Tag: ukraine

Carol of the Bells

Twitter is a strange place. Depending on who you follow or what you read in the news on the internet that leads you there, it can be informative and educational. A blog post led me to a tweet where I found this tweeted response   And Carol of the Bells is based on a Ukrainian …

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Cartnoon

“I’m done talking”: Nance on fighting in Ukraine with International Legion of Territorial Defense Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russia has begun an all-out offensive in the east. In his latest video, the Ukrainian leader said that the Russian military has begun the battle for the Donbas. Malcolm Nance, executive director of the Terror …

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Carol of the Bells

Twitter is a strange place. Depending on who you follow or what you read in the news on the internet that leads you there, it can be informative and educational. A blog post led me to a tweet where I found this tweeted response   And Carol of the Bells is based on a Ukrainian …

Continue reading

Carol of the Bells

Twitter is a strange place. Depending on who you follow or what you read in the news on the internet that leads you there, it can be informative and educational. A blog post led me to a tweet where I found this tweeted response   And Carol of the Bells is based on a Ukrainian …

Continue reading

Impeachment: Drip, Drip, Drip

While the House managers make the case for removing Donald trump from the office of the presidency, more incriminating evidence keeps dripping out. This morning it was a tape of a conversation during dinner at Trump’s Washington DC hotel about then US to the Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch between Trump, and his personal lawyer Rudy …

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Carol of the Bells

Twitter is a strange place. Depending on who you follow or what you read in the news on the internet that leads you there, it can be informative and educational. A blog post led me to a tweet where I found this tweeted response   And Carol of the Bells is based on a Ukrainian …

Continue reading

The Impeachment Files: Resignations and Subpoenas

It has been a busy weekend for Donald Trump who is now under a formal impeachment investigation by the House of Representatives. We last left the saga last Thursday with the announcement by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi that the formal investigation, which was precipitated by a formal complaint by a whistleblower to the …

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The Impeachment Files: Ukraine and ICIG Complaint

After nearly three years of the Trump crime family’s abuse of the office of the president, disregard of the rule of law and shredding of constitutional norms, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has authorized impeachment investigation of Donald J. Trump. Her change of mind started just a week ago when it was revealed that a whistleblower …

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Trump and the Russian Connection

There is a country song by Garth Brooks called Friends in Low Places. It’s a catchy tune about having friends that aren’t at the top of the social strata. Donald Trump on the other hand has friends in high place but while they may be high up in that social hierarchy, Trump’s friends, much like …

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Stop Listening to Morons

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Surface To Air Missiles Kill People

I know I’m a silly and naive hippie. Very Serious People know the importance of arming the rebels, and the rebels of the rebels, and of the governments fighting the rebels, and of the random people who might just be good guys today but who knows about tomorrow, because it’s what we know how to do and our friends get rich in the process.

But, you know, weapons kill people. That’s what they’re for.

Atrios

We need to stop arming morons but most of all we need to stop listening to them.

In the wake of the tragic crash of Malaysian Air Flight 17 yesterday that took the lives of 290, there is a lot of ranting and finger wagging among war hawk conservatives who believe this tragedy could have been averted of we had just given the new Ukrainian government weapons. Considering the clear possibility that the plane was taken down by a Russian made Soviet era surface to air missile, the logic of these neo-cons is baffling. The US backing, arming and training rebels and rogue governments hasn’t worked very well in the past and isn’t working out very well today in either the Middle East or Latin  and South America

Charlie Pierce thinks we should stop listening to morons, in particular a couple of our elected morons, who have never seen a war they didn’t like or a terrorist under every rock, want more weapons and more war. Sen. John “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran” McCain (R-AZ):

“It’s just been cowardly,” McCain said. “It’s a cowardly administration that we failed to give the Ukrainians weapons with which to defend themselves.” He speculated that the Russian separatists who allegedly shot down the plane “may not even have occupied and had access to these weapons, which apparently they got at an airfield,” [..]

“First, give the Ukrainians weapons to defend themselves and regain their territory. Second of all, move some of our troops in to areas that are being threatened by Vladimir Putin, in other countries like the Baltics and others. Move missile defense into the places where we got out of, like the Czech Republic and Poland and other places. And impose the harshest possible sanctions on Vladimir Putin and Russia. And that’s just for openers.”

This from the man who wanted to arm the Syrian rebels who were affiliated with Al Qaeda, some of whom are now trying to overthrow the American backed Iraqi government. John, please, just please, retire.

And of course the call for throwing more weapons into the mix wouldn’t be complete without some good ol’ fear mongering for Rep. Peter King (R-NY)

“[W]e need more leadership from the president,” King, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said on MSNBC. “He gave this a passing reference in his speech in Delaware, then went on to tell Joe Biden jokes and take the usual shots at Republicans – which is fair game, but not on this day – and then to go to New York and go to two fundraisers. I mean, I can’t imagine [former Presidents Dwight] Eisenhower or [John F.] Kennedy or [Ronald] Reagan doing that.”

Ronnie Reagan? Seriously. The man who slept through the downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 over the Kamchatka Peninsula by Soviet forces in 1983 and took three days to make a statement? Pete, get a grip

More of what Charlie said about arming morons:

I often refer to the scene featuring the great character actor Philip Bosco, as a judge in the small upstate New York town that is the setting for the vastly underrated Paul Newman movie Nobody’s Fool. Newman is before the judge because he has punched a local cop — played by the late Philip Seymour Hoffman — and, in response, the cop had fired off a warning shot that frightened an old woman a few blocks over. Bosco listens to the story and then addresses the police chief. “You know my views on arming morons,” Bosco says. “If you arm one, you have to arm them all. Otherwise, it isn’t good sport.”

It is becoming plain that the atrocity visited on the Malaysian jetliner is a direct result of arming morons. The New York Times obtained audiotape, allegedly from the people who shot down the plane, and these guys sound like they shouldn’t be trusted with a lemon zester, let alone a surface-to-air missile. And it is quite plain that the one thing this situation doesn’t need is to arm more morons, or to have another superpower come bungling in. Either by accident or by design — and Josh Marshall is right to point out that, if it’s the former, that’s infinitely worse — Vladimir Putin is responsible for a horrendous crime, and one that weakens his international standing. The only thing that would bail him out would be a flood of American arms to our own set of morons. The only thing that would bail him out would be if we all started listening to John McCain again.

We do know that the separatists in Eastern Ukraine have been armed by the Russians and have taken credit for bring down other planes over the last several weeks. If this is true, the culpability for this tragic loss of lives lies directly at the feet of Vladimir Putin, he alone has the power to stop this. Like Putin, the US needs to stop arming morons and stop listening to them as well.

The Breakfast Club – Wake & Bake Edition by angeld

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.  

(Truth be told, friends, we’re really not that disorganized; the fact that we’ve managed to put this series together and stick with it disabuses the notion that we’re disorganized, right?  Also, I wish I had a censored night once in awhile, but alas, this is something my producers made me say.)



 photo breakfastbeers.png

This Day in History

This bit was also cross-posted at Voices on the Square, The Stars Holllow Gazette and, probably at Docudharma.

Greenwald & Omidyar

A number of major liberal bloggers are under assault for aligning with the billionaire Omidyar at First Look, and I suppose there are billions and billions of reasons to be skeptical of those who join ranks with interested billionaires.   However, the past histories of the  journalists in question are exemplary concerning basic intelligence and Modern Liberalism, whatever you think of that idea.  I’m presently & personally an idiot liberal, whether that flows from reality or not.

Driftglass has incessantly condemned Greenwald based on his totally unfounded belief that Greenwald’s stories are “always about Saint Greenwald” (i.e., only self-interested), and not about the manifest Surveillance State that Greenwald actually writes about)  I told DG long ago that I thought he was fucking the pooch on that hypothesis, and I’ll stand by that statement until proven wrong.  

Nevertheless, other perennial favorites of mine, Arthur Silber and Chris Floyd, both of whom have my tremendous respect, have both also jumped into the debate, and now my challenge stands like a large, public tumescence: If Greenwald, Scahill, & Wheeler prove to be neo-liberal operatives, I will be sucking dicks I did not want to suck.  Even La Diggs, has said at one time or another, “Whatever you think of Greenwald…,” which is frankly fucking bullshit until Greenwald produces actual bullshit.  

I personally take Silber and Floyd quite seriously, and yet I have no interest in blowing them.

Arthur & Chris, I think my owing you a public rimjob is less than 40%, but let’s wait and see.  Point being, warnings are fine, but condemnation is totally premature.  Give these journalists, of whom there are fewer than fuck in our world, a friggin’ chance to get rolling before premature condemnation ensues.  

K?thnx.bai.

The alternative is to begin killing all billionaires (using machetes!), which is also something to think about, but radical, in many senses of the word.

Arthur, Chris: be human, hold fast.  It’s a rollicking ride.

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