I'm still here believe it don't. I don't think everyone including myself has fully recovered from the loss of the Queen. What will happen next to our dear cousins is yet to be seen: the anti-Royalists are out in force and the new Prime Minister Ms. Truss is trying to pull off her version of Ronald Reagan's trickle down economics which is doomed to fail, so matters are far from smooth.
I have to go up and have stitches removed tomorrow from my face for the skin cancer and having a horrible reaction the past few days from the shots in my legs, I'll live I hope because I found a converted barn in St. Buryan where I think we could live happier and peacefully. Do I like it more than Ouray? Well, yes. It's close to Sennen - still have to win the lottery though. It needs a garage and a pool, Paris loves it. Knee replacement won't be until close to December.
I have several reports on the Ukraine et al for y'all:
~ From The Washington Post's "Today's World View":
Russia Pushes the Panic Button and Raises Risk Of Nuclear War
By , Ishaan Tharoor
with Sammy Westfall
"What many watchers of the war in Ukraine feared is about to happen. Separatist leaders in four enclaves controlled by Russian forces and their proxies in Ukraine announced “referendums” to be staged Friday through Tuesday to decide whether their territories would join Russia. These votes, which are illegal under both Ukrainian and international law and viewed by most analysts as a sham, are similar to what Russia unfurled following its 2014 annexation of Crimea. Unlike then, the Kremlin’s military hold over these statelets in Ukraine’s Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions is more tenuous, with Ukraine in the midst of an ongoing offensive to push Russian troops out of more areas of the country.
Further Russian annexation of Ukrainian lands — no matter the spurious nature of the move — marks the latest roll of the dice by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Humbled on the battlefield in recent weeks, he may believe changing the political facts on the ground could stymie Ukrainian advances and force a recalculation among Western governments. “After annexing the territories, Moscow would likely declare Ukrainian attacks on those areas to be assaults on Russia itself, analysts warned, a potential trigger for a general military mobilization or a dangerous escalation such as the use of a nuclear weapon against Ukraine,” wrote my colleague Robyn Dixon.
At the time of writing, Putin was set to deliver a speech in the early hours of Wednesday morning possibly outlining Russia’s next steps. His country’s rubber-stamp parliament is pushing through a bill that will stiffen punishments for a host of crimes, such as desertion and insubordination, if committed during military mobilization or combat situations. Pro-war hard-liners have called for such tougher measures to buttress Russia’s flagging war effort. They also believe that a tightening of control over Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia will up the ante in the Kremlin’s favor.
“Judging by what is happening and what is about to happen, this week marks either the eve of our imminent victory or the eve of nuclear war,” Margarita Simonyan, editor in chief of state propaganda channel RT, tweeted. “I can’t see any third option.”
Ukrainian officials were unimpressed. “Sham ‘referendums’ will not change anything. Neither will any hybrid ‘mobilization,’” responded Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. “Russia has been and remains an aggressor illegally occupying parts of Ukrainian land. Ukraine has every right to liberate its territories and will keep liberating them whatever Russia has to say.”
That sentiment was echoed by French President Emmanuel Macron when speaking Tuesday at the dais of the U.N. General Assembly. He cast Russian actions since the Feb. 24 invasion as “a return to the age of imperialism and colonies” and spoke directly to nations in the developing world that seem to be sitting on the fence during this conflict. “Those who are silent now on this new imperialism, or are secretly complicit with it, show a new cynicism that is tearing down the global order without which peace is not possible,” Macron said.
Other Western diplomats condemned the mooted annexation plans. “Russia, its political leadership, and all those involved in these ‘referenda’ and other violations of international law in Ukraine will be held accountable, and additional restrictive measures against Russia would be considered,” E.U. foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement.
With the exception of the rhetorical backing of a clutch of far-right allies in Europe, Putin can’t count on much support from elsewhere, either. Last week at a summit in Uzbekistan, he faced a degree of pressure from the leaders of China and India, which have historically warm ties with Moscow, to draw down hostilities in Ukraine.
“Those countries signaled to Putin that he should end the war as quickly as possible, and stop claiming to represent the entirety of the non-Western world,” tweeted Alexander Baunov, a Russian journalist and international policy expert. “Moscow’s actions, therefore, are being taken to either end the war as soon as possible, or, if it that doesn’t work, to put the blame for that on other people, and turn Russia’s invasion of a neighboring country into a defensive war.”
Ukraine’s stunning victories in the northeast Kharkiv region set the table for this strategic turn. The rapid Ukrainian advance exposed a depleted, disorganized Russian military that melted away. It also further collapsed Putin’s propaganda narrative surrounding the war. For months, the Kremlin framed the Russian invasion as a “special operation” with an inevitable outcome — to bring an unruly little neighbor back into the Russian fold. The series of stinging setbacks have illustrated the seeming impossibility of a decisive Russian military victory.
And many in Russia are now getting the picture, too. “Judging by the scathing commentary in Russian Telegram channels and the shift of tone in the Kremlin-controlled media, Russians are in the process of losing the last remaining glimmers of their perceived military might,” wrote Gian Gentile and Raphael S. Cohen in Foreign Policy, likening the Ukrainian victory in Kharkiv to the American victory over the British at Saratoga in 1777, which turned the tide of the Revolutionary War.
That analogy may be a bit premature. Dara Massicot, Gentile and Cohen’s colleague at the Rand Corporation, warned that the next phase of the war — still massively influenced by Western military support to Ukraine as it bids to reclaim its lost territory — could see a whole new series of Russian provocations. “If the Kremlin’s annexation gambit fails to stop the fighting and support to Ukraine, the Kremlin will need to lash out to show it is serious,” she tweeted. “That means escalation that could come in different form” — including more missile strikes on Ukrainian civilian areas and energy infrastructure, cyberattacks, and exercises that involve the “brandishing of nuclear weapons,” if not their deployment.
The stakes are getting higher. The West “should remind Russia of the invisible rules of the war: that neither side wants to turn this conventional war into a wider NATO-Russian confrontation,” wrote Liana Fix and Michael Kimmage in Foreign Affairs. “A nuclear escalation would violate these rules and could lead to NATO involvement. It would be to everybody’s detriment.”
Meanwhile, Fix and Kimmage argued, Kremlin attempts to order a general mobilization may only plunge approval for the war among the Russian public and undermine Putin’s own grip on power. “Putin’s Russia has been unable to develop a clear concept for its war, unable to learn from its mistakes, and unable to execute many of the functions of a world-class military,” they wrote. “Mobilization per se would change none of this.”
The Washington Post met about a dozen parents from Izyum, Ukraine with children who are now stuck in Russia at a summer camp near the beach. They had hoped the camp would give their children a break from the war.
But after Ukrainian forces stormed and retook their home city, the campers were left stranded on the other side of a dangerous front line with no clear way home.
The parents said some 200 children had traveled there in August and were supposed to return home by bus last week. Most phone and internet service has been cut. Some parents expressed worries that publicizing that their children traveled to camp in Russia could spark accusations their families collaborated with Russian forces. Others thought speaking out would better the chances of bringing their children back home.
“I only have one thing in my head: to get my kid back,” said a woman whose 12-year-old son is at the camp. She said she last spoke to him directly more than 10 days ago."
~~~~~
This next one is superfantastic - I noticed Juan Cole also put this up - click the link, a best read:
~ From Tom Dispatch - posted 09/18/22
As Falls Russia, So Falls The World
By,
~~~~~
Hereabouts, AMLO was rung through wringer on the Ukraine, Therese Margolis Of Pulse News summarizes:
~ From Pulse News Mexico:
Ukraine Calls AMLO's Peace Plan a Russian Scheme
By THÉRÈSE MARGOLIS
"Mykhailo Podolyak, chief advisor to the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, on Saturday, Sept. 17, charged Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) of promoting a Russian political agenda to justify Moscow’s illegal invasion of Ukrainian territory through the pretense of his so-called peace plan.
Mincing no words in a tweet released Saturday morning, Podolyak, warned that AMLO’s proposal to pause all aggression within Ukraine for five years would only give Russia time to consolidate its acquisitions, rearm and continue invading his country.
“Peacemakers who use war as a topic for their own PR are causing only surprise. @lopezobrador, is your plan to keep millions under occupation, increase the number of mass burials and give Russia time to renew reserves before the next offensive? Then your ‘plan’ is a Russian plan,” Podolyak wrote.
The Ukrainian official went on to say that despite López Obrador’s blatant support of Russia, he believed that “the vast majority of Mexicans understand the meaning of freedom and the reasons for which Ukraine is fighting.”
On Monday, Sept. 12, AMLO, a staunch supporter of Russia and all things communist, stated that he intended to present “a plan” to the United Nations that would end Russia’s war in Ukraine.
That unsolicited plan, the self-appointed “global mediator” explained, would involve the creation of a arbitrating committee composed of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Pope Francis.
Under Lopez Obrador’s plan, the trio of leaders would initiate talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Zelensky to negotiate a five-year truce.
Although AMLO did not elaborate much about how his plan would work, it seemed to ignore the fact that Russia illegally invaded Ukraine and its armies have since displaced millions of Ukrainians, killed thousands of civilians and left numerous cities, towns and villages in total ruin.
Since taking office in December 2018, López Obrador — whose election campaign was allegedly financed, at least in part, by Russia, according to some U.S. national security sources at the time — has worked to bolster Mexico’s commercial and economic ties with Moscow.
Last year, Russia sold more than $8.7 billion in goods and services to Mexico (up from just over $1.5 billion before AMLO took office), and there are now 108 Russian companies with capital holdings in Mexico.
Moreover on Feb. 25, just as Putin’s troops were ruthlessly grabbing control of Kiev, Russia’s second-largest oil producer, Lukoil, was signing the final acquisition papers on a 50-percent operator interest in an offshore Mexican oil project (the fruit of initial Russian oil dealings with AMLO immediately after he took office).
Lukoil put the transaction value of the deal at $435 million, plus expenditures of another $250 million.
On Saturday, Sept. 16, during Mexico’s Independence Day military parade, AMLO, bookended by his “guests of honor,” former Bolivian President Evo Morales and former Uruguayan President and Tupamaros guerilla fighter José Mujica, López Obrador condemned the role the United Nations, along with what he called the “great powers,” for censuring Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
López Obrador went on to say that Western powers have “positioned themselves” in the conflict “only to serve their own hegemonic interests” and to fuel the war industry.
And on Sunday, Sept. 18, López Obrador responded to Podolyak’s tweet by saying that those who rejected his plan were motivated by “sectarianism and elite interests.”"
So, everything is still the same - BTW, thanks to Therese Margolis for covering this - I did not see any coverage in the SD Union or KPBS. However, Zeta did cover it.
~~~~~
UPDATE/EDIT: PUTIN CALLING UP 300,000 RESERVISTS
~ From CNN:
Putin is calling up 300,000 reservists:
By Tara Subramaniam and Andrew Raine, CNN
"KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial mobilization of reservists in Russia, in a measure that appeared to be an admission that Moscow’s war against Ukraine isn’t going according to plan after nearly seven months of fighting and amid recent battlefield losses for the Kremlin’s forces.
The Russian leader, in a televised address to the nation aired on Wednesday morning, also warned the West that he isn’t bluffing over using all the means at his disposal to protect Russia’s territory, in what appeared to be a veiled reference to Russia’s nuclear capability. Putin has previously warned the West not to back Russia against the wall and has rebuked NATO countries for supplying weapons to help Ukraine.
The total number of reservists could be as high as 300,000, officials said.
Only those with relevant combat and service experience will be mobilized, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said. He added that there are around 25 million people who fit this criteria, but only around 1% of them will be mobilized.
Another clause in the decree prevents most professional soldiers from terminating their contracts and leaving service until the partial mobilization is no longer in place.
Putin’s announcement came against the backdrop of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, where Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 has been the target of broad international criticism that has kept up intense diplomatic pressure on Moscow.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskky is due to address the gathering in a prerecorded address on Wednesday. Putin didn’t travel to New York.
Putin’s gambit has a strong element of risk — it could backfire, by making the Ukraine war unpopular at home and hurting his own standing, and it exposes Russia’s underlying military shortcomings.
The mobilization is unlikely to bring any consequences on the battlefield for months because of a lack of training facilities and equipment.
The U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, tweeted that the mobilization is a sign “of weakness, of Russian failure.”
British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace echoed that assessment, describing Putin’s move as “an admission that his invasion is failing.”
“He and his defense minister have sent tens of thousands of their own citizens to their deaths, ill-equipped and badly led,” Wallace said in a statement. “No amount of threats and propaganda can hide the fact that Ukraine is winning this war, the international community are united and Russia is becoming a global pariah.”
Russian political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin said Putin’s announcement smacked of “an act of desperation.” He predicted that Russians will resist the mobilization through “passive sabotage.”
“People will evade this mobilization in every possible way, bribe their way out of this mobilization, leave the country,” Oreshkin told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday.
Shortly after Putin’s address, Russian media reported a sharp spike in demand for plane tickets abroad, even though far fewer of those have been available since the start of the war and they are much more expensive than before.
The announcement won’t go down well with the general public, Oreshkin said, describing it as “a huge personal blow to Russian citizens, who until recently (took part in the hostilities) with pleasure, sitting on their couches, (watching) TV. And now the war has come into their home.”
The partial mobilization order came a day after Russian-controlled regions in eastern and southern Ukraine announced plans to hold votes on becoming integral parts of Russia — a move that could set the stage for Moscow to escalate the war following Ukrainian successes.
The referendums, which have been expected to take place since the first months of the war, will start Friday in the Luhansk, Kherson and partly Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions.
The ballots are all but certain to go Moscow’s way.
The war, which has killed thousands of people, has driven up food prices worldwide and caused energy costs to soar. It has also brought fears of a potential nuclear catastrophe at Europe’s largest nuclear plant in Ukraine’s now Russia-occupied southeast. Investigations are also underway into possible atrocities committed by Russian forces in Ukraine.
In his address, Putin accused the West of engaging in “nuclear blackmail” and noted “statements of some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO states about the possibility of using nuclear weapons of mass destruction against Russia.”
He didn’t identify who had made such comments.
“To those who allow themselves such statements regarding Russia, I want to remind you that our country also has various means of destruction, and for separate components and more modern than those of NATO countries and when the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, to protect Russia and our people, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal,” Putin said.
He added: “It’s not a bluff.”
Foreign leaders have described the ballots as illegitimate and nonbinding. Zelenskyy said they were a “sham” and “noise” to distract public attention.
Putin said he has already signed the decree for partial mobilization, which is due to start on Wednesday. A full-scale mobilization would likely be unpopular in Russia and could further dent Putin’s standing after the recent military setbacks in Ukraine.
“We are talking about partial mobilization, that is, only citizens who are currently in the reserve will be subject to conscription, and above all, those who served in the armed forces have a certain military specialty and relevant experience,” Putin said.
Shoigu, the Russian defense minister, also said that 5,937 Russian soldiers have died in the Ukraine conflict, far lower than Western estimates that Russia has lost tens of thousands.
The Vesna opposition movement called for nationwide protests on Wednesday, saying “Thousands of Russian men -- our fathers, brothers and husbands -- will be thrown into the meat grinder of the war. What will they be dying for? What will mothers and children be crying for?”
It was unclear how many would dare to protest amid Russia’s overall suppression of opposition and harsh laws against discrediting soldiers and the military operation.
In another signal that Russia is digging in for a protracted and possibly ramped-up conflict, the Kremlin-controlled lower house of parliament voted Tuesday to toughen laws against desertion, surrender and looting by Russian troops. Lawmakers also voted to introduce possible 10-year prison terms for soldiers refusing to fight."
He's a madman, but AMLO likes him.
end edit.
~~~~~
Locally we are over 100 executions/homicidios this month, I be back with the correct count, and by now you've heard of the aftershocks of the big one 7.7 in Michoacan.
~~~~~
eeegads...how about Judge Raymond Dearie?
~ From The Daily Beast:
Special Master Has a Simple Test That May Be Disaster For Trump
by, Jose Pagliery
~~~~~
Oh Dearie is right - keep your fingers crossed everyone.
~~~~~
So, what rock did DeSantis crawl out from under? More migrantes coming to your city soon !
~ From Informed Comment and do not miss all of his news.
Top 6 Things Wrong With DeSanti's Stunt Of Flying Asylum-Seekers To Martha's Vineyard
"Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Stunts like Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’s program of rounding up and flying to Martha’s Vineyard Venezuelan and Colombian asylum-seekers, who are in the country legally awaiting the adjudication of their asylum status, have definite downsides. DeSantis helped run an explicitly racist Facebook page before he was governor of Florida, and continues to be the KKK in a business suit. DeSantis, who wants to be president in 2025, is a publicity hog seeking to make a national name for himself. He thought Florida is the perfect terrain for the politics of racial fear, since the state continually attracts new Hispanic and African-American residents and the whites of Tampa and Tallahassee can be seduced into worrying about whether their dominance of Florida politics will be eroded.
There are downsides to this race-baiting strategy that the pugilistic DeSantis has chosen, however.
irst, he is from a fairly recent immigrant family himself. All of his great-grandparents were born in Italy. In contrast, all of my great-great grandparents were born in the United States. On his mother’s side, DeSantis’s forebears came in 1904 and 1917 respectively (Salvatore Storti and his wife Luigia Colucci). That is something to be celebrated. The 20 million immigrants who came in the big wave of 1880-1924 contributed enormously to US prosperity and cultural life. But they were immigrants, and if they just hopped on a ship and came in now the way they came in then, they’d be considered undocumented migrants. Many were Catholic or Jewish or Muslim rather than Protestant. In social terms, if not in the law, they were often considered to be “not white,” especially those in the working class. The second wave of the Ku Klux Klan was as anti-Catholic as it was anti-Black. DeSantis is a right wing Catholic who would have been discriminated against in previous decades. In fact, 11 Italian-Americans were lynched in Louisiana in 1891. So it is hypocritical and shameful for this person from a family of immigrants to play on fears of immigration.
Second, there is also a problem for Greg Abbott, Texas-style anti-immigrant rhetoric in Florida. The state has a large Cuban population made up of immigrants who fled Fidel Castro’s Communism, and the older segments of which vote Republican. This community amounts to six percent of the state’s voters. In short, the Sunshine State has “good immigrants” alongside those DeSantis dismissively calls “aliens” and he has to walk a fine line if he is to avoid alienating the powerful Cuban voting bloc. As it is, 40% of Cuban-Americans voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and younger members of the community are skewing center-left like Millennials and Gen Z everywhere in the country. DeSantis’ stunt will be felt as alienating among young Cuban-Americans. Since the people he played the dirty trick on were mostly Venezuelans fleeing an authoritarian, self-styled socialist government in Caracas, their plight may pull at the heartstrings of Cuban-Americans.
Third, the Houston Chronicle editorial board notes the nauseating resemblance of the DeSantis tactic of transporting asylum-seekers from the South with the “reverse freedom rides” of the 1960s that bused African-Americans to places like New York were organized by the 300,000-strong segregationist White Citizens’ Councils in a doomed bid to change public opinion and turn northern voters against the civil rights movement.
Historian Clive Webb in his “‘A Cheap Trafficking in Human Misery:’ The Reverse Freedom Rides of 1962,” Journal of American Studies , Aug., 2004, Vol. 38, No. 2, pp. 249-271 explains that the reverse freedom rides were orchestrated by New Orleans native George Singelmann and that:
- “In the continuing propaganda war against white Northern liberalism.
The best means by which the Citizens’ Councils could restore their
sullied political reputation was to discredit their Northern critics.
Singelmann believed that by unloading thousands of unemployed blacks he
would test the goodwill of Northern authorities to breaking point. When
the Reverse Freedom Riders failed to secure employment they would be
forced to add their names to the already bulging welfare rolls of
Northern cities. Should those same Northern liberals who denounced the
racial intolerance of white Southerners prove unwilling to assist the
riders, it would expose their support for the civil rights cause as
fraudulent and hypocritical. “‘his is a crude way of putting it,”
Singelmann told one reporter, “but we are telling the North to put up or
shut up.'”
MSNBC: “DeSantis Migrant Stunt Reminiscent Of Deceptive ‘Reverse Freedom Rides’ From 60’s”
Fourth, DeSantis used Florida state funds to fly asylum-seekers in Texas to the Boston area. Is this a legal use of Florida state monies? Florida state legislators are rebuking the governor over this issue.
Fifth, DeSantis had officials lie to the Venezuelans and Colombians and promise them jobs and gifts if they got on the plane. That move is a form of kidnapping “by inveiglement,” as legal analyst Glenn Kirschner pointed out. It is no different in principle than when a pedophile entices a child into his van with candy, though I’m not alleging that DeSantis has those tendencies. It is the kidnapping tendency that he does have.
Sixth, it didn’t work. The asylum-seekers were welcomed with open arms by volunteers and activists at Martha’s Vineyard, as Jonathan Franklin at NPR explained. If the point was to demonstrate that northern sanctuary cities were hypocritical, it failed miserably.
DeSantis may be toast politically anyway. After the SCOTUS Dobbs ruling and the mobilization of women around the right to medical care and to make choices about their own bodies, it is unclear that the country wants a far right wing Catholic president who wants to abolish abortion rights for everyone in the country."
~~~~~
Over and Out For Now... and a big howdy to my wild & crazy friends over on The Independent !
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| Sahm & Dylan |
Oh what the heck, I really miss these guys - they are all gone.They were wild ones, all of them. So, let's finish their show.....click the title....
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