kpete
kpete's JournalPelosi calls Putin a 'tyrant,' calls developments 'stunning'
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Wednesday during her weekly press briefing called Russian President Vladimir Putin a "tyrant" and said it was "stunning" to see him enter Ukraine.
"It's stunning to see, in this day and age, a tyrant roll into a country. This is the same tyrant who attacked our democracy in 2016," Pelosi said during the briefing.
"This is the same tyrant who is opposed to democracy and wants to trivialize it, to downgrade it, in the eyes of the Russian people," she added.
"I think that one thing that we've all agreed upon is an attack on Ukraine by the Russians is an attack on democracy," she also said.
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/595499-pelosi-calls-putin-a-tyrant-calls-developments-stunning
Focus, and be patient. Organize, educate, vote. This is how we save democracy.
A common tactic of fascists is to frighten people into believing our democratic system can't be trusted, so we'll panic and demand the system be skirted and processes ignored, thereby accelerating the rise of the very authoritarianism we think we're preventing
Don't fall for it!
https://twitter.com/CDLHamma/status/1496540468917661696?s=20&t=Qc4aD331IELNiyv0k7fATw
Trump set Ukraine up to be attacked for his own personal self-interests.
While Republicans like
@EliseStefanik
and others want to paint Biden as a person to blame for Russian aggression, let's not forget why Trump was impeached the first time. Trump set Ukraine up to be attacked for his own personal self-interests.
Here's
@MikieSherrill
in 2019:
https://twitter.com/votevets/status/1496510259539722246?s=20&t=qE5KfgnDxC0A4pbPaPJLVQ
DC trucker convoy update from Scranton, PA: There is currently only one truck in the convoy.
DC trucker convoy update from Scranton, PA:
There is currently only one truck in the convoy. Organizer Bob Bolus said they expected more people to join, and will call off the convoy if others don’t show up
Convoy was scheduled to leave an hour and 45 minutes ago
https://wjla.com/news/local/bob-bolus-organizer-truck-convoy-protest-dc-maryland-virginia-beltway-i95-traffic-gridlock-covid-19-mandates-freedom-scranton-harrisburg-pennsylvania-baltimore-flat-trie-delayed-start
https://twitter.com/JulioCesrChavez/status/1496500749966233604?s=20&t=MmpXBVpLHEZdC3amWCZdjQ
UPDATE:
as of 11 AM, assuming everyone driving close together on the right hand lane is part of this convoy, there are:
1 18 wheeler
2 pick up trucks
7 sedans/SUVs
https://twitter.com/JulioCesrChavez/status/1496513848366538755?s=20&t=MmpXBVpLHEZdC3amWCZdjQ
https://twitter.com/JulioCesrChavez/status/1496518157263159302?s=20&t=MmpXBVpLHEZdC3amWCZdjQ
AND THIS:
https://twitter.com/CarlBeijer/status/1495816386051981322?s=20&t=M7nybsVwKcshMcHz4MeMsA
Charles Pierce: "When Did It Stop Mattering That Ukraine Doesn't Want to Be Part of Russia?
..........
They call it the Holodomor, the largely Soviet-engineered famine that killed somewhere around four million people in Ukraine in the early 1930s. For background, the website of the University of Minnesota quotes Professor Andrea Graziosi of the University of Naples:
"In the case of the Holodomor, this was the first genocide that was methodically planned out and perpetrated by depriving the very people who were producers of food of their nourishment (for survival). What is especially horrific is that the withholding of food was used as a weapon of genocide and that it was done in a region of the world known as the ‘breadbasket of Europe.”
I mention this because the current Russian insistence that Ukraine is
traditionally part of Russia is a contemptuous insult to the four million people that the Soviet Russian government killed. Obviously, being traditionally part of Russia didn’t work out so very well. Oddly, we’ve seen this same argument coming from some on the left, too. It is more than clear that Ukraine doesn’t want to be part of Russia. How national self-determination stopped being a liberal value is certainly worthy of further study when and if we step back from the brink of all-out war in West Asia."
...........
.......under Putin, Russia is a goddamn economic basket case. It has been looted for decades by Putin and a kleptocratic class over which he presides. Making the oligarchs scream can be a massively destabilizing move, and the oligarchs are how Putin and his government survive. Provided that the administration can hold alliances and get other countries to follow this plan, it perhaps can alienate the Russian people from their regime, and from the fat and wealthy apparatchiks behind it. It may not stop Putin’s next move, but it may stop the next one after that.
the rest:
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a39178953/biden-sanctions-russia-ukraine-putin-oligarchs/
?w=600&h=351
The Guardian Analysis: advance forces' battle readiness will quickly degrade, giving Putin only days
Analysis: advance forces’ battle readiness will quickly degrade, giving Putin only days to choose invasion or retreat..........
Postings spotted by military analyst Rob Lee on Monday showed about 100 soldiers camped out – or rather lying down – at a train station about 20km from Ukraine’s border, without rations and having to buy food for themselves.
Russian troops based in Belarus, in forests near the town of Khoyniki, 50km from the Ukraine border, were described by one local a few days ago as people who “drink a lot and sell a lot of their diesel fuel”, suggesting a lack of discipline despite the heightened political tensions.
Western intelligence estimates that roughly a third of the overall Russian forces are now believed to be “tactically deployed” in frontline positions “poised for operations”. Their movements have been monitored closely using aerial and other reconnaissance for several weeks, as they edge closer to the border.
On Monday, one senior official said they believed it would only be possible for Russia to maintain them in their forward positions for “a matter of days” – a conclusion that is endorsed by independent experts.
MORE:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/23/harsh-conditions-mean-russian-troops-near-ukraine-will-need-to-be-moved-soon
GOP candidate colluded with Russian spies to unseat gay Rep. David Cicilline. He still failed.
A Republican who tried to unseat out Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) in 2016 illegally tried to get Russia to help him win his election, according to the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
Republican H. Russel Taub ran against Cicilline and received only 35% of the vote in that year’s general election after running unopposed in the Republican primary – but not before he sent messages to a Twitter account used by Russian intelligence agency GRU.
“I could use your help to defeat cicilline,” Taub wrote the Russian intel agency, asking for a list of Republican donors.
What he received was a foreign intelligence dossier with opposition research on Cicilline, polling data, and other information. The information was “apparently stolen from the GRU’s various election-related hacking targets.”
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/02/gop-candidate-colluded-russian-spies-unseat-gay-rep-david-cicilline-still-failed/
Rudy Giuliani poised to cooperate with January 6 committee
Trump’s former lawyer may reveal the roles played by Republicans to prevent certification of Joe Biden’s election victorySCOOP: Rudy Giuliani will not discuss Trump with Jan. 6 committee — but is poised to divulge in a cooperation deal that could be agreed this week his contacts with Republican members of Congress involved in effort to overthrow the 2020 election.
@guardian
For Giuliani, this is a smart move — he gives Jan. 6 committee what they can’t otherwise get (since GOP members of Congress are refusing to cooperate), doesn’t give up Trump, and avoids being held in contempt.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/22/giuliani-cooperate-january-6-committee
https://twitter.com/hugolowell/status/1496477886164963329?s=20&t=BLu3xxf-hdlvAo3kJFg_tg
SCOTUS officially denies TFG's Call for review of 6/1 committee's bid for his WH records
BREAKING: SCOTUS has officially denied Donald Trump's call for Supreme Court review of the Jan. 6 select committee's bid for his White House records.
"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday brought a formal end to former President Donald Trump's request to block the release of White House records sought by the Democratic-led congressional panel investigating last year's deadly attack on the Capitol by a mob of his supporters.
The court's decision to formally reject Trump's appeal follows its Jan. 19 order that led to the documents being handed over to the House of Representatives investigative committee by the federal agency that stores government and historical records."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-supreme-court-formally-ends-145516807.html
https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1496133416387022854?s=20&t=BXyFNjaHwn9r5nA4ppzKJg
https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/022222zor_bq7d.pdf
The court’s move, which came in a brief unsigned order issued without comment, comes after the justices denied Trump’s emergency request to block the transfer of his White House records from the National Archives to the House select committee, a process that began last month.
Tuesday’s development formally ends Trump’s legal effort to stymie lawmakers’ efforts to obtain a batch of schedules, call logs, emails and other requested documents that the committee says could illuminate key circumstances surrounding the deadly Capitol riot.
The order leaves intact a lower federal appeals court ruling that found Trump’s assertion of executive privilege and other legal theories unpersuasive in light of President Biden’s refusal to invoke privilege, as well as the House panel’s pressing task.
Since the Supreme Court has disallowed Trump's use of Executive Privilege to stymie the work of the January 6 committee, where does this leave AG Garland's decision not to indict Mark Meadows who is refusing to cooperate with the committee on Executive Privilege grounds? If the court won't allow Trump to make the claim, then certainly Mark Meadows cannot make the claim.
https://www.wkrg.com/news/politics/supreme-court-turns-away-trumps-appeal-in-dispute-with-house-jan-6-panel/
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