia has been at war with NATO for 20 years and Berlin is only 300 miles from Kaliningrad. While I agree that Norwegian entry into NATO would be a positive development, the really positive developments are happening in Germany:
They are dramatically increasing their defense spending:
“…an increase in annual defense spending to more than 2 percent of gross domestic product….. The announced increase translates into an annual defense budget of about 71 billion euros ($78 billion), up from about 47 billion euros ($50 billion).”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/06/germany-defense-spending/
Norway has had a defense budget of $7.3 billion in 2020, which was 1.94% of its GDP.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Armed_Forces
So Germany’s INCREASE in defense budget [$28B] is four times Norway’s TOTAL [$7.3] defense budget.
Even more importantly, Germany is planning on halting Russian oil and gas imports.
“Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression runs on the money Russia gets by selling fossil fuels to Europe. And while Ukraine has, incredibly, repelled Russia’s attempt to seize Kyiv, Putin won’t be definitively stopped until Europe ends its energy dependence.
Which means that Germany — whose political and business leaders insist that they can’t do without Russian natural gas, even though many of its own economists disagree — has in effect become Putin’s prime enabler. This is shameful; it is also incredibly hypocritical given recent German history.” https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/07/opinion/germany-russia-ukraine-energy.html
“Germany could end Russian oil imports this year, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Friday, signaling the urgency driving Europe’s biggest economy to wean itself off energy from Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.”
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/germany-could-end-russian-oil-imports-this-year-scholz-2022-04-08/
Kenneth,
Yeah. Barring some very unusual situation, the guy who dropped the card should have picked up his own card. If he was crippled and needed someone else to pick it up, he shouldn’t have appointed a specific person. He just should have asked “someone” to pick it up! He did sound spoiled.
Tom
I think they are telling us what the Chinese recorded. Like you, I don’t necessarily believe their records match what actually happened. If no one is dying, it makes no sense to have a lock down! Just decree victory over a virus that has mutated to total non-virulence and move on.
Lucia, the card dropper was very able to pick up the card. He was older but was still playing tennis. He owned the lumber yard that he had inherited and actually could be a very nice and proper guy. As I recall he liked to tease my mother-in-law and probably did not like the fact that the mother-in-law was a better bridge player. His wife was even nicer and very sweet. My mother-in-law had told me before how spoiled he was and that his wife waited on him hand and foot. I was there with my wife when this incident occurred so I saw what was developing and thought this will not end well. Actually no one raised their voice and the card was still on the floor when the couple left.
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto said [maybe] after Pearl Harbor “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”
I think Russia may have done the same to Germany. This from Deutsche Welle:
“Ukraine war sparks major shift in Germany’s energy opinions.
To cover the energy gaps from Russia, most Germans are now willing to tolerate longer nuclear plant running times, as well as oil and gas imports from other totalitarian states, a new poll has shown.”
“In another surprising shift, most Germans also said they back ‘temporary’ speed limits on the country’s infamously limit-less Autobahn” [I thought that would never happen !]
https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-war-sparks-major-shift-in-germanys-energy-opinions/a-61401277
Tom and lucia,
India is somewhat similar to China in reporting COVID deaths. Supposedly, the death rate is 372/million people. Others estimate that there have been over ten times that many deaths. That would be something like 6,000,000 deaths, or about as many as the rest of the world combined. Unfortunately, India’s reporting system doesn’t have, possible doesn’t even collect, the data to allow a reliable measure of excess deaths, so estimates are all we have.
China has, as the cliche goes, painted itself into a corner. They can’t let it rip because that would mean they aren’t in control and would violate the narrative they’ve sold to everyone. OTOH, if they don’t, then the lockdowns will continue to do serious damage to their (and the rest of the world’s) economy.
Today’s epistle…..
The Trump effect has been that most NATO countries have been increasing their defense spending over the past four years. While Germany is the elephant in the room of NATO countries not spending 2% of GDP on defense, there are still several other large economy miscreants: Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Canada, Turkey and Belgium. Combined, their existing defense spending is more than Germany’s in real $; So, getting the rest of NATO up to snuff is still a priority.
For comparison, the 2021 NATO countries combined defense spending was $1,174,240 million. A guess on Russia’s spending is $65,000 million. According to my geezer math, if Germany and the other NATO countries come through with budget increases, NATO defense spending will be about 20 times Russian spending.
Eliminating Russia’s ability to rebuild its depleted military must also be a NATO priority. Stopping all money inflow is key. Weaning Germany and the rest of Europe off Russian fossil fuels is a major part of this effort.
https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2021/6/pdf/210611-pr-2021-094-en.pdf
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/RUS/russia/military-spending-defense-budget
Denazification for Russia involves defining Nazism as hatred of other nationalities. If you hate Russia, you are a Nazi and Russia will kill you. An award for denazifying was given by Putin to a person with SS tattoos.
https://zone.telodig.com/page-https-nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/02/Dmitriy-Valeryevich-Utkin.jpeg?quality=90&strip=all&w=682
Russell Klier (Comment #211155): “A guess on Russia’s spending is $65,000 million.”
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That appears to use a nominal exchange rate. Using PPP would about 2.5 times as large. So about half of non-US NATO spending.
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Russell Klier: “Eliminating Russia’s ability to rebuild its depleted military must also be a NATO priority. Stopping all money inflow is key.”
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I don’t see why stopping money inflow is key. I would think that Russia’s imports very little in terms of defense spending. The key to stopping that would seem to be to block all defense related exports to Russia. Of course, China won’t play ball.
Mike M. (Comment #211157)
You wrote “I don’t see why stopping money inflow is key.”
I did not express my thinking very well. Here is another way of saying it:
“Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki put it even more bluntly after an EU summit Thursday night: “We are buying as European Union lots of Russian gas, lots of Russian oil. And President Putin is taking the money from us, from the Europeans. And he is turning this into aggression, invasion,” he said.”
From the article “How Europe is funding Putin’s war“ https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-eu-oil-gas-trade-russia-budget-military-spending-ukraine-war-crisis/
Here is another analysis, although I don’t support everything in it:
“…. the income of the Russian Government is highly dependent on revenue from oil and gas exports. After the plans for 2020–22 were published in late 2019, oil prices entered a period of turbulence. These economic factors could constrain Russia’s future military spending”
From: “Russia’s military spending: Frequently asked questions” https://www.sipri.org/commentary/topical-backgrounder/2020/russias-military-spending-frequently-asked-questions
Mike M,
“The key to stopping that would seem to be to block all defense related exports to Russia. Of course, China won’t play ball.”
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China and Russia develop and build their own military hardware, and both need just about zero from “the west”. The commonly used US launch vehicle Atlas 5 uses Russian rocket engines (Energomash RD-180). China controls multiple chip fabs, owned by TSMC and others, that make high tech chips, and can easily ensure they have what they need, and what Russia needs as well. The Russians will not be impacted in any way in their production of advanced arms.
I may be adding two and two and getting five, but here goes. I have read that Ukraine is running short of missiles for the Turkish Bayraktar drone. They are being fed directly from the factory. I’ve been tracking an Antonov AN-26 light military transport plane registered to the Ukraine Emergency Service. It left Istanbul four hours ago and it entered Ukrainian air space in the dark. It is the first Ukrainian aircraft I have ever spotted. I wonder if it’s running missiles.
https://www.flightradar24.com/42524/2b7531e8
If the flight is off the screen, I have posted a screenshot here: https://twitter.com/rklier21/status/1513597002285826052?s=20&t=HD-Kdghr2OuHdvZUdAS6lg
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2022/04/06/new-us-weapons-could-re-arm-ukraines-bayraktar-drones/
SteveF,
Russia is hardly self-sufficient. Sure they may be able to build all their tanks and munitions, assuming the machine tools used don’t break down, but they don’t have much of an automobile industry, for example. They need hard currency to buy that stuff. They get that from exports of fossil fuels and other commodities, not so much from manufactured products.
DeWitt,
China will help out with manufacturing. Nobody is going to keep the Russians from building weapons.
Just to put things in perspective, Russia’s GDP is about the same as Italy’s. The US by itself spends about 10x that of Russia on defense.
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So this is not exactly an even matchup. Russia punches over its weight though (they would probably crush Italy in a war), they have relatively good tech for their size and have good innovation.
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Every proxy matchup between western supplied weaponry vs Soviet weaponry (think Israel) has been won decisively by the west.
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One shouldn’t get over confident though, Russia is capable of making anyone suffer and are perfectly OK with wars of attrition. I don’t think Putin wants to take on NATO, but he is willing to take chances when he thinks the west will back down or not engage. He has been correct so far.
As long as India and China are willing to buy Russia’s fossil fuels then the west’s import bans are just a merry go round in the global market. So Russia probably won’t suffer much no matter what we do, the EU should get out from under the threat of having energy dependence on Russia though.
The bigger problem was removing Russia from SWIFT. It has pushed Russia and other countries to do their own currency system. BRICS- Brazil, India, China, Russia, South Africa are the key players, and will be doing more transactions without dollars.
This will add to the US inflation problem, and will be a problem for all the debt heavy countries in the EU as well.
MikeN,
“The bigger problem was removing Russia from SWIFT. It has pushed Russia and other countries to do their own currency system. BRICS- Brazil, India, China, Russia, South Africa are the key players, and will be doing more transactions without dollars.”
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Yes, and worse, some countries will be very reluctant to keep reserves denominated in US dollars, Euros, and Yen. If your country can lose access to all its accumulated reserves on the basis of political machinations of a demented person (and yes, Biden is in fact suffering dementia, which any intelligence test would clearly show), then keeping reserves in dollars is going to be avoided by many countries in the future.
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The USA, Europe, and Japan have lost all credibility as places to store national reserves.
My predictions:
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1) Russia will fight like crazy to get a secure land corridor between the Crimea and Russia.
2) Russia will fight to maximize the controlled areas in the East of Ukraine (the ‘independent republics’)
3) Russia will ignore efforts to finalize a peace agreement; they really don’t care.
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Things could change, of course, but it is looking more and more like Russia will not pursue any kind of negotiated settlement, and will instead establish ‘facts on the ground’ which are acceptable to it’s long term security goals.
In honor of Biden’s new directive against ghost guns:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AYTIm0zUvI
I guess hardware stores will be next on the ATF’s list.
I don’t get the land corridor. A secure corridor might well be an advantage over the bridges they have now. But it won’t be secure since too much area is involved. If the Russians try it, they will have a constant battle against sabotage and guerilla actions.
A land corridor means Ukraine loses all access to the Sea of Azov, as is the case right now I think. If Russia is successful in securing land all the way to Odessa, then Ukraine becomes a landlocked country.
This land bridge would be subject to sabotage and hard to hold, except that Kherson has fallen, and I think I read Zaporizia as well.
Russia might be controlling all the way to the river from the land bridge.
MikeN (Comment #211171): “A land corridor means Ukraine loses all access to the Sea of Azov, as is the case right now I think.”
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But what doe Russia gain?
If all they want to do is block Ukrainian shipping through the Sea of Azov, they can block the shipping channels with a fraction of the effort.
Russia is going to have to commit to rebuild western Ukraine if the country ends up being split in order to get the sanctions dropped IMO.
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Russia replaced the General in charge so that should tell you how Putin really thinks things are going “on plan”. A big land war outside of urban areas should go better for Russia but it could get really really brutal on both sides if they stay committed. I don’t see this thing going well, just all downsides everywhere it seems.
The Black Sea has major choke points to get out anyway, then you have to go through the Mediterranean. Not really very useful in time of war strategically, economically it could be useful I guess.
Ukraine road net
https://www.ezilon.com/maps/europe/ukraine-road-maps.html
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BBC..Russian Advance Map
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60506682
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Russia is moving slower on encirclement and destruction of the far eastern Ukraine army than I expected. It has slowed, but not stoped.
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The BBC map seems to show a Russian advance over time down the M19 highway at Izyum towards Slovyansk at about 5-10km per day. They are taking their time and making full use of their superior artillery assets with major reinforcements following per the BBC.
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With the Ukraine road net to the far east being cut at Kharkiv and at Donetsk, Ukraine supply to their eastern forces is extremely precarious. The pocket is continuing to shrink and the loss of Ukraine’s better veteran troops in the pocket is still only a matter of time.
Found a person who plots visual and electromagnetic ranges of the US and NATO spy plane flights. Yesterday’s results can be found at:
https://twitter.com/ameliairheart/status/1513220486964121605?s=20&t=bfWb6eFJ2XexOBhEHnkgJA
This is significant, because the drone over the Black Sea was spying on Eastern Ukraine, including Mariupol. The US military has stated that we are not supplying the Ukrainian military with real time targeting information, but I think we probably are.
The plotter is Amelia Smith @ameliairheart. I cannot verify her credentials.
Tom Scharf,
“Russia is going to have to commit to rebuild western Ukraine if the country ends up being split in order to get the sanctions dropped IMO.”
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I doubt Russia cares very much about sanctions, and doubt they will do any re-building. They are going to force Europeans to pay for natural gas and oil in Rubles or gold…. no possibility for more sanctions. And when Europe cuts back on imported natural gas and oil from Russia, Russia will just export to China, India, and many other countries. The USA and Europe could confiscate frozen Russian assets (US$600 billion?) and use those to rebuild in Eastern Ukraine. But I suspect that will mean the end of the US dollar and the Euro as reserve currencies for most of the world.
Mike M,
“A secure corridor might well be an advantage over the bridges they have now. But it won’t be secure since too much area is involved.”
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Donno. The bridges are terribly vulnerable to being put out of service at any time. It would cost Russia to defend a corridor, but they may think it worthwhile. The maps of Russian military control sure look like a land corridor is what they want.
SteveF (Comment #211179): “The maps of Russian military control sure look like a land corridor is what they want.”
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Perhaps. But they wanted the whole country. The current map probably represents how far they got before being stopped rather than how far they wanted to get. In the south that extent is likely limited by supply line issues.
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The Russians have had to revise their goals downward. They no doubt feel the need to gain something and the land corridor would qualify as something. So maybe they have decided on that, even if it made no sense as an initial objective.
SteveF,
To be replaced by what (real question)? If people are worried about government control, then currencies like the yuan, the rupee and the ruble are still more risky than the dollar and euro. And Bitcoin and other digital currencies are clearly not up to the job. See this:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/if-crypto-cant-be-used-to-evade-russian-sanctions-what-is-the-point-11649763827?st=8oyrg7a4agaisin&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
DeWitt,
I suspect many governments will tend to purchase high value materials and stock them (gold, platinum, silver, etc) as safe haven for accumulated wealth, and make more international transactions in the currencies of the two countries involved.
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An Indian company buys ammonium nitrate fertilizer from a Russian producer, and converts Indian Rupees to Russian Rubles to make payment….. no intermediate use of dollars or Euros. Banks in Russia and India facilitate the transaction by using multiple transactions to mostly balance currency flows. Eg, an Indian clothing producer sells to a Russian company and offsets the fertilizer transaction going in the opposite direction. All currencies are fiat currencies, so it doesn’t matter much which are used in an international transaction.
SteveF,
India has a large enough economy to do that. Most of the rest of the countries in the world world don’t. You can’t wire transfer commodities like precious metals. The gold standard was dropped for good reasons.
Big surprise, not.
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WSJ: Putin Says Ukraine Peace Talks Hit ‘Dead End,’ Vows to Continue Fight
Russian leader says that without a deal acceptable to the Kremlin, his forces would continue their offensive, as Ukraine probes alleged Russian chemical-weapons attack
https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-unleashes-new-attacks-overnight-on-ukraines-eastern-region-11649754356
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“Mr. Putin said that peace talks had stalled after what he called a “fake” situation in Bucha, a town outside of Kyiv where Ukrainian officials reported the discovery of several hundred dead civilians this month after Russian troops retreated.”
“Mr. Putin said the main goal of the offensive was “to help people in Donbas” ”
“What is happening in Ukraine is a tragedy,” Mr. Putin said in a news conference after a meeting at the spaceport with President Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus, his closest international ally. “They just didn’t leave us a choice. There was no choice.”
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Look what the world made Putin do! Man, I feel so sorry for that guy, carrying the weight of the righteous world on his back. He is absolutely on the right side of history.
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One has not to ponder very hard what the world would look like if Russia had 10x the defense budget of the US.
SteveF (Comment #211182): “An Indian company buys ammonium nitrate fertilizer from a Russian producer, and converts Indian Rupees to Russian Rubles to make payment….. no intermediate use of dollars or Euros.”
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And how do they do the conversion? I suppose that India’s central bank could hold a large reserve of rubles so that Indian companies can exchange rupees for them and that Indian exporters could accept payment in rubles, then exchange with the central bank to get rupees. But then how do Indian companies trade with China or Japan or Australia. The central bank would have to maintain reserves of every currency. And trade is just one use of reserve currencies.
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The above is just thinking out loud; I don’t really understand the subject.
DeWitt,
“Most of the rest of the countries in the world world don’t.”
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Well, smaller countries can work in whatever currency they want for international transactions; maybe Chinese, maybe dollars, maybe Swiss francs. That hasn’t got much to do with the gold standard. Fiat currencies were adopted when the gold standard was dropped, of course, but there is nothing which says a specific fiat currency must be used for holding reserves for a country. I imagine the Russians regret not having moved away from dollars for their reserves before invading the Ukraine (more than they actually did). As I think I said somewhere up-thread, seizing a country’s dollar and Euro denominated assets will punish that country exactly once. It will not happen a second time.
30 weeks left till the midterm reckoning. Biden still blames Putin for gas prices and inflation, and voters don’t buy it. I can hardly wait.
The gold standard was dropped formally, but was adopted informally by the Fed in the early 80s thru the late 90s.
James Baker tried to set up a framework of the pound, mark, franc, and dollar being set at fixed exchange rates. The market went up in anticipation then crashed when it fell apart.
It wouldn’t surprise me if something like this were tried by BRICS group.
Mike M,
They don’t need to do any conversion at all if the flows balance. That is, the transactions take place at whatever is the current “exchange rate”, and imports and exports zero out the net flow between banks.
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OK. You are an Indian bank (which are IMO the worst, least efficient banks in the world), you have company Y exporting 100 million Rupees worth of shirts to Russia, and you have company Z importing 100 million Rupees worth of fertilizer. The Rupee flow is from importing company Z to exporting company Y….. you make zero net conversions from Rupees to Rubles. On the other side (in a Russian bank) there is a transfer of Rubles between the company that imports shirts to the company that exports fertilizer…. once again, with no net cross-boarder currency exchange. It is all accounting on paper, no actual exchange. The only issue is when the net flows are NOT balanced. That complicates things, and requires the inclusion of net currency conversion in the process, which is market driven. Long term trade imbalances (of course) mean shifts in exchange rates to bring imports and exports back into balance.
SteveF,
And when has that ever worked (real question)?
Germany has had a trade surplus since 2000. The US has had a trade deficit since 1976. I’ve seen the argument that as long as the dollar is a reserve currency, the US must run a trade deficit or there will be serious problems with global trade. I posted a link to that some time ago.
Note that there is never a significant overall financial deficit or surplus. The excess dollars we spend to buy stuff is used to buy US assets, including T-bills.
DeWitt,
“Note that there is never a significant overall financial deficit or surplus. The excess dollars we spend to buy stuff is used to buy US assets, including T-bills.”
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Sure, but if the dollar is no longer the ‘reserve currency’, then things change. The dollar clearly holds a special position as a reserve currency; that is not permanent. Freezing hundreds of billions of adversaries US Dollar assets is probably the surest way to make a change happen, and sooner rather than later.
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WRT to imbalances between Russia and India (or any two countries), I suppose assets could be purchased in Russia or in India if there is a significant trade imbalance. The point is: there is nothing magical about the US Dollar as a reserve currency. It can be displaced, and likely will be in the long term. US currency policy, and profligate trade imbalances, will be restricted as a result.
mark bofill,
“30 weeks left till the midterm reckoning.”
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Ya, and it can’t come too soon. The Biden administration (actually the administration of Democrat nut-cake hacks pulling Biden’s strings), will be severely restricted in what it can do following the election. I am sure the hacks now in charge are fully aware of that. Hence the endless stream of wacko policy proposals for 2022…. almost none of which will be enacted, mercifully.
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I sure hope they let the airport/plane mask mandate lapse, but I am not holding my breath…. it could well go on until January 2025….. it is an absolute nightmare.
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For me the most interesting question is if a demented and corrupt Joe Biden will be driven from office for his obvious corruption and blatant tax evasion. My guess is that the Republicans in Congress will be too clever to let that happen. There is nothing they want more than facing a demented, drooling Biden or a certified-idiot like Kamala in 2024. If Biden is driven from office, then a more plausible Democrat could emerge.
Steve wrote: “I sure hope they let the airport/plane mask mandate lapse, but I am not holding my breath…
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The bigger nightmare is requiring a negative covid test one day before travel to get on a plane to the US.
Steve,
Agreed, but I don’t know that the Republicans in Congress have the power to accomplish that. I really don’t think Biden will run in 2024. My brother put forward the disturbing idea that the dems would run Michelle Obama. They might, and it might be a good move for them.
DarveJR,
“The bigger nightmare is requiring a negative covid test one day before travel to get on a plane to the US.”
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Sure, and the reciprocal required covid tests to travel to most other countries. I have (I think) been covid tested about 12 times…. all negative. Each test adds about $80 to someone’s pocket. It is nutty. In Florida, we have under a thousand covid cases per day in a population of 21 million…. and those cases are mostly NOT the people boarding planes. It is all so stupid, wasteful, and irritating.
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On my 8 hour flight from Sao Paulo to the USA last week, I was reminded by the flight attendants at least 20 times of the need to wear a mask over my nose and mouth, um, well, except when I happen to be eating or drinking, when apparently covid viruses in your mouth and throat recognize the clanged circumstances instantly retreat to near one’s anus, and no longer spread when no mask is worn on the face….. or something. It is all so stupid that it is difficult to accept. You can only laugh at the stupidity and vote for anybody except a Democrat.
There was an article in today’s WSJ relevant to the current war in Ukraine by Joseph Epstein and with reference to Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” and the chaos of war. Just as Civics 101 thinking and analyzing can attempt to sanitize what passes for political maneuvering in running the domestic affairs of government there is much the same effort when it comes to wars.
I do appreciate reading here the inputs of those posters who have more knowledge of the details of the current war than do I and than the accounts that I get from the popular media, but I still wonder what is really occurring on the frontlines in the battles and the strategizing of the politicians on both sides of this war.
What I see is both sides digging deeper into the war in Ukraine that looks to last for a long time and a population and economy that will be damaged for even a longer time.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/talking-heads-media-news-read-leo-tolstoy-russian-literature-russia-ukraine-war-peace-11649708615
The link below lists the gold reserves for nations of the world. At the current price of gold in dollars at $2045 per ounce, the value of a tonne is $72,154,000 and the US gold reserve is worth 586 billion dollars.
Interesting that all nations are on a fiat monetary system and yet many maintain a healthy gold reserve.
https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/gold-reserves
The US dollar is the most used world currency primarily because it is the least irresponsible (or at least thought to be) major government operator in these matters. But that is faint praise. All central banks of the world are like the king without clothes but without the honest kid to reveal the fact. Clothes here is analogous to knowing how monetary manipulations affect the economy.
Kenneth,
“What I see is both sides digging deeper into the war in Ukraine that looks to last for a long time and a population and economy that will be damaged for even a longer time.”
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I hope you are wrong, but fear you are right.
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If the Ukrainians can keep at least one major port operating, then they can export and likely survive the Russian partial occupation. The Ukraine is a major exporter of grains and several industrial commodities, but they need a port for those exports. Which is probably why Russia keeps threatening to take Odessa (the single remaining major port in Ukrainian hands).
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The government in Kyiv is unlikely to fold except under the most extreme circumstances, and Russia’s withdrawal from the Kyiv region suggests those extreme circumstances are becoming ever less likely. It will most likely be a rump Ukraine that survives, with neither Crimea nor the Donbas regions included… assuming the Ukrainians can keep at least one major port operating.
Kenneth,
“Interesting that all nations are on a fiat monetary system and yet many maintain a healthy gold reserve.”
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Because EVERYONE understands that fiat currencies are inherently subject to political whims. The USA could, based on the nonsense spewed by the Federal government, simply distribute the gold reserves to each American…. which is not going to happen. The logical extension is that not just gold holds ‘real value’, but every commodity with recognized inherent value does the same: wheat, petroleum, other grains, other metals, etc.
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Fiat currencies are convenient, supported by ‘legal tender’ laws, and inherently subject to political influence…. which is inevitably a risk to the holder of those currencies.
Phil Scadden,
[Regarding the conversation we were having earlier]
There is an interesting op-ed by a regretful post-op transsexual individual here at the Washington Post of all places.
It’s a democracy, we can vote ourselves the treasury right? Looks like cashing in the gold reserves won’t even get us the value of a covid stimulus check though.
It seems modern day Russians are genetically similar to Ivan the Terrible.
I have been reading about the past crimes against civilians committed by the Russian government. The past 100 years has seen a regular pattern of civil atrocities committed by Russians: Here are some low lights:
First Russian- Chechen War 1994-1996, “Various figures estimate the number of civilian deaths at between 30,000 and 100,000 killed and possibly over 200,000 injured, while more than 500,000 people were displaced by the conflict, which left cities and villages across the republic in ruins”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Chechen_War
Second Russian-Chechen War August 1999 to April 2009. In August 1999
“ According to Amnesty International in 2007, the second war killed up to 25,000 civilians since 1999, with up to another 5,000 people missing.[115] However, the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society set their estimate of the total death toll in two wars at about 150,000 to 200,000 civilians.[116”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Chechen_War#Civilian_losses
“Holodomor, man-made famine that convulsed the Soviet republic of Ukraine from 1932 to 1933, peaking in the late spring of 1933”
“Between 1931 and 1934 at least 5 million people perished of hunger all across the U.S.S.R. Among them, according to a study conducted by a team of Ukrainian demographers, were at least 3.9 million Ukrainians”
“Soviet repressions of Polish citizens (1939–1946)”“Soviet NKVD executed about 65,000 imprisoned Poles after being subjected to show trials.[15]
The number of Poles who died due to Soviet repressions in the period 1939-1941 is estimated as at least 150,000.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes#Poland
And this is just a partial list.
Kenneth, I think the stated price of gold is measured in Troy ounces, which are about 10% heavier.
Mark, I am not quite sure what your point is. Is that by a more liberal treatment of trans, we increase the likelihood of adults doing themselves harm? We should therefore be projecting strong disapproval of trans with all that goes with that? How would justify a liberal view of alcohol then which seriously damages a great many adults?
I would say that an adult (20+ – I would be against a teen have trans surgery) makes their own decision and lives with the consequences. That is personal responsibility isn’t it?
MikeN,
20 troy oz to the pound, IIRC, so only 80% as heavy as a standard oz.
Phil, does the “more liberal treatment of trans” involve transitioning children without their parents consent or knowledge? Teaching pre-pubuescents “gender ideology”?
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“Liberals” seem to have this starry eyed opinion of how things should work, and assume that’s what everyone else is actually doing.
I think you need to be specific when discussing what is “more liberal” with trans and then complaining about it. I can talk about whether I think kids under 20 should be given hormones and surgery, or whether their parents should be cut out of decisions and then talk about whether that’s good or bad. But like Phil, I don’t know if that’s what you mean by “more liberal”, or if “more liberal” is merely letting adults like Bruce Jenner make up their own minds.
MikeN is correct and that makes my dollar values calculated about 10 percent high. My gold prices were quoted as dollars per troy ounce.
That does not change my point that, if the fiat system is based on the good faith in the currency, why have any gold reserves.
In the US the Federal Reserve’s recent scrambling to predict and explain would make evident their weaknesses that might defy faith if it were not for their great cheering section in academia and the media.
Phil Scadden (Comment #211205): “Is that by a more liberal treatment of trans, we increase the likelihood of adults doing themselves harm? We should therefore be projecting strong disapproval of trans with all that goes with that?”
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Body dysphoria is a mental illness. We should neither glorify it nor make life harder for those who suffer from it. Both go double for teenagers. But we should also not force people to conform to the delusions of the mentally ill.
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Surgical and hormonal treatments of dysphoria have not been shown to be safe and effective. There is considerable evidence that they are neither. It is questionable whether such treatment are ethical for adults; they should definitely be illegal for minors.
Russell,
I think wars are pretty similar in the grand scheme, lots of civilians died in both Iraq and Syria (100K’s). The Russians continuously bring up these examples when they stand accused and they have a point. There are differences in how the wars are executed and the Russian Army is definitely less worried about casualties, but anytime a major war is executed lots of civilians end up dying whether it is by direct attack, indirect attack, them killing each other, disease, starvation, etc.
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The Russian don’t have a lot of precision munitions and are using a lot of rudimentary aimed artillery as well as cluster bombs and a general willingness to kill anything that gets in the way. WWII was not anything different. Bombing Japanese cities with incendiary weapons, the fire bombing of Dresden, atomic bombs. I doubt you wanted to be a German citizen walking around as the Allied armies took back Germany.
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Even when you have precision weaponry they can aim them at the wrong places. Iraq, 1991, Amiriyah shelter bombing, 400+ killed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiriyah_shelter_bombing
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In Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq the opposition didn’t wear uniforms, what are you to do with that? Countries will avoid civilian casualties when it is convenient for them to do so. Otherwise, not. When your opposition has air superiority you have almost no option but to blend in with the civilian population or you will get annihilated.
Phil,
That’s great. That’s what I think too. I’m sorry, I was under the (apparently) mistaken impression that you supported the current push for affirming care so that teens and earlier could transition.
I certainly agree with you that adults can and should make their own decisions.
I didn’t realize we agreed. Thanks.
Another small NATO country has joined the spy plane merry-go-round. Italian Air Force Gulfstream G550 AEW callsign PERSE71 has been flying a pattern in Eastern Romania all morning [my time].
https://www.flightradar24.com/PERSE71/2b7a16b4
This aircraft appears to similar to the one the Swedish Air Force had on station just West of the Ukraine border last week. It is a new bird:
“Italy to acquire two Gulfstream G550 CAEW spy planes”
https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/26734-italy-to-acquire-two-gulfstream-g550-caew-spy-planes
The usual outlets are saying the usual things about the NYC subway shooting. In particular this caught my eye:
Probably this is true, probably it is not feasible to have a police officer in every single train car in NYC.
That’s where concealed carry ought to come in.
In Alabama in 2017, I read that one in five Alabamians are licensed to carry concealed. If even half of those people are actually carrying at any given time, on a crowded subway car of 80 people there would be about 8 armed civilians.
So, comparing eight concealed carry civilians or none (NYC is extremely restrictive) vs a crazy gunman. I know what subway car I’d prefer to be on.
Mark. No, I do not support teenagers having irreversible, potentially life damaging surgery. “more liberal” should perhaps be read as “more tolerant”. Ie not bullied, attacked in dark streets, not ridiculed.
I have no idea what “gender ideology” means, but I dont teachers should be prevented from matter-of-fact explanation of why. say, Joey has two mothers, or why Ms Brown has a very deep voice. Lucia has stated that the law does not prevent that.
Phil,
Thanks. If I may add: Nobody (and I really do think it’s literally nobody) advocates for anybody to be bullied, ridiculed, or attacked in dark streets. Nobody thinks that’s OK. That is not a conservative idea.
[Also, worth mention, the Biden administration disagrees with us regarding hormone therapy for children. This brings us back to why it is an issue conservatives care about. In my home state the governor just signed legislation making it illegal to prescribe puberty blockers for children to transition genders and the federal DOJ ‘warned’ us against doing this.]
Regarding gender ideology, there is an actual sociological definition that is not (I believe) what is commonly being referred to in this context.
In this context, gender ideology (I believe) refers to a set of beliefs, including these:
1) that gender and biological sex vary independently
2) that gender is completely subjective in the sense that if a person claims to be a certain gender, that claim should be accepted.
3) that gender can vary fluidly.
There may be others, and some may define the list differently.
Being careful and maybe a little tedious:
My impression is that the term ‘gender ideology’ used to mean this:
link here.
However, the term has also come to be used in this manner:
Oddly (or not, when you think about it) Wikipedia denies there is any such thing and claims this is an empty signifier.
I think the Don’t Say Gay bill is just a political stunt and a trap for the Democrats. This falls into a category I call “making a law to prevent things that aren’t really happening”. Same for the bathroom bill. There are probably some one-off craziness here and there but I doubt grade schoolers were actually being indoctrinated.
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I can believe that some militant activists when cornered are going to say grade schoolers shouldn’t be prevented from being indoctrinated, but then they are falling into the trap. There should be more important things to spend our time on.
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CRT in schools looked more endemic, and mostly because the left won’t even stand up to their own crazies and they let it get out of control. They paid the price in VA and will continue to do so until they can actually say the words out loud that white guilt shouldn’t be official school curriculum. I expect both of these will run the same course as Defund the Police, politically toxic and stopped once it starts being obvious it is hurting their power opportunity.
Well, maybe not:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/new-jersey-second-graders-learn-gender-identity-alarming-parents
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“One school district in the state distributed sample lesson plans indicating first graders could be taught they can have “boy parts” but “feel like” a girl.”
“One lesson plan, “Purple, Pink and Blue,” instructs teachers to talk to their first graders about gender identity, and its first objective is to have the students be able to define “gender, gender identity and gender role stereotypes.”
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Etc.
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NJ’s Governor somehow got dragged into this and the lesson plans are being revised. There are some crazy people who want to change education. This is what happens when one party or the other captures an institution. This is also how it gets corrected.
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The WP says it’s all made up and needs context of course:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/12/new-jersey-education-guidelines/
“At issue are sample lesson plans distributed at a Feb. 22 meeting of the Westfield, N.J., school district, drafted by a progressive group called Advocates for Youth.”
“But the school district and the advocacy group both say that’s not the case — that these were sample materials that the district shared as it reviews the state guidelines.
“The sample plans you reference are not lesson plans in the Westfield Public School District,” superintendent Raymond González told The Washington Post. “Nor were they handed out to parents at the February 22 Board of Education meeting.””
Tom,
It’s hard to know. I doubt it’s much happening in [public] schools in Alabama. There’s irony in that it might be that the places most likely to pass legislation against this sort of thing are the least likely to need it.
[off topic rant – Kay Ives’s challengers are running commercials morning noon and night. They need to give it up. Kay is awesome. ]
Tom
I also doubt there is any sort of widespread indoctrination. It’s a big country so you can never be quite sure there are zero teachers doing anything. (I doubt there were many 4th grade math teachers making kids stand in garbage cans if they lost at flashcards. But mine did! There is always some loon out there!)
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So yes, I think the bill will do practically nothing. It might mean some kinder-3rd grade teacher won’t be able to put up a rainbow flags or stickers since that actively fosters discussion. (Yes. Some teachers put these up. I haven’t read of it in elementary, but this is a story in junior high:
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/missouri-teacher-resigns-school-tells-remove-pride-flag-rcna1959
) Here’s another article.
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/education-culture-war-finds-new-target-pride-flags-classrooms-rcna2501
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And another:
https://www.edweek.org/leadership/pride-flags-and-black-live-matters-signs-in-the-classroom-supportive-symbols-or-propaganda/2022/01
Of course, many of the same incidents are re-reported in each article. But various places are prohibitting allowing teachers to put up gay pride and black-lives matter flags in their classroom.
People would have sworn blind that crt was just a few extremists here and there a few years ago, and that’s what they did say. Let’s not make assumptions about how far ideologues will go to push their agendas, because it’s clear they will go as far as they can unless they meet resistance.
Dave,
Sure. I don’t wait for the garden to fill with weeds. Things spread sometimes.
(Well.. I try to weed often enough.. )
I still see these school problems as a matter of who should have inputs into what and how the students are taught. It would be a much more straight forward and non controversial matter if the teaching curriculum were relegated to teaching the basics so that the students could eventually gain sufficient knowledge to make up their own minds. Younger students should be instructed in these matters by their parents. Again public schools should stay out of matters that traditionally families handled. It is too easy to see where the state might want to control what is taught in the interest of the state.
Looks a bit like Fox is overselling this:
“The sample plans you reference are not lesson plans in the Westfield Public School District,” superintendent Raymond González told The Washington Post. “Nor were they handed out to parents at the February 22 Board of Education meeting.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/12/new-jersey-education-guidelines/
Nonetheless, I dont think 2nd graders need this.
Phil Scadden,
Fox will definitely oversell. The amount of overselling from “both sides” can be breathtaking.
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But the episode does show that there are groups wanting to promote some fairly aggressive gender talk in school!
For reasons somewhat unrelated to the actual controversial “gender” aspect, I actually got a kick out of the 3Rs-NJ_PinkBluePurple.pdf “sample lesson” plan for first graders.
Remember: This lesson is suggested forsix year olds. Most will not have learned to read. So, let’s start here:
So: you are asking kids who may be on single syllable words and may not yet know the rule for when to sound out hard or soft G to read Gender. And hear you are, using the word with out discussing the phonics and plowing forward. Great!!
Now on to the values:
Or, like the boy in Kindergarden cop, “Boys have a penis, girls have a vagina”.
And with the introduction of “identity” your first graders are now reading four syllable words!!!
Yes. You better. Because they probably learned to sing the ABC song last year in kindergarden. So they may actually need someone to remind them that’s an I. (Not sarcasm!!)
In other words: Suggest to them how they feel!!!
And don’t even mention the possibilities that you might have boy parts and feel like a boy, or you might have girl parts and feel like a girl.
(Never mind having to touch on the question: why are we using gendered terms like “boy” or “girl” for these body parts. Why not call them a penis and vagina without attributing either to “boy” or girl”? After all, people who are girls can have penis, then it’s presumably not a “girl part”. It’s just a penis!)
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I’m trying to envision these 7 minutes. Surely, after this discussion of their boy and girl parts, some 6 year old is going to suggest show and tell!! One might ask the teacher to show their parts!!
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I’m pretty sure the parents and nearly everyone have been trying to get them to keep their clothes on and not suddenly whip out all their parts. Most people think it’s important for kids to learn you don’t just whip out all your parts.
I’m sorry… but reading the sample lessons… If I were drinking coffee I would have snorted it out my nose
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/dge2a30qi05brxw/AADZE5YRB-DViEZ-eiLQ1yoYa/By%20the%20end%20of%20Grade%202?dl=0&preview=3Rs-NJ_UnderstandingOurBodies.pdf&subfolder_nav_tracking=1
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I’m visualizing the 2nd graders putting post-it notes on body parts!!!
Step 7!!!
OTHER WORDS!!!! ‘Cuz they all need to know those. I’m dying!
Now, on the other hand, if my eighteen year old boy doesn’t know the word ‘clitoris’, there could be a legitimate [problematic] gap in his education. I’ll ask when I next see him.
Lucia,
I share your amusement.
It was controversial when I was in high school to teach about sex education. I had to have my parents sign a slip for high school, ha ha. They covered STD’s in … ummmm … graphic detail. I can see why this was necessary for the general welfare. Things have changed quite a bit.
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The lesson plan above was definitely out of bounds for that age group, that’s why it is a trap. Any reasonable person who isn’t an activist is going to say no to that. It’s really unclear how this all works, why is that lesson plan even there at all? Does the school board ask for ideas, it it funded, is it just sent in?
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They do need to explain it. It’s not good enough to just say we haven’t implemented it. Yet? They just need to say we aren’t going to implement it and that is apparently too hard, it’s giving in to the terrorists or something.
‘It is not being taught.’ Merely proposed to be implemented to be taught later.
The Russian warship had a “fire” that coincidently occurred immediately after Ukraine says they shot missiles at it. The Russians are so unlucky, but they are investigating the cause. Probably was the flying projectile that hit the ship, but hey, I’m an amateur.
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A crew of 500 was evacuated. You can lose a lot of people on a ship strike. Argentina lost over 300 people (700 survived) when one of their ships sunk in the Falklands War. A fire followed by an explosion would allow most people to get off the ship IF it was abandoned on time, except for the fire fighting crew. Ships that get hit and sink in a few minutes are death traps. Ammunition stores going off can be quite spectacular, but I doubt this ship had the kind of stuff an old school battleship would be carrying.
Russian warship Moskva pronouns: Was/were
lucia (Comment #211224)
“So yes, I think the bill will do practically nothing.”
Au contraire! It has had a big effect already…. On Governor Desantis’ stature with Conservatives. It’s also a big win for Republicans in a lot of places. The vast majority of voters are supportive of the simple principles about parental rights that are mandated in the legislation.
“Not just Florida. More than a dozen states propose so-called ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bills” https://www.npr.org/2022/04/10/1091543359/15-states-dont-say-gay-anti-transgender-bills
The Democrat politicians are in a corner…their rabid base demands they take a stand on this and the politicians know it’s a general election albatross. They will have to defend the position that six year olds should be taught about gay sex.
I think it was a political bill from the start. Brilliant!
Russell
The problem isn’t merely “taught about gay sex “. That “gender identity” lesson for 1st graders doesn’t really say anything about sex. The “pin the body part on the body” is also not about gay sex.
But it appears both lesson plans fits someone’s interpretation of what the NJ law encourages/mandates, plans were submitted and are being considered. The whole point of soliciting the plants is to discuss them while considering them. So, they have to discuss that plan.
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The vast majority of parents are going to at least think that lesson is unnecessary and would rather scrap it for another hour of math or reading. ( Although, as I pointed out, if they dedicate some time to soft vs. hard G maybe some reading could be improved!)
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Obviously, parents are going to be monitoring what lesson is ultimately selected. So either Westchester people have to decree that plan is not suitable (which is probably some thing some progressive don’t want to say) or they will say it is a lesson teachers may use.
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The latter is just read meat to the GOP. Because saying “it’s not required it’s just something individual teachers can choose ain’t going to be a good look. That sort of thing won’t be rewarded at the voting box.
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Now parents who like Florida’s bill (and one’s like it) have something concrete to point out. It’s “only being considered” or “it’s just a sample lesson plan” still leaves it as an example! They can say “That‘s what we don’t want.”
The Russian navy has announced that its flagship missile cruiser Moskva has successfully completed its mission on the surface of the Black Sea. It will now be repositioned to the bottom of the Black Sea for a new mission.
The sinking of the Moscow Cruiser is huge. Not only was it Russia’s black sea flagship, it was filling the role of an aegis destroyer in protecting the rest of the black sea fleet from air and surface attacks. That puts the remaining fleet members at much higher risk. Pretty high chances of large death toll with a crew of 500+ high seas and an munition store cook off. Ukraine is reporting it rolled over and detonate. Russia says all sailors have been evacuated and it is being towed to port. You don’t generally evacuate all crew if the ship isn’t sinking.
There’s plenty of other stuff out there as well if you look around. They run their own streams you can sit in on usually centered around names including “equity” and “justice” where they discuss things like “challenging what is normal and ideal”, which is apparently a “big problem at the elementary level”. These “normal” things are stuff like “white racial identity, able bodied, cis gender, two parent families” etc etc. They see a need to “disrupt these dominant narratives” and they do this by inversion. Normal is incentivized by its mere existence and historical inertia, so they need to introduce lessons to marginalize what is “normal” and elevate what is “abnormal” in its place. With regards to things like gender, this is an explicit incentive for children to choose an “abnormal” trait to place themselves in one of the “special” categories. This can be encouraged by asking children what identities they identify as, with praise for those who “come out” with the most “abnormal” traits. These “choices” are then “affirmed” and finally presented to the public as the child’s own decision, which requires respecting.
Funny. All this tech and stuff doesn’t work for whatever reason. The Moskva has 6 AK-630 CIWS and still it got hit by cruise missiles. It reminds me of the USS Stark back in the 80’s, and makes me wonder how effective CIWS actually are.
[Edit: I read here that the Neptune is a sea skimmer. The Moskva probably never detected the incoming missiles.]
Andrew P (Comment #211242)
“ Not only was it Russia’s black sea flagship, it was filling the role of an aegis destroyer in protecting the rest of the black sea fleet from air and surface attacks.”
Thank you for the information. That is interesting.
To add insult to injury USAF and NATO have three spy planes and a tanker in the area watching the Black Sea this AM:
Northrop Grumman RQ-4B Global Hawk https://www.flightradar24.com/FORTE10/2b7ce56a
Boeing RC-135W Rivet Joint
https://www.flightradar24.com/HOMER41/2b7cc52c
Boeing E-3B Sentry
https://www.flightradar24.com/NATO01/2b7cdb52
McDonnell Douglas KC-10A Extender
https://www.flightradar24.com/NCHO221/2b7d0f7e
Here’s something from Washington states public files:
https://www.k12.wa.us/sites/default/files/public/healthfitness/standards/healtheducationtermsglossary.pdf
I don’t even want to look at their definition of transgender.
Note the use of ‘assigned’ rather than ‘determined’ as if somehow sex, not just gender, is also arbitrary and not an inherent biological condition. That’s so annoying. If sex is assigned at birth, then how come people are able to use ultrasound to find out the sex of their child in utero? The illogic is mind-boggling.
And in COVID news, the poison dwarf has extended the mask mandate for air travel because the new COVID variant has caused a small increase in cases, particularly in New York where the doubling time is over two weeks at the moment. TV news said there was a superspreader event in NYC where all the attendees had been vaccinated and tested.
So let’s continue to do something that’s largely useless, i.e. wearing cloth and surgical masks, in a venue where significant spreading hasn’t actually been shown to happen because we can. We also should be pretty sure this won’t last based on the UK where the BA.2 surge, what there was of it, peaked in late March at a level well below the peak from the original omicron surge.
It appears to me that to be truely “inclusive” from their POV would require a “blank slate” society, where there is no concept of host traditions and norms. It isn’t acceptable to merely tolerate and/or accept difference, because a border still exists preventing true inclusion, it’s to be unaware a difference exists at all.
Gotta love this, Gov Abbot bussing illegals to DC:
I love it.
I have seen a claim that the Ukrainians used a drone or drones to distract the Moskva’s air defense system, allowing the cruise missiles to slip in. If true, give the Ukrainians full marks for creative thinking.
Mike,
Israel used that trick with firebee drones back in the Yom Kippur war. It’s a good trick, it might be what happened. I read that ships only have between about 30 seconds and a minute to react to sea-skimming missiles, so baffling or occupying the enemy’s attention for even 10 or 15 seconds could make a critical difference.
[Edit: Well, the Israelis used a similar trick..]
DeWitt,
Ya, the mask nightmare continues, and I expect the evil, stupid dwarf will make it go on as long as possible, then retire. When I take an international flight where everyone has tested negative within the 24 hours before flight time (and usually within 6 hours!), the chance of an infective passenger on the plane is extremely close to zero…. yet you still have to wear a mask on the plane. It is all so stupid that it makes me roll my eyes in disbelief.
The fancy radar guided anti-ship-missile machine gun on ships is the weapon of last resort. If that thing is firing then you might want to start running for the railings.
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The US has it’s own version (Phalanx) and I have no idea how effective they really are. It has about a 6 second window to shoot a missile down from about a mile or so away. The US also has some more recent anti-missile missiles which are obviously tough tech to master. The US navy depends on a layered defense system that pretty much wants to keep everything far away. Sitting in a busy Black Sea a few minutes from a missile launch is not optimal, kind of reminds me of the Taiwan Strait.
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Given the state of a lot of land based Russian equipment one might guess that it might have malfunctioned or the pretty recent Ukrainian missile design (Neptune) just blew right through it and detonated anyway. Ukraine only has a few of these missiles, it’s a hacked version of an anti-air missile.
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If multiple missiles arrive simultaneously then that is a problem. An anticipated scenario in Taiwan is China firing something like 200 anti-ship missiles at once.
mark bofill,
The theoretical radar detection range (line of sight) is directly calculable (https://www.translatorscafe.com/unit-converter/en-US/calculator/radar-horizon/). If the ship’s radar is at 40 meters above sea level and the cruise missile is at 5 meters above seal level, the theoretical visibility is just under 22 miles. The higher the radar, the greater the line-of-sight range. If the cruise missile closes at 600 miles per hour, that gives a bit over 2 minutes to detect and react. The reality is that a cruise missile’s detection range could be much less if it’s radar signature is small (stealth), and only increasing radar power can help with that.
Tom,
Yup.
Yeah, and theirs are supersonic sea skimmers as opposed to the subsonic Neptune.
DaveJR,
The problem in “gender” is that the norms are self setting. There is no way to avoid having little kids notice that “boys” have penises and “girls” don’t. Even though kids are clothed, they still see pet dogs. (Given that many pets are spayed these days, it’s possible to avoid having them recognize the “balls” aspect, and not see what makes a boy cat a boy cat. )
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Cats and dogs are, of course, rarely confused about their ‘gender’. So everyone routinely agrees which is a “boy” dog and which is a “girl” dog and so on. Kids are all going to grasp the analogy without explanation.
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Steve,
I’d think having naval reconnaissance aircraft up at all times would help with that. Not sure if the Russians do that sort of thing routinely, but I’m under the impression our naval groups do.
[Edit: You know, the equivalent of an AWACS. Maybe the Beriev_A 50 or 100.]
It can be difficult to detect and track a missile near the sea surface:
https://navalpost.com/anti-ship-missiles-what-is-sea-skimming/
So maybe the drones were used to create a solid contact, thus making it less likely that the system would lock onto the noisy signal from the actual threat.
I suspect the lessons learned from this incident won’t bode well for Taiwan. PLARF vs US carrier groups.
Lucia wrote: “The problem in “gender” is that the norms are self setting. There is no way to avoid having little kids notice that “boys” have penises and “girls” don’t.”
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It seems they’re working on that inconvenience. As you can see from the school lessons, and the language such as “birthing persons”, “chest feeding”, menstruating men etc, there is an attempt to disconnect the body from the soul, you could say. To remove the idea that gender has anything to do with the parts you’re born with. How you feel is far more important than how you were born and they want to instill that idea as early as possible.
Dave,
It’s funny you should put it that way. The thought keeps surfacing in my mind unbidden that there is some secular version of a mystical or religious component at play here, odd as that sounds. I haven’t nailed down why I keep thinking this yet.
DaveJR (Comment #211260): “It seems they’re working on that inconvenience.”
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Indeed. On Fox News yesterday I saw a piece of a video made by one of the teacher/groomers. He claimed that when you are born, the doctor “makes a guess” as to whether you look like a boy or a girl.
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The intended victim in all this is the truth. Actually, the very idea of truth.
– Attributed to Voltaire.
Mike M,
“He claimed that when you are born, the doctor “makes a guess” as to whether you look like a boy or a girl.”
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Yup, the outright denial of reality is troubling, because it is intended to reduce people’s ability to make reasoned judgments. Where are the howls in the MSM about ‘disinformation’ when such utterly false garbage is stated as fact? There are none, of course, because the MSM is part of the problem: they are policy advocates with a megaphone, and have zero shame.
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There is almost never any ‘guess’ about gender of a baby, and in the very rare case there is any doubt (eg non-normal genital structure), a genetic test will tell immediately if the baby is actually male or female.
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(https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31139765/, about 1 in 800 live births, many of these had other serious genetic and developmental issues).
Mike M
Of course, most of the time, every single person in the delivery room, the mom, the dad and so on would all make the same “guess”.
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Occasionally there are ambiguities.
Mark, maybe some of this will help.
https://newdiscourses.com/2020/05/liberalism-anti-liberal-moral-order/
https://newdiscourses.com/2020/06/postmodern-religion-faith-social-justice/
Thanks Dave, interesting link[s].
I read that the Moskva has sunk while being towed. Reportedly acknowledged by the Russian Ministry of Defense.
The Russian ship has officially sunk, while being towed back to port, according to the Russians.
mark bofill,
crossed
SteveF,
Evidently sunk in choppy waters. It must have been an inland hurricane.
The range limit of these systems are very likely the gun, not the radar. Hitting a missile from a mile away is pretty hard with bullets and the wind affecting trajectories, etc. I imagine the radar tracks the bullets as well so they converge with the target.
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I heard a lot of Russian tanks were also destroyed by “fire”.
Lucia,
Yes, they evacuated the ship due to the threat of severe weather, not because the ship was sinking. I chalk the sinking up to global warming, which often causes extreme weather. 😉
Tom Scharf,
I have heard that a 4 Kg, hypersonic, jet of steel in the form of a plasma tends to catch things on fire. Tanks are extra-heavy, self-propelled coffins.
I think it would be near impossible to have a major fire on the ship followed by an ammo explosion without a lot of casualties. There should have been a heroic attempt to keep the fire contained and away from the ammo because the ship could have likely been saved. It doesn’t seem to fit the Russian MO to evacuate early to save the humans. The Russians say the crew was evacuated, but I don’t think they said in what state. Like a lot of things in this war, we may never really know. They couldn’t hide their ship sinking from prying eyes, I’m surprised there aren’t any pictures.
A friend of mine was in on the development and testing for acquisition of the Phalanx many moons ago.
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For the test vs sea skimmers, the Phalanx was mounted on a platform at the surface of the water. I love military procurement.
in high seas no less. The number I’ve seen is 58 survivors out of 500+. The non-russian consensus early on that evacuating the crew meant the ship was catastrophically damaged in the “fire”.
The twits in charge of twitter don’t want to play with Elon. As Robert 3’rd Reich said,
Heh.
“Finland is “highly likely” to join NATO following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Finland’s Minister of European Affairs and Corporate Governance Tytti Tuppurainen told Sky News in a video interview Friday.”
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Sweden will likely follow. It seems Putin’s plan of “invading my neighbors in hopes to reassure other neighbors that I won’t invade them too” isn’t working so far. Putin says he may move up nuclear missiles close to the Baltics in response.
The legacy media’s rather negative hive mind response that a free speech advocate might take over Twitter is a sight to behold, as is their very confusing and contradicting verbiage to support those thoughts. The media has a bird every time a whiff of censorship of their work comes along. It’s almost like they want a world in which only some people get free speech, and that their like minded pollical elites should decide who gets restricted. It’s dangerous to let people see unrestricted material as we know.
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I’m guessing Musk is just making a point here, knows he will get rejected, and unmasking Twitter’s desire to politically control speech based on west coast ethics.
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It could also be a prelude to him creating his own version. Twitter isn’t exactly a high tech product. It’s value is its audience, not its technology. Others have tried to displace Twitter but have failed.
Tom,
I’m wondering if that’s his plan B, or if by plan B he meant he had another approach to acquiring Twitter. [I can’t think of another means except a tender offer, and I think the poison pill thing screws that up. At least in the short term.]
Displacing twitter is an uphill struggle. People want to engage with a wide range of opinion. The left to hold them in thrall. The right to break the illusion. As such, the left are just fine with excluding people who disagree. They want to hold the mainstream narrative in place ionline.. Unless a significant number on the left move to the new platform, it benefits the status quo to have the right jump ship.
mark bofill (Comment #211281): “I’m wondering if that’s his plan B, or if by plan B he meant he had another approach to acquiring Twitter. [I can’t think of another means except a tender offer, and I think the poison pill thing screws that up. At least in the short term.]”
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Indeed. But Musk is a very clever guy.
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I think I understand how a poison pill works, but I don’t understand how it is legal. I would think that all shareholders would have to be treated equally.
~grins~ Reminds me of a relatively obscure Danny Devito movie called ‘Other People’s Money’, when he’s chewing out his lawyers:
[Edit: Of course Musk can still buy. Just not at a discount.]
mark bofill,
Demagogue’s, perhaps. But that’s also a pretty loose term that could be applied to any politician. But dictators and strongmen??? So I guess the internet is more open in China, Russia, North Korea, etc. I think not so much. To coin a phrase, you can’t make this stuff up.
DeWitt,
My sentiments as well. It floors me people can say this stuff with a straight face.
Tom Scharf,
“Twitter isn’t exactly a high tech product. It’s value is its audience, not its technology. ”
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Sure. Such are the views of the idiot class opposing rational discussion. Twitter is pretty simple; pretty stupid, really. Still, if Trump could return to Twitter, it would make a political difference. My guess: those controlling Twitter will 100% fall on their swords before allowing Trump to tweet again.
Such are the views of the idiot class in control of ‘tech’ here is no exit when those ‘in control’ of the message are in fact idiots.
C’mon man! The US definitely must have pictures of the sinking and fire on the Russian ship, at least from satellites. That is a propaganda gold mine. It won’t make much difference to the outcome but you can’t let that opportunity pass. Ukraine didn’t even film themselves firing that weapon? It’s all a bit curious.
Tom,
I don’t know. I don’t think most military units have a cameraman. As far as the satellites go, I suspect our coverage isn’t continuous.
With all the darn spyplanes flying all over I’m surprised nobody caught anything. But maybe they did and they’re just exercising military discipline or habitual secrecy.
Or maybe the darn thing was an accident. Heck of a coincidence though- I’d find that even more curious I think.
Don’t know.
Lucia,
My attempt to help
Perhaps you could put the issue of action up as a topic but it does segue with Finland.
Stop the Ukraine War.
The power of individuals to enact change on their own is minute.
Collective action is a little better but is limited takes a lot of time and effort.
Social media allows Multiple groups across the world to engage in collective action at the same real time.
This magnifies the ability to create change quickly.
The wear in the Ukraine needs action on multiple fronts.
It needs leadership from the major representatives of our countries and grass roots action.
The United Nations must unite and put out a call for the war to stop immediately.
The aggressor, in this case Russia, should be stripped of all rights of representation at all levels until the war stops.
Europe and Nato must issue similar calls for the war to stop and offer to put in peacekeeping forces now.
The United Nations, Europe and Nato should send peace keeping forces in regardless now.
Not to fight unless fired on.
Only to go in if Ukraine supports their coming in.
To leave immediately if the Ukraine requests.
With a large number of countries represented by troops on the ground Russia will have to halt its indiscriminate bombing.
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The USA should also offer to send troops in on these conditions
All other world countries including the big two India and China should help.
People on the ground, not fighting but ready to respond would create a situation the Russian army would not want to upset.
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Volunteers could be called up to go in such a situation, similar to the Spanish Civil war, not to fight but too prevent fighting.
The slow build up and reluctance to take even a defensive helpful position has created an extremely bad image for all nations.
This would not be needed if the nations of the world do what they should have done in the first place.
Time for them to step forwards and act, not aggressively, but defensively, saying we are all in this together.
Send enough people in so the Russians cannot kill people.
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The other side of the coin is the Russian people themselves.
A reckoning needs to be called within Russia.
Over the last 10 years the Russians have been mixing better with the rest of the world on the internet and logistically.
People in St Petersberg and Moscow have enjoyed freedoms that they thought were guaranteed until now.
Social Media impact must register and does register.
Everyone who has an option, tweeting, facebooking [if allowed], phoning should do it.
They need to push and push for peace with their politicians.
They must put out a call for the Russian people to take action and demand their leader change course.
This is possible in the new Russia, and needs people to be reassured that their actions will be supported.
angech… Just no.
1) Sending troops in isn’t going to happen – our leaders fear provoking a world war and a nuclear response from Russia.
2) Neither China nor India would have anything to do with this plan, I assure you. China and India are at best neutral.
3) Regarding the Russian people and social media, I wouldn’t hold my breath. I can’t find the words there. #ItWontWork maybe.
Biden can’t get a break. New poll:
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“Thirty-nine percent of Americans approve of President Joe Biden’s handling of the response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while 48 percent disapprove.”
“While 33 percent of Americans approve of the way President Biden is handling his job, 54 percent disapprove with 13 percent not offering an opinion. ”
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“Roughly two thirds of Americans (68 percent) think the United States has a moral responsibility to do more to stop the killing of civilians in Ukraine, while 24 percent do not think the United States has a moral responsibility to do more to stop the killing of civilians in Ukraine.”
“A slight majority of Americans (52 percent) say the United States should do more to support Ukraine, but not if it means increasing the risk of the United States getting into a war with Russia, while 19 percent say the United States should do more to support Ukraine, even if it means increasing the risk of the United States getting into a war with Russia, and 22 percent say the United States is already doing enough to support Ukraine.”
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Personally I think we are handling it about right so far. Bleed Russia as much as possible but not get dragged in. The EU has had a shock, Finland/Sweden are looking to join NATO, Russia’s global standing is a mess. Geopolitically it is a win, not so much for Ukraine specifically though.
The US says they knew a large explosion occurred, that kind of thing would show up easily on IR satellites. The Black Sea is open waters, you can directly overfly other ships, the Russians buzzed our ships repeatedly there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8k1V7CHwOI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8n85RSuAjk
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Buzzing a Russian warship on fire wouldn’t be wise, ha ha. However that thing was on fire for a while. It had a bunch of support ships one assumes trying to help. This event didn’t happen in a vacuum, everyone had to know it was happening. Not sure the US Navy is operating there but surely they would have operational threat radars going full tilt and seen the missiles.
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The US did say they have confirmed it was a missile strike but don’t say how they confirmed this. Wouldn’t be surprised to find out the US had advanced notice.
Stop it how? By making Putin back down? (How?) Or by making Ukraine surrender? I need to know what you think you are proposing.
The united nations has never stopped a war by calling for it to stop. Getting them to call for it to stop now won’t make it stop.
I agree. But it’s going to take a hella’ long time to get the UN to agree. And even if they do, Russua might not stop bombing Ukrainian cities.
And so on.
Look, it’s all well and good to “call on” people to “do” or “condemn” things. But some of these things ain’t gonna happen.
Once again NATO finds itself running short of munitions by severely under building their national stockpiles. They continued to project in planning for munition use of 4 weeks intense battlefield supply where actual use is only 1 week, if not less. Modern warfare between major powers use munitions at extreme rates.
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The Yom Kippur war of 1973 saw the exact same situation. Stocks that were thought to supply combat forces 3 weeks of intense fighting were being expended in mere days. To resupply Israel, NATO had to strip supply from their stockpiles and send to Israel. Another lesson that seems to have to be relearned as the exact same situation is developing in Ukraine.
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Reports are that Ukraine projected munitions use for 1 week is being expended in 1 day.
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NATO, including the US, is fast approaching the point where they either stop sending resupply or seriously drawdown their strategic reserve below their own projected requirements.
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Germany has already reached this point and is cutting back on resupply to Ukraine. The US is fast approaching this point. Production can not be easily ramped up and restocking the high tec weapons already delivered to Ukraine is projected to take several years.
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The battle for Ukraine may come down to which side runs out of ammunition first.
angech,
100% pie-in-the-sky suggestions.
The UN has peace-keeping forces, not peace-making forces. They only go in after a peace deal is made to keep the warring parties apart. The UN headquarters in Iraq was suicide bombed and they promptly left the country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal_Hotel_bombing
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The UN is ineffective in active military conflicts. Removing Russia from the UN would serve no useful purpose, and make the UN even less effective.
How do you propose to have the UN do all these things, when Russia has a veto at the UN?
I was hoping for a more positive response.
MikeN. “How do you propose to have the UN do all these things, when Russia has a veto at the UN?”
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Mike, everyone can have a veto only when everyone agrees they can have a veto. It is actually a privilege, not a right.
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SteveF (Comment #211297) “100% pie-in-the-sky suggestions.”
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What Biden and Europe should have done,
and still can do,
Is put people in the Ukraine, troops or civilians, I don’t really care.
I would be happy to go myself if asked.
If Putin was faced with the prospect of passive resistance by the world he would have to stop because the Russian people and army would not want to be seen attacking more innocent people.
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Tom Scharf (Comment #211300)
“The UN is ineffective in active military conflicts. Removing Russia from the UN would serve no useful purpose, and make the UN even less effective.”
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Less effective than it already is?
Of course it can be effective, just needs to want to do it
No useful purpose in removing Russia?
(Taiwan take note).
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lucia (Comment #211294)
Stop the Ukraine War.
“Stop it how? By making Putin back down? “
Yes
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“The united nations has never stopped a war by calling for it to stop. Getting them to call for it to stop now won’t make it stop”
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Past performance no guarantee of future outcomes. We will not know if it does not work if we sit on our hands and do nothing.
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The aggressor, in this case Russia, should be stripped of all rights of representation at all levels until the war stops.
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“. I agree.”
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“ But some of these things ain’t gonna happen.”
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I put up a comment,
people read your site.
It has already happened.
People are already blogging in other areas. Every little bit of action we take (messaging ) has an effect.
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Et tu?
mark bofill (Comment #211291)
“angech… Just no.”
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1– our leaders fear provoking a world war and a nuclear response from Russia.
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“ My reading of it is quite different.
Russia wanted to expand.
It put its intentions out there for weeks.
Germany and France said we will look the other way.
Then the others followed including Biden.
A little bit of pretend sympathy and redraw the borders
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Fortunately real people, us, hate this even though some do not understand the real politics.
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Ukraine has been. Sacrificed unfairly in front of our eyes and it is just not good enough.
Angech,
Nothing you said in response to me connects with what I said in any obvious way.
I said “our leaders fear provoking a world war and a nuclear response from Russia.”
You said your reading was quite different, but nothing you said
1) Russia wanted to expand.
2) It put its intentions out there for weeks.
3) Germany and France said we will look the other way.
4) Then the others followed including Biden.
5) A little bit of pretend sympathy and redraw the borders
–
6) Fortunately real people, us, hate this even though some do not understand the real politics.
–
7) Ukraine has been. Sacrificed unfairly in front of our eyes and it is just not good enough.
NONE of these seven response lines connect in any way shape or form conceptually with “our leaders fear provoking a world war and a nuclear response from Russia“.
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If you would like to talk with me, please make some effort to engage what I am saying. If you are merely looking for a backdrop to post your own remarks to, you can make up an imaginary person to talk to, you don’t need to address me.
And Happy Easter, while I’m at it.
Maybe my comment was unfair. Maybe a misunderstanding.
Agnech, when you said “Europe and Nato must issue similar calls for the war to stop and offer to put in peacekeeping forces now. … The United Nations, Europe and Nato should send peace keeping forces in regardless now.”, I responded “Sending troops in isn’t going to happen – our leaders fear provoking a world war and a nuclear response from Russia.”. I was trying to convey in my response why we will not see NATO countries send troops.
You can read this differently all you like. I don’t see how anything you said in your last response maps back to this point, that you think NATO should send in troops and that I said NATO will not because they fear escalation and possible nuclear conflict with Russia.
angech,
Holding hands and singing Kumbaya will not change reality. “Solidarity” among liberal democracies will not change reality.
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The Russians have about 6,000 nuclear weapons, including many low-yield tactical weapons, and the means to deliver them. Sending in troops from NATO countries as “peacekeepers” has a very good chance of pushing Putin to start using them against the “peacekeepers”. Sending in UN “peacekeepers” requires security council approval… and both Russia and China would veto it.
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I frankly think your suggestions are both extremely naive and extremely dangerous (and those two factors are closely related). If acted upon, they have the real possibility of killing many tens of millions…. if not billions. Fortunately, I doubt any of your suggestions will be adopted.
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What I suspect will most likely happen is Russia will consolidate the ‘independent’ status of the eastern (Donbas) regions, permanently annex Crimea, and establish a land bridge from Russia through eastern Ukraine to the Crimea. Much of the world will howl; much of the world (including China, India and many others) won’t. Russia won’t care either way. I think the best we can realistically hope for is a cease-fire in the next few months.
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The cost for Russia to this point, in blood and treasure, has been high and will continue to grow; I hope that makes them think twice about a similar adventure in the future.
Happy Easter! 🙂
Angech
Past absolute failure is a pretty good guarantee of future failure. You can spit into a gale all you want. And if you want to respond to those warning you that your spit will fly back at you with “past performance is no guarantee of future outcome”. . . Oy!!
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We aren’t discussing stock market performance here.
angech (Comment #211304) is more than a little silly.
“everyone can have a veto only when everyone agrees they can have a veto. It is actually a privilege, not a right.”
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The veto is built in to the UN charter. So you could eliminate Russia’s veto be getting rid of the UN. Not an improvement, although it might not make much difference either way.
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“If Putin was faced with the prospect of passive resistance by the world he would have to stop because the Russian people and army would not want to be seen attacking more innocent people.”
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As SteveF said: Pie-in-the-sky.
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“Of course it can be effective, just needs to want to do it”.
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No UN members want it to be effective against THEM. So it will remain ineffective.
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The alternative would be to kick out everyone not on our side, then have the remnant try to enforce our will on the outcasts. Otherwise known as WW3.
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“Past performance no guarantee of future outcomes.”
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But past non-performance makes future non-performance a pretty safe bet.
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The rest seems to be incoherent. Maybe I just ran out of patience.
We are doing things. Arming Ukraine. Sanctions. Politically isolating Russia. These things will not stop the current conflict and in all likelihood Russia will obtain it’s aims at least in eastern Ukraine.
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In order to stop that from happening then NATO or a coalition of the willing will need to line up armies on Ukraine’s borders, make ultimatums for Russia to leave and then likely enter a conventional war to eject Russia from Ukraine. Just like Kuwait. I don’t see Russia backing down to ultimatums even when they assess the reality that they will likely lose the battle. Just like Saddam.
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Then this battle happens and even more people die. Lots.of.people. Not like Kuwait because the Russian army is much more effective and motivated on their own doorstep. At some point when Russia looks like it will lose on the battlefield it will decide to upgrade to chemical/biological warfare, tactical nukes, or go home in humiliation. The world is going to need vast supplies of Xanax when that time comes along. Russia will then likely assess it’s not worth it and go home. Then Ukraine needs to be occupied until it is “safe”. Years, decades.
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That’s how we save Ukraine and it is very dangerous. This doesn’t even include scenarios where China joins the battle on Russia’s side and we go full WWIII.
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It’s not worth it over Ukraine. You cannot let emotions rule you when the stakes are this high. Putin has calculated the west will not engage, he is correct. Being rational, being predictable, is sometimes counterproductive in this type of situation.
Lucia,
Happy Easter.
I think you guys are being too hard on Angech. He may well have read the UN charter and taken it seriously. I have linked it below and excerpted some of it here. Particularly read paragraph 1 of Article 2 which states: “The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members”
https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text
Kenneth,
“He may well have read the UN charter and taken it seriously.”
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Which, if true, confirms his naivete. The UN is, and has always been, an organization that is essentially orthogonal to its charter. I have argued for 30+ years that the UN is useless except to advance the policies of those who wish to do the USA harm and to protect and enrich the worst of 3rd world autocratic thugs. The UN should be driven out of the USA and located in some paradise… like say, Mumbai, Beijing, or Caracas… or maybe Sydney. But NOT the USA.
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Oh, and the USA should long ago have quit the organization, since it is useless and a waste of money.
I think when all is said and done in this war the current Russian regime and its military are going to be the big losers. The strategy has been mostly brutish and nothing resembling a precise military operation. Russia now appears to be changing tactics which means its advanced intelligence in the matter was terribly wrong or non existent and looking more as though it is based on a whim of an authoritarian leader. The more brutish the war becomes the worst and more inept the Russian effort looks even if it eventually “wins” the war. What will that win look like even for the Russian speaking and sympathizing citizens of Ukraine on whom the Russian war effort was rationalized. I doubt that Putin has an end game in mind and primarily because he was so wrong about the opening game.
Another loser is the UN which has shown to be a useless entity in matters such as these and matters like these are the primary purpose of its existence. Since it is Easter I should include Pope Francis as a loser here for not speaking directly to the matter. His left wing tendencies have appeared to create some confusion on his part.
The link below discusses the legal case for expulsion of Russia from the UN.
https://www.lawfareblog.com/un-security-council-permanent-members-de-facto-immunity-article-6-expulsion-russias-fact-or-fiction
A couple alleged pics of Russian ship after it was struck. Looks legit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbcMRc70uao
Angech, you say passive resistance, then you say NATO should move troops in. Sounds like you advocate active resistance.
I don’t think passive resistance relying on Russian reluctance to kill people is an effective strategy. Russia has done far worse in Syria than they have been in Ukraine.
MikeN (Comment #211321)
April 17th, 2022 at 8:25 pm
“Angech, you say passive resistance, then you say NATO should move troops in. Sounds like you advocate active resistance.”
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No passive resistance is like what Gandhi did.
I do not want anyone to shoot anyone.
It is trying to prevent violence, not inflict it.
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I don’t think passive resistance relying on Russian reluctance to kill people is an effective strategy. Russia has done far worse in Syria than they have been in Ukraine.
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In Syria they were fighting back against a foe.
They could justify their actions.
Happy Easter everyone.
If you want to prevent bigger problems you have to take some action early.
Russia is just as scared of Nuclear conflict as everyone else.
They do not want wastelands on their doorstop and becoming more of an international pariah than they are.
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As for the legality of kicking them out?
Rule 1 If you are the club you make the rules.
Rule 2, If your rules prevent you from kicking anyone out
see rule 1
Otherwise known as you cannot fight City Hall.
or
Rules are there for breaking.
The United Nation s can simply vote itself out of existence without the Security Council blessing an d recreate itself without the Russians.
It is only a shell company, after all.
angech,
“The United Nations can simply vote itself out of existence without the Security Council blessing and recreate itself without the Russians.”
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I completely agree with the first part….. but re-creating itself ruins the whole idea. It is a useless organization.
Better angech. I personally agree with the sentiment and I personally suspect Russia will not use nukes as lightly as is generally feared. I do not have sufficient confidence in the face of the extreme cost associated with the possibility that I’m wrong to advocate this position stridently however. At any rate, I’m the wrong person to convince of this; regardless of what I think about this the prevailing opinion among our leadership appears to be that there are lines that we will not cross because of the risk of escalation with Russia. You’d need to figure out some strategy to persuade them.
I happen to agree with the reasoning in the link I gave for the legal argument for expulsion of Russia from the UN. The author is not arguing whether Russia should or would be expelled given the legality of doing it within the context of the UN charter, but merely that it legally could.
Even if the legality would hold, I doubt very much that many of the nations in the UN would favor such a move. The UN serves a purpose for lots of politicians of the world as a political facade to which nations can point with the righteousness of the UN charter and then rationalize whatever fits best what it regards its best interests and do it with no repercussions from the UN. Our US Constitution has become somewhat a similar facade for rationalizing more government power and decreasing individual freedoms and then declaring: “but it is constitutional”.
Oh. I should have clarified, I have no opinion I care to express regarding the expulsion from the UN issue — my comment was not meant to indicate otherwise in that regard. I was just talking about the game of nuclear chicken issue.
The UN does a lot of different things, I suppose some of them have value, organizing famine relief and stuff like that. A lot of the rest is just political posturing and useless rent seeking activity. I support Russia having at least the ability to formally state their case and/or being forced to defend their actions. I have low expectations of the UN and those are being met, ha ha.
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It is interesting that a lot of older science fiction (50’s 60’s) saw the UN as playing a much larger role in the future of global politics but almost none of the current science fiction does.
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Part of the problem with the desired trend by some toward global government is that much of the world sees that as yet another level of upper class that will ignore their needs. The developing world would obviously be keen for economic redistribution so the US isn’t very interested.
The only thing that would really get Russia’s notice would be a global energy export ban against Russia.
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That type of tactic also “worked” in 1941 with the Japanese but it had some unintended consequences.
Former Russian foreign minister Andrei Kozyrev says that Russian nuclear doctrine only allows for using nukes in the event of an existential threat to Russia. Using them in Ukraine would not meet that threshold. He also says that although Putin might give such an order, he thinks the generals would refuse to carry it out.
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I have no idea if his judgement can be trusted. He was foreign minister under Yeltsin and apparently now lives in the US.
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But I note that Ukraine seems to have been careful to not strike on Russian territory. They even deny responsibility for blowing up the Belgorod fuel depot. Perhaps they are avoiding any implication that Ukraine is a threat to Russia.
Mike M, I agree.
Russia’s official doctrine on this has been ‘Escalate to Deescalate’ since 2000:
It depends on whether or not we believe that they genuinely believe Ukraine is critical to the national security of the Russian Federation, I guess. Well, that and whether or not we believe they will actually adhere to their doctrine. Who knows.
All of the British media sites are covering the pics of the damaged Moskva.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61141118
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But none of the US media sites are. One assumes the US media wants to verify the information first. It’s all a bit strange how they move in complete unison like this. My guess is once one of them does it, they will all do it within a couple hours of each other. The hive mind at work. Contrast this with the hyperventilating rush to publish any whispers damaging to the Republicans. Selection bias at work. My guess is they will have it up by the end of the day.
Tom Scharf,
The Expanse has the UN being the effective government of the planet a couple of hundred years from now. The politics between Earth, Mars and the asteroid belt (including moons of Jupiter and Saturn) is quite interesting.
MikeM
In other words, they might use them.
Drone video of Ukrainian foot soldiers attacking a Russian column in commandeered civil vehicles. From reading the comments, I gather that the Russian troops’ response is a textbook case of what not to do. [Look Closely]
https://twitter.com/TheDeadDistrict/status/1516047292054355975?s=20&t=i-qVGHM9dKL1rDBNA2r_Mw
Lucia,
You weren’t asking me, but. Since I’ve been opining on this. Yup. They might.
As far as the Russian military refusing to use nukes if ordered, I would say that it wouldn’t just be refusal. If they wanted to stay alive, they would need to eliminate Putin.
Thanks, mark. Your link (Comment #211331) says:
So it sounds like Kozyrev was citing the doctrine in place when he was foreign minister rather than Putin’s revision. In which case his take does not provide any comfort.
Mike,
That or Russia’s doctrine loosening [ / increasing ] readiness to use nukes in 2000 was for bluffing purposes. It’s anyone’s guess as far as I can see.
Shrug.
Russia is taking a slow approach in the east, but it seems to be effective .
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Almost all news coming out of Ukraine is from Ukraine sources, and have proven to be very unreliable. Ukraine’s position in the field in the east is grim.
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https://nationalfile.com/col-douglas-macgregor-on-ukraine-were-in-the-final-phase-of-this-war/
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“Right now there are between 40 and 60 thousand Ukrainian troops left in Eastern Ukraine. They’re in an area of about 150-200 square miles. They’re immobilized, they’re entrenched in defensive positions. They have no fuel, they have only enough ammunition to sustain themselves for a few more weeks.”
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“They don’t have enough water, they have no medical evacuation capability, and they have a-lot of civilians, who are actually Russians, living in the area. They’re now surrounded. And the Russian army is going to move very carefully to avoid civilian casualties there, but they will annihilate these Ukranian troops.”
From Ed’s link:
Who knows though. Everybody’s got an opinion. I guess at the end of the day it’s Putin’s opinion and maybe the opinion of his immediate inner circle that matter.
There is no reason for Russia to use tactical nukes. Russia is winning the war in the east against the Ukraine army. Once the eastern Ukraine army is destroyed, Ukraine’s position in the war will become untenable.
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Now if NATO intervenes with troops in support of Ukraine, all bets are off. Consider that use of tactical nukes were a stated position of NATO against the Soviet Union if the Soviets attacked NATO due to the disparity of ground forces. Russia will be in the same situation as NATO would have been vs the Soviets. At that point, Russian use of tactical nukes will be very probable as this situation matches the Russian stated use of nukes.
What Gandhi did would not have worked if it was the Russians in India instead of Britain. Japan was considered a possibility and Gandhi indeed advocated letting them conquer and passive resistance. He was probably more effective in writing HItler a letter asking him to be more spiritual and step back from what he was doing.
MikeN,
I’m not a huge fan of Harry Turtledove in general, but I think he got this idea right in his short story The Last Article. It’s an alternate history short story on how Gandhi would have fared were it Nazi Germany he was employing Satyagraha against. It doesn’t go well for Gandi. Just fiction, but I think he nails this one.
One can reasonably argue it wouldn’t work well against Putin either.
Thanks Ed.
One can also reasonably argue that it was armed conflict, not peaceful demonstrations, that forced war weary and broke UK to give India independence. It took the financial ruination of the UK due to WWII to prod the UK into India independence after decades of both peaceful and armed India political groups pushing for independence.
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Gandhi gets the credit, but without the armed insurrection the UK would not have given in as quickly after WWII as it did.
Ed, I didn’t know this:
But I find preliminary evidence that you are correct:
I’ll read more about it when I get a minute. But thanks for pointing that out.
Ed Forbes,
“They’re now surrounded. And the Russian army is going to move very carefully to avoid civilian casualties there, but they will annihilate these Ukranian troops.”
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So, do you believe that, or are you just reporting what someone else thinks will happen? Are you looking for a friendly wager?
Perhaps the war in the East is beginning: “ Heavy large-caliber shelling reported at Kharkiv and Mykolaiv, as well as at most Ukrainian positions in Luhansk and Donetsk. Clearly Russia tonight has started the new stage of the war – with one front only, focused on Eastern Ukraine”.
https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1516142374023573506?s=21&t=u9sM547XXh45euwA81ztxQ
Steve, It looks correct to me from what I can see.
Initial Ukraine deployment was in the east on the line facing off the Russians and their local allies. Initial Ukraine reinforcements were sent to reinforce the east with the invasion. These forces were not withdrawn and reports are that they did not have the fuel to reposition when it became obvious what the Russians were attempting.
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I use this site to get a feel for what is happening on the ground, but knowing it is heavily biased in favor of Ukraine.
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https://www.understandingwar.org/
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The maps for the above tend to be misleading unless also viewed on a national Ukraine map, see below.
https://www.ezilon.com/maps/europe/ukraine-road-maps.html
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Two cities control access into the east from the west, Kharkiv and Donetsk, and the road nets at both have been cut.
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Current eastern conflict line has moved to Rubizhne, which looks to scale at apx 150 km from the east border by the road map. Initial Ukraine positions in the east have been overrun.
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The terrain in the east is very open, large areas of wheat fields, making movements and defensive positions very obvious.
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So yes, looking at the current points of combat contact, the Russian advance locations and directions, and the road net that allows resupply, reinforcements, and large scale troop movements, I do believe that the main part of Ukraine’s more experienced army is cutoff from withdrawal, have limited supply options, and is in danger of being defeated in detail.
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Now if you have a different interpretation of what’s happening in the east, I would love to hear it.
Ed,
I get that you said you think the site you linked is heavily biased in favor of Ukraine, so I find it understandable that you don’t subscribe to this. Still, your link says,
If the Russians are also suffering from significant supply issues in Eastern Ukraine, I think it’s less clear what the outcome is going to be there.
Shrug.
My take is that Russia is keeping constant pressure on Ukraine with small scale assaults, forcing a continuous drain on Ukraine limited supply, finding Ukraine positions, and increased Ukraine troop fatigue while building Russian forces for a general assault at a point of Russian choice.
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The main Russian assault would then be at overwhelming strength at the point of contact with the objective to breakout beyond the line and the encirclement of the current Ukraine defensive line. The Russians learned blitzkrieg from the Germans the hard way.
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The view of the Russian position, morale, and supply in the article is almost entirely by Ukraine officials, so any non objective statements from Ukraine need to be taken with a very large grain of salt.
I don’t know enough to agree or disagree, but I understand what you are saying.
Thanks Ed.
Ed Forbes,
I rather suspect the Ukrainians are sufficiently aware of their vulnerabilities to try to do something about them; whatever they do in that regard will not be part of news reporting, and I very much doubt their efforts on re-supply and reenforcement will be publicly discussed. The Russians have a supportive (probably) local population in the originally controlled eastern regions, but I strongly suspect that support will drop rapidly anywhere to the west of the earlier cease-fire line. In any case, I don’t know if there exist enough grains of salt to take much of what is announced, or speculated upon, at anything close to face value. My guess: very few people have access to realistic information, so very few are worth listening to.
Ed, looking at google maps, including street view, it seems to me that your map source only shows major roads and that there an awful lot of paved roads through the region not shown.
I would love to know the source for Douglas’s statement:
“They’re immobilized, they’re entrenched in defensive positions. They have no fuel, they have only enough ammunition to sustain themselves for a few more weeks.
They don’t have enough water, they have no medical evacuation capability”
Phil Scadden,
20 deaths per day looks close to the peak in NZ. Your country will be relatively unscathed in terms of death compared to most developed countries.
Ed Forbes has made all sorts of claims and predictions about the war in Ukraine. I do not think that he has gotten a single thing right. So I take what he says with a large gain of salt.
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Ukrainian forces in the east are most certainly not cut off. They would seem to be at some risk of that. But the Russians have shown no ability to do what that would require.
The next few weeks should be critical to the outcome of the war. If Russia bogs down then it might be a big problem. If they break through it’s unclear how far they would choose to go. If they get greedy then they could over extend themselves and be subject to an insurgency. This thing could go anywhere, but I still think Russia has the advantage by a longshot. The occupation still looms, the more land they try to occupy the harder it will be.
Steve F, yes, we are definitely on the way down though still quite close to peak here in the south. On other hand, hospitalization and deaths have been very low in the south – (very high vax rates and low Pacifika population probably major factors). Control measures seemed to have worked will in terms of keeping the pressure off under-resourced hospitals but I think it is “flattening the curve” so looking at long tail.
I haven’t been keeping close track. He might’ve been right and I might’ve been wrong about … what the heck was it … declining use of the dollar as a reserve currency.
Whatever. His predictions aren’t any worse than mine are. 🙂
mark bofill (Comment #211360): “His predictions aren’t any worse than mine are.”
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Fair point. Mine are not so great either. 🙂 But we generally state our predictions as guesses, not as plain facts.
Ed Forbes (Comment #211340)
“but they will annihilate these Ukranian [sic!] troops”
I have been reading your assessments and they seem perfectly logical to me. They remind me of the perfectly logical assessments I read in 1967 about the coming demise of the Viet Cong. Their supply line was the Ho Chi Minh Trail. It was long and arduous. We were bombing it with B-52s from Guam and carrier planes from the Gulf. We were dropping Napalm and Agent Orange. Our guys would be home by Christmas ….. And then the Tet Offensive came.
Phil Scadden,
A long tail is pretty much inevitable. Still, NZ may not reach 1,500 covid deaths, which is remarkably low for a population of 5 million… under a tenth of the USA and Europe. Thank m-RNA technology….. and being able to hold off the spread until that technology became widely available.
Ed Forbes ought to be a little less certain about outcomes in Ukraine, if only because most publicly available information about every aspect of the war is either false or grossly distorted. People who do have accurate information are not going to be writing many opinion columns based on that information. Accurate information in war is probably as valuable as ammunition…. and nobody is going to give it to the other side.
Russell Klier,
The Tet offensive was a last gasp for the Viet Cong. It was a total military failure, but a huge PR success. After Tet, the Viet Cong were no longer a significant threat because most of them had been killed. From the North Vietnamese view, that was a feature, not a bug. South Vietnam fell when the North Vietnamese army invaded, not from an internal insurgency. But yes, we were also lied to. That happens in wars.
The nightmare is finally ending: a Federal judge in Tampa struck down Federally mandated masks at airports and in public transportation. There seems little chance the 11th circuit court of appeals will agree to hear an appeal from the Biden administration on an expedited basis (if ever), so for now at least airport/airline mask mandates are over. A case could be filed in another Federal court, and that court might come to a different conclusion, leading ultimately to the SC having to get involved, but all that would take many months and reality on the ground (and in the air) would likely make the question moot. So the mask mandates seem truly dead. The Biden administration has announced they will not attempt to enforce the existing mandates.
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The judge (a Trump appointee, who clerked for Justice Thomas) did not rule on the question of mask effectiveness, but rather on a much simpler question: does Federal law, as written, allow for the institution of mask mandates? The judge’s answer is: no, Congress would have to pass appropriate legislation to allow such mandates.
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The predictable howls on the left are mostly that the judge is not competent to make this ruling and, besides, was nominated by Trump. To which I can only reply: 1) government by regulatory fiat rather than by law is plainly unconstitutional, and 2) elections have consequences…. something the woke left and crazy greens are going to learn good and hard in January 2025 if President DeSantis holds both houses and a 60 vote majority in the Senate.
SteveF,
I stopped reading Ed Forbes posts in detail some time ago. If I were interested in Russian propaganda, I would get it from the source. As you say, all public sources are highly suspect. As I remember from reading about the Battle of Britain, the claims from both sides of how many enemy planes that had been destroyed were highly inflated. The stated losses were fairly close. But that was Britain and Germany. I wouldn’t believe anything the Russians and their apologists claim.
By the way, I think Ed Forbes missed your point about a bet. I found his statement that Russian troops would be careful to minimize civilian casualties to be quite ironic and highly unlikely.
DeWitt
I found his statement that Russian troops would be careful to minimize civilian casualties to be quite ironic and highly unlikely.
I agree. No matter who is the source, it’s clear that towns containing civilians are being flattened. They aren’t taking care to not kill civilians. I don’t know why anyone would expect they would suddenly change and start trying to not kill civilians.
According to this article, people aren’t fleeing from the dollar, they are fleeing to it. I don’t think the days of the dollar as the primary reserve currency are ending any time soon.
SteveF (Comment #211364): “most publicly available information about every aspect of the war is either false or grossly distorted. People who do have accurate information are not going to be writing many opinion columns based on that information.”
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Generally true. One exception would seem to be info gleaned from satellite photos. That is why I object so strongly to Ed’s claim that Ukrainian troops in the east are almost all cut off from supplies and withdrawal. That just has not happened.
DeWitt,
Thanks. I tried to qualify my statement ‘might’ve been’ for this reason; the results aren’t really in yet.
Dang, you guys are tough. Maybe I’m just a softie. LOL.
In other news, is this surreal or what:
https://nypost.com/2022/04/18/easter-bunny-stops-biden-from-answering-reporters-question/
The person in the Easter Bunny costume was Meghan Hays, the ‘director of message planning’ for the administration.
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I don’t think that’s a very nice thing to do to a President who is probably struggling with diminishing cognition, just saying. I mean, I like to think I still have most of my marbles and I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around it.
DeWitt,
People seem to be bailing out of those currencies which appear to have greater political risk, due mainly to the possibility of expanded war in Europe and the threat of China invading Taiwan. .
If you look at dollar exchange rates across a wide range of countries, the dollar is steady or has fallen in value significantly against many currencies where involvement in conflict (or potential conflict) is very low (Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, India, South Africa, and many others), while countries where the potential involvement in conflict is high (all of NATO, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, etc) have currencies which are falling relative to the dollar.
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The common “market basket” exchange rates are weighted heavily towards countries that are judged at risk of conflict, so the headline “dollar is strong” may not be the most accurate analysis. The reality, as price inflation in the USA indicates, is more complicated. Investors run from perceived risk; always have, always will. The impact of USA policy (especially Swift restrictions and the freezing of central bank assets) remains to be seen, but I will be surprised if many countries don’t try to move away from US dollar, Euro, and yen holdings.
mark bofill,
Biden’s staff know he is demented and becoming worse every day. He can’t answer questions unless everything is scripted ahead of time. I hope they have the good sense to equip Biden with Depend briefs before he starts having obvious incontinence. That the guy was elected president is shocking. That he will likely remain in office until January 2025 is even more shocking.
I believe Ed Forbes reference to the Russian military being careful to minimize civilian casualties is based on the battles fought in Russian speaking and sympathizing areas of Ukraine. The Russian rationale for invasion was to protect/rescue those people. This would appear to take a sea change in their heretofore military approach vis a vis civilians.
If the Russian military destroys much property and lives in these areas, their initial rationale would lose credibility. The authoritarian “for the greater good” might not satisfy the Ukrainian Russian speakers and sympathizers.
I have linked below an editorial from the WSJ today that talks about the dollar value increase and with some reasons for the value direction. The reasons can vary based on the currencies being compared, but flight to safety during international crises increases the dollar’s value against most currencies. The Federal Reserve is in the process of increasing interest rates and selling assets that many might assume is going to have to be much more intense than now assumed. That process with everything else being equal will increase the currency value. Russia increased interest rates towards 20% to regain value for the ruble. A stronger dollar favors imports over exports and will bring capital into the US from the outside world.
More capital coming into the US as investments goes counter to what the Federal Reserve is attempting to do with price inflation. The editorial does point to the need for emphasizing the supply side (investments) versus the Keynesian emphasis on demand and consumption.
The following was not in the editorial. The Austrian school of economics while emphasizing the need of savings and investments for the growth in the standard of living would not favor the artificial boosting of the dollar (which would be temporary anyway) by the manipulations of the Federal Reserve or by sanctions, for that matter. They would also point to the fact that real savings and the signals it provides for entrepreneurs and businesses for the timing of investing in capital goods does not fit with the Federal Reserves manipulations of interest rates.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-trials-of-the-powell-dollar-investment-exchange-rates-yen-pound-euro-supply-side-11650218485
The Russian aren’t trying very hard to prevent civilian casualties in the east either. See the maps here.
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After More Than a Month of Fighting, Much of Mariupol Lies in Ruins
https://www.wsj.com/articles/mariupol-in-ruins-11650132943
“Fighting has leveled much of the city, and the civilian death toll so far isn’t known. Many residents have been unable to evacuate, trapped without power or essential supplies.
An analysis of satellite images by Masae Analytics, a company that uses photography to assess building damage, found that much of the city had been hit as of April 5.”
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The Russian really don’t have the capability to do precision attacks due to their low store of these type of weapons and lack of air dominance. The Ukrainians also aren’t go to run around with targets on their back in the middle of wide open fields.
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I’d guess Russia would prefer to minimize civilian casualties, it’s not helping their image, but aren’t going to risk their own forces to make that happen. Urban warfare is just not gong to be antiseptic.
It’s a bit humorous to keep hearing about the Russians de-nazifying Ukraine. The Germans used the exact same tactics as Russia is using during their initial invasion during WWII, they claimed they had to invade in order to protect citizens of German ancestry in multiple countries. Austria, Czechoslovakia to name a few.
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Does this sound familiar?
“Previously, however, the other European powers had pursued a strategy of appeasement, giving Hitler what they deemed reasonable concessions, in order to avoid all-out war. That strategy reached its apex when the three parties signed the Munich Agreement on Sept. 30, 1938, giving Hitler the German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia, known as the Sudetenland, on the condition that he would not invade any more territory. But six months later, in March of 1939, Hitler violated the Munich Agreement by absorbing all of Czechoslovakia.”
“By falsely claiming that he only wanted to fix damage done to Germany from World War I and restore German lands to German people, Hitler had previously been able to convince his counterparts—already wary of war—to hold off.”
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It’s the oldest trope in the world to compare the subject du jour to Hitler, but Putin’s moves are much more aligned with Hitler than against him. Namely his claims that Russian speaking people are “one Russia”.
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That’s the most likely way he gets to using nuclear weapons. He invades a NATO country with some Russia speaking people, starts losing, and then concludes “Russia” is being invaded by NATO.
According to the WSJ the US defense industry hasn’t even begun ramping up production of anti-tank missiles and other weapons.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/lockheed-martin-in-talks-with-pentagon-on-ukraine-weapons-11650369095
“Lockheed Martin Corp. said it is in talks with the Pentagon about increasing production of weapons destined for Ukraine, though the company has yet to boost output.”
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The US seems reluctant to draw down their own stores much for obvious reasons but aren’t moving very fast to increase output. This may be too little, too late, for Ukraine.
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Lockheed makes the Javelin, but they are also part of the ULA which is making NASA’s large SLS rocket which is embarrassingly over budget and behind schedule. The development and production of the F-35 was not exactly a winner either, although it may work out in the long run. This is not a company that can move fast.
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“Javelin anti-tank systems can be produced at a rate of more than 6,000 a year as of 2022, according to Department of Defense budget documents.”
Re: Ukraine The Inst for the Study of War has an assessment on the Russian pivot to eastern Ukraine at
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-18
Key Takeaways
Russian forces likely began large-scale offensive operations in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts focused on Rubizhne, Popasna, and Marinka.
Russian forces may be able to gain ground through the heavy concentration of artillery and numbers. However, Russian operations are unlikely to be dramatically more successful than previous major offensives around Kyiv. The Russian military is unlikely to have addressed the root causes—poor coordination, the inability to conduct cross-country operations, and low morale—that impeded prior offensives.
Successful Ukrainian counterattacks southeast of Kharkiv will likely force Russian forces to divert some units intended for the Izyum offensive, but Ukrainian forces are unlikely to completely sever Russian lines of communication north of Izyum in the coming days.
Ukrainian defenders in Mariupol continued to hold out against heavy Russian artillery and air bombardment.
Supply is a major issue in the east for both Russia and Ukraine. Any distance from a railroad greater than about 100 miles makes supply for both Russia and Ukraine difficult.
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Ukraine’s main issue with supply is a lack of trucks and fuel. They have 1 rail line going into the east that is not cut at Kharkiv in the north and Donetsk in the south. This line intersects the E40 at about Slovynsk, about 50km south from Lzyum (by scale if I have the locations correct). This line is in danger of being cut by the Russian advance down the E40.
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lzyum is the base for the new Russian offensive in the north. Russia now has direct rail access from Russia to Lzyum. This reduces Russian supply issues significantly. Direct supply means sustained and heavy artillery fire, which Ukraine lacks. Ukraine forces that can be targeted by Russian artillery batteries will now come under intense bombardment in this new forward push and Ukraine is not able to respond. This will be decisive.
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Understanding War https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-19
was completely dismissive of the Russian attacks early this morning.
They have since updated their position but are still very pro Ukraine in dismissal of what they believe the Russians can accomplish.
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The Russian dominance in heavy and sustained artillery fire will allow breakout through the Ukraine defense and the encirclement of major portions of the Ukraine army in the east.
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Kenneth Fritsch,
How can something with zero credibility lose credibility? I doubt any neutral observer believed Putin was being honest. There was an article in the WSJ before the invasion that was about Kharkiv, which was majority Russian speaking although west of Donetsk and Luhansk. Before the Russians took over those areas, the sentiment was pro-Russia. After they saw the results, the majority wanted nothing to do with Putin. Kharkiv has been bombed mercilessly. I seriously doubt that there is anyone still in the city and possibly the whole country that thinks Russia is the good guy in this fight.
DeWitt, I have always been an excellent predictor of the past and thanks for reminding me.
As for the future end game in this war, I think the ongoing destruction of Ukraine and the resulting view of it by all the Ukranian people including those who might have initially had sympathies with Russian makes it very problematic for the Russian regime. I doubt that Putin has any ideas going forward given how the war has progressed. I look for bigger and even more unbelievable lies coming out of the current Russian regime.
Putin erred in assuming this invasion would be received the same as his previous few “special military operations”.
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He was correct in judging the west wouldn’t directly intervene but the geopolitical response has been much worse than he imagined. China and India may soon forget it and that is important but the rest of the world saw this as one step too far. Unfortunately he can’t reverse this with anything but a withdrawal so he is cornered. He will have to live with being globally ostracized by the west for decades is my guess.
“ THIS WAR IS A PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN WRAPPED IN A PSYOP”
https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/82382/this-war-is-a-propaganda-campaign-wrapped-in-a.html
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Aren’t all wars propaganda campaigns?
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On the other hand, there is this:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/melikkaylan/2022/04/04/why-putin-decided-to-invade-ukraine-and-why-it-led-to-war-crimes/
That said, Ed’s link gets this right
Germany today:
“I therefore say here clearly and unequivocally yes, Germany is also completely phasing out Russian energy imports,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said after a meeting with representatives from the Baltic states Wednesday.
“We will halve oil by the summer and will be at zero by the end of the year, and then gas will follow, in a joint European roadmap, because our joint exit, the complete exit of the European Union, is our common strength,” she added.
SteveF (Comment #211375) april 19th, 2022
“Biden’s staff know he is demented and becoming worse every day. He can’t answer questions unless everything is scripted ahead of time. I hope they have the good sense to equip Biden with Depend briefs before he starts having obvious incontinence. That the guy was elected president is shocking. That he will likely remain in office until January 2025 is even more shocking”
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While appreciating your dry sense of humour I feel your other comments a bit harsh.
You live in a democracy, people are allowed stand run and win whether they have dementia, orange hair, buck teeth or beliefs you disagree with or agree with.
Second he is required to stay in for 4 years unless he resigns dies or is removed.
Neither of these facts are shocking.
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What amuses me and upsets you is the fact that people have so easily been gulled by the media, the Clintons and crew, our upholders if the law all 23 of them including the FBI, CIA, DOJ and SCOTUS that they chose a dunderhead with dementia over an honest man with good policies.
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It’s legal, not shocking.
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Fire that Taser again will you, some Americans need a bit if shocking to wake up to themselves.
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Trump is an honest man?
Discuss.
Honesty us of course a large grab bag.
To me it means a combination of stating what you believe in and then consistently sticking to those statements until you change them with good explainable reasons.
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Despite all his faults,
Despite being a politician
Despite fake news about him, not from him
I would rather take his word on
NATO not paying its dues
Iran being a nuclear rusk
Hitting North Korea hard if they attack American troops
Tax cuts
Putting American jobs and companies first
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Macron, Putin , Xi , Boris, Hunter Biden and dad, Rachel Maddow, CNN, Fox, Clinton, Brennan and Pelosi.
A small list of prominent people in the world.
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I would rate Trump miles above any of them in the “Honest” stakes.
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Anyone care to differ, with good honest reasons?
On that list of honest people?
Go ahead and as Clint “honest” Eastwood would say “ make my day”
angech,
“While appreciating your dry sense of humour I feel your other comments a bit harsh.”
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I think not at all harsh when you consider the terrible decisions the guy’s mental incompetence leads to. 18 years ago, I watched my dad descent into dementia over ~6 years. Biden is on the same path for his age as my dad was, same behaviors, same confusion.
At 79 my dad could not have balanced a check book if his life depended on it. I expect that is where Biden is right now. By 82 my dad was in need of diapers. At 84 he remembered almost nothing of his life. There is a good chance Biden will be much the same.
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Biden should not be president of anything, much less the USA. He has dementia.
Mark Bofill, see the Ghandi Nobody Knew, which was written around the time of the movie. The author was upset that the film was being used to promote the Soviet line.
angech,
Trump’s big problem is not that he is dishonest (among politicians, honesty is so rare as to shock when it is found). Trump, and his out-of-control mouth are probably more honest than most politicians. Trump’s problem is that he is an insufferable, irredeemable a$$hole, that many people would never vote for, no matter the alternative. If Trump wins the nomination in 2024, I very much doubt he can win in the general election…. and the country will be saddled with a dishonest, mealy-mouth lefty for 4 years.
Thanks Mike!
The stupid burns on:
“The Justice Department said Wednesday it will appeal a court ruling by a Florida judge that struck down the federal government’s order to wear masks while traveling, after the administration’s top public health officials insisted the mandate was still necessary “at this time.””
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It will likely be months for the 11th circuit to hear and decide on the case, and (if needed) months more for the SC to hear an appeal from the 11th circuit ruling. If the Biden administration loses at the 11th circuit (a real possibility, considering the circuit judge’s many references to the SC ruling on the CDC’s illegal eviction ban), the SC may simply refuse to hear the case. And then the CDC will forever lose the imagined ’emergency powers’ it has so destructively (and illegally) exercised over the entire pandemic.
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The Biden administration is run by a demented old fool and a gaggle of idiots.
Conspiracy? Or is John Kirby just terrible at lying?
Six weeks ago Poland wanted to transfer two dozen Migs to Ukraine, with the US acting as middle man. Kirby said no. Yesterday Kirby said someone had gifted Ukraine 20 Migs and spare parts. Today Kirby said that didn’t happen, but the US and others gave Ukraine enough spare parts to construct 20 Migs. HaHa!
Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby, MARCH 8, 2022:
“ As we have said, the decision about whether to transfer Polish-owned planes to Ukraine is ultimately one for the Polish government. We will continue to consult with Poland and our other NATO allies about this issue and the difficult logistical challenges it presents, but we do not believe Poland’s proposal is a tenable one.”
APRIL 19, 2022 | CLIP OF DEFENSE DEPARTMENT BRIEFING: “Pentagon: Ukraine Has Received Additional Aircraft
Without providing specifics, Pentagon Spokesman John Kirby says Ukrainian forces have been provided with additional aircraft and aircraft parts to be able to “increase their fleet size…and get more aircraft in the air.”
April 20, 2022 John Kirby: “Wednesday said Ukraine had not received “whole aircraft.” What did happen is that the Ukrainian military received parts from the United States and other nations to help make more than 20 once-grounded planes operational. Kirby said he regretted his error.”
angech,
You are in Australia, right?
Florida Senate passes bill stripping Disney of special self-governing power
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bill-stripping-disney-of-special-self-governing-power-passes-florida-senate
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I have mixed feelings about this. I’m sick to death of corporate virtue signaling for one side but don’t really like the government taking revenge on a company’s speech it doesn’t like. This was a level 10 blunder by Disney though and they have gone radio silent for a while now, they should have started that way. They asked for this, almost begged for it. DeSantis is no fool, when somebody throws him an easy pitch he hits it out of the park and rounds the bases.
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The left has its own targets of course, the fossil fuel industry for example. I’d like to see free corporate speech and the government staying out of it.
SteveF (Comment #211414)
“when you consider the terrible decisions the guy’s mental incompetence leads to. 18 years ago, I watched my dad descent into dementia over ~6 years. Biden is on the same path for his age as my dad was, same behaviors, same confusion.
Biden should not be president of anything, much less the USA. He has dementia.”
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I agree.
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Trouble with Dementia in part is that it can progress quickly or slowly , in spurts and pauses.
I have watched and acted on this in family and patients over 45 years.
Biden showed some signs of senility early on in his campaign but did a much better job than I thought he could do in the debates, such as they were.
I presume he is on medication for dementia to help slow it down, he should be, but I guess this is either kept very confidential or worse, he is not on it when he should be.
He can still make rational decisions but is possibly lacking in insight which should be less of a problem with good advisers and Jill around.
He should not be in the position of leading the country now but the problem is they will have to swap to an unpopular vice President much earlier than they intended.
He would probably have retired at the 3 1/2 year mark to give her a good run in.
That being said I suggest he is going to be rapidly progressive which means that he will be unable to appear in public and speak at all within the next 6 months.
At that stage the Democrat Party will have to bite the bullet. Options could include replacing Kamala first with a Clinton or the California guy, after all the position is at the whim of the President.
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Lucia,
Thanks,
Yes I live in Australia, a small green oasis full of, well, greens.
Victoria is the state and I live in a rural town.
Tried to get to USA in 1976 but decided to get married instead.
No regrets.
Have been to both ends of the political spectrum and vote Labour [Democrats here] and anti Green.
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My obsession is with freedom of choice where possible and social responsibility.
The Democrats [ Labour]have the second but score terribly on the first which is more important to me at the moment.
Social Responsibility can only come after people have freedom of choice because it is a joint decision to remove or dampen some of those freedoms in the name of social cohesion.
Angech, politicians as a class do what would be considered a whole lot of lying in the private world, but for some reason are given a break by the media and the voting public – probably because they do it so often and some do it so well.
Trump does not lie well but he lied about the election and his almost daily exaggerations should be considered lying. Biden lies about his policies and assessments of them.
The concern and attention should not be who is the least dishonest, but rather whether dishonesty needs to be an integral part of government and, if so, it should be another good reason for limiting that which requires or, at least, motivates lying. Putin’s lies are an example of the extremes of authoritarian governments.
An aside: is angech your name. angech can be unscrambled to change.
angech,
“Options could include replacing Kamala first with a Clinton or the California guy, after all the position is at the whim of the President.”
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Clarification of USA government structure: selection of the vice presidential candidates is made before the election by the presidential candidates, but after election, the vice president is a sworn-in officer of the US government, and acts as president of the Senate. Only impeachment by the house and conviction by the Senate (67 votes) can remove a vice president from office. Which makes the position of Democrats even more difficult. Harris is going nowhere, but Democrats know she would be a horrible candidate in 2024, and would lose to most any Republican candidate (except maybe Trump).
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Biden is for sure taking medications to try to slow progression of dementia, but unless these have improved dramatically, they are not likely to help for long. I estimated ~6 months improvement when my dad took these.
Tom Scharf (Comment #211422)
I agree. I see too many lately on the right and left pushing for government involvement and control in corporate speech. As a libertarian I also like the idea of a self governing entity.
It is bad enough to have governments having sufficient control over business affairs or the threat to obtain that control that they can get the business people to tow the government line.
The Disney issue is really weird. Let’s face it: Disney cartoons are highly gendered. The Disney princesses are definitely girls who were born girls. (Yes, even Mulan.) Other than Brave, they all have boyfriends who are definitely boys. There is hetero-love. Marriage is implied in most.
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They have so many non-cartoon movies I can’t say for sure. But the Disney movies I’ve seen definitely have girls who are girls and boys who are boys. It’s a product that makes money for them!
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Parent’s and grandparents paying for videos, streaming subscriptions tend to feel “safe” about the product and buy it.Of course, this goes double for conservative parents and grandparents. They don’t feel the need to monitor everything.
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So, as far as products they sell this has hardly been a woke company.
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Then on the political front, they are in a somewhat “special” position for political retribution because they have gotten so many favors. The special governmental district was a unique favor to Disney. (Probably) no one else had it. So taking it away just puts Disney on the same footing as, well, everyone.
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So, while I feel torn about governments slapping companies for speech, I also can’t get too upset about a company now being treated like all other companies!
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The copyright issues: Well, Congress specifically screwed up copyright and did it for Disney in the past. It was never a good idea to extend the time frame for copyright just because Micky Mouse was going out of copyright. There are good reasons for things falling out of protection. When it lasts too long, there is just so much tedious research required to figure out if you can use some old photo by (no one knows who) taken back in the 20s. And the person who took the photo is long dead.
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Copyright (and patent) protection should be of a limited time duration. This was always understood. But then we had the “Disney” copyright act.
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When Disney campaigns for special favors like this, they put themselves in a weird place. Becoming a strong political actor– and a controversial one at that– means some people aren’t going to want to treat them like they should be on some pedestal above all other companies. Disney risked being treated as a “special” case– and the law has been changed so they aren’t with respect to self government.
Kenneth Fritsch (Comment #211429)
“An aside: is angech your name.
angech can be unscrambled to change.”
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Fortunate coincidence only.. I have a very mundane anglo- saxon name. Prefer to use my pseudonym if possible.
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Re Anyone care to differ, with good honest reasons?
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“Angech. Trump does not lie well but he lied about the election and his almost daily exaggerations should be considered lying. ”
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I do not think he lied about the election.
A sizeable percentage of the population does not think he is lying.
I do not think he lied about the election being stolen from him by the actions that many people and the media took illegally to take him down.
He is allowed to have an opinion and a perception surely and if in doing so he expresses that opinion, he is telling the truth, insofar as he and some others see it.
Lying to me is expressing a view that you yourself know to be wrong, not expressing a view that I consider or know to be wrong.
Semantics , I know but the truth does differ depending on perspective like many other things..
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He lost the election.
That is a fact.
He says he lost the election.
Fact?
He believes it was stolen from him.
That is a fact.
When he says that he is not lying, or is he?
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To your second point, also a matter of perspective.
Is an exaggeration a lie?
And if it can be, when does it become a lie.
Does it depend on the size of the exaggeration, the frequency, or the perspective?
The words are different. If an exaggeration was a lie one would just call it that so surely an exaggeration is not a lie.
If so you cannot consider almost daily exaggerations as lies, just exaggerations which we all do [sorry, exaggerating again] if not to the same extent.
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Therefore I would still rate Trump miles above any of them in the “Honest” stakes.
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That is only my opinion and a lot more opinion supports your view.
SteveF (Comment #211417)
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“Trump’s big problem is not that he is dishonest (among politicians, honesty is so rare as to shock when it is found). Trump, and his out-of-control mouth are probably more honest than most politicians.”
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“Trump’s problem is that he is an insufferable, irredeemable a..hole, that many people would never vote for, no matter the alternative.”
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Again we agree.
angech
Some exaggerations are blatant lies. Some others are jokes.
All those can matter and some of Trumps are lies. Some very important ones are lies.
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Apart from that: He shouldn’t be re-elected. We need stable people as president. Trump had some good policies, but was BAD. There are plenty of other people who could enact good policies. We don’t need all the Trump baggage.
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Biden is also bad– and demented. People who like Dem policies should nevertheless be able to see Biden’s problems. (I think more and more they do.)
SteveF (Comment #211430
“Clarification of USA government structure: selection of the vice presidential candidates is made before the election by the presidential candidates, but after election, the vice president is a sworn-in officer of the US government, and acts as president of the Senate. Only impeachment by the house and conviction by the Senate (67 votes) can remove a vice president from office.”
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That sounds ridiculous.
The President himself can be removed by a third mechanism, that is there is a group of his peers can decide he is unfit for office and
remove him.
Surely a mechanism must exist for the President to decide to change the vice President if he wishes?
What about illness, a stroke, incapacity to physically or mentally carry out the duties of office?
Is it really buried into the system like the Supreme Court Justices?
What about the wishes of the electorate who never really voted him or her into office, don’t they have another say?
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I realize you know the rules but I repeat they seem ridiculous.
angech
Nope. The people elected the Vice President along with the President. They don’t elect “The president and his plus one.”
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The electorate did vote for the Vice President.
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It’s a package deal. That’s why candidates and parties generally think carefully about the Vice President. Vice Presidents get out on the campaign trails. A bad pick can sometimes sink an otherwise popular presidential candidate.
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The fact that we did vote for the Vice President is why the President can’t just pick someone else to fill the spot after the election and he can’t just stuff in someone he now prefers who no one voted for!
The 25th amendment to the US constitution made clear what happens when the office of Vice President is vacated by death, resignation or sucession to President. Before the amendment the office was left vacant many times. It now is filled by nomination by the President and approval by voting of the House of Representatives.
In the Nixon administration we had Spiro Agnew as Vice President resign and Gerald Ford became Vice President. When Nixon subsequently resigned Ford nominated Nelson Rockefeller for the office and he became Vice President. Thus we had a President and Vice President neither who had been elected by the voting public.
The 25th amendment also has a means of removing the President from office without the impeachment process, but not to my knowledge the Vice President by this process. If the President and Vice President were both deemed unfit for office by a large majority of the legislators they could be relieved of office in a two step process.
Technically, there are separate votes for President and Vice President. In the electoral college.
Technically, the voters choose electors who then choose the President and Vice President. But there is one set of electors for both votes, so in practice we vote for a ticket consisting of a President and Vice President.
MikeM,
Yes. That’s more specific. Angech is in Australia and thougth the VP was someone not voted for. So I wanted to make sure he knew the VP is voted for.
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We do have a complicated process.
Lucia,
RE Disney: Republicans are trying to remove the “independent of elected government” protections that Disney got in Orlando. They are surely unique in Florida, if not in all the USA. The closest parallel I can think of is Indian reservations.
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What is not commonly known is that getting the self-governing exemption was something of a bait-and-switch.
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Disney claimed that in addition to the Disney park (now called “the Magic Kingdom”) they would be developing a large, modern residential community within the Disney owned land area, and that residents would need to be able to self govern. The residential community never happened, of course. Disney never had to consult with surrounding local governments on any question of development (hotels, resorts, new amusement parks, etc), even though these developments had major effects on the surrounding area in terms of traffic and environmental impacts. Disney has had cart blanch on their large land holdings and special tax exemptions for a very long time; that is likely going to change.
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I think it was a serious mistake for Disney to get publicly involved in politics; it is going to diminish the company’s profits and bring their inconsistent record on human rights in countries outside the states to many people’s attention. If I were a betting man, I would wager the new Disney CEO is not likely to have a very long tenure.
The facts are pretty clear, lying makes you a more effective politician. Almost everyone who ends up a career politician is a professional distortionist. The career just demands it apparently. Everyone with good intentions turns into the same animal over time, especially once inside the DC beltway. Our society tolerates it and a better question would be how and why does society push this outcome?
My guess is FL will pass the law removing Disney’s special exemptions, then there will be some non-public meetings over the next year where a new understanding will be agreed on and Disney will be regranted their exemptions. Disney won’t take anymore swipes at Florida politicians and stay out of things that aren’t their core business.
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Disney will take the knee because the term “President DeSantis” is not out the question in the near future. I find it all unseemly. It’s the same as Twitter and Facebook bowing to left wing pressure to censor people.
Just how large an area is Disney losing control?
I assume what is inside the Magic Kingdom will still be run by Disney.
What about the parking lots? They have a monorail and a boat from the lot to the front gate, and a monorail from Disney hotels.
We stayed on an island that had cabins, campgrounds, and various activities like archery and horses, and would take a bus to the dock and then get on a boat that dropped us at the front gate of Magic Kingdom.
Disney fired Gina Carano for being conservative, using the excuse of her comparison of cancel culture to Nazi Germany.
The CEO did move out Kathleen Kennedy who was behind the firing, and appeared to be canceling the woke projects and putting profits #1. However Marvel is still moving along its woke M-She-U path, with minimal interference from Chapek so far. He did fend off a challenge from Kevin Feige for control very deftly.
Reportedly one of the money people has started asserting more direct control, and stepped in and showed support to Chapek over Bob Iger who was hanging around Jay Leno style.
The electoral college voting system comes into play when trying to explain presidents who won while losing the popular vote. When you look at slates of electors, JFK is on this list. He tends to get credited with a narrow popular vote win but this is only achieved by allotting to him votes for a different slate of electors in Alabama that were not Kennedy voters.
Mike N,
39 square miles to the southwest of Orlando is included in Disney’s Reedy Creek project.
I have seen reports claiming that rescinding Disney World’s special status will transfer billions from Florida taxpayers to Disney. The implication being “Republicans are really stupid”. I am skeptical. There are indeed lots of stupid Republican politicians, but DeSantis isn’t one of them.
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Does anyone here know the facts?
MikeM,
My impression is the stories that say it will transfer billions from FL taxpayers to Disney are looking at things the counties and towns will now pay for and ignoring the taxes Disney will now pay. Stories I’ve read mention both. No story I’ve read has suggested the balance favors Disney. They all say Disney saves millions a year because of this.
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The stories do mention the shuffling may have some municipal winners and some municipal losers.
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The stories I’ve read could be mistaken– they don’t break out a cost sheet. But if a story doesn’t even mention both issues and then say it will cost the state, the story isn’t very credible.
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Disney will also have more trouble dealing with environmental and waste water regulations when implementing changes. It currently doesn’t need to submit to authorities on many.
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This situation is going to cost Disney a lot over all– loss of tax breaks and more importantly, alienation of their conservative leaning viewers. Disney employees may be woke. But I think they must be blind to their actual product which is far from woke. The most that can be said is they have given the Princesses more agency and spunk. But it’s still Princesses and Princes because that product sells.
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If Disney wanted to create a non-gendered product, I suspect their marketing people would say they need to create another “product line” without the Disney name. (Sort of like food and make up companies will have different names to their products. )
Mike M.: “Does anyone here know the facts?”
Not me. But a NY Times article writes, “The Reedy Creek Improvement District, enacted in 1967 to entice Disney to build a theme park 20 miles south of Orlando, saves the company millions of dollars annually in fees and taxes, experts estimate.”
…and who are we to argue with unnamed “experts”? 😉
On general principles, I’d guess that Disney’s special exemption was an enticement for Disney to locate in Florida, and therefore had positive economic value to DIsney. The corresponding negative for local government was presumably outweighed by the additional tourism dollars which Disney World attracts to the area. Unless Disney decides to walk away from Disney World, the tourism plus will remain.
HaroldW
Which they couldn’t do quickly. They have a large investment in physical structure. And if the reason is they really want the tax breaks, and– likely– a way to avoid dealing with environmental regulations–they would want to negotiate similar breaks in some other state. The park needs to be in a state with good weather. Sorry, but “DisneyWorld Minnesota”, Massachusetts, Illinois or Iowa is not going to attract tons of people in December.
Plus, to make any sense, it has to be in a state that doesn’t have a similar “don’t say gay” law (or anything equally “offensive” to their employees.)
They already have a park in California. So, presumably, they’ll want something in the South but further east. So Arizona and New Mexico are probably not good choices.
Alabama introduced “don’t say gay” bill” (after having rescinded their past one!). Evidently, 20 other states have either passed them or are considering them.
As for tax breaks: Right now, I don’t think Texas is going to give them the breaks they want. More “blue” states aren’t going to want to grant them a right to develop without being subject to environmental laws.
lucia (Comment #211481): “But if a story doesn’t even mention both issues and then say it will cost the state, the story isn’t very credible.”
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That was my assumption. What I saw claimed that Disney now pays property taxes, with the implication that those taxes would not go up. I think that unlikely.
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I figure that if Disney has not spent the last 50 years lobbying to get the special status removed, then it is a pretty good bet that it favors Disney. So removing that status should favor the taxpayers.
The RAF is flying a “top-of-the-line” spy plane over “no-man’s-land” in the Black Sea. Previously only unmanned drones flew here…..
Tracking:
https://www.flightradar24.com/RRR7222/2b9486fc
Screenshot if it has landed: https://twitter.com/rklier21/status/1517512132291702786?s=20&t=_nub-n2DtbMY2zcAjfOH9A
Reedy Creek Improvement District:
I had a professional relationship with the engineers and administrators who ran the public works side of the district for about a 25 year period. This is essential to the operation of the parks.
For example they operate the following systems that are normally under local government control:
Potable water supply and distribution
Sewage collection and treatment
A very sophisticated surface water management system [think lakes, canals, drainage, rivers.. All of it]
Garbage collection and disposal
Mosquito control
Animal control
Building department
Planning department
Zoning department
Fire Department
Police department
Electric power plant and distribution
And many more.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/21/disney-special-district-florida-taxpayers-could-face-a-1-billion-debt-bomb-if-dissolved.html
Describes more. It’s a bit confusing.
The Disney kerfuffle seems to be partioning sides by political affiliation and not matters of principles or even by way of the expected typical party standing on an issue such as this one.
The Florida law taking away the Disney self governing of its 40 square miles, is very obviously in retaliation to the Disney stand on the school issue law. As wrong headed and perhaps uninformed as Disney might be on the school issue, what is at stake here is a matter of free speech that while not individual speech but rather grouped individual speech it is still a matter of free speech.
The state of Florida did not all of a sudden realize that Disney’s self governing was a problem. Alternatively it appears to have been working well for many years. An interesting experiment may be under way whereby a private and profit motivated self governing entity will be turned over to bureaucratic government bodies without the private motivations.
The Disney kerfuffle seems to be partioning sides by political affiliation and not matters of principles or even by way of the expected typical party standing on an issue such as this one.
The Florida law taking away the Disney self governing of its 40 square miles, is very obviously in retaliation to the Disney stand on the school issue law. As wrong headed and perhaps uninformed as Disney might be on the school issue, what is at stake here is a matter of free speech that while not individual speech but rather grouped individual speech it is still a matter of free speech.
The state of Florida did not all of a sudden realize that Disney’s self governing was a problem. Alternatively it appears to have been working well for many years. An interesting experiment may be under way whereby a private and profit motivated self governing entity will be turned over to bureaucratic government bodies without the private motivations.
Corporations have taken to blackmailing states over laws they don’t like. An example was MLB pulling the All Star game out of Atlanta. That is the context of Florida’s reaction to Disney. But I don’t know that Disney did anything beyond exercising their right to free speech. I just lumped them in with other woke corporate bad behavior.
Any negative financial impact of the new law on local governments will just be corrected by taxation. Governments are quite good at this part and Disney has very deep pockets. Nothing good is going to happen to Disney here. Both sides will be properly motivated to settle this. Disney can no doubt throw a lot of lawyers at this because they are being targeted even though the actual law was written in a pseudo-neutral way.
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Disney: Stay out of local politics not in your core interests because it damages your brand.
Florida: Restore a relationship that works for everyone and don’t target specific companies.
Kenneth
Absolutely.
Yes and no. No because Disney can continue to speak all it wants. Yes: It’s losing a subsidy that benefits it as a “collective” entity. The state doesn’t have to subsidize their megaphone.
No. But the issue of the exception relative to others did exist. That noone paid attention while Disney kept it’s head down doesn’t mean representatives have to continue to not pay attention once Disney makes itself a visible political actor.
Doing this to Disney may turn out to be a mistake. But in terms of political principles, I really do see this as an “on the one hand” “on the other hand”. There are principles that suggest Disney shouldn’t have been getting these big favors. There are principles that say one shouldn’t retaliate for free speech.
But on the other hand, in private life, people do get to shun people for free speech. Not all negative consequences in reaction to someone exercising free speech is anti-free speech.
Disney pushing poisonous political advocacy to children is in noones best interest (noone normal anyway). Not sure why they should maintain special treatment for taking such extremist political stands on the basis of fake news.
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Libertarian principles are all well and good, and I’m mostly all on board, but I’m also highly pragmatic and see how leftists twist those principles against you. They have no reason to reciprocate. Like unruly children pushing their boundaries, they require consequences or they just run amok.
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[Edit: Lucia sums it up nicely]
Tom Scharf,
“Disney: Stay out of local politics not in your core interests because it damages your brand.
Florida: Restore a relationship that works for everyone and don’t target specific companies.”
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I completely agree with one caveat: staying out of politics makes sense for corporations, but local, state-wide, and national. Corporations exist to make money for their shareholders. Getting involved in pissing contests with government officials is a sure-fire way to hurt the bottom line. Getting involved in a pissing contents with a governor who may well soon be President (with a cooperative Congress), is way, way beyond stupid.
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Florida says: “Just be an entertainment company, and don’t listen to your lunatic-fringe LGBTXYZLMNOP employees, or else really bad things will happen to your company. Behave, and you get your lucrative preferences back. Misbehave, and it will cost your shareholders a lot of money.”
Disney says: So far, no indication of position. I hope they recognize their special copyright privileges are also at grave risk in the future. Disney management is being SOOOOO dumb about this.
Disney would have a pretty clear cut case of * government * retaliation to speech IMO. The timing and all the various statements by politicians would make this nearly open and shut. The neutral wording of the law (all entities created before 1970 or something) and proclaiming Disney’s exemptions as essentially privileges aren’t going to help much if I was on the jury.
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I’m not going to cry if this sends a chilling message to woke corporations, but the ends do not justify the means from my point of view. There are better ways to do this. DeSantis, like Trump before him, is pretty good at choosing his enemies.
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Even though Disney probably thinks they can win the fight, I don’t think it would be worth it to them. They own ESPN and they also just went through this craziness and went back to just sports. If I was a Disney shareholder I would be telling them to stop this madness, every day they are in the headlines is hurting the brand and their bottom line. Being the darling of the NYT, CNN, and MSNBC is not where you want to be in the US. (Well I guess I am a shareholder since they are in the SP500 at number 31).
The Florida government retaliation against Disney speech is not a private entity (in private life) shunning people (Disney). That shunning is something that in a free society should be done by private individuals or groups of individuals by speaking out against Disney, by not using its products and even organizing boycotts.
The claim of subsidizing Disney by allowing it to self govern is not clear from what I know about the situation. Florida governments did not subsidize the services that Disney provided in self governing. Besides, if free speech for individuals and groups of individuals were conditioned and limited by government subsidies received, anyone getting a tax break or some other government favor that could be construed as a subsidy could have their speech limited.
Tom Scharf,
I doubt Disney can “win” this fight, and it would be foolish for them to even try. Elected government has legitimacy (and legal immunity) which no corporation can match: they can pass laws, they can press charges, they can raise taxes, they can arrest people, they can issue fines/penalties…. when facing a combination of executive, legislative, and judicial power in a state (in this case, Florida) all aligned against a corporation run by idiots (in this case Disney), they are doomed to lose…. big time, with almost no downside limit to their losses.
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Disney should shut up and make nice with Florida. I recognize that is as hard for leftist lunatics as it is for a lunatic like Donald Trump to just shut up when he should. I don’t know if the management at Disney has the good sense to shut up. But we will see.
Kenneth
I agree the government retaliating against Disney is neither private nor shunning. I’m just pointing out that there can be negative consequences of speech.
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But I’m also not seeing a legal violation here. Maybe there is. If so, I’m sure Disney’s lawyers will find an angle and go to court.
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Disney hasn’t been fined. No one has been jailed. They haven’t been deprived of any property they own.
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What’s happened is the legal status of what amounts to an area somewhat smaller than a county has been changed. This affects them. They don’t “own” the legal status of the area. It’s sort of like zoning– I don’t “own” the zoning regulations for my lot.
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I do agree this was done to thwart Disney for their speech. But I’m waiting to hear precisely what is illegal about it and/or what the “remedy” for the illegal act would be. (As I said: I may eventually hear that. I just haven’t.)
lucia (Comment #211502): “I’m waiting to hear precisely what is illegal about it”.
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Possibly a violation of Disney’s First Amendment rights. I don’t think the retaliation has to be illegal per se for it to be used for an illegal purpose.
More could be coming: Removing the Disney exception to an anti-censorship law:
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/tech-and-telecom-law/florida-lawmakers-move-to-include-disney-in-tech-restrictions
The remedy is revocation or invalidation of the law that FL passed targeting Disney. The state of FL can then proceed to take action against Disney in endless other ways with plausible deniability. “That environmental review for your new park is taking longer than expected … a couple new filings by benevolent citizens need to be reviewed … we will call you next year”. Etc. Don’t pick a dopey fight with the government.
MikeM,
I agree with you: Retaliation does not need to be illegal to be a first Amendment violation. But I guess I’m waiting to read more to hear what is illegal about this specific act.
The case against Florida on free speech:
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Ron DeSantis Aims at Disney, Hits the First Amendment
https://newsletters.theatlantic.com/the-third-rail/6261f9a29881d90020642c9d/florida-ron-de-santis-disney-status/
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French is a partisan so he takes a predictable position but makes a lot of good points. Disney cannot have their special status denied as a direct consequence of their political speech, and it’s not hard connecting the dots here. The goal is to chill woke corporate speech using government retaliation. As much as I agree with the endpoint I think it is illegal.
Tom,
I read that when I was trying to figure out the angle. What French doesn’t say is what Disney can do or argue.
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It never got to court (because TX legislature pass law over-riding some city’s law), but Chik-fil-A was temporarily banned from having restaurants in a city airport. The motive was definitely speech. Similarity with Disney both were speech, and motive City can’t single out one business from doing business all others can. (You have to apply– but still, there were procedures.) That’s what the argument would have been. The Remedy would have been letting Chik-fil-A continue to run restaurants.
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Difference: other businesses were approved on certain specific basis, but Chik-fil-A was not allowed despite meeting that basis.
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I may be wrong, but I don’t think there are other businesses that have this special status/ deal. I think this is a meaningful difference.
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So in some sense, Disney isn’t being treated differently from anyone else with the law change.
Maybe this doesn’t matter. But I think it may.
I should ad: The above difference I noted also distinguishes the Disney case from the Ohare Towing company case French cites in his article. In that case: The Towing company was excluded from a list other towing companies were included on. And the only basis for exclusion was speech.
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Had the city decided it was sick of Mouthy Towing Companies, bought their own tow truck and run it themselves, I don’t think the Towing company could have done a thing. Not even if the motive was to not hire the mouth towing companies and one in particular.
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In court, the lawyers have to argue both the similarities and the differences.
Tom Scharf,
Ordinary people routinely lose their jobs when they disagree with the woke mob; they get no first amendment protections. If Disney wants to be part of the woke mob (firing Gina Carano for example), there will likely be negative political and financial consequences for that corporation, and I think there should be. Disney getting involved in a local policy controversy is stupid, and will have negative consequences. If Republicans gain control of both houses and the presidency in January 2025, woke corporations across the country will regret their foolish political choices.
lucia (Comment #211508): “So in some sense, Disney isn’t being treated differently from anyone else with the law change.”
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You may well have hit on the legal loophole DeSantis is exploiting. I am sure he has a legal opinion saying it is kosher. All he needs is some Trump judges to agree. 🙂
Mike M,
I suspect DeSantis mostly needs Florida judges to agree with him. If DeSantis doesn’t want to preserve special favorable treatment for a corporation he believes is harming Florida, then that has essentially zero to do with the First Amendment rights of the corporation. And everything to do with the managers of that corporation making foolish choices that are not in the best interests of their shareholders. Do all the other amusement/theme parks in the Orlando area have the favorable treatment Disney has? No. Have those other companies got involved in trying to repeal the law in question? No. Only Disney. Retaliation is what they have fairly well begged for. Retaliation is what they will get. Unless they wisely butt out.
The Volokh Conspiracy: Tentative Thoughts on the Florida Repeal of Disney’s Special Government District
https://reason.com/volokh/2022/04/22/tentative-thoughts-on-the-florida-repeal-of-disneys-special-government-district/
“And the government can’t strip people of tax exemptions or other benefits based on their speech or political activity. Speiser v. Randall (1958).”
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A nuance here is perhaps Disney is legally “government” in this case.
“And if we follow the employment analogy, officials exercising political power are generally not protected from retaliation by other political figures, at least when the retaliation consists of benefits conferred by the other political figures in the first place.”
“To be sure, Disney isn’t exactly a political official. (I agree that corporations have First Amendment rights, but that doesn’t mean they can be elected to office.) But the Legislature had in effect given it a particular form of political power, which it now seeks to withdraw. That strikes me as a potentially relevant analogy.”
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“What makes this case unusual is that this is an extraordinary status that Disney got because it was Disney, and withdrawing that status would simply put Disney in the same position as other companies in that geographical area, and the bulk of other companies in Florida.”
“But none of these analogies, of course, are squarely on point; and I know of no other precedents that dispose of the matter.”
I don’t think DeSantis really cares if he loses the legal fight, he is making a political statement that he will fight against woke excess. Losing is almost a feature as it just fires everyone up.
MikeM,
I don’t think it’s a “loophole”.
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But I do think E Volokh’s pointing out that what is being taken away is the right to be local government for a large number of governmental functions is a bigger issue. And of course, the law taking away that right doesn’t affect any other private company is no other private government was given the right to act as local government. (Or at least EV thinks that’s the case.)
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So the legality is not always as simple as “Their motive was to chill Disney’s speech so it’s illegal”. It certainly was their motive (though they may in a legal battle claim otherwise.) But then there are other factors.
Putting aside the legal niceties, the real issue to me is that huge corporations are acting with very large power as state surrogates with respect to freedom of expression. Twitter, Facebook, and Google should not have the right to hide facts and limit argument.
Disney is effectively acting as an extension of them and engaging on an issue that only very tangentially affects its business. It is caving in to woke millennials who are always looking for excuses to find Leftist issues that they can promote through economic power. To me this is more about economic coercion rather than freedom of expression because Disney has nothing of any substance to add to the discussion. If Disney employees are offended, they have the right to express their own opinions and beliefs. I have yet to see where Disney has made any substantial, reasoned arguments against the bill that would be fairly construed as the expression of political ideas.
As a practical matter Disney does not come across as an entity making an intellectual argument in the Florida school law case, but rather merely acquiesing to its more left wing employees. This is rather obvious to even the less interested observer. Therefore, why do what Florida did in retaliation and change the subject to one that could make Disney look like the victim. Once again we have politicians going a bridge too far and not realizing when victory was at hand.
Kenneth,
Honestly, Florida escalating has done a lot of things the backers of Florida’s recent laws like:
1) It raised the visibility of Disney’s political activities with customers outside of the state. A number cancelled Disney Plus and so on.
2) It raised the visibility of the “don’t say gay” law and got people outside the LBGT community looking at the law.
3) It raised the visibility of the issue with books. Samples are being put up. I wouldn’t say they are “horrible” books. But it’s clear there is at least one instance of straying into CRT in math books. (Statistics and algebra.) It also raised the visibility of SEL in math books.
The people pushing these issues from the conservative side want them discussed.
It’s a dun deal. DeSantis signed the legislation. Disney is now in the position of saying they are entitled to special legislation that gives them a competitive advantage over Universal Studios, Sea World, Bush Gardens and Lego Land. Good luck with that.
Here is a bit more on taxpayer impact, without resolving which side is right:
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/disney-stripped-special-status-florida-local-taxpayers
But it seems it may not quite be a done deal:
So much for “principled opposition” by Disney and other entertainment conglomerates to Florida’s laws:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/04/23/with_dont_say_gay_hollywood_hypocrisy_on_full_display_147511.html
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Pretty clear: their puffed-up morality superiority on LGBTXYZLMNOP is only exceeded in scale by their craven dishonesty.
Mike M. (Comment #211520)
“But it seems it may not quite be a done deal”
Here is what I would be hearing from the Governor if I were Disney: “I ain’t done screwing with you yet! I will ensure that you don’t take any actions that shift financial burdens to the taxpayers. Further I will be meeting with your competitors to see if they merit any special legislation like you enjoyed for the past 50 years.”
This stuff lives behind the curtain, Kenneth. Noone talks about it and the ones that do swear it’s a conspiracy theory and nothing to do with what they say they mean. That’s it’s only being nice. The truth is dying in darkness. The only way to shine sunlight on it is to burn the curtain.
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Edit: I’ll add that some of it is so crazy it’s only natural to dismiss it. The media message is insidious because it cloaks it behind sanity.
There are already veiled threats of government retaliation against businesses in the US who might dare speak out on issues that some politicians might not like and that speaking out is not all woke but more like pointing to unintended consequences of government regulation. Ms Warren I am certain would love to use the Florida case as a precedent to make her threats to businesses less veiled.
I also do not like the often made choice when special favors in the form of allowing more freedoms for some individuals or groups of individuals is countered, not by allowing everyone those freedoms but denying them for everyone. The direction of this process is rather obvious.
SteveF —
Thanks for that link to the realclearpolitics article showing Disney’s capitulation to censors elsewhere. Not directly related to the Florida kerfuffle, but very amusing to see that Disney just goes along with the politics in each market. Presumably they also thought that about their stance on the Florida law, but it seems far sounder just to stay away from politically-charged topics.
I should add that I’m not opposed to companies doing what they need to do in order to operate in disparate markets. (Cf. NBA & China) It’s just that they shouldn’t cloak themselves in garments of moral superiority. They’re operating pragmatically, which seems appropriate to me if they are only interested in business.
Nothing wrong with taking moral/political stances, too, as long as it’s understood that such may produce negative effects on business.
There’s a reason government retaliation for speech is forbidden and was written explicitly into the constitution. There are some interesting details of this case that might make a difference, but I continue to doubt it. Clear political speech, clear political retaliation.
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The courts reversed Trump’s immigration orders not because he didn’t have the power, but because he did them for the alleged wrong reasons. Paperwork details. He corrected the paperwork.
You can remove Disney’s special status, but you can’t do it for their speech. Disney probably thinks they might win that battle, but will ultimately lose this infantile war against government.
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As Kenneth says we don’t want this to be open to interpretation because it will be weaponized against the political minority position in a heartbeat. The left is leaning hard on Twitter and Facebook for censorship of the right. They are threatening to more heavily regulate them if they don’t comply.
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What you can’t do is make it so easy to connect the dots. There at least has to be some gray area. This stuff has been happening forever.
It hasn’t been a good week for the Disney brand manager. I’d love to hear their report to the CEO next week, ha ha. “Way to go boss! I have an idea, how about Trans-Cinderalla gets an abortion!”. Disney needs to appeal to the least common denominator. Disney World’s appeal is a conflict free fantasy zone. They can have their Pride Day’s and so forth as long as they balance those out with Veteran’s Day, etc. It’s just not that hard to say no to activists, it really isn’t.
I know I’m right on this one because Vox is on my side, ha ha.
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Ron DeSantis’s attack on Disney obviously violates the First Amendment
https://www.vox.com/23036427/ron-desantis-disney-first-amendment-constitution-supreme-court
Tom
I’m also waiting to see. But Volokh gave example where clear political speech and clear political retaliation pass muster. For example: If Jen Psaki suddenly started criticizing Demoncratic policy, she could be fired. That’s clear political speech. Clear political retaliation. Perfectly legal.
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We’ll see.
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I think politically, the Florida GOP sees this as a win either way.
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Also: I don’t think the courts would decree that Disney ends up gifted with the special status forever taking the choice of how to govern Florida out of the hands of the Florida legislature. I don’t think they would even say it must be allowed to have special status as long as DeSantis is Governor. Or whatever. So I’m not really seeing how Disney can truly win even if they “win” some first rounds in court.
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It is true there is something stinky about Florida whaming Disney about speech. It definately has a taint of anti-free speech. But I’m not seeing in th elong run how a court can require Florida to force Florida to grant Disney a special status not allowed anyone else and never be able to take it back.
Does no one remember how the left went ballistic after the Citizen’s United decision? According to them then, a corporation isn’t a person and therefore doesn’t have corporate speech protected. Of course they want to have it the other way if the corporate speech favors them. I don’t expect them to drop their attempts to get Citizens United reversed somehow either.
DeWitt,
Yep. I do think corporate speech has some protection. The issue with Disney is what’s the analogous situation in free speech for individuals? There are situations where the governments motive can clearly be to shut someone up, but what they end up doing is legal. Volokh listed some of them. The special district situation for Disney was very unusual.
I have been pondering how I would approach the Disney legislative development if I were a public works department head in one of the affected counties.
The elected County Commissioners make the final decisions but would probably ask for input from department heads and these would be my thoughts.
I actually did run County departments that were funded from different sources: Enterprise funds based on user fees[e.g. Garbage disposal], and Ad Valorem Taxes, [e.g. Pollution Control].
This is a complex question and I would try to integrate the different public services in different ways. For instance, the enterprise funds based on user fees were separate fiscal entities with bond debt and had to be financially accountable each year to the bond holders. They had to be financially sound. In a growing County like ours infrastructure development needs to be able to account for growth, so it’s a constant juggling act of having too much capacity [and debt] and too little capacity to handle the load. In these cases I would aggressively try to acquire more load [and revenue] from Disney if I had excess capacity and aggressively try to shed load [pay Disney to take some] if I had an infrastructure deficit. This is a simplistic analysis, but I’m still thinking.
Jen Psaki could be fired for speech by a government superior if that speech were part of her government job, but that does not apply to her when she speaks as a private citizen.
In this discussion I am using my own no excuses and no exceptions for government carrying out what it considers its duties definition of free speech. Two different judges could have oppossing views on what is constitutional free speech as applied to a particular case.
Kenneth Fritsch (Comment #211534): “Jen Psaki could be fired for speech by a government superior if that speech were part of her government job, but that does not apply to her when she speaks as a private citizen.”
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That is not true. Psaki is a political appointee.
Kenneth:
“Two different judges could have opposing views on what is constitutional free speech as applied to a particular case.”
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I agree; different judges would likely reach very different conclusions.
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Trump Judge: “Disney has no special rights to favorable treatment by the State of Florida. Case dismissed.”
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Obama Judge: “Free speech is crucial for my political allies, but no one else. Behead DeSantis, cut him to pieces, and spread his entrails across Florida, leaving them for the bobcats and vultures. It is so ordered.”
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I think that fairly sums up the opposing judicial philosophies we see today. The left gives no quarter, and accepts no compromise. Their most vehemently claimed legal theories turn out to be completely conditional, and they routinely act contrary to the plain words of the Constitution, which they in fact consider nothing but an impediment to ‘progress’ (AKA, blanket socialism).
Mike M,
“That is not true. Psaki is a political appointee.”
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Yup, like all political appointees, she serves at the pleasure of the President, and can be fired at any moment without cause.
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Of course in her case there are many good reasons to fire her, but putting aside her utter dishonesty, hypocrisy, and arrogance, there is still her ridiculous orange hair, which falls under the heading of ‘national eye-sore’.
MIkeM
https://federalnewsnetwork.com/commentary/2020/03/when-can-the-federal-government-lawfully-terminate-employees/
Because she is a political appointee, she can be fired for any reason including wrong speech. There isn’t the remotest bit of dispute over this.
Kenneth,
A political appointee can be fired for “wrong speech” precisely because they are a political appointee. They can be fired for it even if it’s speech in their private lives.
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Federal employees can’t be fired for their private speech. But Psaki is not a federal appointee. She is a political appointee.
Ok… I misread MikeM– We agree she can be fired. You were responding to Kenneth.
People have principles and people have tribes. I don’t mean that in a demeaning way, only that this is the human condition.
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The left is embracing free speech here as a political tactic, not as a guiding principle. Many on the left used to have free speech as a guiding principle, things changed. These kind of events are how you can judge people on principles vs tribes. Much of the political discourse has degraded into 99% tribes and 1% principle.
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One could theoretically make a principled argument that this isn’t a free speech issue, but that needs to be compared to previous stated positions. The legacy media for example has been adamant lately that free speech is a danger to democracy. A free speech monologue from Vox is a political argument, it can be both insincere and correct. Fox News will probably just ignore the free speech aspects of this subject, or find someone to make the argument that suits their tribe.
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Most people have a few solid principles, some moderately held views, and will just follow their chosen tribe for an issue that they don’t feel strongly about. I can’t get very excited about immigration issues for example. I’m not going to vote for or against anyone on immigration, same for guns. Free speech though, I care. I voted for Trump primarily because of Supreme Court vacancies.
A government employee can still be fired for speech if it is sufficiently disruptive to their work. Say for example a DMV employee floods the workplace with partisan views, screaming from the cubicles about their strongly held views, demeaning anyone who disagrees, etc. It’s a high bar though.
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In a typical case an employee is fired for being a disruptive a-hole and that employee sues for wrongful termination and claims it is a free speech issue. You can’t berate everyone you know who voted for Trump in the workplace, you are getting fired for being abusive. Lots of gray area here and the HR dept. better document those firings meticulously.
This is a first….. It’s 7AM in Kyiv and there are seven small Cessna planes flying patterns along the Poland / Ukraine border. They are showing no call sign or registration information and are flying low [3,000-5,000 feet]. I have no idea who they are or what is going on. Maybe search and rescue?
https://www.flightradar24.com/2b9a0b66
Indeed, I stand corrected on Jen Psaki. She is a political appointee and in spades by my view.. She actually can spin topics better than any politician I have seen. Covering for Biden’s inane comments takes special political skills.
In my view I think we need to keep separate issues dealing with free speech. Speech can be accompanied by and/or be part of reasons for shutting it down. Speech by itself should fairly easily be differentiated from those accompanied actions.
Tom Scharf,
Yes. People usually react tribally.
On this Disney issue:
(1) I find it disturbing that the actions against Disney are either triggered by or intended as punishment for their speech. That is definitely anti-free speech, which I don’t like.
(2) I also find it disturbing that a government (FL) granted a private company the power act as government in many important ways. Not only did Disney take on the role of government in things like environmental impact, but they were an unelected government not subject to recall by local voters. (Well, unless you count recall by the FL legislature taking away Disney’s power to govern.)
With respect to (2), the fact that Disney was not subject to recall by the electorate through regularly held elections is enormous. Whatever vengence the government can’t take for speech, voters certainly can take it at the ballot box. In fact: voters definitely get to vote out elected officials based on what political positions officials take– and those positions are always expressed through speech!
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It would be very weird if we decree that neither the publicly elected legislature nor voters can remove Disney from this governmental role because of “speech” especially political speech. This would give them a sort of super-protection that is anti-democratic.
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So it’s a very weird thing.
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Now, the mistake is that situation (2) should never have existed. But saying that this thing that should never have existed needs to be made permanent and protected doesn’t seem to be the right remedy. There needs to be some way for voters to take away the governmental power that was granted Disney for any reason at all.
lucia (Comment #211546): “I also find it disturbing that a government (FL) granted a private company the power act as government in many important ways.”
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I think that part of the reason for doing that was that the local governments at the time were too small to cope with a project of that magnitude.
MikeM
That may have been the original motivation. But it seems they didn’t forsee including a mechanism to be able to yank political power for political reasons other than doing it through an act by the legislature.
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Given that situation, if one says FL’s legislature cannot yank the power to exercise governmental functions for entirely political reasons (here: exercising free speech to say things that are politically unpopular with the legislature), that puts Disney in a truly “Special Kingdom”.
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It’s actually a very big problem. Because while we want strong free-speech protections for private individuals, we also want the electorate to be able to remove governmental power from actors whose politics– and necessarily speech– the electorate disagrees with.
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In some sense, if no one can yank the governmental power from Disney because of their politics expressed through speech, then the “special district” created should itself be decreed as violating our republican form of government!! That our government must be of a republican form is also in the constitution. (And so then dissolved by the courts for that reason!)
Right, so sometimes we have a balancing act of strongly held views in our head. Here we have free speech vs excess woke indoctrination vs corporate special favors.
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There is no particularly “correct” answer. The Supreme Court’s hardest cases are balancing separate rights against each other. As in the CO baker case, gay rights vs religious freedom is not straight forward. It is a value judgment.
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So in this case the answer IMO is to detach the speech case from the special status Disney was granted. Unfortunately the water is under her bridge at this point. DeSantis wants to overtly connect these actions for political gain which is why it gets complicated.
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Even if the law gets tossed for a free speech violation, the courts will have to allow Disney’s status to be removed via normal political activity, it’s not a perm-ban, it’s a “you need to do it properly” ban. Equality before the law means it can’t specifically target Disney. The law would just ban all these types of special favors for example.
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A properly written voter referendum would certainly pass muster, not obvious that would pass, but probably. Realistically they will need to wait a year, rewrite the law to obfuscate it a bit more, and do it again and it will stick. Disney has got to know this is how it will play out.
Russell,
High level US officials visiting Ukraine today.
Tom Scharf
But given the history it looks like the only existing mechanism for removing it is by the legislature passing legislation.
How? Seriously. Because what would “properly” be if the bicameral legislature passing a law is “improper” (until such time as the judges can read the hearts and minds of those voting and determine the motive was to get rid of this weird governmental grant and not the speech)? I’m really not seeing how any thing “proper” would exist if this is decreed “improper”.
As far as I can see, the only way in which the the legislatures act and free speech are attached is the diagnosed motive of the bicameral legislature is Disney’s political speech. The change in law doesn’t say “unless you shut up”.
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DeSantis may have wanted the change in law. But it’s the bicameral legislature who wrote it and passed it. This isn’t an executive action!
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But in Florida, referendums seem to only exist to amend the constitution. It doesn’t seem right that they need to amend the constitution to remove government power from Disney!!
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This ought to be something the legislature can do!
Lucia,
I can’t get too worked up about Disney facing political pressure. They voluntarily entered the political arena, taking sides (and vowing to get a duly passed Florida law revoked!) in a controversy wholly disconnected from their businesses. Political actions invite political responses. Any special privileges granted Disney by the Florida legislature can certainly be removed by the legislature, and that is a purely political outcome motivated by Disney’s purely political ‘speech’. Someone complaining to third parties about their spouse’s weight, in front of their spouse, is not illegal. But it is incredibly stupid, and will inevitably have negative… ahem… ‘political’ consequences. Disney is just being really stupid here.
The Fox Guarding the Chickens
Disney had a delegation of authority from the Florida Department of Environmental Regulation to enforce state pollution laws within the jurisdiction of the Reedy Creek Improvement District. I know because I was in charge of the program in Sarasota County.
“The STATE OF FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION (“DEPARTMENT”) hereby enters into this General Agreement with the REEDY CREEK IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT, hereinafter referred to as the “LOCAL PROGRAM” for the purpose of delineating each agency’s responsibilities and authorities concerning environmental . programs and activities in the REEDY CREEK I~ROVEMENT DISTRICT.”
https://floridadep.gov/sites/default/files/da_ReedyCreek_8_28_96.pdf
DELEGATION OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCE PROGRAM TO LOCAL GOVERNMENTS https://www.flrules.org/gateway/ChapterHome.asp?Chapter=62-344
It’s not hard to determine motive here. There isn’t even an attempt to deny the motive as far as I can tell, they are proud of it. It’s flagrant. I really haven’t seen a more obvious case of retaliation to speech that I can think of. If the state can provide evidence they wanted to do this before Disney’s speech it would help their defense.
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I think the courts reject the law for a free speech violation, but allow the same thing to be legally done later when you can’t connect the dots to speech so easily. Everyone will need to pretend this has nothing to do with Disney’s speech the second time around.
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Disney could claim it is still about their speech, but the courts will need to recognize the legislature is acting lawfully when there is at least plausible deniability. The courts will defer to the legislature, but can’t ignore a flagrant violation.
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Long story short is I don’t think this will even go to court because Disney won’t challenge it.
There’s probably a zillion protected species on Disney’s land. If the government wants to shut down Disney, it can make their life very miserable. Time for a truce, the state has all the leverage here.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
The Government of Florida has made no law that violates this principle. Disney may continue to say stupid things [and I hope the do!] The Government of Florida righted a wrong by removing the special privilege that Disney had enjoyed for half a century. When the original legislation was gifted to Walt Disney [himself] it may have been fair and legitimate, but the situation in Central Florida has changed. Disney can keep speaking out and the Government of Florida can keep enacting any laws that are within their purview. If the Government were to overstep their authority, Disney has lawyers and they know how to use them.
lucia (Comment #211548): “It’s actually a very big problem. Because while we want strong free-speech protections for private individuals, we also want the electorate to be able to remove governmental power from actors whose politics– and necessarily speech– the electorate disagrees with.”
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I think that lucia states the issue very well.
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Tom says there is no particular “correct” answer. But then there is a correct answer: The decision made by the people’s duly elected representatives. Such decisions should only be overruled by courts in egregious cases.
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As I understand it, other special districts are also affected by the new law. So Disney is not being singled out. And I don’t think that motive is ever a proper consideration in court cases.
Tom
I agree it’s not hard to find the motive. Disney’s speech and political stand is absolutely the motive.
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The problem is that if the legislature is barred from changing the status, and the only way to remove a governmental status from Disney is to amend the constitution, we end up with another thorny legal problem which is this: Did the previous legislature have the power to grant Disney a special governmental status that cannot be stripped without amending the FL constitution? I’m guessing the answer to that is no. The FL constitution doesn’t provide for private companies having such unstrippable permanent powers that fall outside the reach of democratic acts (and the US constitution doesn’t either!)
Even though the past legislatures hearts may have been pure of any base motives, that previous granting of special status cannot pass scrutiny.
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So then the situation would be:
The current dissolution of the special district violates the 1st amendment, but the special distinction is void anyway or at least, no private company can exercise the governmental powers. So Disney would be stripped of whatever it has. And it’s still gone: Poof!
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Now, I know I’m no legal eagle. But it just can’t be possible for a mere legislature to grand a private company governmental powers that cannot be stripped without amending the state constitution. Because the “republican form of government” requirement is already in all our constitutions. That should imply a state legislature already cannot set up an “internal government” that stands outside democratic action.
MikeM
Motive can be a proper consideration in court cases. But it’s not dispositive.
How stupid is Disney? Let me count the ways….
Disney initiated this battle with the State of Florida in response to a protest from its employees.
So how many Disney employees showed up at the protest at Disney World? ……ONE! There are 80,000 Disney employees in Florida. “The ‘Disney Walkout’ that wasn’t: mass action against ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill fizzles at Walt Disney World”
https://www.orlandoweekly.com/news/the-disney-walkout-that-wasnt-mass-action-against-dont-say-gay-bill-fizzles-at-walt-disney-world-31229068
Even for the protest at the sprawling campus Disney home office in Burbank California, only a hundred turned out. “Disney had a tight-lipped employee culture. Then Florida happened”
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2022-03-22/walt-disney-co-employee-walkout
How many people work at the Burbank office? The article gave employees world wide. I wasn’t able to quickly find it. So I’m wondering if anyone knows.
Lucia, I don’t really know.
But there are several buildings there:
Say at least 10 of those buildings contain 500 workers maybe to approximate. This agrees with LinkedIn which estimates 5-10K workers at Disney Studios Burbank.
Shrug
Oh bad link.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney_Studios_(Burbank)
I’ve got a reuters story here:
So something like that.
Trump’s “Muslim travel ban” was rejected by the lower courts several times. He had the legal authority to do so, but he was effectively doing it for illegal reasons. Religious discrimination as interpreted by some courts. They used Trump’s and other statements to back up that ruling. Ultimately the Supreme Court upheld the 3rd revision of the travel ban which included North Korea and Venezuela.
https://www.aclu-wa.org/pages/timeline-muslim-ban
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A voter referendum may not work, I was just saying it might be less political that way.
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The state legislature can certainly revoke Disney’s status. The courts can slap it down as a 1st amendment violation and say “try again”, not “you can never do this”. Then the state tries again while hiding the political intent better, then the courts will defer. We shall see what happens. This is why we have courts. It will ultimately be a losing cause for Disney if they chooses to fight it IMO.
The thing about the Disney walkout is it was advertised in advance by CNN and others and they rushed to cover it and still nobody showed up. There were probably more reporters than protesters. This has happened many times now with different preferred narratives, the news people creating the news they want to cover.
Tom wrote: “the news people creating the news they want to cover.”
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Reminds me of this comedy sketch from the British news satire “The Day Today” aired in the 90s https://youtu.be/7IEwBrJzhlg
Ouch! That’s gonna leave a mark!
Stock price vs key events
February 24, $149.40 Bob Iger [former CEO] opposes bill
March 29 $142.38 DeSantis agrees to looking legislation
April 20 $124.57 Florida Senate passes legislation
April 22 $118.27 DeSantis signs legislation
149-118= $31 loss in stock price in two months
31/149=21% loss in stock price in two months
Corporate governance at its finest.
April 25 $? How low can it go!
This might be significant. Videos of two explosions and large fires at oil facilities in Bryansk, Russia.
https://twitter.com/NotWoofers/status/1518378495801499650?s=20&t=tmKlJ1FLNagjQshGSR_PjQ
Bryansk is 154 km (95.69 miles)northeast of the Ukrainian border and is about 380 km (236 miles) from Moscow.
I don’t have any confirmation that the Ukrainians are involved, but if they are, I think this is big.
Russsell,
Last Sept., Disney stock was at about $187. So the slide precedes the recent kerfuffle.
Mike M. (Comment #211571)
You wrote: “Last Sept., Disney stock was at about $187. So the slide precedes the recent kerfuffle.”
Yes, that’s true. But kerfuffles are notorious for negatively affecting stock price and that has happened here. The rate of decline of Disney stock price has accelerated greatly over the last month.
Mike M wrote: “So the slide precedes the recent kerfuffle.”
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Well yes. This recent kerfuffle is just the latest, but most visible, in a long line. This is what happens when you put activists in charge of your business.
DaveJR,
I suspect the recent drop in stock price is in fact mostly a result of the fight with Florida; investors are nervous that Disney’s lunatic public positions on divisive social and political issues will hurt it’s subscription and theme park revenues. But my guess is those impacts are probably overblown a bit… especially if Disney just keeps itself out of the news for a couple of months. If I were going to bet on Disney, I would buy a call 4 months out. I think the stock price is likely to recover to near it’s early February levels over that time.
SteveF (Comment #211574)
“… especially if Disney just keeps itself out of the news for a couple of months.”
To quote Brother Bluto: “Nothing is over until DeSantis decides it is” https://youtu.be/kun5ncIKhSI
Zelenskyy, has now stated that any attempt by Russia to control additional land in the southeast of Ukraine, or any “independence vote” in the Eastern provinces will mean he walks away from negotiations with Russia.
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I expect it is a bluff to get Russia to not claim a permanent land bridge to the Crimea, but who knows. If he is not bluffing, then the ultimate military outcome now looks more and more like:
1) De facto independence of the Eastern Ukraine (backed up by the Russian army).
2) Permanent annexation of Crimea by Russia.
3) A Russian controlled land bridge between Russia and the Crimea along a ~50 mile wide corridor at the coast.
4) The rump western Ukraine ultimately joins NATO… along with Sweden, Finland, and perhaps others.
5) All of Europe reneges on actually building up their military capability; it is Europe after all.
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I guess Zelenskyy prefers greater de facto losses of territory to smaller recognized/negotiated losses of territory.
WSJ: Russian Military’s Next Front Line: Replacing Battlefield Equipment Destroyed in Ukraine
https://www.wsj.com/articles/russian-militarys-next-front-line-replacing-battlefield-equipment-destroyed-in-ukraine-11650879002
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The two countries who Russia exports most of their arms? India, China.
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I guess I understand better why these countries are taking a neutral stance. I doubt they are too happy with the performance of Russian military equipment so far, but a massive investment in Russian equipment can’t be switched over easily.
Seems like a lot things in Russia are catching fire lately.
“In addition to the blazes that tore through the Russian oil depots near the Ukrainian border, several fires have been reported further inside Russia. Seventeen people died after a fire on Thursday at a key aerospace defense research institute in the town of Tver, north of Moscow, local authorities said. Russian officials also reported another fire on Thursday at a major chemical factory in the Ivanovo region, 200 miles northeast of Moscow.”
Huh. I read that Twitter and Musk have reached a deal, to be announced shortly.
It’s going to be entertaining to see the usual suspects howl that their Twitter censorship efforts are being thwarted. I’m sure they won’t overstate this as the end of democracy or anything like that, ha ha.
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One idea would be for separate teams to examine banning and censorship. Let’s randomly call these teams the red team and blue team. If they both don’t agree then no censorship.
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Moderation is a really hard problem. It’s an overlapping Venn diagram of trolls, actual disinformation, really dumb people, partisan censorship, control freaks, and so on.
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I haven’t really looked at this very hard, but apparently both Facebook and Twitter elevate posts based on “user engagement scores”. What this does is elevate the screaming morons who say the most poisonous things. This keeps people on their platforms longer to scream at each other. Good for their bottom line, bad for society. I’m not sure AI to maximize this engagement is a good thing.
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I also think that letting a user choose his moderation level (red level or blue level?) or to disable engagement promotion would at least be a start.
I would think that Zelensky needs to talk tough and take an unyielding stance until such time as a settlement is within reach. Anything else would undermine Ukraine’s position.
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Also, Zelensky has to keep demanding more from the west and keep playing up Russian Atrocities at max volume.
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I don’t blame him for any of that. And while I admire his courage and resolution, I have largely started to tune out anything Zelensky says.
Tom wrote: “apparently both Facebook and Twitter elevate posts based on “user engagement scores”.”
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And the flip side, shadowbanning. Persona non grata have their visibility squashed rather than kicking them off.
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I am really hoping we finally find out some hard facts about what twitter has been up to.
I hope to again be inundated with mean Tweets from Trump [aka Orange Man]… They were often hilarious and entertaining.
Russell,
Nah, FOX reports that the Bad Orange Man isn’t planning on it:
Viva Covfefe!
Tom Scharf,
“Seems like a lot things in Russia are catching fire lately.”
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Hummmm. Lemme see. Long porous boarder. Large Ukrainian population of native Russian speakers who are as mad as hell (and who can easily pass for Russian). Vast stocks of western explosives that are easy to smuggle into Russia.
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Looks like lots of fires and explosions in southern Russia’s future, especially around critical infrastructure. I expect Russia will get most of the Ukrainian territory they want to control out of the war. But it will come at considerable cost in blood, treasure, and a long term problem with terror attacks in Russia.
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Will Putin relent? I doubt it.
mark bofill,
If the Bad Orange Man gets a chance to rant on Twitter again, he will, for sure.
Tom Scharf,
Come to think of it, there is zero reason why a rather large truck loaded with explosives could not be detonated on a street next to the Kremlin, collapsing part of the building. THAT might make Putin relent. Putin’s public support might collapse if Russians see their personal security is at risk due to his Ukraine adventure.
It is done. Twitter has accepted Musk’s offer.
Like Bush the younger entering Baghdad, Putin probably imagined that much of the population of the Ukraine would consider Russian troops ‘liberators’. He was even more mistaken about the Ukraine than Bush the younger was about Iraq. Things obviously haven’t worked out as Putin expected, but like Bush, he has doubled down on winning marginal victories. Unwise, stupid even, but not unexpected.
Mike M,
One of the small moments of joy in the last few years. If Musk really does take it private, then (lunatic-left) heads will roll. Ya can’t beat that with a stick!
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“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.”
Musk
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The snowflakes are already suffering ‘the vapors’. Good.
The other theory is Putin will run a couple false flag operations on Russian soil to form a pretext to hit Ukrainian cities with large indiscriminate weapons. The Russians already support Putin, hitting the homeland will harden them further, at least temporarily. Killing Russian civilians will undoubtedly escalate the conflict, and if it is done with western weapons it will get messy. OTOH the Russians should have no rational reason to believe the war should end on the border, but they probably think that anyway.
But free speech is a threat to *our* democracy! “Bad” people might say “bad” things and other people might feel emboldened to agree with them!
Even better are the recent arguments that free speech is an authoritarian tool. Let’s see what the NYT’s said in 2020.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/magazine/free-speech.html
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“A crude authoritarian censors free speech. A clever one invokes it to play a trick, twisting facts to turn a mob on a subordinated group and, in the end, silence as well as endanger its members. Looking back at the rise of fascism and the Holocaust in her 1951 book “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” the political philosopher Hannah Arendt focused on the use of propaganda to “make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism.
In other words, good ideas do not necessarily triumph in the marketplace of ideas. “Free speech threatens democracy as much as it also provides for its flourishing,” the philosopher Jason Stanley and the linguist David Beaver argue in their forthcoming book, “The Politics of Language.”
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Look what we made the good guys do! Shame on us. They have to crack down on free speech for our own good lest we all follow Hitler again. It’s the only way to save democracy. War is peace.
Tom Scharf,
The thing is, you have to be an authoritarian demagogue to make that work. But there are authoritarians all over the multi-dimensional political spectrum. Any censorship will always end up being biased somehow because power corrupts. So cherry-picking some example is not persuasive. There are lots of fantastic statements out there nowadays that a lot of people take as gospel. For example: Climate change is an existential threat to the planet. Wearing cloth masks will save us from COVID. The list goes on.
Finland and Sweden have reportedly agreed to simultaneously request NATO membership next month.
Perhaps. But they definitely don’t triumph when there is no market place for ideas.
“Free speech threatens democracy as much as it also provides for its flourishing,” the philosopher Jason Stanley and the linguist David Beaver argue in their forthcoming book, “The Politics of Language.”
Well, whatever that means. I suspect you can make a case that everything threatens democracy to some extent. The world is dangerous. Threats abound.
Lack of free speech threatens democracy much more.
Sure, propaganda can do that. But government propaganda is rarely outlawed when free speech is set aside. It’s precisely the speech that is allowed. The laws barring speech then forbid the anti-propaganda. In fact, the anti-free speech laws will make it illegal to air the irrefutable proof of the falsehoods in the propaganda. So you don’t need to worry how the people will react to it because they will never hear the proof.
DeWitt, The Ministry of Truth will be in touch with you:
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“Twitter is banning misleading advertisements that go against the scientific consensus of climate change, the company announced on Friday, which was Earth Day.
We believe that climate denialism shouldn’t be monetized on Twitter, and that misrepresentative ads shouldn’t detract from important conversations about the climate crisis,” Twitter said in a blog post.”
“An open letter signed by more than 200 scientists, activists and organizations last November called for the CEOs of social media companies including Facebook, Instagram, Google, Twitter, TikTok, Pinterest and Reddit to establish climate misinformation policies similar to the ones they put in place for Covid-19.”
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/23/tech/twitter-climate-change-policy/index.html
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Never saw that coming, ha ha. Examples of banned ads were not provided that I could find.
Yes, I think a rather obvious counterargument could be made that bad ideas triumph more often when opposition to bad ideas are banned. The premise of the original argument is that a benevolent overlord exists which knows the righteous answer. They only see speech as a potential method to convince others of their position, and never as a method in which they would change their mind.
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The knowledge class can get it right most of the time in theory, but they are just as prone to the human failings of self interest, quest for power, in group bias, and pride as everyone else. They tend to demonstrate these failings often, and overestimate their ability to predict future outcomes.
WSJ opinion piece on Special Districts:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/special-districts-unaccountable-power-come-true-disney-reedy-creek-new-deal-dont-say-gay-debt-spending-nassau-property-tax-11650897481?st=jy78vq7nexkezyl&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Why am I not surprised that this took off under FDR? There are 1,800 Special Districts in Florida alone. Probably all of them should be re-evaluated and most of them abolished. That way there could be no claim of specific retaliation.
DeWitt,
Between Wilson, FDR, and Lyndon Johnson you have the sponsors of most really bad government ideas and absurd government over-reach. A few lesser lights contributed of course (Nixon and his abominable EPA, Obama and Obamacare, multiple presidents simply refusing to enforce immigration laws), but the big three dominate the history of bad government in the USA.
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Each of the three placed their ideological convictions above both the plain meaning of the Constitution and factual reality, and indeed, often simply refused to address factual reality. The Federal government clown car we now have is the result.
I wiil be very surprised if the Biden administration does not move to block, or at least long delay, Musk taking over Twitter.
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The Orange Bad Man given voice (and 100 million twitter followers!) in time for the 2024 campaign? I doubt the Biden Administration will let that happen without maximum interference/delay. There is no anti-trust issue involved, but count on Justice Department lawyers to come up with a dozen other reasons why Musk must not control Twitter. The Department of Justice has become nothing more than the corrupt legal arm of the Democratic party, run by the world’s most blatant political hack.
General Jack Keane and his think tank ”Institute for the Study of War” publish a daily report on the war in Ukraine, complete with current maps. I follow it closely. To date they have been unimpressed with the much heralded Russian redeployment to Eastern Ukraine.
Here are some quotes from yesterday:
“Continued Russian attacks in eastern Ukraine took little to no additional territory in the past 24 hours.”
“Russian forces likely conducted a false flag attack in Transnistria (Russia’s illegally occupied territory in Moldova) to amplify Russian claims of anti-Russian sentiment in Moldova, but Transnistrian forces remain unlikely to enter the war in Ukraine.”
“They are continuing the pattern of operations they have followed throughout the war: committing small collections of units to widely dispersed attacks along multiple axes and refusing to accept necessary operational pauses to set conditions for decisive operations.”
https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates
John Durham is charging Michael Sussmann for lying to the FBI when he said he was not representing anyone when he brought fake Trump-Russia stuff to the FBI.
As part of this case, Durham subpoenaed material from Fusion GPS.
Hillary campaign objected to this, citing attorney client privilege.
Hard for Sussmann to claim he wasn’t representing anyone, while also having people declare attorney-client privilege.
The reviews are in and it seems the legacy media isn’t enthusiastic about Twitter today. I count exactly zero supporting articles from the usual suspects and nobody ever brings up the Hunter Biden saga.
It’s always illuminating to see reactions to the “threat” of free speech.
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I just had a fantasy that Musk will buy the NYT’s next, ha ha. Imagine the reaction. It’s only about $7B. Watching the heads explode would be worth it by itself.
Jack Dorsey has endorsed Musk, and was probably advising him the whole time.
My favorite stories are “Twitter employees blah blah blah”. Apparently not a single Twitter employee out of 7,000 in SF, which actually has a lot of libertarians, supports this acquisition. Or so the media narrative wants people to think, or they just can’t find any with their superhuman powers.
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Oh wait. Found a NYMag article that claims indirect knowledge that Elon supporters exist at Twitter and I quote:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/04/twitter-employees-respond-to-elon-musk-buying-twitter.html
“… while another reportedly complained of Musk supporters inside the company: “Elon fan boys are braindead mouth breathers and we have a bunch of them at Twitter for the record. Can’t wait [until] he lays half of us off.””
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Hilarious. At least comments like those will not be banned in the future even if they are hurtful to brain dead mouth breathers. One assumes this person works on the healthy discussion committee.
I love the quotes from your link
Then look for another job. When you find one quit. Or quit and then look for a job. If you are a valuable coder, you should have no trouble finding a job with someone else.
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Or come up with an idea and start your own company.
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If neither of those appeal to you, join the vast hoards of people who don’t like the owner of the company.
So pour one. Or smoke some weed. Lots of people do that after a tough day at work.
At many larger companies only half the employees really pull their weight. So maybe he will. On the other hand, he might not have a good way to tell who pulls their weight. (Some of the ones who don’t are often extremely talented at claiming other people’s work as their own.)
Valid concern. On the other hand, that’s the risk when you accept a job where a lot of your pay is in the form of stock options.
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No one knows if everyone is going to have to go back to the office soon anyway. I think we can be pretty sure platform moderation policies will change. They’ve been constantly changing anyway. But you might find loud employees views count less. (I’m guessing the Trump ban goes away. Honestly, at this point with him out of office for a while, it probably should. )
Another “Settled Science” event…
My wife had cancer surgery last month. The surgery went well and the pathology report was very good. We are evaluating a follow up regimen, including the need for radiation treatments. So far we have recommendations from five doctors: her surgeon, a radiation oncologist, an oncology specialist, her primary care doctor and a retired specialist who treated a lot of cancer patients and is a close personal friend. All five evaluated the surgeons report and the pathology report and the results are:
Two definitely yes for radiation
One definitely no
Two undecided…it’s up to us.
Russell,
Glad to hear it went well, my best wishes for your wife’s continued health.
At least you did due diligence with getting advice for the follow up regiment!
Mike N,
The NYT has class A share holders (the public, institutional investors) and Class B share holders (the controlling Ochs-Sulzberger family). AFAIK, there are no class B shares held outside the Ochs-Sulzberger family. The Class B shares control 8 of the 12 board seats, and the Class A shares can vote only for 4 of the 12 directors. My understanding is the owners of the class B shares are restricted from selling them outside the family. So even though the family has sold ~90% of the value of the company to outside investors, the family has an iron grip on control of the company, and I don’t see how it could ever be taken over via a hostile bid by Musk or anyone else.
Best wishes for your wife!
Lucia,
“At many larger companies only half the employees really pull their weight.”
My experience is that among code writers the discrepancy can be huge: a very good coder can be 5 times more productive than the average.
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But my guess is Musk is going first invite some banned ‘deplorables’ back (Trump!??!?!) and then ask staffers if they will wholeheartedly embrace a very light censorship touch or if they want to look for a new job. That will thin the ranks some.
Mark, Lucia Thank you, things are starting to straighten out around here. One additional note: To his credit, the one doctor who stood to make a lot of money if we go ahead was the radiation oncologist… he was neutral and said it was up to us.
Toms Scharf,
“One assumes this person works on the healthy discussion committee.”
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More likely they work on the “stop all conservative tweets” committee. The humor is that the quote clearly comes from a ‘brain-dead mouth breather’.
The heroes saving us from covid disinformation are at it again.
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WashPost:
Coronavirus has infected majority of Americans
But officials caution that people should not presume they have protection against the virus going forward
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/04/26/majority-americans-coronavirus-infections/
“Before omicron, one-third of Americans had been infected with the coronavirus, but by the end of February, that rate had climbed to nearly 60 percent — including about 75 percent of kids and 60 percent of people age 18 to 49, according to federal health data released Tuesday.”
“Officials cautioned, however, that the data, in a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, does not indicate people have protection against the virus going forward, especially against increasingly transmissible variants.”
“Separately, CDC is about to publish another study that estimates three infections for every reported case, she said.”
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The claim of no protection is, as experts say, “without evidence”. The carefully constructed sentence certainly implies one thing and allows deniability later, par for the course. Vaccines are assumed to be protective going forward, natural immunity is not. No explanation.
All I know is that next week I will walk through airports and fly 5 hours across the country…… with no mask required. The covid crazies be damned.
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And I sure do hope the 11 circuit backs up the district judge, since that would end it, and set a nice precedent for government by law rather than the administrative state. Even the fools in the Biden administration would not be dumb enough to appeal to the SC on this one, since a loss there would mean ‘health emergency’ Federal powers are strictly actually limited across a wide range of questions.
Tom Scharf,
“The claim of no protection is, as experts say, “without evidence”. ”
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There is a colloquial expression with the same meaning: nothing but a bald faced lie. The CDC needs to be “reorganized” and restricted, with about 75% of the fools and liars who work there kicked to the street. Everything they have done during the covid catastrophe has been somewhere between mostly wrong and 100% wrong. Get rid of the CDC and improve the country’s health.
Nothing is over until DeSantis decides it’s over. This Disney dust up has been a political winner for the Governor:
“DeSantis’ fundraising sees small-donor financial windfall from public feud with Disney”
“On one day alone last month, when his campaign sent out its first fundraising email chastising Disney, his candidate account received nearly 950 small donations of $100 or less, totaling around $30,000. Five days later, when his campaign sent a second Disney-bashing donation request, people opened their wallets more than 500 times to give in small increments, adding up to another roughly $18,000.”
APRIL 26, 2022 3:14 PM Miami Herald
I expect he will milk it for all its worth:
“DeSantis Signals More Disney Action After ‘First Step”
““There are big discussions to be had over the next year in terms of what we do about it,”
April 25, 2022 Bloomberg
The actual implementation of the Reedy Creek legislation is June 1, 2023. Expect quite a bit of folderol between now and then.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article260765507.html?taid=62681d2f7d8a320001bdc716&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=trueanthem&utm_source=twitter
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-25/desantis-signals-more-disney-action-ahead-after-first-step
SteveF,
If you only look at the data from the survey, there is indeed no evidence of ongoing protection from either infection or vaccination. That’s not what they were looking for. So strictly speaking they are misleading with the truth. If they actually had evidence that vaccination was more effective than infection, they would be shouting it from the rooftops. But all the evidence from studies where that was actually the subject show the opposite, including their own that they sat on for six months.
I’ve been reading a lot of fantasy lately and that’s how it works for the Fae. They cannot lie but they can phrase things so they’re very misleading. The same goes for the Aes Sedai in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. They cannot speak a word that they believe is untrue. But anyone who takes what they say literally is likely going to be in trouble.
Steve wrote: “All I know is that next week I will walk through airports and fly 5 hours across the country…… with no mask required.”
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Been there, done that. I’d say the maskless in O’Hare far outnumbered the masked. Just need the test requirements to go the same way.
So Kamala has tested positive for C-19 but is asymptomatic. But not to worry, she hasn’t been in close contact with Joe since the Easter Egg Roll on the White House lawn. And yet NBC news tonight called her the most powerful woman in the US. Nancy Pelosi probably had a good laugh over that.
DeWitt,
“Just need the test requirements to go the same way.”
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Sure, but that is only for international travel. Here is the weird thing: most international destinations DO NOT require a negative test to enter, only documentation of vaccination. Most destinations DO NOT require masks on the plane, just documentation of vaccination. It is only the USA and countries that are always going to follow the US lead (including many Central and South American countries) that stick to the crazy USA regulations. In my darker moments, when I think about all the wasted money, wasted time and utter torment the CDC has forced on travelers, I think of the need for someone to strangle the Evil Dwarf. But he doesn’t deserve that. He is not so much extremely evil (though he is clearly evil,as his endless lying shows) as utterly incompetent at his job. He needs to retire, and ASAP.
DeWitt,
“So Kamala has tested positive for C-19 but is asymptomatic. But not to worry, she hasn’t been in close contact with Joe since the Easter Egg Roll on the White House lawn.”
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Shockingly enough, I was not at all worried about Karmala infecting Joe Biden with covid. Now, if you were concerned about Karmala and chlamydia transmission, it might be different.
Russell, that site is very pro Ukraine and mostly holds to official Ukraine statements. But some truth does sneak in at times, as in:
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-26
“.. April 26, 6:30 pm ET
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Russian forces have adopted a sounder pattern of operational movement in eastern Ukraine, at least along the line from Izyum to Rubizhne. Russian troops are pushing down multiple roughly parallel roads within supporting distance of one another, allowing them to bring more combat power to bear than their previous practice had supported. Russian troops on this line are making better progress than any other Russian advances in this phase of the war. They are pushing from Izyum southwest toward Barvinkove and southeast toward Slovyansk. They are also pushing several columns west and south of Rubizhne, likely intending to encircle it and complete its capture. The Russian advances even in this area are proceeding methodically rather than rapidly, however, and it is not clear how far they will be able to drive or whether they will be able to encircle Ukrainian forces in large numbers….”.
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Russian forces on the Izyum axis likely benefit from the absence of prepared Ukrainian defensive positions against attacks from the Kharkiv direction toward Donbas. Ukraine has prepared to defend the line of contact with Russian-occupied Donbas since 2014, and Russian troops continue to struggle to penetrate those prepared defenses—as shown by repeated Russian efforts to take Avdiivka, just north of Donetsk City, or to advance through Popasna, just beyond the original line of contact…”
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Russia has put a 300 mile arc of eastern/southern Ukraine under continuous artillery bombardment for several weeks now to soften up the Ukraine defense, which is now suffering high levels of fatigue. With a direct rail link now from Russia to Izyum, supply to continue heavy artillery bombardment on this front is not a problem. Russia seems to be adopting a strategy of low scale probing attacks to find Ukraine defensive locations and then use their heavy artillery to deal with them. Slow, but effective, and Ukraine has little in the way of heavy artillery to respond with.
Ed Forbes (Comment #211626)
You wrote: “With a direct rail link now from Russia to Izyum, supply to continue heavy artillery bombardment on this front is not a problem.”
This happened overnight….. a beautiful video of explosions and fire at the ammo depot in Belgorod, Russia. It is located just East of Izyum, Ukraine. Russian anti-aircraft fire was also heard and seen in the area. https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1519151477608038401?s=20&t=aoGyBDLtqvBkU9Yb5mNIJQ
“.. beautiful video of explosions and fire at the ammo depot in Belgorod, Russia. It is located just East of Izyum, Ukraine.”
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?? Izyum, Ukraine looks to be about 200km south from Belgorod, Russia. It is nowhere near Belgorod.
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Ammunition dumps are being captured or blown on both sides, but Russia has much deeper reserves.
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In more news on the subject, per the BBC..
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60506682
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“..Military analysts have told the BBC that Ukrainians are outnumbered three-to-one in the region and are likely to concede some open ground in order to concentrate on the defence of key cities, where the Russians will find it more difficult to fight..”
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If Ukraine forces retreat into cities and allow themselves to be surrounded, they are done. They need to stay mobile and get what they can out of the pockets. With Russia outflanking the Ukraine fixed defenses in the east at Lzyum, Russia having direct rail supply to the front lines, and with Russia greatly outnumbering Ukraine in the east, Ukraine faces some hard choices.
Interesting animated map of Russian controlled territory in the Ukraine over time. https://www.businessinsider.com/map-russian-kyiv-ukraine-invasion-war-2022-4
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Looks like Russia plans on control of most of eastern Ukraine, including a land bridge 100+ miles wide along the coast.
Twitter’s Legal, Policy and Trust Lead Vijaya Gadde cried at a meeting about Musk purchasing the social media company for $44 billion.
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These kind of reactions are just so performative. I’d fire that person on the first day, really, I would. Can this person at least wait and see what happens before the public wailing starts?
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Musk responds referencing the Hunter Biden saga: “Suspending the Twitter account of a major news organization for publishing a truthful story was obviously incredibly inappropriate.”
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Gadde reportedly made the call to censor the story, but this is unclear. There is very little transparency as to how that type of censorship happens. If I was Musk I would be getting some transparency on that saga on day 1 as well.
Tom, here is politico on it back in October of 2020:
I don’t think there’s all that much question about Gadde being the driving force behind a good chunk of Twitter censorship.
Maybe more to the point:
Russia halting gas supplies is an interesting move. It’s a bit vindictive against countries that plan to stop buying anyway, but not very forward looking for future customers who will worry that gas will stop because of political whims. I’d say this is a bad move, but predictable.
The “hacked materials policy” was bone-headed from the beginning. When somebody leaves Trump’s tax returns in a NYT reporter’s mailbox or the hacking of Parler for Jan 6th then somehow the media unties their moral gordian knot and publishes this stuff anyway. They invoke it during times like ClimateGate. It’s unworkable to have a policy like this be neutral because … humans. The same for hate speech.
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The end result is almost always selection bias in the company for what is enforced and what is ignored which washes away all the alleged good intentions. Many people do have good intentions and some of these issues are real problems, but the treatment ends up being worse than the disease.
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The media’s likely response to Twitter will be to highlight every idiot on Twitter, have the academy “study” Twitter and so on in order to demonstrate free speech makes things worse.
A-men brother.
Tom Scharf,
“Russia halting gas supplies is an interesting move.”
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My understanding is that the gas was shut off until those countries agreed to pay for the gas in Rubles. That is (of course) a violation of existing supply contracts (Euro payments), but during war commercial contracts are not easy to enforce.
Tom Scharf,
“Many people do have good intentions and some of these issues are real problems, but the treatment ends up being worse than the disease.”
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Sure, but I would not be so kind. What they define as “good intentions” always aligns with their personal politics…. so always there is nothing wrong with devising and bending any policy that helps keep the Orange Bad Man out of office. The censorious fools at Twitter seem so un-self aware that is is almost comical. I think Musk would fire that lady if he could, but she will likely resign before he takes control.
Disney Strategy Is to Stay Silent to Soften Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s Blow
Governor surprised company and many fellow Republicans as he pushed them to eliminate Disney’s tax benefits; ‘Shock and awe from the governor’
https://www.wsj.com/articles/disney-strategy-is-to-stay-silent-to-soften-florida-gov-ron-desantiss-blow-11651089850?st=p9jrmr5iv8o3wr8&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
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“After Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed lawmakers to pass a bill to eliminate Walt Disney Co.’s special tax benefits in Florida, the company, which boasts one of the largest and most influential lobbying teams in the state, crafted a new strategy: Keep its mouth shut.
Disney had been burned too many times over the past two months tangling with Mr. DeSantis, the company’s allies in the state legislature said, and keeping quiet would give the company the best shot at working out a resolution with the governor, according to people familiar with the situation.”
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“Behind his about-face: Mr. Babington told lawmakers he had gotten reassurances from Republican legislative leaders that if Disney kept quiet and didn’t drag out the fight, it would benefit from future efforts to salvage or reconstitute a special district, according to the people.”
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Wise. Most companies are way better off just waiting out the Twitter mob in silence. Twitter is not the real world.
Stopping gas supplies is a weapon.
Firing a warning shot is speech.
Using it is an act of war.
Full effects only seen if they pull the plug on Germany. Summer coming on so three is less powerful.
Strategy against a new weapon being used is obvious and needed.
Coal and nuclear. Russia will get less income.
Germany will have to amputate its green (gangrenous) left foot and limp into its new future on new crutches
Tom Scharf,
Nobody could have foreseen the need for Disney to keep quit for a while.
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“But my guess is those impacts are probably overblown a bit… especially if Disney just keeps itself out of the news for a couple of months.”
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Even the stupid managers at Disney can ultimately understand that fighting against the state of Florida is bad for business. The question is if those same managers will ever have the good sense to tell their lunatic fringe employees in California to shut up or find another job. That will be the real test of their management skilz.
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It is unclear to me how this will play out. Disney management can tell their fringe employees that they will work to repeal the Florida law, but if they actually do that, then DeSantis and the FL legislature is going to pound them. There is no simple solution for Disney: they can either be a woke clown car company or a responsible company that works for its shareholders’ financial interests. There is no middle ground for Disney.
SteveF,
It’s not just fighting the state of Florida that hurts Disney. Even though some people side with Disney, the problem is that this argument won’t net them customers. Suppose you support Disney. If you don’t want to subscribe to Disney, take a trip to Disney you still won’t. But if those who are angered will cancel subscriptions of cancel trips if they were going. This sort of very specific and very public political speech has no upside commercially. Saying they were going to aggressively campaign was a mistake. (They could have gotten away with window dressing sort of pap.)
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The CEO decided to speak supposedly to be sympathetic to employees. That’s all well and good. But there will be no need for employees if there are no customers.
angech,
I think the chance of Germany actually building nuclear plants is so close to zero as to be ignored. Germans will simply not allow new nuclear plants to be constructed. It seems to me a profound psychosis that has gripped the country, but nuclear power in Germany not going to happen. The Germans are no more serious about climate change than they are about an adequate national defense or having children and raising families. Culture is destiny, and Germany has a suicidal culture.
Lucia,
I agree, offending half your potential customers is foolish. But that is what the nincompoops at Disney decided. Taking the easy short term path, rather than the more difficult, but long term more sensible one, is pretty much what defines a bad corporate manager. They could try to make amends, but only by writing off their lunatic fringe employees; I doubt they have the courage to do that.
Free speech is bad, Defund the Police, Teach gender issues to 3rd graders, CRT for high school, inflation, war in Europe, covid, murder rates up 40%.
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The Republicans don’t even need to run political ads this fall, they would be better off just hiding in a closet. I don’t underestimate their ability to screw this up, but they are getting quite the head start.
Tom Scharf,
Yes, the field of play is heavily tilted to Republicans by the absurd policy over-reach Democrats have instituted since taking control in Jan. 2021. But I would not underestimate the capacity of Republicans to screw it up by promoting wildly unpopular (again, over-reach) policies from people like Florida Senator Rick Scott during the midterm campaign.
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The current political divide in the USA reminds me a bit of the “clash of civilizations” debate over Islam after 9/11, when all of the left and some on the right vehemently objected to the suggestion that islamic countries embrace cultural and political views that are fundamentally in conflict with western values of ‘liberal democracy’. In hind sight (and after the utter failure in every case to institute ‘liberal democracy’ in islamic countries), it seems clear the islamic world simply is not receptive to western values. There is a clash of civilizations. But right after 9/11, and before all the obvious failures of ‘nation building’, any suggestion that islamic culture is fundamentally different, and incompatible with liberal democracy, was attacked and even shouted down in the same ways that those who object to all the woke rubbish policies Democrats support are attacked and shouted down today. Like the clash of civilizations question, the left is wrong about all the woke garbage, but they will do terrible damage in their pursuit of this garbage.
Here are two examples posted today of how Twitter [used too!] secretly suppresses Conservative’s ideas. The posters are not Republicans but sometimes post Conservative ideas… Janice Dean and Tulsi Gabbard.
https://twitter.com/janicedean/status/1519620222747086849?s=21&t=i_lRJb2-AUHf4ePaXrMWaQ
https://twitter.com/tulsigabbard/status/1519618677603287040?s=12
More, I just found this article in the NY Post from today:
”It’s high time to crack open Big Tech’s black boxes which suppress conservatives”
It makes the same point I did above:
“An end to “shadow banning” seems the only possible explanation for multiple right-wingers reporting a massive uptick in Twitter followers since Elon Musk bought Twitter on Monday.”
“If lower-level Twitter workers hadn’t taken fingers off the algorithms in anticipation of the new regime, why would Donald Trump Jr. see a gain of 87,296 new followers Tuesday, plus 119,022 more the next, after weeks of averaging roughly 7,000 per day?”
And:
“Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) picked up more than 205,000 followers in two days, per Social Blade analytics. Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, 141,000; Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), 112,000. Joe Rogan (who’s not even a righty, just an iconoclast the left obsesses about) gained nearly 135,000”
https://nypost.com/2022/04/27/its-about-time-to-crack-open-big-techs-black-boxes-which-suppress-conservatives/
I think what was shut off was an anti-bot policy of some sort, where if you have few followers, you are labeled a Russian bot.
I wonder if my old account has been reactivated. It was partially suspended, demanding a phone number for verification.
Hah! They did it again. Twitter messes with my timeline, so instead of the Latest Tweets showing up as they happen, I see “Top Tweets” …which means they feed me what they want me to see first and move stuff like tweets from Mollie Hemingway and Ron DeSantis down to the end. I often miss the stuff at the end because I follow a whole lot of people. This is the third time this setting has mysteriously switched itself… I wonder why? [at least they didn’t ban me again!]. If you are curious as to your own setting here is how to change it:
https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/6/21167920/twitter-chronological-feed-how-to-ios-android-app-timeline
Legal precedent at the 11th Circuit makes any challenge to dissolution of Disney’s Reedy Creek unlikely to succeed, at least at the 11th: https://reason.com/volokh/2022/04/28/precedent-supporting-constitutionality-of-florida-legislatures-dissolving-disney-special-government-district/
Russell,
There is an add-on available on Firefox to manage Twitter:
Tweak New Twitter
March Pew Research Poll:
“Nearly three of four said race or ethnicity should not be a factor in admissions. That includes 59% of blacks, 68% of Hispanics, 63% of Asians and 62% of Democrats.”
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And yet they cannot help themselves but push it anyway. “Discriminating” by socioeconomic status has always been a viable and more justifiable alternative but they choose this blunt racial tool instead. The current SC case under review may put an end to it.
Thus [sang] the Minister of Truth:
Sometimes I really wonder about these people.
[For those of you who might be thinking, ‘uh, what?’
https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/mary-poppins-ministry-truth
Tom,
“The current SC case under review may put an end to it.”
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Color me skeptical. Oral arguments are not yet scheduled in the consolidated Harvard and UNC cases, but will not take place until some time after the start of the 2022 term in October. I doubt the SC has the courage to strike affirmative action completely. They might restrict it to only allow preferences for low family income, or for achieving “geographic balance”, or some other (wink-wink) basis for preferences, like urban students balanced against suburban students. These could be (and certainly would be!) manipulated by schools to continue racial preferences…. and to continue racial discrimination against disfavored racial groups (AKA Asians and whites).
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In any case, it seems to me unlikely admissions will ever be truly merit based. Blatant, eye-rolling, racial discrimination in selective college admissions has been constant since I graduated from high school in the late 1960’s; it is likely to continue, in spite of it’s clear illegality under Federal laws.
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My personal POV is that Harvard (and other private schools) should be allowed to discriminate all they want, they should just not get a dime in Federal funding of any kind, including no Federal support for research and no Federally backed student loans.
mark bofill,
It is truly frightening that anyone thinks an official “ministry of truth”, backed by Federal law enforcement, is a good idea. They are planning on explicitly doing away with the first Amendment, and have the government become the sole arbiter of what “truth” may be spoken. Count on this idiocy being blocked by Federal Courts.
Steve,
Certainly. But the sheer weirdness of the Mary Poppins Tik Tok video though. What planet are these people from that they thought that was somehow a good idea, is what I’d like to know.
It didn’t take The Bee long to react:
mark,
“But the sheer weirdness of the Mary Poppins Tik Tok video though.”
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There is a reason “Libs of Tik Tok” exists. These people are disconnected from reality and fools to boot.
Misinformation can also be defined as failing to release or amplify relevant data. WashPost today:
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“The vaccinated made up 42 percent of fatalities in January and February during the highly contagious omicron variant’s surge, compared with 23 percent of the dead in September, the peak of the delta wave”
“Nearly two-thirds of the people who died during the omicron surge were 75 and older, according to a Post analysis, compared with a third during the delta wave. Seniors are overwhelmingly immunized, but vaccines are less effective and their potency wanes over time in older age groups.”
“In two of the states, California and Mississippi, three-quarters of the vaccinated senior citizens who died in January and February did not have booster doses”
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OK, it’s entirely possible that the reason the vaccinated death numbers are going up is that natural immunity remains superior with omicron as it was with delta. Natural immunity is prevalent in the US now at 60%. It continues to be almost impossible to find natural immunity vs vaccinated data and the media continues to pretend it isn’t even an interesting question. This sends up red flags for me.
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Apr 20 2022 large study on natural immunity. Data was gathered before omicron.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2791312
“Prior COVID-19 was associated with protection of 85% against any recurrent COVID-19, 88% against hospitalization for COVID-19, and 83% against COVID-19 not requiring hospitalization. Protection remained stable over the study period with no attenuation up to 9 months from initial infection.”
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That is definitely * longer lasting * AND better than vaccine protections, although the hospitalization levels are similar. What enrages me is the continued findings natural immunity apparently lasts longer with a media narrative that is shouldn’t be presumed to offer * any * protection. Bizarro land.
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They only now do two comparisons in most media. Vaccinated and hybrid (vaccinated + infected).
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https://globalnews.ca/news/8742351/reinfection-risk-omicron-shorter-lived-immunity/
“Mazer stresses that no matter the perceived timeframe of your immunity, protection from a vaccine is way more robust than the protection produced from an infection.
When vaccines were first being rolled out, “there was hope that natural immunity would equal vaccine immunity,” said Conway, but that turned out to not be the case at all.
Even though vaccines were never a foolproof shield against COVID-19, according to Evans and Mazer, they do protect you from getting severely ill — something they say post-infection immunity doesn’t.”
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WTF? This is just complete crap, no evidence given. Everything I have seen show natural immunity lasting longer than the current vaccines. UK just finished a study, same thing. If our experts willingly allow this kind of stuff to go unchallenged then they cannot be trusted to arbitrate other misinformation.
Disinformation Governance Board. What a blunder. This thing is going to be mocked into oblivion.
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Things will progress as always. They will initially only take stands on obvious flagrant disinformation to try to engender trust. As time goes by they will enlarge the net and bias will start taking over. Pretty soon we are back to Hunter Biden where preferred narratives driving opinions about unknowns are suddenly facts.
P-E Harvey (Comment #211652)
“There is an add-on available on Firefox to manage Twitter”
Thank You. I tried Firefox a while ago and had trouble with it. My son has been pressuring me to give it another shot.
Peggy Noonan in the WSJ:
“Putin Really May Break the Nuclear Taboo in Ukraine”
And: “For this man, Russia can’t lose to the West. Ukraine isn’t the Mideast, a side show; it is the main event. I read him as someone who will do anything not to lose.”
I have been concerned about this since the start of the war. Joe Biden as president compounds the problem. Free link…
https://www.wsj.com/articles/putin-really-may-break-the-nuclear-taboo-russia-ukraine-weapons-attack-war-artillery-shells-fight-11651176309?st=e0j0w5sq7b9pt1n&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Tom Scharf,
“They will initially only take stands on obvious flagrant disinformation to try to engender trust.”
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They will only take stands on obvious flagrant disinformation that is in opposition to Biden and policies Democrats support. They will NEVER comment negatively on obvious flagrant disinformation from those who support Biden and policies Democrats support (like the pure disinformation story on immunity you link to above). N.E.V.E.R.
Yes, we really don’t want Russia to lose this war, or to think they are and suffer perceived global humiliation. This will end up in escalation. We want them to suffer mightily in winning it and throttle support accordingly. We want them to secretly believe they would lose this war if the west preferred that outcome. This will have better future results than most other scenarios.
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Ukraine knows they are being played but doesn’t have a lot of options.
The Disinformation Governance Board, lead by a woman famous for helping squash the laptop stories. Zero attempt at legitimacy.
GPS guided artillery shells. I didn’t even know we had these.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M982_Excalibur
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Only $68K a shot. They also have a version that allows laser guidance. It can be fired from up to 20 miles away (more likely 10 miles with 10M accuracy) with the M777 howitzer that we are now going to give to Ukraine. Unclear whether they will get the fancy ammo. Used in Afghanistan. Cheaper than a Javelin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M777_howitzer
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The laser guidance is particularly relevant with drone spotters. I have seen a lot Ukraine videos with artillery hitting stationary vehicles with some uncanny precision. Might just be lucky shots but apparently artillery accuracy has gotten way better.
Russell Klier,
I don’t pay all that much attention to Peggy Noonan any more.
I did see a comment on another op-ed where the commenter was surprised to learn that NATO policy did not rule out first use of tactical nuclear weapons in the event of an invasion in force by the Soviet Union.
Consider using the Brave browser. It is built off the code of Google Chrome, with an emphasis on privacy. It has a bitcoin based method of getting paid to watch ads that can be ignored. However, this money can also be distributed to websites you visit if the website owners setup their end. This browser was built by the former CEO of Mozilla Firefox, and he is also working on a search engine.
How rotten is Russia’s army?
I think this article in The Economist is worth reading:
“Units have tortured, raped and murdered only to be honoured by the Kremlin. Russia has failed to win control of the skies or combine air power with tanks, artillery and infantry. Wallowing in corruption, unable to foster initiative or learn from their mistakes, its frustrated generals abandoned advanced military doctrine and fell back on flattening cities and terrorising civilians.”
And:
“Ukraine’s highly motivated forces are a rebuke to these Russian failings. Despite being less numerous and less well armed, they resisted the invading army by passing decision-making to small, adaptable local units given up-to-the-minute intelligence. Even if the Russian campaign, now under a single commander, makes gains in Donbas, it will do so chiefly thanks to its sheer mass. Its claim to be a sophisticated modern force is as convincing as a tank turret rusting in a Ukrainian field.”
Free link: https://t.co/jv9fgMw5NA
DeWitt,
I’d forgotten that too, if I ever knew it, until Ed pointed it out recently.
It’s hard to trust “Russia is bad” articles without access to the Russian side of the story and a complete commitment to propaganda by almost every media outlet. They parrot every credulous press release by the Ukrainians and don’t even cover what the Russians are saying. It’s an information void. I hope the Ukrainians are doing as well as the fantasies I am reading, but I am skeptical. The stories tend to just be a collection of opinions and assertions by alleged experts who don’t show their work. They can’t even figure out what sunk a ship for sure. It’s the fog of war to be sure, but the western media treats this like they treat climate change.
Tom Scharf (Comment #211674)
You wrote: “It’s hard to trust “Russia is bad” articles”
No, Russia IS bad. Their civilian atrocities are well documented. It is their strategy to gain a military edge by brutalizing civilians. They have been doing it for 75 years.
Just ask the Ministry. Jankowicz Poppins will sort this out for us.
Russell, have you paid attention to civilian casualties in American wars?
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By your logic the US is one of the most evil nations on earth with 100’s of thousands of civilian deaths to it’s credit in the wars following WWII. Civilian deaths at American hands in WWII are in a category all by itself.
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Civilians have always been given short shift in wars throughout history, and US war fighting policy is no exception. This does not make the US “evil” as such, but it does lend itself to being very hypocritical in its policy statements.
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Note that video of Russian POW’s being shot out of hand is ignored where rumors of Russian atrocities are not even investigated, just published as “fact”.
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In regards to NATO nuclear war policy in the Cold War, NATO forces and stockpiled munitions were only expected to hold back a full press invasion by the Soviet Union for several weeks, at most. The force was designed as a trip wire to allow a minimum amount of time to allow a diplomatic solution to end hostilities. If diplomacy did not work to stop the invasion, then tactical nukes were authorized to be used to blunt the Soviet attack and allow time for REFORGER ( https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/reforger.htm )
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time to reinforce Europe.
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Russia has been very restrained compared to behavior of Russian military in Syria.
The real civilian atrocities in Ukraine will be after the war. Either Russia will start deporting Ukrainians to Siberia(allegedly already happening), or Ukraine will conduct reprisals against Russian sympathizers in the east.
To the US government and US military harm to civilians and civilian infrastructure is avoided to the maximum extent possible. To the Russian government and Russian military, civilians and civilian infrastructure are the targets.
Russell,
That’s certainly what the Disinformation Governance Board would tell us.
I don’t get worked up about war crimes. People get killed in wars, civilians too; that’s how it’s always been, and that’s probably how it will always be. War is not a civilized endeavor in my view, and those that would have us believe it is are blowing smoke up unmentionable orifices as far as I am concerned.
I dislike excessive hypocrisy though – so I prefer to admit that every nation that fights more or less commits war crimes.
Here’s the wiki on US war crimes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes
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I would like to believe that in general, the U.S. military does not go out of it’s way to kill civilians unnecessarily, that’s about as far as I’d be comfortable taking that idea.
Here’s a Russian tank firing multiple rounds into a civilian building with the obvious intent of taking the entire thing down.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWgcwl7BRnA
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This is just nasty war. We only see it now because of the prevalence of drones and phones. Lots of damaged vehicles out front so likely Russians were fired on from the building and this is reprisal. When your buddies get killed by the other side and you have a tank and they don’t, this is what is going to happen no matter who you are.
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Raqqa was flattened. Fallujah wasn’t that much better. Urban warfare is messy. There aren’t officials roaming the battlefield with a bunch of heavily armed highly emotional stressed out young people. Here’s a pretty brutal bad outcome for some Russians as well from an armed drone dropping mortars, not pretty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUSxkpd-k9s
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There is very little moral high ground in these things IMO so I wouldn’t keep score. The US has better precision weapons to avoid some casualties, but if they didn’t they would be firing in indiscriminate artillery just like everyone else.
Exactly.
War is brutal, for civilians as well as soldiers. The US has a highly professional army, highly sophisticated precision weapons, and rules of engagement that are sensitive to public opinion. And there are still horrible things that happen to civilians.
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The Russians have more of a WW2 approach, so civilian targets get hit. They have poorly disciplined troops who have very low morale and sometime kill their own officers. Such soldiers are going to commit atrocities. That does not make it okay, but it is war itself that is the crime.
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Also, we are getting a totally one sided picture accompanied by moralistic posturing. The demonization of Russia and Putin will likely cause the war to be far more damaging. Peace (a real peace as opposed to a temporary truce or a frozen conflict) will require making some concessions to Russia. Public opinion is being manipulated in a way that will likely make any concessions impossible. We are going to end up fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian.
The tactical problem of Ukraine being outnumbered 3 to 1 on a wide front in open terrain is becoming apparent. Reports are coming in of 600 Ukrainians being cutoff with a reservoir to their backs east of Izyum. Several more such tactical envelopments and the front will collapse.
Reports from 29-30 April.
“.. A Pro-Russian military source claimed that Russian troops encircled approximately 600 Ukrainian troops in Yaremivka, about 25 kilometers southeast of Izyum on the road to Slovyansk, although ISW cannot independently confirm this report…” https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-30
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“.. A Pro-Russian military source additionally claimed that Russian forces are surrounding and pinning Ukrainian troops against the Oskol Reservoir, east of Izyum, but ISW cannot independently confirm this claim.”
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-29
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“April 30 Assessment Highlight:
#Russian forces appear increasingly unlikely to achieve any major advances in eastern #Ukraine, and Ukrainian forces may be able to conduct wider counterattacks in the coming days.”
ISW, Institute for the Study of War
These guys have been accurate for about the last two months. https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1520535153604366336?s=20&t=SqKh3KP0fAYfdKh2ROXATw
Tulci Gabbard: Biden is just a front man. Obama, April 21: social media censors “don’t go far enough,” so the government needs to step in to do the job. Six days later, Homeland Security rolls out the ‘Ministry of Truth’ (aka Disinformation Governance Board). https://twitter.com/tulsigabbard/status/1520713806086696960?s=21&t=7wJYaaXon6HfLv8UGjQdAw
The Disinformation Governance Board has got to be the best sign yet how disconnected from reality a lot of people are, that they couldn’t predict the response to this is laughable.
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I imagine many people truly think this is a good idea, it will consolidate and give “trustable” opinions on what is primarily Russian disinformation going into an election cycle. As Psaki says, who would be against that?
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Tump.Russia.Collusion.
Hunter.Biden.
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One ponders how this board would rule on these matters with the immense partisan pressure to follow a narrative.
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Years of officials hyperventilating about one “truth” and years of them denying another as Russia disinformation. A small detail that theses errors point in one partisan direction.
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It’s laughable that people believe this Ministry of Truth effort could be trusted out of the box. As if DHS doesn’t already have spokespeople and public engagement where they disseminate their version of truth. I want to trust them (primarily the legacy media), it’s their fault that they have convinced me to not do so by their own partisan actions.
Nobody is talking negotiation any more. Headlines from the past few days indicate a shift in NATO, led by the US to a much more aggressive support of war….. more sophisticated arms, heavier arms, more food and the EU, particularly Germany is cranking up economic pressure on Russia. From the WSJ:
“Ukraine’s military successes against Russia have transformed calculations in Washington and other Western capitals, leading to a sharp increase in military help for Kyiv as a war that started with Western efforts at damage control has become one that offers a strategic opportunity to constrain Russia’s expansionist ambitions.”
“To put it very simply, our aim must be peace through victory. Ukrainian victory in the war,” Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins said in an interview Wednesday. “A rather simplistic way of viewing a victory would be a territory liberated of the Russian military completely.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/west-ramps-up-ukraine-weapons-aid-as-expectations-about-wars-outcome-shift-11651251919?st=96g2aju2r39hbu5&reflink=share_mobilewebshare
Ukraine: German lawmakers overwhelmingly approve heavy weapons deliveries
https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-german-lawmakers-overwhelmingly-approve-heavy-weapons-deliveries/a-61618357
EU is expected to approve a Russian oil embargo in a bid to halt the Ukraine war, a report says
https://www.businessinsider.com/european-union-expected-approve-russian-oil-embargo-2022-4
Russell,
The Russian general who let their plan to take over parts of Moldova opened the subset of NATO eyes that still needed opening. The Russian “we might use nukes” threats have been processed. And yes, we all know they very well might use them. But we also know that handing over Ukraine for fear that the Russians will use nukes only means the Russians will threaten to use nukes again when the march on Moldova or Poland or Latvia or whoever they decide is “not a real country”. So instead of using them this year, they’ll use them in a few years.
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Let’s hope the Russians don’t use the nukes. But know they may. If they do, I suspect we will too. Yes, they could be “different kinds of nukes”, but a line will have been crossed.
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It’s scary. But it just teaches us that “May you live in interesting times” is a curse.
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Maybe I should stock pile food. (Jim would make fun of me. Yes… I’ve been looking at web page for wheat berries and wheat grinders. Secretly. Haven’t bought.)
“Peace through victory”? How does Ukraine achieve that? I think only by taking significant Russian territory that they can hold hostage to get a favorable agreement. That is probably not achievable, which is likely a good thing since Putin might well use nukes if faced with that.
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I find it more than a little worrying that the “geniuses” in charge of policy don’t seem to have a realistic goal, or at least one they are willing to share.
Lucia,
Nothing to be ashamed of, being prepared for emergencies.
Shrug.
“.. The Ukrainian General Staff stated that Russian forces are blocking Ukrainian positions in the vicinity of Rubizhne and Popasna to prevent Ukrainian forces from maneuvering..”
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-1
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This site is very pro Ukraine, but information is coming out showing that Russian advances are greater than Ukraine is wanting to acknowledge.
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The above linked statement is another way of saying that several lines of Russian advances are enveloping Ukraine forces into pockets in multiple locations, as also noted in the 29-30 April reports.
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The Russian strategy is clearly becoming one of the destruction of the Ukraine army, not rapid territorial advance. The territory will come after the Ukraine forces are destroyed.
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With the main part of the Ukraine army in the east fixed in position and under continuous artillery fire, secondary elements of Russian forces are available to envelop and destroy Ukraine forces in small, unsupported pockets.
Ed Forbes (Comment #211694)
Along with a link to The Institute for the Study of War [ISW] you wrote: “This site is very pro Ukraine ” Do you have any backup for that statement?
The ISW is an independent US think tank with impeccable credentials. I have been following their daily reports for about two months now and they have turned out to be on target most of the time. It’s true that they report more positive news for the Ukrainian side, but that’s because the Russians have been getting their butts kicked.
You also wrote: “The Russian strategy is clearly becoming one of the destruction of the Ukraine army, not rapid territorial advance. The territory will come after the Ukraine forces are destroyed.” Do you have any backup for that statement? I have seen no evidence that the Ukrainian forces are anywhere near being destroyed.
ISW home link: https://www.understandingwar.org/
Attempting rapid territorial gain has proved to be a great way to lose vehicles to ambushes and drones. Their army seems to be built for tank versus tank wars and they were slow to adapt to battlefields where drones and infantry antitank were so effective. I notice that Ukraine drone losses have increased recently https://www.engineereddata.com/go-ukraine.html (obviously pro-Ukraine but data from https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html ) which would suggest some improved air defense.
If Ed is correct in his assessment of Russian dominance, then there are some bargains on Metaculus for him. https://www.metaculus.com/tournament/ukraine-conflict/
So far though, I am not prepared to bet against ISW analysis.
Phil Scadden (Comment #211697)
“So far though, I am not prepared to bet against ISW analysis”
You may also want to follow the “Ukraine update from the UK Ministry of Defence”. Here is my summary from the update of 2 May 2022…..
Russia committed 120 battalion groups, 65% of its total ground combat strength
Likely more than a quarter have been rendered ineffective
Some of Russia’s most elite units have suffered the highest levels of attrition
https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1520987841702080512?s=20&t=T4mT5Vo0gw37gqSOi5p9tw
Lucia,
“Let’s hope the Russians don’t use the nukes. But know they may. If they do, I suspect we will too.”
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Talk about fighting to the last Ukrainian! If nuclear weapons are used, then welcome to WWIII and unlimited death (including many… most?… who comment on this blog) and horrific destruction. I find this prospect terrifying and is the direct result of very poor foreign policy by the Biden administration. Even if nuclear weapons could somehow (I don’t see how) be limited to the Ukraine, the potential cost in lives would be many millions, not to mention rendering places in the Ukraine radioactive for an extended time. Argonne is likely right at the top of the Russian target list in the USA.
Phil Scadden (Comment #211697)
“I notice that Ukraine drone losses have increased recently”. Coincidentally, I have noticed a lot of videos from drones acting as forward observers for artillery. Previously I saw none and now I see one or two a day. As the Russians change tactics I guess the Ukrainians do also. I am no expert, but I have been impressed with the accuracy of the fire.
Here are today’s:
https://twitter.com/uaweapons/status/1521047600065036291?s=21&t=eNU8PCBmwS5_rfVhA7-ABA
https://twitter.com/thedeaddistrict/status/1521028987400732673?s=21&t=eNU8PCBmwS5_rfVhA7-ABA
Side note: A lot of heavy artillery is being rushed into Ukraine. I saw these self propelled, rapid fire behemoths coming from the Netherlands. “Heaviest in the world”. Germany is providing the shells and training for the Ukrainians. Video: https://youtu.be/Sxf8yOHWj1U
Typically the artillery strike videos are edited. You can usually look around and see lots of misses in the same area. Not an expert, but unguided artillery either has to be “walked in” using a spotter or else pre-targeted with a few shots for decent first shot accuracy. Wind and environmental conditions make a big difference when you are firing things 10 miles. Certainly drones that can’t be effectively targeted by air defense because they are too small have changed the game, I’d expect that to change pretty rapidly with the survivability of small drones dropping quick. Electronic jamming of drones may be the easiest for now.
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Also the missile or artillery strike videos on tanks that end right after the hit probably mean the tank survived and just kept going. They can survive a lot of abuse and you would really want to see if the tank was at least disabled by viewing an additional minute or so. Secondary explosions or an enduring fire are meaningful.
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The media also has a rather inept habit of calling just about any armored vehicle a “tank”. APC’s (armored personnel carriers), self propelled artillery and other armor are not as survivable. There is an entire range here and the Russians have craploads of old stuff that might as well be cannon fodder to modern heavy weapons, but Ukraine’s is even less numerous and just as old.
There was an article in the WSJ the other day about how tariffs could affect building solar and wind. There’s an investigation going on to see whether tariffs on Chinese solar panels are being avoided by transshipping through another country. They talked about a US project that included batteries and, as usual, only referred to power.
I wrote to the author complaining about that and she actually replied. I don’t know if she will change her habits, but she did say that the storage was four hours, which is information I don’t remember ever seeing in a newspaper article.
Russell, the site is very pro Ukraine.
Several points to support this.
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Russian losses listed in their reports are speculative based on Ukraine command reports. NO speculative review of Ukraine’s losses is attempted. This is a MAJOR issue. How can one write unbiased reports on the prosecution of the war without addressing losses on both sides? In answer, you can’t.
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Many reports based solely on Ukraine command statements with little, or no, verification. Most reports by “pro Russian” sources labeled as “unverified”.
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Their statements below are solely one sided in favor of Ukraine and no acknowledgement of documented Ukraine war crimes.
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“.. We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because those activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We will continue to evaluate and report on the effects of these criminal activities on the Ukrainian military and population and specifically on combat in Ukrainian urban areas. We utterly condemn these Russian violations of the laws of armed conflict, Geneva Conventions, and humanity even though we do not describe them in these report….”
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I could continue, but see no need. The site is useful, but one needs to read between the lines of their reports and compare with other reports that are not Ukraine command mouthpieces.
Russell, another take on the Ukraine propaganda. Site is a bit over the top for my taste, but his points below are valid.
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https://stephenlendman.org/2022/05/01/kernels-of-msm-truth-amid-russia-bashing-propaganda-rubbish/
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“… Yet on Sunday amid its customary daily blitzkrieg of Russia-bashing fake news, the WSJ admitted that Ukrainian forces are hampered by “fuel shortages…following Russian missile strikes on oil refineries and storage depots in the country.”
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The Journal quoted puppet Zelensky saying that Russia “destroy(ed)…fuel” storage facilities in the country and controls Ukrainian offshore waters.
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The Journal omitted explaining that Russian strikes destroyed Ukrainian power generating substations, bridges and rail lines that prevent its trains from operating.
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So they’re unable to resupply Ukrainian forces with weapons, munitions, equipment and everything else its military needs to operate…”
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FOX on Ukraine railroads
https://www.foxnews.com/world/russia-unleashes-attacks-on-ukraine-railways-victims-reported
If Ukraine was “kicking Russia’s butt” then all the Russians would be in Russia.
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The only people who know the Russian equipment and casualty numbers are Russia. It might be possible the UK numbers are real and they have gotten them through secret spy means, but to me these numbers are speculation bordering on propaganda. They are assertions with no work shown. They are almost taunting Russia to force Russia to divulge new numbers.
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What is certainly known is things aren’t going as planned for Russia and the longer this war continues in high intensity mode a lot of people on both sides are going to die. There is little reason to believe Ukraine isn’t suffering at least as high of casualty numbers as Russia. Ukraine is on defense which helps but Russia has superior equipment. This doesn’t mean Russia won’t achieve their goals eventually.
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It’s my opinion that Russia has really damaged themselves geopolitically with this war, and that damage will be long lasting regardless of whether they capture eastern Ukraine. This won’t be forgotten like last week’s Twitter spat. Example: Finland / Sweden joining NATO and long term energy embargoes.
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Russia’s military also looks less menacing and they will have to admit that to themselves. They lost Cold War 1 by bankrupting themselves trying to keep up technologically against a vastly superior economy and so I’d expect them to try plan B this time, whatever that is.
Tom Scharf,
“It’s my opinion that Russia has really damaged themselves geopolitically with this war, and that damage will be long lasting regardless of whether they capture eastern Ukraine. ”
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Sure. Putin completely misread both Ukrainian resolve and the level of Western support for Ukraine. That was in part due to the half-hearted, mealy-mouthed support the Ukraine got from the west following the the takeover of Crimea and effective control of the Donbas region in 2014. That smartest-man-in-the-room Barack Obama simply refused to supply the Ukrainians with weapons, and crazy Joe Biden’s talk of “small invasion” was an invitation for Putin to move in. The result of the war will likely be that Russia gains control of eastern territory in the Ukraine, but at the cost of adding new NATO countries directly on its borders…. which Putin always claimed he wanted to stop in the Ukraine.
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Unfortunately, nothing more than an informal cease-fire, followed by Russian occupation of the captured eastern regions, seems likely at this point; hard to see a path to a negotiated settlement.
UK ( = Ukraine) estimated of Russian losses are absolutely likely to be overestimates. https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/ methodology means that almost certainly an underestimate (note that this OSINT site tracks Ukrainian and Russian losses). Truth somewhere between.
The Supreme Court is under attack. Hopefully, they will find the leaker and destroy that person’s career. But will the Democrats accept such a result? Or will they go along with what the left is likely to do: Lionize the leaker and try to burn the court down?
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This could be the beginning of a real insurrection. It is an attempt to destroy the Supreme Court on the way to destroying the rule of law.
Russian main worry is a NATO Invasion of Russia as they consider how NATO invaded Serbia and others, not Russia invading NATO. Those who believe that NATO is only a “defensive “ organization are naive.
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The addition of Finland to NATO doesn’t add that much considering the defensive natural terrain of their border with Russia. Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are more of a issue for Russia as they are directly linked to Poland, but terrain also makes these a weak invasion start point for NATO into Russia. Ukraine in NATO is a dagger pointed directly at Moscow over an easy, and historical, invasIon route.
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If Ukraine doesn’t come to its senses and negotiate a settlement Russia can live with, Russia may decide continue to expand the conflict to take the new border to the entire length of Dnipr River through Ukraine for a more defensible border in addition to a corridor to Odesa.
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At this point, a western border line on the river Vorskla that flows through Poltava, that’s a tributary of the Dnipr, and a land corridor to Odesa, is probably a minimum on Russian expansion into Ukraine.
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With Biden making noise on regime change and stating a policy of greatly weakening Russia, Russia will see no reason not to continue until strong defendable borders are obtained.
MikeM, the leaker is probably Sonia Sotomayor.
No, the leaker is most likely a clerk. But one of Sotomayor’s clerks would be a good guess.
“They talked about a US project that included batteries and, as usual, only referred to power.”
There was a person who has commented here many times. I thought this person was pretty intelligent, but then I saw a blog post they put up that confused power and energy, and even after the error was pointed out, kept insisting he was right.
At one point, I pointed to a Financial Times article that said a tesla would need the same energy as 4000 homes to recharge, stating they would issue a correction much more readily than the obstinate blogger.
The Russian ground offensive is stalling. Whether this is a temporary lull or signifies a change I don’t know. I have no references to back this up. It’s my own musing.
Today’s analysis from the UK MOD:
“Russia’s defence budget approximately doubled between 2005 and 2018, with investment in several high-end air, land and sea capabilities. From 2008 this underpinned the expansive military modernisation programme New Look.
However, the modernisation of its physical equipment has not enabled Russia to dominate Ukraine. Failures both in strategic planning and operational execution have left it unable to translate numerical strength into decisive advantage.
Russia’s military is now significantly weaker, both materially and conceptually, as a result of its invasion of Ukraine. Recovery from this will be exacerbated by sanctions. This will have a lasting impact on Russia’s ability to deploy conventional military force.”
If you think my comment #211708 was an over reaction, it took only a couple hours after publication for demonstrators to show up outside the supreme court,complete with printed signs. And here are a couple tweets from Vox correspondent Ian Millhiser:
So… Is calling for the SC to be burnt down insurrection? Or is this just robust political discourse? I suspect hypocrisy is about to go where no hypocrisy has gone before.
As always, the left has zero interest in and zero respect for institutions, laws, traditions, and in this case, their own sworn affidavit to not release internal court documents. These are people who must not hold political power. For them, the end justifies the means; they are profoundly corrupt and can never be trusted.
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I agree it was probably Sotomayor and/or one of her clerks. She stated clearly during oral arguments that the court would not survive “the stench” of reversing Roe. Looks like she is doing her level best to damage the court. If she is proven to be the leaker, she will be impeached, but I doubt the leftists in the Senate will ever vote to remove her from the court.
Ed,
Spare me. Russia’s nuclear deterrent is more than sufficient to keep NATO from invading, as they and everybody else knows perfectly well.
Well, this may help the Dems some in the midterms.
Mark–
Yes. It can mobilize them.
mark,
If you mean the SCOTUS decision, I doubt it will make much difference. We don’t even know what the final decision will be. But even if it is a full overturn of Roe, it won’t actually change anything, except in some solid red states that enact tough anti-abortion laws. Once people realize that repealing Roe does not ban abortion, it will mostly be a big nothing burger.
Mike,
It gives the left something else to talk to voters about in the face of inflation, high gas prices, and legislative failure. I’m sure they’ll gladly run with that ball.
Whether or not it makes much difference in the end, that’s an open question. We’ll see!
Ian Millhiser’s insurrectionist tweets are far from alone on the left. They are not even the most extreme:
https://thefederalist.com/2022/05/03/lets-burn-this-place-down-left-calls-for-violence-after-treasonous-scotus-abortion-leak/
If such statements become the message people hear, then the result will be to hurt the Dems in November.
There is a certain portion of Democrats who are pro-life, particularly in the Midwest, and for some this is their primary issue. Over the decades many of them have switched to Republican and are among the 25-40% of Republicans who label themselves liberal or moderate.
This will mobilize Democrats, but will also give an additional boost to Republicans in some places.
Also, young voters have become more pro-life than older generations. This used to be the reverse.
What I think would really be fun is if it could be demonstrated that Politico coordinated with the Biden administration on this.
RedState has a story on this, it wasn’t my idea. Apparently it was Senator Josh Hawley’s though.
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No popcorn for me yet, but I’ll keep a few microwavable bags handy.
I see the media’s situational ethics on “hacked or stolen materials” was on display again today, ha ha. Clearly this has all the hallmarks of the Russians? Haven’t experts who present no evidence concluded this already.
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The leak itself isn’t that eventful in the grand scheme because the ruling would have caused a likely larger nuclear response. The intent of the leak is a little unclear. I can only guess that it is to put public pressure on the court to change the outcome but that seems very unlikely.
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Politically this will be no help for the Republicans, personally I’d prefer it to stay the way it was. The left will overplay their cards here no doubt.
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It will also politicize the court further even though I really am not informed on the legal arguments here. How gay marriage or abortion are constitutional instead of state matters is very gray. The only silver lining is a lot of people who think overturning Roe would “outlaw abortion” instead of delegating the power to the states will now be better informed.
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If this draft doesn’t reflect the final ruling then it will be yet another black eye for the media. Perhaps the Ministry of Truth can enlighten us.
Ed,
NATO preemptively invading Russia is psychotic. What? Are we short on chess sets and vodka? Serbia is still a country, unlike the naked intent of Russia to * continue * to grab land from their neighbors and swallow it. It’s one thing to try to see things from Russia’s paranoid view, it’s another to ignore reality on the ground. “I’m invading my neighbors now because I didn’t take my medications and I think you might invade me later” isn’t a compelling argument.
Polls generally show about 70% opposed to overturning Roe and about 50-50 for bans on abortion, so about 20% do not understand Roe.
A Gallup poll around ten years ago had bans on abortion are opposed 60% for first trimester but support drops for 2nd and 3rd trimester abortions to 30% and 15%.
John Roberts is trying to uphold Roe and the Mississippi law which bans abortions at 15 weeks.
This would require overturning Doe v Bolton which was issued shortly after Roe, an opinion that got rid of Roe’s trimester regime.
Tom,
I know, right? All those NATO leaders sitting around, thinking about how they’d like more territory, saying ‘Hey! I got a great idea! Let’s go attack the scrawny frozen bear, the one that has massive thermonuclear claws!’
Not.
Mark wrote: “It gives the left something else to talk to voters about in the face of inflation, high gas prices, and legislative failure.”
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Sure, but that’s not necessarily a plus for them considering the rhetoric has moved a lot from pro-choice to pro-abortion, and “safe, legal, and rare” to post-term birth control. Not a good look to the average person.
~shrug~
All I’m saying is, were I a Democrat politician, I’d be a lot happier talking about the opposition overturning established abortion rights than I would be talking about how much gas and groceries cost. I’m not saying it works, I’m not saying they win, I’m not saying it turns the tide. I’m just saying, it gives them something to use.
We’ll see how it plays out.
MikeN wrote: “A Gallup poll around ten years ago had bans on abortion are opposed 60% for first trimester but support drops for 2nd and 3rd trimester abortions to 30% and 15%.”
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This. The fanatics on the left are far too detached from reality to stick to what has popular support. They’re going to double down like they always do.
MikeN,
I think Roberts is, in his usual mealy-mouth way, trying to not make waves and adopt some sort of middle ground compromise. Which I have to admit strikes me as beyond weird… either the constitution prohibits legal restrictions on abortion or it doesn’t.
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I think his chance of flipping one of the 5 who apparently supported overturning Roe was low, and now probably lower still, since the leak of Alito’s draft opinion is sure to piss off the 5… and Robert as well.
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I will not be at all surprised if many Democrat politicians received copies of Alito’s draft well before Politico published it, and some politician likely handed it to politico, rather than risk having the leaker at the SC be identified by directly giving it to Politico. Maybe it was leaked via Perkins Coie. 😉
I dunno mark. It seems to me that the Democrats talking about something other than what the voters care about would be good news for the Republicans.
(holds his breath and counts to ten.)
…
(takes another breath and counts to twenty.)
…
Assume my response to all further comments directed towards me regarding SC leak is already stated here in comment 211731. I will post a new comment if I have anything to add to my response.
Thank you. :/
Mike M,
I think the rational on the left is not hard to understand. The midterms look like a wipe-out for them. There is a large (and well documented) difference in enthusiasm among conservatives versus liberals. Which is no surprise; every foolish liberal policy is causing problems for the country, and nobody is as enthused when the policies they supported turn out to be stupid and damaging. I see the leak of Alito’s draft opinion as more an effort to raise enthusiasm among those on the left than to change the subject.
SteveF (Comment #211736): “I see the leak of Alito’s draft opinion as more an effort to raise enthusiasm among those on the left than to change the subject.”
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Highly plausible.
Highly implausible. The opinion, which might not be this opinion, would have come out in June or July. Better for Democrats to have it closer to the election.
The reason for the leak is either an attempt to intimidate someone to change their vote, or an attempt to lock in five votes, and keep someone from being tempted by John Roberts’s compromise attempts.
Anthony Kennedy voted to overturn Roe, but Souter managed to get him to switch before the opinions were published. Close reading of Casey dissent reveals it was intended to be the majority opinion.
MikeN,
“The reason for the leak is either an attempt to intimidate someone to change their vote, or an attempt to lock in five votes, and keep someone from being tempted by John Roberts’s compromise attempts.”
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Donno. There are multiple plausible explanations, but I think a leak from someone on the right is implausible. Another potential motivation is what we have already seen play out: calls by those on the left to extreme left (Bernie Sanders, Occasional-Cortex, and many, many others) to immediately eliminate the filibuster and enact legislation in Congress guaranteeing nationwide access to abortion along the lines of Casey, 51 votes to 50. Eliminating the Senate filibuster…. just this once, of course…. doesn’t seem to me likely to happen with several very nervous Democrat senators facing competitive midterm elections, and an electorate unlikely to be thrilled by further destruction of multi-century governmental norms by the radical left. But it is exactly the kind of ‘hail Mary’ tactic those on the extreme left would try when facing a clear political defeat.
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We may never know who leaked the Alito draft, but if we ever do, I would wager 10 to 1 that it was either Sotomayor (more likely) or one of her clerks (less likely). She is a truly dumb, bomb-throwing, destructive lefty radical who, IMHO, should never have been nominated to the court.
The requested $33B for supporting Ukraine looks to have the normal amount of bribery and kickback included.
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https://en-volve.com/2022/05/03/fine-print-reveals-33-billion-ukraine-relief-fund-is-nothing-more-than-democrat-kickback-and-bribery-scheme-disguised-as-foreign-aid/
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“… Some of the spending includes an allocation of funds to the State Dept including funds to USAID to “provide $8.8 billion to the Department of State for economic support and assistance to the people of Ukraine and other affected countries, including direct budgetary support, as well as support for food security, democracy, anticorruption, cybersecurity, counter-disinformation, human rights, atrocity documentation, energy, and emergency infrastructure needs.” {pdf page 41} The request specifically authorizes the transfer of these funds globally, outside of Ukraine…”
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I find this one amusing
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“… an international version of current DOJ civil asset forfeiture. The United States government (DOJ, Dept of Treasury and Dept of State) takes ownership of any targeted Russian asset, sells the asset (to whoever they choose, including personal family members) then take the proceeds and distributes them to whoever they choose in the U.S. or Ukraine government.
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Example: Confiscate a $200 million oligarch yacht, sell it to Hunter Biden (or Black Rock / Vanguard) for $50,000, give the $50k to Zelenskyy and then have Black Rock / Vanguard deposit $10 million in James Biden or DNC bank account. {Page 52}..”
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Creation of new 50 U.S.C. § 4905
The proposal would enact a law to be codified as 50 U.S.C. § 4905, authorizing the Secretary to liquidate any forfeited property under this chapter. The Secretary of State would be authorized to direct any net proceeds for remediation of the harms to Ukraine, as the Secretary of State, with the concurrence of the Secretary and the Attorney General, deems appropriate.
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Much more that are a supercharged RICO.
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Looks like we’re going back to issuing Letters of Marque
They were going to rule on this in June I think, so the leak itself doesn’t really affect the elections one way or the other. If anything the leak gives it more time to die down. So the only reason I can think for the leak is an attempt to change the outcome or possibly just an emotional impulse by a partisan. The leaker wants to get demonstrations out front of the SC, etc. The legacy media will willingly comply with effusive coverage of the performative handmaidens. I think there will be little discussion of the actual legal matters.
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Obviously if any of the justices was involved it would be clear grounds for impeachment or whatever they use for removal.
I confused two things above. The purpose of the leak is surely an attempt to intimidate the court. The left’s reaction to the decision will be to try to gin up enthusiasm among their voters in November.
MikeM,
I don’t think the leak per se will affect voter outcome provided the document is real. The official ruling was/is coming before the election. Those who don’t like the ruling and who find this a reason to vote would do so anyway.
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I’m just waiting to see if the find the leaker. Then we’ll know the motive. It’s hard to believe anyone thought this would put pressure on any of the five justices already on record for voting for this to change their minds. Roberts supposedly hadn’t decided either way. So it’s either going to be 6-3 or 5-4. Supposedly.
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We’ll see.
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Abortion rights isn’t a biggie for me either way. I prefer abortion to be legal. I think it will stay that way in most states.
I think the polar sea ice may be showing the beginning of the reversal of the phase of the AMOC. Antarctic sea ice, which had been increasing, is now decreasing. Arctic sea ice, which had been decreasing rapidly, at least at the minimum has somewhat flattened. Global sea ice seems to be declining at the same low rate. It hasn’t shown up in the AMOC index yet, though.
Of all issues, gun rights and abortion are probably the things that are most prevalent for “single issue voters”.
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If this was a political vote by a Republican congress and President to ban abortion then it would likely hurt them much more. It’s a legal ruling so it might hurt less, but partisans will connect the dots between SC appointments and party. Republicans have always taken the court more seriously and I guess it is paying off now for pro-lifers.
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The law is not a popularity contest and Congress can legalize abortion nationally, so it will help get pro-choice people to the voting booth I imagine. The left will make this a wedge issue and force all Republicans to take a stance on making it the law. Whether it will will makeup for inflation, et. al. is doubtful, but it will make a dent I think.
Tom,
Yes. The ruling will make both pro-choice and pro-life people realize the importance of who is on the Supreme court.
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The leak does give Democrats more time to introduce legislation relative to what they would have had if the result was announced during summer. But they still have to do it. Then they should want to pass one that will hold up in courts. Is abortion interstate commerce? I’m sure someone will try to argue it is. But it might not be commerce. I’m not sure if Congress has the power to insist they have the power to make it legal in all the states.
They might need to be clever and figure out how to use the power of the purse. But in those cases, there is always a way for the State to avoid getting entangled by refusing money. And with inflation at the door, Congress might need to really think about flinging around money. If they need to entangle in in some fancy program I’m sure Republicans will find a way to object to other aspects of the program.
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No matter what: It’s hard to make up for inflation.
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I’m not making major predictions on the effect on the election. Predicting is hard.
After the abortion law in Texas was passed, it was the major talking point for Democrats alongside Glenn Youngkin supporting the Big Lie.
They had video of Youngkin promising pro-lifers he would backtrack on his abortion moderation once elected.
Will Chamberlain has a Twitter thread accusing Elizabeth Deutsch of being the leaker. She is a clerk for Breyer, has a history of writing about abortion, and her husband worked for Politico sharing a byline with the reporter who broke the story.
Mike N,
Motivation? Check.
Opportunity? Check.
Extremely strident/unhinged about abortion? Check.
Stupid and dishonest enough to do it? Impossible to say.
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She signed a non-disclosure agreement about internal SC information. If it was her, she will never practice law again. Which may be OK with her, since it looks like most all she has practiced is abortion law, a field that may be less relevant than in the past 49 years.
The choice of abortion should be a personal choice, is a personal choice, where no one really wins.
Damned if one does and damned if one doesn’t.
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The Supreme Court is not banning abortion, just saying it is not a matter the court should be ruling on.
The Democracies at work in America let political and religious views decide on the State’s approach which can run counter to personal choice.
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The availability of the pill and of pills to induce abortion mean that the number of women forced to make a choice by failure to take adequate contraceptive measures or failure of said measures is much, much less than 40 years ago and so less of an issue than it was then.
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The main hurt of the repeal is in the shaming aspect that the moralists who insist on banning abortion create in the unfortunate women and girls who fall pregnant.
No answers.
I hope most of the states do take a lenient approach that allows at least first trimester solutions and that everyone lives in a state next to a state that has lenient laws.
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I keep hoping someone can repair Hunter’s other damaged laptops but they probably went to the tip.
Angech,
There is already broad consensus in the USA (>60%) to allow first trimester abortions. There is much less support (~35%) for allowing second trimester abortions, and little support (~20%) for later term abortions. But abortion is so emotional an issue for the most strident on both sides that consensus laws will be difficult (or even impossible) to enact in many states. As Tom Scharf noted up-thread, abortion is one of the very few issues which generates ‘single issue’ voters….. people for whom all other issues become irrelevant in choosing for whom they vote. That makes consensus legislation difficult to enact…. few politicians will support consensus legislation if it means they automatically lose 20% of their voters. Let’s face reality: most politicians are far from heroic, and a lot closer the opposite.
It’s carnage in East Ukraine. Another day and night of drone directed artillery attacks against Russian army positions. These videos could all be fakes, but I don’t think so. A few of today’s examples:
https://twitter.com/Arslon_Xudosi/status/1521607988414406658?s=20&t=rVIck99unXDiAHhmitfLlg
https://twitter.com/TheDeadDistrict/status/1521751506562822144?s=20&t=rVIck99unXDiAHhmitfLlg
https://twitter.com/TheDeadDistrict/status/1521731506699485186?s=20&t=rVIck99unXDiAHhmitfLlg
https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1521683287885987842?s=20&t=rVIck99unXDiAHhmitfLlg
Russell Klier,
In the first twitter link, the “before” photo is photo-shopped, per https://twitter.com/Tapiozona/status/1521739577630806016
(While I am untrained in such techniques, it sure appears to me that an area in the upper left is identical to one in the upper right.)
HaroldW
Yes I saw that question about doctoring the before pic. If you read on, that may be from removal of coordinates and other technical screen data. Nevertheless, the videos of the explosions and fires sure look real.
No doubt, the Ukrainians are inflicting considerable damage on the Russians.
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No doubt, the Russians are inflicting considerable damage on the Ukrainians.
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There is no easy way to tell which side might be getting the worst of it.
Russell,
Photoshop can look very real. I have no idea whether they are truly authentic, altered versions of the truth or totally made up. I think that’s generally true of any absolutely new-news during a war.
That particular video looks a bit suspect as possibly being pretty old. The video quality is far below typical phone/drone quality, closer to VHS, and it looks like it was taken by a Cessna type of spotter plane which would have low survivability against today’s shoulder launched anti-air missiles which Russia has plenty of.
WashPost has a rather amusing take on the abortion leak, headline:
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In draft opinion on abortion, Democrats see a court at odds with democracy
The critique follows decades in which Republicans demanded that “unelected judges” stop blocking the public will.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/04/draft-abortion-ruling-democrats-see-court-odds-with-democracy/
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The reality of the situation is the court is * taking this power away from the courts * and giving it back to the states where “democracy” can decide. There is no argument here that this is at odds with democracy. I guess if all you have is a hammer …
See Glenn Greenwald:
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-irrational-misguided-discourse
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One could say that this issue should be decided nationally by the majority and not by the local state majorities, but one needs to actually make that argument legally and morally. The DC crowd of course thinks everything should be decided by the enlightened inside the beltway, that’s their view of democracy.
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I’d expect we will see a bunch of voter referendums on this issue to update state constitutions one way or the other.
US troops participate in Finnish war games:
“Finland Holds War Drill Alongside U.S. Soldiers Ahead of NATO Application
More than 3,000 Finnish troops are taking part in the two-week exercise alongside hundreds of American, British, Estonian and Latvian soldiers
The Nordic country has for decades single-handedly protected an 800-mile border with Russia—longer than NATO’s existing border with the country. “
https://www.wsj.com/articles/finland-holds-war-drill-alongside-u-s-soldiers-ahead-of-nato-application-11651678865?st=i3dlym78jrgamwg&reflink=share_mobilewebshare
UK Defense Minister attends:
“Defence Secretary @BWallaceMP travelled to Niinisalo, Finland today to meet with UK personnel, training alongside Finnish, US, Latvian & Estonian forces in Exercise Arrow”
https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1521876669438599168?s=20&t=sdx3Yu2gZtkQakFPqjLdig
The SC leaker will likely get rewarded for their heroic efforts if current behavior continues. They will be called a “whistleblower” and all the usual suspects will lionize the individual. A book deal, speaking engagements. There really isn’t much downside and I suspect they will not keep it a secret. I don’t think this is criminal in any way. Coming out of Breyer’s office makes the most sense.
The WSJ covers what some of the Russians are thinking. Very interesting and mostly a separate universe.
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As Coffins Come Home, Russians Confront Toll of Ukraine Invasion
Relatives of soldiers killed say they were defending both countries from fascists
https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-coffins-come-home-russians-confront-toll-of-ukraine-invasion-11651668169?st=8if31gk7qtsaugg&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Tom Scharf,
It could be made criminal if each potential leaker is first officially questioned by a federal agent and asked directly if they were the leaker. A denial on the record, followed by proof of leaking, would then be a Federal felony.
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I don’t know if we will ever know the identity of the leaker, but I am betting they will do their best to keep their identity secret.
Tom
If the Dems in Congress pass a law legalizing it across the whole country and then lose the majority, the law will the undone as soon as new Congress critters are sworn in. State by state decisions will tend to be more stable, though it will mean you can get an abortion in IL and NY but probably not TX.
I’m not particularly pro-life, but I tend to vote pro-life as my #1 issue. While I know many personally, very rare are the pro-choice politicians who I find reliable on other issues. That I can think of are Weld, Giuliani, and Pete Wilson in California supported the referendum banning affirmative action.
MikeN,
A candidate being pro-life tends to sway me against them. I also generally disagree with 1/2 their positions (the cultural ones). I lean libertarian and wanting abortion being outlawed correlates with someone wanting to control people’s personal lives. So I”m usually against them.
Yes, the Ruskies are losing [again]. Even the ‘not-so far-out’ sources are now saying it.
From the UK Ministry of Defence:
“As Russian operations have faltered, non-military targets including schools, hospitals, residential properties and transport hubs have continued to be hit, indicating Russia’s willingness to target civilian infrastructure in an attempt to weaken Ukrainian resolve.” https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1521921720839548929?s=20&t=2iqjjIb9XkPVEgTMEdIMMg
From the ISW:
“Russian and Ukrainian sources confirmed that a Ukrainian counteroffensive pushed Russian troops back 40 kilometers from Kharkiv City.”
“Ukrainian defenses have largely stalled Russian advances in Eastern Ukraine. Russian troops conducted a number of unsuccessful attacks in Eastern Ukraine on May 4 and were unable to make any confirmed advances. Russian forces attacking south of Izyum appear increasingly unlikely to successfully encircle Ukrainian forces in the Rubizhne area. Ukrainian forces have so far prevented Russian forces from merging their offensives to the southeast of Izyum and the west of Lyman, Slovyansk, and Kramatorsk, as Russian forces likely intended.”
“Russian forces conducted a number of unsuccessful counteroffensives on the southern axis.”
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-4
Twitter cuts through the fog of war… Another site analyzing the war. I haven’t given them the “Seal of Approval” yet, but it’s looking like they are on target:
Nathan Ruser @Nrg8000
“Putin’s War – The Ukraine Briefing on May 5th THREAD Today Ukraine announced that it was launching the 2nd, offensive phase of its war with Russia, after claiming Russian forces have ‘stalled’ in their own offensive moves. Let’s look at both parts of this statement.” [Long discussion follows] https://twitter.com/Nrg8000/status/1522202434692870144?s=20&t=dftSYJMYSYRahY090MgqeA
Russell.
The UK government is aligned with Ukraine. I would not give much credence to their claims as to the intent or motivations of Russia.
OTOH, ISW seems to be sticking to a just-the-facts analysis. It does seem that Russia continues to be stalled on the battlefield. It remains to be seen if the Ukrainians can turn the tables.
——-
BTW, do you know what ISW was saying early on? Did they buy in to the Ukraine-is-doomed conventional wisdom?
Mike M. (Comment #211769)
“BTW, do you know what ISW was saying early on? Did they buy in to the Ukraine-is-doomed conventional wisdom?”
No Mike, I do not know I was not following them early on.
Speaking of “Ukraine is Doomed” the on battlefield numbers tally still heavily favors Russia. I’m not sure of the accuracy of this map but it is in line with my thinking:
https://twitter.com/HN_Schlottman/status/1521529499296350209?s=20&t=Ih8D1IuEDsTDdo_peCmsHw
BTW, I found this new site that seems to be in the same vein as ISW, but I’m not sure yet:
https://twitter.com/Nrg8000/status/1522202434692870144?s=20&t=Ih8D1IuEDsTDdo_peCmsHw
Mike M. ISW was on the Ukraine is Doomed bandwagon early on:
“February 24, 3:00 pm EST
Russian President Vladimir Putin began a large-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24 likely aimed at full regime change and the occupation of Ukraine. His claimed objective to “demilitarize” and “de-nazify” Ukraine is a transparent cover for an unprovoked war of aggression to occupy a neighboring state. Putin and Kremlin media continue to deny that the Russian invasion is a war, instead describing it as a special military operation. Putin’s messaging is likely aimed at a domestic Russian audience, which the Kremlin has not fully prepared for the costs of a war against Ukraine. Russian officials and state media have been denying and mocking Western warnings of the impending Russian invasion for months and as recently as February 23. Russian forces remain much larger and more capable than Ukraine’s conventional military. Russia will likely defeat Ukrainian regular military forces and secure their territorial objectives at some point in the coming days or weeks if Putin is determined to do so and willing to pay the cost in blood and treasure.”
Archive here:
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates
The not so elegant art of of lying without lying. CDC:
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MYTH: The natural immunity I get from being sick with COVID-19 is better than the immunity I get from COVID-19 vaccination.
FACT: Getting a COVID-19 vaccination is a safer and more dependable way to build immunity to COVID-19 than getting sick with COVID-19.
Getting a COVID-19 vaccination is a safer and more dependable way to build immunity to COVID-19 than getting sick with COVID-19.
COVID-19 vaccination causes a more predictable immune response than infection with the virus that causes COVID-19. Getting a COVID-19 vaccine gives most people a high level of protection against COVID-19 and can provide added protection for people who already had COVID-19. One study showed that, for people who already had COVID-19, those who do not get vaccinated after their recovery are more than 2 times as likely to get COVID-19 again than those who get fully vaccinated after their recovery.
All COVID-19 vaccines currently available in the United States are effective at preventing COVID-19. Getting sick with COVID-19 can offer some protection from future illness, sometimes called “natural immunity,” but the level of protection people get from having COVID-19 may vary depending on how mild or severe their illness was, the time since their infection, and their age.
Getting a COVID-19 vaccination is also a safer way to build protection than getting sick with COVID-19. COVID-19 vaccination helps protect you by creating an antibody response without you having to experience sickness. Getting vaccinated yourself may also protect people around you, particularly people at increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19. Getting sick with COVID-19 can cause severe illness or death, and we can’t reliably predict who will have mild or severe illness. If you get sick, you can spread COVID-19 to others. You can also continue to have long-term health issues after COVID-19 infection.
The CDC completely ignores the “already infected vs vaccinated” question above and jumps to “infected + vaccinated” vs “infected”. This is the standard hand wave diversion now. Absence of evidence means one thing for infections and the opposite for vaccines. It’s just transparently a group enforced narrative.
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More of the same, people are still getting booted from Facebook for questioning the narrative.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/apr/08/facebook-posts/fauci-not-discounting-natural-immunity-covid-19/
Rand Paul vs The Minster of Truth. See the video. Hilarious.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/rand-paul-grills-mayorkas-disinformation-board
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The smirk on Mayorkas’s face says it all. Paul did what I was pondering, ask him for a ruling now on the Trump dossier.
Lucia, I argued with a friend in college with similar views that they should vote pro-life as their number 1 position despite being pro-choice. He was a libertarian and supporting Arlen Specter for president primarily because Specter was pro-choice, claiming to be fiscally conservative. If the politicians who were pro-choice were more like Rand Paul on other issues, I would be OK with them.
Pro-lifers take the attacks from the media and don’t just go along to get along, so I find them more reliable on other issues- not willing to surrender to get praise from the media. That said, my suspicion is most of the pro-life politicians are really pro-choice but just pretending for political reasons.
Russia is sending a lot of untrained troops, while Ukraine is killing off generals and other officers. Reported the main general was killed in the northern front along with the command headquarters, stalling any Russian moves there for at least a week.
Tom Scharf,
Of coures the CDC and everyone in the Biden administration will not address the fundamental question of strength of immunity from previous infection. Their ‘do exactly as I say’ politics is inconsistent with honest analysis. Since 60% of the population carries the immune signature of previous infection, this is no small matter. Thousands of previously infected people have lost their jobs refusing vaccination because the CDC and Biden administration refuse to address reality. These people are tantamount to criminals. It is time to dismantle the CDC and eliminate funding for most of Biden’s insane policies…. that only requires control of the House…. but I am betting Republicans will control the Senate as well.
The recent leaked Supreme Court document brings to my mind as it has evidently with other posters here what your personal politically philosophy or outcomes prefer, what the Constitution denies or permits and any novel interpretations might bear on the Courts decision.
Upfront I would have to state that I would prefer a constitution that very severely limits government and its permitted actions. Unfortunately, with almost all documents of this nature, limiting government, as can be seen with the history of the US Constitution, the original limiting power to, at least, the Federal government has slowly weakened over time. At the same time, we have constitutionally left some very invasive powers to the state and local governments that are controlled by their separate constitutions and bylaws. My political philosophy would have the same very severely restricted limits on all governments whether they be federal, state or local. Some of my libertarian colleagues see the competing nature of smaller bounded government jurisdictions as preferable over a larger jurisdiction like the US. I do not see it that way as some states and local jurisdictions have less government limitations for actions in some areas than even the modern-day federal government.
While I have not read the Alito draft, I have read reviews of it. One of several important points from the draft deals with the Court’s decisions to limit state governments intervention in other areas of privacy such as birth control and same sex and interracial marriage and how it is reasoned that does not contradict the position that the states can decide the control of the issue of abortion. There have been strict constructionist in the past who, though may have expressed disagreement with the states’ decisions in these privacy matters, they contended that the states had rights under the US Constitution to make those decisions. That would have covered the abortion issue also. Now we have the courts decisions on non-abortion issues, like those noted above, being favored currently by a very wide margin of the US population. One reviewer that I read in WSJ seemed make the distinction between abortion and the other issues a matter of popular acceptance with abortion remaining a divided issue. That does not appear to me how law should be interpreted and I do not know how Alito covered it.
While I agree with the strict constructionist that the way to deal with these matters is by way of amendments to the US Constitution, I am very much put off by these state laws that interfere with individual freedoms where matters are of mutual consent and are not coercing or even hurting others. Perhaps these matters could be resolved better by way of using the amendment process instead of waiting for accommodating justices to favorably interpret the Constitution or perhaps the Constitutional process is so damaged that in its current form it is beyond repair.
The very important difference in my mind between the abortion and non-abortion privacy issues would be the matter of viability and at what point in pregnancy is the fetus consider an individual to be protected with human rights. Viability was not handled very well in Rowe v Wade as I recall.
Kenneth,
Here’s a link to the WSJ editorial in reference to the leaked draft opinion:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-abortion-disinformation-campaign-roe-v-wade-samuel-alito-griswold-supreme-court-11651703428?st=xfi3tumghxowek1&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
We should go back to federalism on this issue. Let the states, or even local option decide where and when abortions can be performed.
By the way, the report that California had passed a new law that effectively allowed infanticide isn’t quite correct. The problem this was designed to correct, mothers being prosecuted for infant deaths over which they had no control, could more properly have been handled by either more intelligent judges throwing out obviously bad cases or getting more responsible prosecutors.
MikeN,
I see you say you argued with a college pro-choice friend he should vote for a pro-life candidate. Then I see a discussion of Arlan Spectre specifically. I’m not really seeing any argument for why someone who is pro-choice should generally vote for pro-life candidate. Perhaps you can state it more clearly? Because honestly, I generally despise strongly pro-life candidates and would really need to hear a good reason to vote for one. Those who don’t talk about it much I might tolerate.
The difference between abortion and say interracial or gay marriage is pretty clear. Acts between consenting adults for one and the aborted baby having a life/death decision made for the other. At what point an unborn child has what rights is mostly a very vaguely defined moral issue which science has very little to say. This issue is legitimately controversial and almost every honest person can see both sides of this issue. I don’t see any resolution to it because it hasn’t changed and is unlikely to change.
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I prefer the mother getting to make the decision in any state but recognize this is just as well reasoned as people saying the opposite.
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All that being said, I sure do not want to see people getting prosecuted for a standard abortion under any circumstance. If certain states deem they want to make it inconvenient then I can live with that.
The NYT says the US has been giving Ukraine specific intelligence on the locations of generals.
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U.S. Intelligence Is Helping Ukraine Kill Russian Generals, Officials Say
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/04/us/politics/russia-generals-killed-ukraine.html
“The United States has provided intelligence about Russian units that has allowed Ukrainians to target and kill many of the Russian generals who have died in action in the Ukraine war, according to senior American officials.
The United States has focused on providing the location and other details about the Russian military’s mobile headquarters, which relocate frequently. Ukrainian officials have combined that geographic information with their own intelligence — including intercepted communications that alert the Ukrainian military to the presence of senior Russian officers — to conduct artillery strikes and other attacks that have killed Russian officers.”
“The United States prohibits itself from providing intelligence about the most senior Russian leaders, officials said.”
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It’s a bit mysterious to me why the NYT would even print this story or why US “officials” would leak this information. This can easily lead to escalation. I guess they are playing head games with the Russians.
Why is the abortion discussion so binary? It appears to me that the only choices are whether any abortion is legal or illegal. Why is there no nuance to the discussion? 9 months of pregnancy should provide some time for nuance. is the day after pill a reprehensible idea? How about within hte first trimester? Rape? Mother’s health? As I understand it, most of the state laws do have some nuance but the national debate doesn’t appear to. Phrasing the debate as all or nothing would seem to be very divisive.
From Wikipedia:
Those statistics would indicate that 94.6% of abortions occurred before the 15th week and that 88.2% occurred before the 13th week. The latest poll I heard (but I admit I was not paying strict attention) on abortion was that the highly favored position in the US was for limiting it to 15 weeks or before. Would there be a major hue and cry if abortions were limited to 15 weeks or before? How late in the pregnancy would the howling crowd want to go and why if the mothers health was not a factor? Are there studies listing the reasons for later term abortions where the mother’s health is not a factor? I also heard that European countries limit abortion to early pregnancy.
Public “debate” is about scoring political points and nuance adds unnecessary complications to point scoring. Straw manning is the way to go.
Tom Scharf (Comment #211782)
May 5th, 2022 at 4:21 pm
The Ukraine war is looking more and more like a NATO proxy war. That is what the Russians are calling it, but so far have not gone beyond bluster. I wonder how their complaint fits by what they have done in Syria.
Putin looks quite a bit older in close up pictures and his face looks rounder. The war has to be taking a toll on Zelenskyy but he is much younger than Putin.
Lucia, it is generally the idea that a lot of Republicans cave under pressure from the media, or pressure to fit in at parties in DC.
The pro-lifers have faced these attacks and stuck to their beliefs so they can be expected to not cave on other issues. Now they might be more liberal on these other issues to begin with, like Bart Stupak.
At the time Arlen Specter was running as a fiscal conservative/ socially libertarian, but in reality he was fiscally liberal as well.
There just seems to be a disconnect between people I know and their views, and politicians who claim to hold the same views.
Christine Todd Whitman ran on a big tax cut, won and I think passed it, but was generally liberal after that. Giuliani was an exception, not particularly fiscally or socially conservative to begin with, but would generally not be swayed by media pressure.
Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe are two more who could be relied on to vote for big budgets. Then again all the Republicans seem to vote for big government now.
I don’t think Putin is going to like the US handing the general’s location info to Ukraine. Everyone knows we are helping Ukraine but this type of stuff should have never been revealed. It is shoving Putin’s face in it publicly, and Russia will repay this favor if not now by escalation on civilian areas, then later by doing the same thing to our next foreign adversary. Short sighted.
MikeN
Is this “generally” the idea? I’m not sure who has this idea. My impression is it’s the social conservatives who grumble they aren’t socially conservative enough. But since I don’t want them to stand up for that, and don’t vote for the ones who go on about it, any who give up on those views are politicians I’m mostly ignoring.
Also, I don’t think Reublican’s are any more prone to this than Dems.
Well, this sort of behavior would certainly suggest someone caves on their views due to pressure. So if my concern was that a politician caved under pressure and you are right that most pro-life politicians are really pro-choice, that would be a good reason to not vote for a politician who claims to be pro-life. And I would think it would be a good reason for both those who are pro-lif and pro-choice to not vote for a pro-life claiming politician. Being pro-choice, I don’t want a politician who is so lilly-livered about his views that he pretends to be pro-life and perhaps votes that way, thus enacting laws I disfavor. And if I was deluded enough to think they stood strong on other things they claim (and which I favor), I’d likely be setting myself up for a huge disappointment.
NBC: U.S. intel helped Ukraine sink Russian flagship Moskva, officials say
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-intel-helped-ukraine-sink-russian-flagship-moskva-officials-say-rcna27559
“Intelligence shared by the U.S. helped Ukraine sink the Russian cruiser Moskva, U.S. officials told NBC News, confirming an American role in perhaps the most embarrassing blow to Vladimir Putin’s troubled invasion of Ukraine.”
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Why are they releasing this stuff? This is not going to go over well.
RRR7236 UK military Boeing RC-135 A very sophisticated spy plane is right now flying on station in no man’s land over the Black Sea. https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=43c39c
NATO, the US and Sweden have had at least one spy plane on station 24 hours a day since the conflict began…. Often there are two or three. Associated with these are giant flying gas stations also flying on station. I assume there also have been fighter planes flying escorts, but they are in dark mode.
The Pentagon has repeatedly stated that they are not supplying real time targeting information, but I have never believed them. My gosh the greenhouse gas emissions alone would have got them canceled if they were not serving a crucial purpose.
Well we now know what that spy plane was doing over the Black Sea….
“It’s seeming more and more likely that the Claims about the Russian Frigate Admiral Makarov being stuck by Ukrainian Anti-Ship Missiles off the Coast of Odessa is True, multiple Rescue Ships and Aircraft are reportedly in the Area with U.S Surveillance Drones keeping eyes on it.”
https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1522509777053618176?s=21&t=QPpU9yVm3PkskDPkZPE08g
No official confirmation yet of the Frigate Makarov strike. It may be fake news.
I would not be terribly surprised if the US is providing real time targeting info to the Ukrainians. We are obviously providing info, the issue is whether it is real time info with the precision needed for targeting.
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I can see no good reason that the government would admit providing such info. It seems that the claims of that are anonymous leaks. I wonder if the leakers are trying to force escalation. Or if the leaks are made up in an attempt to force escalation. Disgraceful in either case.
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It seems that the source of the Moskva info claims that the positions were provided so the Ukrainians could know the location of possible threats. Our military was then surprised to find that the Ukrainians were able to actually sink a warship. That sounds credible. But it still does not explain the reason for the leak.
I don’t think ships are very hard to find with either space based optical, IR, or space based radar. Anybody can also get in a boat and wonder around the Black Sea. The main thing the Ukrainians need to know for sure is they aren’t shooting at a friendly vessel, especially on an over the horizon shot.
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Something triggered the release to the media of the US targeting data. It was coordinated between at least the NYT and NBC. This suggests the leak was intentional and OK’d. Perhaps the Russians had proof we were doing it and were going to expose it, or else Biden wants to be transparent in how the US is supporting Ukraine, or they are making the Russians second guess their every move.
‘Generally’ referred to my views.
Media is generally not pressuring Democrats to vote conservative, just sometimes more liberal.
Yes, there is no reason to vote for pro-choicers who are just pretending to be pro-life.
MIkeN,
And since I pro-choice I don’t see much reason to vote pro-lifers who are pro-life. I’m really seeing nothing in your argument that would make a pro-choice person want to vote for someone pro-life or at least not merely because they were pro-life.
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Everyone ignores their own positions on some topics because picking a candidate is usually a compromise. But if one is pro-choice, it stands to reason that all other things being equal, you lean toward a pro-choice candidate unless you think they are dishonest about that position.
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The life/choice issue is not an extremely important one for me. But I almost never find any strongly pro-life candidate attractive because (a) they already are strongly against my preference on that issue and (b) they are almost always against my preference on other social issues that are important to me.
After a pro-choicer is elected is a different matter and can be judged on their record, but my point is that the pro-choice Republican candidate I expect to be liberal on fiscal matters as well, regardless of their stated position. They will not be the 51st Senator on my side, instead will cave to media pressure. The pro-life candidates have already resisted media attacks, and this I think will be more reliable on other issues. So given two seemingly identical candidates except one is pro-life and the other is pro-choice, I would consider the pro-life candidate to be better on fiscal issues.
MikeN
The opposite is often true. I don’t see “pro-life” as suggesting ‘true fiscal conservative’.
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As opposed to the pro-life one who will cave into Trump-pressure. I’m really not seeing this stupendous amount of backbone you believe pro-lifer’s have.
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And that’s fine. You get to have your interpretation. But you started by telling me you advanced this argument to your pro-life friend. It’s a very, very weak argument.
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Honestly, the argument is so weak it sounds like something concocted by someone who wants to claim they are “not particularly pro-life” and then come up with some explanation why the topic is their #1 issue. I’m not going to tell you your true positions. But I suspect you are more pro-life than you want to admit to yourself or others. Otherwise, you’d know your argument for why people who are pro-choice should vote for pro-life candidates is rather hopeless.
I did a little searching on the question I posed in a previous post about reasons for late term abortion and I came across the study linked below and titled “Late-Term Abortion and Medical Necessity: A Failure of Science”.
From the paper I get the idea that the science in this matter is mainly missing. Abortion statistics are apparently not well kept or organized. The definitions for acceptance and the acceptance of reasons for late term abortions are vague and probably subjectively interpreted. I concluded from the paper that reasons for late term abortions are probably not that much different than those for earlier term abortions and most are not a medical necessity under the terms used for describing a medical necessity.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6457018/
I assume that politicians are seldom principled on most topics and either play to their constituents or party and can change their position on a dime if election requires it and then ignoring their previous position or just outright lying about it. Most politicians are best as useful idiots as we have seen more clearly with the latest two Presidents with one for the more conservative and the other for the progressives.
Tom, I would also consider it possible that Pentagon intelligence releases may be deliberating overstating what they know (easy to claim after the fact), to encourage paranoia and distrust in Russian military. Reports of purges in intelligence would suggest it could be effective. It is hardly news to russians that Ukraine is getting western intelligence – but reports that imply close insider knowledge (like the movements of generals) would be unsettling.
I should say prior on that would be less than 20%.
Kenneth Fritsch,
The mother’s health as a reason for having an abortion is a loophole you can drive large trucks through, side by side. If a pregnant woman claims her mental health would be damaged by having a child, that would justify an abortion at any stage of pregnancy under Casey, as I remember. The opinion in Roe v. Wade had a trimester structure. Casey threw that out and kept states from regulating abortions by pregnancy stage, i.e., not at all.
I think Roe v Wade’s trimester structure was thrown out by Doe v Bolton, while Casey overturned Roe in a different way.
I find the Ukraine position as winning to be unsupported by the facts on the ground.
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The Ukraine counter attacks in the northeast are not relevant as the Russian artillery attacks in this sector are acknowledged as a diversion to fix Ukraine forces in place and to keep Ukraine reinforcements from going to the east. As far as Russia is concerned, the more here the merrier.
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The Russians have obviously moved to aggressively recon to fix Ukraine forces in place and then use their massive artillery superiority to work on destruction of the Ukraine army and to reduce their own casualties by not doing massive frontal attacks.
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Russian advances are therefore slow, but continuous. This can easily be seen in the Understanding War maps.
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May 2
https://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Luhansk%20Battle%20Map%20Draft%20May%202%2C2022_0.png
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May 6
https://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Kharkiv%20Battle%20Map%20Draft%20May%206%2C2022.png
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Pay close attention to Russian advances in the Izyum, Lyman, and Rubizhine sectors. The Russians are driving a wedge directly toward Sloviansk on the M19, south of Izyum. In addition, a Russian column is continuing to move south of Izyum, paralleling the M19, cutting into Ukraine ability to either reinforce or withdraw their forces at Izyum by moving west.
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The Russians are slowly, but continually, advancing to place a major portion of the best of the Ukraine army in a pocket and destroy it, mainly with artillery.
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I am imaging a face-saving and war-ending speech from Putin going something like: we have made permanent the independence of Eastern Ukraine and Crimea after prevailing over not only Ukraine but the NATO forces who were intimately involved in fighting a proxy war against the motherland.
He can say the latter because the more direct proxy action was leaked or publicly stated by the US for the world know and perhaps to bolster Putin’s face saving. I keep hearing that something could happen around May 9, but that may be wishful thinking.
Whatever happens on the battlefield, Putin has very badly miscalculated the situation and his military and Russian citizens’ will pay dearly for it.
> the argument is so weak it sounds like something concocted by someone who wants to claim they are “not particularly pro-life” and then come up with some explanation why the topic is their #1 issue.
At the time, I WAS particularly pro life, and wouldn’t vote for Colin Powell because of it.
The Institute for the Study of War published an update on May 6. They are still reporting progress for the Ukrainian and near stagnation for the Russians:
The #Ukrainian counteroffensive north and east of Kharkiv made substantial progress in the last 24 hours, and Ukrainian forces may be able to drive #Russian forces out of tube artillery range of Kharkiv city itself in the coming days. https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1522737960625475584?s=20&t=CBLGbBxLF8HsEjZ0nLxpTw
New: #Ukraine’s ability – and willingness – to concentrate the forces necessary to launch a counteroffensive along a broad arc north & east of #Kharkiv city indicates confidence in repelling ongoing Russian attacks w/ their existing forces in the region.
https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1522730767612268547?s=20&t=CBLGbBxLF8HsEjZ0nLxpTw
Ukrainian forces continued to repel #Russian attacks on the #Izyum axis in the last 24 hours. Russian forces likely secured small gains on the outskirts of #Severodonetsk on May 6.
https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1522735434006114304?s=20&t=CBLGbBxLF8HsEjZ0nLxpTw
To verify these assessments, the Institute for the Study of War publishes a daily set of maps along with their reports. Ed Forbes (Comment #211807) looked at these same maps and drew completely opposite conclusions [ie The Russians are winning]. While the armchair general may be reading the maps correctly, my money is on the ISW analysts….. They have a pretty good track record so far.
I've opened a new thread.
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2022/open-thread-may-8/
This one auto -re close soon.