Algernon Moncrieff
Algernon Moncrieff's JournalThe Bad Guys Are Winning
The AtlanticTsikhanouskaya says she and many others naively believed that under this pressure, the dictator would just give up. “We thought he would understand that we are against him,” she told me. “That people don’t want to live under his dictatorship, that he lost the elections.” They had no other plan.
At first, Lukashenko seemed to have no plan either. But his neighbors did. On August 18, a plane belonging to the FSB, the Russian security services, flew from Moscow to Minsk. Soon after that, Lukashenko’s tactics underwent a dramatic change. Stephen Biegun, who was the U.S. deputy secretary of state at the time, describes the change as a shift to “more sophisticated, more controlled ways to repress the population.” Belarus became a textbook example of what the journalist William J. Dobson has called “the dictator’s learning curve”: Techniques that had been used successfully in the past to repress crowds in Russia were seamlessly transferred to Belarus, along with personnel who understood how to deploy them. Russian television journalists arrived to replace the Belarusian journalists who had gone on strike, and immediately stepped up the campaign to portray the demonstrations as the work of Americans and other foreign “enemies.” Russian police appear to have supplemented their Belarusian colleagues, or at least given them advice, and a policy of selective arrests began. As Vladimir Putin figured out a long time ago, mass arrests are unnecessary if you can jail, torture, or possibly murder just a few key people. The rest will be frightened into staying home. Eventually they will become apathetic, because they believe nothing can change.
Roger Stone unveils a doozy of a plan to install Donald Trump as president
https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/roger-stone-install-donald-trump/First, Stone expects the House of Representatives to elect Trump as its Speaker if they retake control of the lower congressional chamber in this year's midterm elections. This is permitted in the United States Constitution. Literally, anybody whom a majority of the House chooses can hold the gavel as long as they meet the basic qualifications for getting elected, which in the House is any citizen 25 years of age and up.
Next, Stone predicts that Biden's Cabinet will invoke the 25th Amendment to remove him from office. Over what, he did not say.
In the final stage, according to Stone, Congress will impeach and remove Vice President Kamala Harris for refusing to promote ivermectin, a deworming medication used in horses, as an effective treatment against COVID-19. It is not.
Statement of Karen Bloom & John Huber in Response to the Rittenhouse Verdict
Source: Loevy & Loevy, A Civil Rights Law FirmNOVEMBER 19, 2021
We did not attend the trial because we could not bear to sit in a courtroom and repeatedly watch videos of our son’s murder, and because we have been subjected to many hurtful and nasty comments in the past year. But we watched the trial closely, hoping it would bring us closure.
That did not happen. Today’s verdict means there is no accountability for the person who murdered our son. It sends the unacceptable message that armed civilians can show up in any town, incite violence, and then use the danger they have created to justify shooting people in the street. We hope that decent people will join us in forcefully rejecting that message and demanding more of our laws, our officials, and our justice system.
Make no mistake: our fight to hold those responsible for Anthony’s death accountable continues in full force. Neither Mr. Rittenhouse nor the Kenosha police who authorized his bloody rampage will escape justice. Anthony will have his day in court.
No reasonable person viewing all of the evidence could conclude that Mr. Rittenhouse acted in self-defense. In response to racist and violent calls to action from militia members, Mr. Rittenhouse travelled to Kenosha illegally armed with an assault rifle. He menaced fellow citizens in the street. Though he was in open violation of a curfew order, Kenosha police encouraged him to act violently. Kenosha police told militia members that they would push peaceful protestors toward the militia so that the militia could “deal with them.” Soon after, Mr. Rittenhouse killed Joseph Rosenbaum. The police did nothing. Concerned citizens, confronted with a person shooting indiscriminately on the street, stepped in to stop the violence. Anthony was shot in the chest trying to disarm Mr. Rittenhouse and stop his shooting spree. Still, the police did nothing. Mr. Rittenhouse continued to shoot, maiming Gaige Grosskreutz. The police let Mr. Rittenhouse leave the scene freely. Mr. Rittenhouse came to Kenosha armed to kill. Kenosha police encouraged him to act violently, and our son is dead as a result.
We are so proud of Anthony, and we love him so much. He is a hero who sacrificed his own life to protect other innocent civilians. We ask that you remember Anthony and keep him in your prayers.
I was on a felony jury in July
It was a tough case. Attempted sexual assault involving a couple in a domestic situation.
We asked to have the 911 call replayed and we read and discussed the jury instructions. There was a lot of back and forth, but ultimately we came to a verdict, albeit reluctantly, of guilty because of the facts that were presented and the law we were told to follow in the instructions.
I do not envy the jurors in the Rittenhouse case. High profile. High pressure. All any of us can do at this point is hope they can reach a just verdict.
Something odd in the latest AP update on NJ
Rate Jamie Harrison's performance as DNC chair.
Medical ethicists criticize doctors refusing to treat the unvaccinated
Yahoo NewsWhile it is legal for doctors to stop seeing a patient for any reason that doesn’t violate laws against discrimination on the basis of race, sex and gender, medical ethics standards can go beyond the letter of the law.
The law, according to Moreno, is not an effective barometer of right and wrong in the medical field, because it doesn’t have perfect guidance in every situation. He noted that, in the late 1980s, during the HIV AIDS epidemic, some doctors denied care to patients — who were more likely to be gay, Black or to belong to another marginalized group.
“This is very dangerous,” Moreno said. “Once the medical profession starts deciding, picking and choosing who can be cared for and who not for whatever reason, we’re in a really bad position.
'Vigilante treatments': Anti-vaccine groups push people to leave ICUs
NBCConsumed by conspiracy theories claiming that doctors are preventing unvaccinated patients from receiving miracle cures or are even killing them on purpose, some people in anti-vaccine and pro-ivermectin Facebook groups are telling those with Covid-19 to stay away from hospitals and instead try increasingly dangerous at-home treatments, according to posts seen by NBC News over the past few weeks.
....
Some people in groups that formed recently to promote the false cure ivermectin, an anti-parasite treatment, have claimed extracting Covid patients from hospitals is pivotal so that they can self-medicate at home with ivermectin. But as the patients begin to realize that ivermectin by itself is not effective, the groups have begun recommending a series of increasingly hazardous at-home treatments, such as gargling with iodine, and nebulizing and inhaling hydrogen peroxide, calling it part of a “protocol.”
On Tuesday, the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America put out a warning against nebulizing hydrogen peroxide.
Selectivity
I don't post much any more. Maybe I will again sometime, but the Trump years exhausted me in a way nothing else has in the events of my lifetime. I find it increasingly hard to care or think about bigger issues, and instead focus on my immediate family and our near-term future. 9-11 is a day we of my generation choose as a day of mourning and remembrance. Frankly, the last 20 years have been endless mourning, remembrance, ribbons, and half-masting of the flag.
What was done to citizens of this country by religious terrorists was horrible. Do not mistake anything I'm writing to mean anything different.
But we have selective memory in America. If you go out on Facebook, you'll see post after post about how much people miss the way we came together as a nation after the attacks, and how they miss the memory of 9-12. I will say I do remember those days, and when your nation is attacked, patriotic fervor is to be expected. At the time, a lot more folks that lived through WW II were around, and they spoke of how the time after 9-11 reminded them of the time after Pearl Harbor. And that checks out. And if you have a clear, unclouded memory of those days after 9-11, you'll remember how Muslim Americans were harassed; how a Sikh was murdered; and how many Americans wanted Mosques closed and Muslims rounded up and put into camps -- just like America after Pearl Harbor.
Last month, 13 American servicepersons were tragically killed. Republicans called out the President as unfit to lead and threw the word impeachment around. On 9-11, when 3,000 Americans died, we were all told that we shouldn't play the blame game, and it was time to rally around our flag and our President. In fact, I don't remember Ford shouldering too much blame when Saigon fell, and his Secretary of State negotiated the peace deal to end that debacle. Maybe my memory is failing, but I don't remember anyone calling Ronald Reagan unfit after the Marine barracks were bombed in Beirut, nor do I remember lot of opposition to pulling our troops out of there instead of staying the course. If anyone has read this far, feel free to point out if my memory is failing me here.
Our good will and our desire for common cause after 9-11 was crassly exploited. Evidence of Iraqi involvement in 9-11 was stretched beyond the limits of any credibility and the nation was dragged into what was ostensibly a quick war in which we would be greeted as liberators and turned into a quagmire. And we engaged the services of Blackwater - a shadowy para-military organization. And we decided we were fine with torturing people. Last night, I watched Jose Rodriguez being interviewed. His "we-did-what-had-to-be-done" and "it-was-them-or-us" statements sounded very much like the justifications SS and Gestapo officials gave for their actions after WW II. Iraq is why many of us are here at DU. Our opposition to the war - instead of adapting the just-wave-the-flag-and-be-grateful-to-God mentality caused many of us to be shamed in our communities and workplaces. It also caused us to elect Barack Obama -- a perceived sin that many in America will never forgive.
But America comes together in times of crisis and tragedy!
Do we?
In 2012, in Sandy Hook, CT, 20 children aged 6 - 7 - let me repeat that - twenty.children.aged.six.to.seven. - and six teachers were killed because a woman made a horrible error in judgment (for which she paid with her life) and thought firearms would be just the thing for her son with mental health issues. Now, after 9-11, no-fly lists were developed; we all had to go through a CT scan to board an aircraft; and we passed the "Patriot" act to give the feds some pretty sweeping powers. After twenty children were killed with a weapon readily available to any would-be terrorist, we heard accusations of people being "crisis actors" and were lectured about the importance of our second amendment rights (always important unless Black Panthers are the ones carrying said firearms - refer to Reagan, Ronald - during his time Governor of CA). And Sandy Hook was a rinse-and-repeat of Columbine. And Parkland was a rinse and repeat of Sandy Hook. And there was the sniper at Mandalay Bay.
But those, I guess, were small events. You would think that surely we could come together over something big. A huge national threat. But again - you'd be mistaken. As of today, approximately 659,000 Americans have died from the disease that doctors and most Americans call COVID-19, but whom a select group of stubborn Trump supporters insist on calling China-19 because I guess blaming a foreign country makes them feel better somehow. Donald Trump followers are still touting Hydroxychloroquine, or insisting this is a hoax, or insisting that our immune systems are all we need -- and steadfastly fighting sensible public health measures like mask mandates and vaccine requirements. Oddly, Donald Trump engineered Operation Warp Speed and brought major players in Pharma together to get a vaccine to market quickly -- and his followers ironically won't take it. So we should use any means necessary to save the lives of Americans from foreign terrorists, but using any means necessary to stop a disease that has killed the equivalent of roughly 220 9-11s -- and that you tell us is ostensibly China's fault -- is an invasion of your freedom; a government overreach; a reason to recall Gavin Newsom.
I realize that I'm rambling incoherently. Again, I don't post much any more, so indulge me in this one last incoherent thought about the selectivity of the American patriotic psyche. A little passive-aggressive thing I see right now is the 13 beers meme. Restaurant owners set an empty table with 13 beers for the soldiers killed in Afghanistan. They post photos on Facebook. It's passive-aggressive because it's not just a nice symbolic we-love-the-troops meme. It's a dig at Biden. Again if anyone has read this far, feel free to point out if my memory is failing me here. Maybe it's because social media didn't exist, but I don't remember anyone setting out beers for the 220 Marines killed in Beirut. In fact, I'm hard -pressed to remember anyone commemorating October 23, 1983. In 2017 a KC-130 broke up over Mississippi and killed 16 marines - a tragedy caused by inadequate maintenance of the aircraft. In fact, photos of those Marines were erroneously circulated on social media after the Afghanistan bombing. Again - did countless restaurants post photos of 16 empty places for Marines that died in the line of duty? If so, they kept it well hidden. Were the Secretary of Defense or the President subjected to having their patriotism or fitness to lead questioned over the needless deaths of 16 brave Americans because of their dereliction of duty to oversee maintenance? No - no they were not. Because our outrage is selective.
If you made it this far, you have my sympathy. But I appreciate you reading this. God Bless America!
So, Wingnutland's latest manufactured outrage. - Bidens watch
Biden is seen glancing at his watch in a photo during the dignified transfer. Wingnuts are outraged as if he invited the Taliban to Maryland.
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