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| Goon Squad Hard At Work |
A Brief Roundup of this last week's events:
Despite Putin, we have to always remember the dissidents in Russia - men, women and children, anywhere between 1300 to 1500 arrested so far for demonstrating against Putin's insane war as heroes and heroines. God knows where they will end up: But the same as when Hitler was desperate in the final days and months of WWII, these people and perhaps even the children arrested will end up on the front lines, completely expendable , abandoned and destroyed by an evil maniac.
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Here for ya'll are the experts on what is coming next, just click all the links:
The Nuclear Possibility
~ From The Atlantic Council:
Putin Just Escalated His War In Ukraine. Here's Your Expert Guide To What's Coming Next
I've always put a lot of stock in Matthew Kroenig:
Matthew Kroenig: the US and Ukraine should double Down To Win the War While Deterring Nuclear Use
"Putin’s speech shows he is out of options and in a desperate situation. His conventional military is mangled, so he is drawing on the only tools he has left: mobilization of low-quality reservists and nuclear threats.
We should take Putin’s nuclear threats seriously. Putin could use nuclear weapons to turn the tide of the battle. If facing the real, imminent prospect of losing the war, he is likely to use nuclear weapons first before being defeated.
Washington’s and Kyiv’s goal is to win the war, not to avoid nuclear attack at all costs. US President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy should not back down to avoid a nuclear attack. They should double down to win the war, while deterring nuclear use. Why hasn’t Putin used nuclear weapons already? He has been deterred by fear of a US and NATO response. The United States and NATO should play on those fears and reinforce their deterrent threats. The White House’s statement today that Russian nuclear use would result in “severe consequences” was on point.
If deterrence fails, Washington should execute its deterrent response, including by conducting a limited conventional military strike on the Russian forces that launched the nuclear attack. Most importantly, Kyiv and its allies should continue to fight through a Russian nuclear attack and win the war."
—Matthew Kroenig is the acting director of the Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, and a former US Department of Defense and intelligence community official with a focus on nuclear-deterrence policy.
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From The Washington Post:
US Has Sent Private Warnings to Russia Against Using A Nuclear Weapon
"The United States for several months has been sending private communications to Moscow warning Russia’s leadership of the grave consequences that would follow the use of a nuclear weapon, according to U.S. officials, who said the messages underscore what President Biden and his aides have articulated publicly.
The Biden administration generally has decided to keep warnings about the consequences of a nuclear strike deliberately vague, so the Kremlin worries about how Washington might respond, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive deliberations.
The attempt by the White House to cultivate what’s known in the nuclear deterrence world as “strategic ambiguity” comes as Russia continues to escalate its rhetoric about possible nuclear weapons use amid a domestic mobilization aimed at stanching Russian military losses in eastern Ukraine.
The State Department has been involved in the private communications with Moscow, but officials would not say who delivered the messages or the scope of their content. It was not clear whether the United States had sent any new private messages in the hours since Russian President Vladimir Putin issued his latest veiled nuclear threat during a speech announcing a partial mobilization early Wednesday, but a senior U.S. official said the communication has been happening consistently over recent months.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, wrote Thursday in a post on Telegram that territory in eastern Ukraine would be “accepted into Russia” after the completion of staged “referendums” and vowed to strengthen the security of those areas.
To defend that annexed land, Medvedev said, Russia is able to use not only its newly mobilized forces, but also “any Russian weapon, including strategic nuclear ones and those using new principles,” a reference to hypersonic weapons.
“Russia has chosen its path,” Medvedev added. “There is no way back.”
The comment came a day after Putin suggested Russia would annex occupied lands in Ukraine’s south and east, and incorporate the regions formally into what Moscow considers its territory. He said he was not bluffing when he vowed to use all means at Russia’s disposal to defend the country’s territorial integrity — a veiled reference to the country’s nuclear arsenal.
Biden administration officials have emphasized that this isn’t the first time the Russian leadership has threatened to use nuclear weapons since the start of the war on Feb. 24, and have said there is no indication Russia is moving its nuclear weapons in preparation for an imminent strike.
Still, the recent statements from the Russian leadership are more specific than previous comments and come at a time when Russia is reeling on the battlefield from a U.S.-backed Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Whereas previous Kremlin statements appeared to be aimed at warning the United States and its allies against going too far in helping Ukraine, Putin’s most recent comments suggested Russia is considering using a nuclear weapon on the battlefield in Ukraine to freeze gains and force Kyiv and its backers into submission, said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, a nonproliferation advocacy group in Washington.
“What everyone needs to recognize is that this is one of, if not the most, severe episodes in which nuclear weapons might be used in decades,” Kimball said. “The consequences of even a so-called ‘limited nuclear war’ would be absolutely catastrophic.”
For years, U.S. nuclear experts have worried that Russia might use smaller tactical nuclear weapons, sometimes referred to as “battlefield nukes,” to end a conventional war favorably on its terms — a strategy sometimes described as “escalate to de-escalate.”
On Thursday, Vadym Skibitskyi, deputy head of Ukrainian military intelligence, told the U.K.’s ITV News that it is possible Russia will use nuclear weapons against Ukraine “to stop our offensive activity and to destroy our state.”
“This is a threat for other countries,” Skibitskyi said. “The blast of a tactical nuclear weapon will have an impact not only in Ukraine but the Black Sea region.”
The Ukrainians have tried to signal that even a Russian nuclear strike wouldn’t force them into capitulation — and in fact could have the opposite effect.
“Threatening with nuclear weapons … to Ukrainians?” Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, tweeted on Wednesday. “Putin have not yet understood who he is dealing with.”
In an interview with CBS News’s “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday, Biden was asked what he would tell Putin if the Russian leader is considering using nuclear weapons in the conflict against Ukraine.
“Don’t. Don’t. Don’t,” Biden said. “You will change the face of war unlike anything since World War II.”
Biden declined to detail how the United States would respond, saying only that the reaction would be “consequential” and would depend “on the extent of what they do.”
The Biden administration would face a crisis if Russia were to use a small nuclear weapon in Ukraine, which isn’t a U.S. treaty ally. Any direct military U.S. response against Russia would risk the possibility of a wider war between nuclear-armed superpowers — the avoidance of which the Biden administration has made its No. 1 priority in all of its Ukraine policymaking.
Matthew Kroenig, a professor of government at Georgetown University and director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council, has argued that the best option for the administration, if faced with a limited Russian nuclear strike in Ukraine, might be to step up backing for Ukraine and conduct a limited conventional strike on the Russian forces or bases that launched the attack.
“If it’s Russian forces in Ukraine that launched the nuclear attack, the United States could strike directly against those forces,” Kroenig said. “It would be calibrated to send a message that this is not a major war coming, this is a limited strike. If you are Putin, what do you do in response? I don’t think you immediately say let’s launch all the nukes at the United States.”
But even a limited conventional strike by the U.S. military against Russia would be viewed as reckless by many in Washington, who would argue against risking a full-scale war with a nuclear-armed Russia.
James M. Acton, co-director of the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said it doesn’t make sense at this point to game out U.S. responses because there is such a wide range of possible Russian actions — from an underground nuclear test that doesn’t hurt anyone to a large-scale explosion that kills tens of thousands of civilians — and there are no signs Putin is close to crossing the threshold.
“If he was really thinking very seriously about using nuclear weapons very imminently, he almost certainly would want us to know that,” Acton said. “He would much rather threaten nuclear use and have us make concessions than actually have to go down the path of nuclear use.”
U.S. officials have been stepping up efforts at the U.N. General Assembly this week to deter Russia from seriously considering what would be the first use of a nuclear weapon in a conflict since the atomic bombings of Japan by the United States in 1945.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking at a U.N. Security Council meeting Thursday, said Russia’s “reckless nuclear threats must stop immediately.”
“This week, President Putin said that Russia would not hesitate to use and I quote, ‘all weapons systems available’ in response to a threat to his territorial integrity — a threat that is all the more menacing given Russians’ intention to annex large swaths of Ukraine in the days ahead,” Blinken said. “When that’s complete, we can expect President Putin will claim any Ukrainian effort to liberate this land as an attack on so-called Russian territory.”
Blinken noted that Russia in January joined other permanent members of the Security Council in signing a joint statement declaring, “nuclear war can never be won, and must never be fought.”
Hudson reported from the United Nations in New York.
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Here are several videos from Sky News of Anti-Putin Demonstrations in Russia, and a recent report: hit the links to watch & read:
~ From Sky News:
* Anti-Mobilisation Protests Continue In Moscow Following Putin's Announcement
Saturday 24 September 2022 16:50, UK
* Protesters Circle Police in Siberia as Anti-Mobilisation Demonstrations Continue
Sunday 25 September 2022 13:22, UK
* Anti-Mobilisation Protesters Block road in North Caucasus Region of Russia
Sunday 25 September 2022 20:51, UK
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| Come out, come out where ever you are.... |
~ From Business Insider :
Aleksandr Eliseev, a Russian commander in Ust-Ilimsk, Russia, was shot at a military enlistment office on Monday, September 26.
"The news of the Russian commander being shot at a military enlistment office in Ust-Ilimsk, Russia quickly broke on Twitter, with Nexta news agency stating:
“In Ust-Ilimsk, #Irkutsk region, a shooting in a military registration and enlistment office took place. Preliminarily, the head of the draft board was wounded. The shooter has already been detained.”
“The man who shot at the head of the draft board of the military enlistment office in #UstIlimsk was detained. He turned out to be 25-year-old local resident Ruslan Zinin.”
According to reports by Russian news agency Baza, eyewitnesses claimed the exact phrase said by Ruslan Ziminin before he opened fire on Aleksandr Eliseev, the Ust-Ilimsk military commissar, was:The man who shot at the head of the draft board of the military enlistment office in #UstIlimsk was detained. He turned out to be 25-year-old local resident Ruslan Zinin. pic.twitter.com/OZNfs9qAaS
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) September 26, 202
“We’ll all go home now.”
According to preliminary reports Zimin himself was to have been mobilised today.
An eyewitness of the shooting at the military registration and enlistment office in Ust-Ilimsk said that there was no metal detectors at the military registration and enlistment office.
The conscript’s documents were not checked either – “they looked at the summons, drew a note in the register and left. He had a gun like the one from ‘Brat-2’, very similar, like a homemade sawed-off rifle,” said the eyewitness of the shooting.
Aleksandr Eliseyev is now in hospital."
The news follows reports that Ukrainian Armed Forces HIMARS launched an attack on a hotel in the Russian-occupied city of Kherson, that saw former deputy of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada Alexey Zhuravko killed, as reported on Sunday, September 25
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| From LBC News |
~ From LBC News: This has video of the actual shooting, you have to be signed in to twitter to watch it.
By Stephen Rigley
26 September 2022, 09:25 | Updated: 26 September 2022, 09:38
"A gunman left a Russian army enlistment officer fighting for his life after opening fire in a Siberian enlistment office "after his best friend" was called up to fight in Ukraine.
A local man identified as Ruslan Zinin yelled: "No-one's going to fight" and "we're all going home now" before firing a sawn-off shotgun in the military enlistment office in Ust-Ilimsk.
A witness reportedly said the enlistment commandant had gathered those being drafted and “started explaining everything clumsily.
"Some guy walked out of line and said ‘nobody’s going anywhere.’ And then I heard 3 shots," the witness added.
He was armed with a gun 'like a homemade sawed-off rifle,' a witness said.
Warning: distressing footage
"We found one that can see!"
— Jay in Kyiv (@JayinKyiv) September 26, 2022
Not every Russian is a slave.
Russian man shoots military recruiter. pic.twitter.com/8WPILCNSCa
Video footage of the suspected gunman after his arrest emerged on social media saying he was understood to have been distressed after his best friend was called up to fight. He himself had not been called up but is said to have told his mother he was going to the draft centre to volunteer.
Chief local military recruiter Alexsandr Yeliseyev is in intensive care fighting for his life after being hit. His condition is described as "grave."
Igor Kobzev, the governor of the Irkutsk region, wrote on the Telegram messaging app that the head of the draft office was in hospital in a critical condition, and that the gunman "will absolutely be punished".
He said: "I am ashamed that this is happening at a time when, on the contrary, we should be united. We must not fight with each but against real threats.
"I have given instructions to strengthen security measures. I ask everyone to remain calm," he said.
In chilling video footage, civilians and military officers can be seen fleeing from the facility in a state of terror after the gunman pulled the trigger.
Police in Irkustsk haven't commented on the incident, but told reporters: "We are collecting information."
The Nexta news agency said: "In Ust-Ilimsk, #Irkutsk region, a shooting in a military registration and enlistment office took place.
"Preliminarily, the head of the draft board was wounded. The shooter has already been detained.”
“The man who shot at the head of the draft board of the military enlistment office in #UstIlimsk was detained.
"He turned out to be 25-year-old local resident Ruslan Zinin.”
Irkutsk Governor Igor Kobzev said security measures are being strengthened in the region.
The shooting came amid widespread protests against Vladimir Putin's mass mobilisation of Russian forces to fight in Ukraine.
In the southern republic Dagestan, on the Caspian Sea, women clashed with police as they sought to stop men being dragged away into force conscription.They chanted: “No to war” and “Shame on You”.
In one video, a woman is heard saying: “Don’t let them take our men. Don’t allow them.”
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end edit.
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| Courtesy Pulse News |
"Veteran Mexican-American journalist Jorge Ramos gave Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) all he could handle on the morning of Thursday, Sept. 22, during AMLO’s daily press conference.
Ramos, known for his no-nonsense approach when dealing with López Obrador during his news conferences, told the Mexican president point-blank that his administration can now lay claim to the infamous record of having the most homicides.
“I have to start with the bad news,” Ramos said, addressing López Obrador. “Your government is already the most violent in modern Mexican history.”
Ramos then proceeded to produce a cardboard sign that he brought with him, detailing the number of murders committed for each president’s term: former Mexican Presidents Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto with 121,683 and 124,478, respectively, and AMLO with a total of 126,206. The figures for Calderón and Peña Nieto, however, were for their respective six-year terms. López Obrador has still more than two years left in his term.
When López Obrador denied the claims, Ramos said that he pulled the data from the Mexican government’s own website. The journalist also doubled down on his criticisms of AMLO’s handling of the country’s growing violence and insecurity.
“You came to power, and now there have been more Mexicans murdered, more than under Peña Nieto, more than under Calderón. This is what it means, Mr. President. Despite the figures you have given us, your security strategy has not worked,” Ramos said. “Many have been put off by the idea of ‘hugs not bullets.’ In the end, despite your militarization of the country, the criminals have fired more bullets. The problem is that if this problem isn’t solved, it will get much worse. In the end, when you step down, there will be more than 191,000 deaths.”
“I do not agree with you, I do not agree, and I think you are wrong,” López Obrador said, to which Ramos replied in turn that, again, the figures were pulled from government data.
AMLO then reiterated his controversial “hugs not bullets” strategy, and said that what kept him “calm and optimistic” was that his strategy was “giving results” — despite the government data that Ramos produced to the contrary.
When Ramos replied that López Obrador should not be calm “because it’s a national emergency,” AMLO said that he wasn’t lying, that his conscience would not allow him to be dishonest, but that his adversaries “want people dead.”
“My adversaries wanted me to fail at the beginning of this pandemic; they want my security strategy to fail. They want things to go wrong in this country, so that they can blame it on this government,” López Obrador said. “Those who committed and continue to commit white-collar crime continue to do a lot of damage. They are the ones looting, robbing the country. They are the ones who want things to go wrong for us.”
López Obrador then proceeded to blame the media, accusing journalists of “being silent as mummies” during the previous administrations. Ramos countered this, and said that he — along with other journalists — regularly criticized Peña Nieto throughout his administration.
In addition to verbally attacking journalists and legitimate media outlets during his daily morning press conferences, AMLO has a penchant for blaming previous administrations — chief among them Calderón’s — conveniently forgetting that his controversial “hugs not bullets” approach has led to the explosion of homicides, femicides, journalist killings, forced disappearances and cartel violence in the country.
There is little love lost between López Obrador and the seasoned journalist Ramos, who is regarded as the best-known Spanish-language news anchor in the United States.
In July of last year, during the height of the covid-19 pandemic, Ramos confronted López Obrador — again, due to the spiking violence in Mexico, in addition to the soaring virus-related deaths in the country. When he couldn’t give Ramos a satisfactory answer, he dismissed the Univision anchor and went on to answer other reporters’ questions.
Likewise, in 2019, Ramos was temporarily banned from attending AMLO’s press conferences for citing the government’s own figures on rising crimes in one of those pressers."
I really like Ramos - it's probably better that he doesn't live down here.
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| Rubio, The Son of Daca Bob In Charge Despite Being Cross Eyed. He says,"Here's lookin' at you kid." |
Okay guys take care.....one of Rubio's faves:
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5 comments:
Hey there. I don't know if you are a fan of Phil Ochs but this one always gets to me. The thousands of brave Russian men deserve respect and admiration for refusing to participate in Putin's War.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv1KEF8Uw2k
Ciao
Brian AKA not Linton :-)
Good to hear from you Brian, boy this situation is getting worse by the minute.
I just do not know if there are enough protesters to make an impact - Nalvany has been sending out smuggled out videos and urging them on, but the Russian people have never really been allowed to organize, so this is radically different from anything we have historically witnessed. Plus, Nalvany looked awful, they have been just treating him horrible.
Yes, all of the men, women & children in Russia who have been fighting Putin should always be remembered and honored as heroes - just hope they spark something larger and kick Putin in the rear and out the door. But then, we don't know who is next to take his place, and if in fact whoever it is isn't just another oligarch looking to get rich quick.
Oh, Phil Ochs is he still alive? He was such a force in the spirit of the anti-war movement back when you & I were kids. What an inspiration he was. I probably should have put up something like that instead of the Keyboard Cat, but at that point I needed to lighten things up a bit around here, plus Rubio was on my case for more animal videos. (;
Are you guys okay? I have to find the code to put up music and links in the comments,...meanwhile:
"Oh I marched to the battle of New Orleans
At the end of the early British war
The young land started growing
The young blood started flowing
But I ain't marchin' anymore
For I've killed my share of Indians
In a thousand different fights
I was there at the Little Big Horn
I heard many men lying
I saw many more dying
But I ain't marchin' anymore
It's always the old to lead us to the war
It's always the young to fall
Now look at all we've won with the saber and the gun
Tell me is it worth it all
For I stole California from the Mexican land
Fought in the bloody Civil War
Yes I even killed my brother
And so many others
And I ain't marchin' anymore
For I marched to the battles of the German trench
In a war that was bound to end all wars
Oh I must have killed a million men
And now they want me back again
But I ain't marchin' anymore
For I flew the final mission in the Japanese sky
Set off the mighty mushroom roar
When I saw the cities burning
I knew that I was learning
That I ain't marchin' anymore
Now the labor leader's screamin' when they close the missile plants,
United Fruit screams at the Cuban shore,
Call it "Peace" or call it "Treason, "
Call it "Love" or call it "Reason, "
But I ain't marchin' any more."
Still, sadly we have to march when there are aggressors like Putin, Trump, Hitler, et al.
Stay in touch,
Maggie
xxxooo
Just checking in; we have to go up tomorrow and get our booster and flu shots, hope you guys got yours.
I read that several of these "recruit" centers in Russia have been attacked but I don't think there will ever be enough domestic opposition to bring down Putin - all we have is Zelensky.All that will be left in Russia will be the grannies & women - at least a hundred thousand men and more have fled the Motherland.
The "election" was such a farce, but now Putin has raised the bar and set the stage to actually be able to launch a nuke claiming that Russia was attacked by Ukraine when in fact these lands belong to Ukraine. It's insane.
Well whatever you do don't watch "Plan A" put together by Princeton, you won't be able to sleep.
Over & out, take care.
Other news: The Independent deactivated my comment on their article on Marjorie Taylor Greene - at least five times. They would take it down then I would put it back up.they would take it down, I would put it back up, etc. It wasn't profane. I said:
"Maybe she'll join a tantric sex cult like the Rajneeshees and leave us all alone."
They in their article were the ones who brought up the tantric thing, not me and other comments were far more provacative by far.
So, I had just only subscribed and I wrote them that I was going to deactivate them, which I did. I mean, like 89 dollars is a lot of money.That's more than I give to the Guardian. I had to unsubscribe to everything, newsletters, you name it. I'm upset because I thought finally on the social media I had made some friends, I really liked the people there, except for the Russian bots.
I swear, I really think they didn't know a thing about the Rajneeshees in Oregon, WTF man? It wasn't a racist comment. Those Rajneeshees up there were white boys and gals. Scary, just like MTG !
Oh well, bummed out, let down, I give up.Crying on your shoulder - Mike said..'I told you not to get involved with these groups.'
Bye.The Hurricane was horrible.
You are not going to believe this one, have to add it though. So, I was a little taken back when I posted on the Independent about Daniel Ortega shutting down CNN en Espanol in response to someone called "Sandinista" who called me a liar when I said the original Sandinistas consider Ortega a traitor - and they do and he is. That post vanished too (re CNN en Espanol).
So check this out - look who owns the Independent or at least has a 40% interest in it:
"Alexander Yevgenievich Lebedev (Russian: Александр Евгеньевич Лебедев, IPA: [ɐlʲɪˈksandr jɪvˈɡʲenʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ˈlʲebʲɪdʲɪf]; born 16 December 1959)[1] is a Russian businessman, and has been referred to as one of the Russian oligarchs. Until 1992, he was an officer in the First Chief Directorate (Foreign Intelligence) of the Soviet Union′s KGB and later one of the KGB's successor-agencies, Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR).
Excerpts:
"In early 2008, he was listed as the 39th richest Russian, and worth an estimated US$3.1 billion by Forbes magazine, but by October 2008 he was worth $300 million.[2] In March 2012, Forbes estimated his fortune at US$1.1 billion. His fortune has since declined, and he is no longer considered to be a billionaire.[3] He is part owner of the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta[4] and owner of two UK newspapers with his son Evgeny Lebedev: the Evening Standard and The Independent.
In May 2022 Lebedev was put on Canada's sanctions list following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.[5] He was separately reported to have met Vyacheslav Dukhin, a senior Russian government official, weeks before the invasion.[6]
In 2009, he entered into exclusive negotiations with Independent News & Media to buy the company's British national newspapers, The Independent and The Independent on Sunday. Before the purchase was completed, his representatives offered the editorship of The Independent to Rod Liddle.[16] The offer was withdrawn after Liddle's putative appointment was opposed by the newspaper's staff and by an online campaign.[17][18] On 25 March 2010, Lebedev bought The Independent and Independent on Sunday for £1.[19]"
Lebedev a doo - look him up on wiki.Apparently now they say his son runs things, who knows.
How weird is that ? I need some sleep, later.
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