;)
March 12, 2022
Late Morning Update:
The New York Times' live updates of developments in Russia's war on Ukraine Saturday are here: "As Russian forces intensified their campaign of devastation aimed at cities and towns across Ukraine, including in the capital, Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Moscow on Saturday of terrorizing the nation in an attempt to break the will of the people. 'A war of annihilation,' he called it. Russian forces have not achieved anything resembling a strategic military victory since the first days of the war more than two weeks ago, and have turned to attempts to flatten whole sections of cities. Ukraine's military said on Saturday that all attempts by Russian forces to advance on any front had been stopped and that the Ukrainian forces had inflicted 'heavy losses in manpower and equipment.'"
Marc Santora of the New York Times: The mayor of Melitopol, "Ivan Fyodorov, as his name suggests, is an ethnic Russian in a southern Ukrainian city where Russian is commonly spoken and where ties to Russia run deep. On Friday evening, Mr. Fyodorov had a bag thrown over his head and was dragged from a government office building by armed Russian soldiers, according to Ukrainian officials.... Since Russian forces captured his city in the first days of the war, he had encouraged resistance, earning him the support of the public and the ire of the occupying army. On Saturday, hundreds of his townspeople poured out into the streets in an expression of outrage and defiance, despite the presence of troops on their streets. 'Return the mayor!' they shouted.... 'Free the mayor!' But nearly as soon as people gathered, the Russians moved to shut them down, arresting a woman who they said had organized the demonstration, according to two witnesses and the woman's Facebook account. The episode is part of what Ukrainian officials say is a pattern of intimidation and repression that is growing more brutal."
Amanda Holpuch of the New York Times: "For decades, Isaiah Andrews has maintained his innocence in the 1974 murder of his wife, unaware that the key to his exoneration was buried in the archives of the Cleveland Division of Police. The Cleveland police's decision to withhold crucial information in the case resurfaced on Thursday, when an Ohio court determined that Mr. Andrews, now 84, had been wrongfully imprisoned for 45 years. Mr. Andrews, who is sick and uses a wheelchair, has been free since May 2020. He was later found not guilty at a second jury trial in October, but the court had to declare him wrongfully imprisoned so he could seek damages from the State of Ohio."
~~~~~~~~~~
Putin's War Crimes, Ctd.
The Washington Post's live updates of developments in Russia's war on Ukraine Saturday are here: "Ukrainians in cities across the country awoke Saturday to withering bombardment as Russian forces pummeled targets including Kyiv, the capital, and Mykolaiv, a port on Ukraine's strategically significant southern coast. A health official in Mykolaiv said a cancer hospital had been struck -- though no deaths were reported -- while residents in Kyiv reported loud explosions and air raid sirens piercing the night. Russian ground forces were around 15 miles from the center of Kyiv, while the cities of Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Mariupol and Sumy were encircled and suffering heavy shelling, according to an intelligence update from the British defense ministry Saturday." ~~~
~~~ The Guardian's live updates are here: "Sanctions against Russia could cause the International Space Station (ISS) to crash and lead to a 500-tonne structure to 'fall down into the sea or onto land', the head of Russian space agency, Roscosmos, said.... Publishing a map of the locations where the ISS could possibly come down, he said it was unlikely to be in Russia. But the populations of other countries, especially those led by the 'dogs of war', should think about the price of the sanctions against Roscosmos."
Yuras Karmanau of the AP: "Russian forces pounding the port city of Mariupol shelled a mosque sheltering more than 80 people, including children, the Ukrainian government said Saturday as fighting also raged on the outskirts of the capital, Kyiv."
The New York Times' live updates of developments in Russia's war on Ukraine Friday are here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Ana Swanson of the New York Times: "President Biden and other Western leaders moved on Friday to further isolate Russia from the global trading system, saying they would strip the country of normal trade relations and take other steps to sever its links to the world economy in response to ... Vladimir V. Putin's invasion of Ukraine. The measures, which were announced jointly with the European Union and other Group of 7 countries, would allow countries to impose higher tariffs on Russian goods and would prevent Russia from borrowing funds from multilateral institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank." ~~~
~~~ Morgan Chalfant of the Hill: "President Biden announced Friday that the United States and other allies would move to revoke the 'most favored nation' trade status for Russia in response to its military invasion of Ukraine. In remarks from the Roosevelt Room, Biden said the coordinated move would deal a 'another crushing blow to the Russian economy.' The move requires an act of Congress and Biden said Friday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had agreed to hold off on a bill ending normal trade relations with Russia until he could get U.S. allies behind a plan to do so together.&" (Also linked yesterday.) The New York Times report is here. ~~~
Birds, Bats & Bugs. Julian Borger, et al., of the Guardian: "Russia has accused Ukraine and the US at the UN security council of a plot to use migratory birds and bats to spread pathogens, raising alarm among other council members that the accusations could be intended to provide cover for future Russian use of biological weapons. The Russian permanent representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, delivered a lengthy account of the alleged biological weapons plot, and said the birds, bats and insects supposedly intended to spread disease would cross Ukraine's western border.... The United Nations high representative for disarmament, Izumi Nakamitsu, said the UN was 'not aware of any biological weapons programmes' in Ukraine...."
Steven Erlanger of the New York Times: "Russian demands that a revised nuclear agreement with Iran shield it from sanctions imposed because of its war in Ukraine halted efforts to revive the deal on Friday, just as negotiators said they had all but finalized the agreement. The breakdown in talks delays any prospect of a deal, and risks scuttling it entirely, allowing Iran to move closer to the ability to build a nuclear bomb. More immediately, the lack of a deal also delays the resumption of Iran's ability to sell oil on the world market, which Western countries hoped would ease soaring energy prices."
Never Mind. Hugh Son of CNBC: "Deutsche Bank said Friday that it was winding down its operations in Russia, one day after its chief financial officer said it wasn't 'practical' to shutter the unit.... The move by Deutsche Bank, the biggest German bank by assets, follows announcements Thursday that rival investment banks Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase were winding down operations in Russia."
About That Mystery Yacht. Jason Horowitz of the New York Times: "American officials are examining the ownership of a $700 million superyacht currently in a dry dock at an Italian seacoast town, and believe it could be associated with ... Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, according to multiple people briefed on the information. United States intelligence agencies have made no final conclusions about the ownership of the superyacht — called the Scheherazade -- but American officials said they had found initial indications that it was linked to Mr. Putin. The information from the U.S. officials came after The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Italian authorities were looking into the 459-foot long vessel's ownership and that a former crew member said it was for the use of Mr. Putin."
Dana Milbank of the Washington Post thinks everybody should know about Rick Scott's official Senate Republican plan for your future pocketbook: the one with "a 10-year tax increase of more than $1 trillion on, in his own words, 'more than half of Americans,' to make sure every household pays taxes.... The Republican plan would raise taxes by $100 billion a year.... Almost all of it would be shouldered by households with income of $100,000 or less. Scott's plan would also sunset -- eliminate -- all federal legislation over five years, under the (risky) assumption that worthy laws would be reenacted. That could mean an end to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid..., military retirement benefits, veterans programs, unemployment compensation, student loans, deposit insurance and more. Additionally, [it] would require U.S. businesses to shut down $600 billion a year in foreign trade and abandon countless billions in overseas investments....."
Shayna Jacobs of the Washington Post: "A New York judge has rejected a bid by Donald Trump to sue author and columnist E. Jean Carroll on the grounds that her defamation case against him in 2019 was baseless -- a ruling that accused the former president of causing repeated delays to keep a sensitive matter from moving closer to trial. Carroll's lawsuit has also been held up by the Justice Department's bid to intervene as counsel on Trump's behalf, an effort based on the argument that he was acting in his official capacity as a federal employee when he made comments disparaging Carroll." An AP report is here. The Guardian's story is here. MB: So happy our tax dollars are going toward defending Trump against a woman who claims he raped her.
News from Trump Grift, LLC, New Orleans Edition. Igor Derysh of Salon: "Donald Trump's PAC sent a fundraising email touting the construction of a new private jet, dubbed 'Trump Force One,' hours after Trump's plane was forced to make an emergency landing over the weekend, according to Insider. A plane carrying Trump made an unscheduled landing last Saturday, while the former president was returning from a Republican National Committee donor event in New Orleans to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, according to Politico. The plane, which belongs to a donor who loaned it to Trump for the event, suffered engine failure 75 miles after taking off from New Orleans and had to turn back, according to the Washington Post. Trump ultimately returned home on the plane of another Republican donor.... Hours after the incident was reported, the Trump Save America PAC sent a fundraising email.... 'Do you want to see the new Trump Force One?' the email asked, with a link to a site that asks for monthly recurring donations of up to $2,500." Thanks to Patrick for the lead. ~~~
~~~ Josh Dawsey & Isaac Stanley-Becker of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump's political group sent at least 15 emails in recent weeks offering small-dollar donors the chance to win a coveted prize if they gave money: dinner with Trump in New Orleans last Saturday.... [One] pitch promised a full suite of perks. 'We'll cover your flight. We'll cover your very nice hotel. We'll cover your dinner,' the email promised, along with a picture with Trump.... But no such winner was flown to New Orleans last weekend, according to four people familiar with the matter. No flight or 'very nice' hotel was booked. Trump had no individual meeting with a small-dollar donor...."
Josh Gerstein of Politico: "A federal jury has acquitted two men of all charges in an alleged scheme to use straw donors to funnel nearly $2 million to various political causes including Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential bid and GOP House candidates in 2018." MB: Mind you, these were not Hillary devotees; "The men shifted their donations and their focus to Republican causes after Clinton's defeat in the 2016 election, exceeding donation limits and using go-betweens...."
All is Not Well in Zuckerberg. Mike Isaac, et al., of the New York Times: "Meta, the parent company of Facebook, told employees on Friday that it was cutting back or eliminating free services like laundry and dry cleaning and was pushing back the dinner bell for a free meal from 6 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., according to seven company employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The new dinner time is an inconvenience because the last of the company's shuttles that take employees to and from their homes typically leaves the office at 6 p.m. It will also make it more difficult for workers to stock up on hefty to-go boxes of food and bring them to their refrigerators at home. The moves are a reflection of changing workplace culture in Silicon Valley. Tech companies, which often offer lifestyle perks in return for employees spending long hours in the office, are preparing to adjust to a new hybrid work model."
Beyond the Beltway
Florida. Sarah Whitten of CNBC: "Disney's CEO [Bob Chapek] said Friday the company is ceasing its political donations in Florida due to the state's so-called 'Don't Say Gay' bill, and he apologized for the company's previous silence on the issue.... Disney, which operates four theme parks and dozens of hotels in Orlando, Florida, was targeted by activists after it was discovered that the company provided financial support for some of the bill's backers in the state legislature." ~~~
~~~ Marie: According to Whitten's report, Disney has donated about $300,000 over the past two years to backers of the bill. This, and the fact that Disney is pausing all political donations, suggests they routinely fund a bunch of dimwitted bigots, perhaps only dimwitted bigots.
Texas. Kate Zernicke & Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Texas Supreme Court on Friday effectively shut down a federal challenge to the state's novel and controversial ban on abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy, closing off what abortion rights advocates said was their last, narrow path to blocking the new law. The decision was the latest in a line of blows to the constitutional right to abortion that has prevailed for five decades.... It is the most restrictive abortion law in the nation, and flies in the face of the Supreme Court's landmark 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade...." An AP story is here.
Texas. David Goodman of the New York Times: "Investigations of parents with transgender children for possible child abuse were temporarily halted across Texas on Friday after a state court ruled that the policy, ordered last month by Gov. Greg Abbott, had been improperly adopted and violated the State Constitution. The injunction, issued by Judge Amy Clark Meachum in Travis County, stemmed from a legal challenge by the parents of a 16-year-old transgender girl.... In issuing the ruling, which came after a day of testimony, Judge Meachum said the governor's actions, and those of the agency, 'violate separation of powers by impermissibly encroaching into the legislative domain.' She said there was a 'substantial likelihood' that plaintiffs would prevail after a trial on the merits.... The court said [Abbott's order] could no longer be enforced pending a trial on the issue, set for July." A Texas Tribune story is here.
News Lede
New York Times: "Dr. Donald Pinkel, a pediatrician who, starting in the early 1960s, developed an aggressive treatment for childhood leukemia that transformed the disease from a virtual death sentence to one that almost every patient survives, died on Wednesday at his home in San Luis Obispo, Calif. He was 95."
Share Article
Reader Comments (9)
Likely it is Chumps's lawyers and not him learned from Clinton's Jessica Hahn events: delay, delay, delay as in the Carroll suit. His empty suit life, like Putin's, has learned only to sow division. A generation ago, Ukranians and Russians got along fine. That amity presented an opportunity for a divider like Putin. NATO, EU, US/Canada/Mexico, and Brexit all have been weakened by the divisions sowed by Putin and his Putz.
Nuclear threats, chemical warfare threats, and now, a 1.1 million
lb. Russian space station threat.
I'd dig a bomb shelter except for the fact that if I dig down 2 or 3
feet here, the hole fills with water and I can't swim.
The space station that might fall or not reminds me of the latest
Meryl Streep movie, "Don't Look Up". Panned by right wing
critics because it's a take off on trump's handling of the pandemic and
fox news. Instead of the hat logo MAGA, president Steep's logo
is Don't Look Up, (at the meteor coming to destroy Earth).
"Putin and his Putz, "citizen's coinage of the two dummkopfs reminded me of my father's put down of anyone he thought worthy of put-downs–--Putz was it! If he was behind a female driver who drove him crazy with her irratic driving he'd add "Molly" to the Putz.
Reading a piece by Tim Judah this morning. He tells us that in Lviv, Odessa, Kharkiv, and finally Kyiv, something struck him for the first time after many year of coming to Ukraine: their post-Soviet feel has finally been cast-off. That, he adds, is not the case in smaller Ukrainian towns, but for the first time these big cities feel like anywhere else in Europe.
Without Ukraine Russia ceases to be an empire.This short snit of a human being is determined to make it so and as the world waits and watches, Putin is recklessly moving forward –- gobbling up one more country to put in his house of horrors. And we sit in our warm homes watching all this unfolding, heartsick at the devastation and deaths and because of the risk of another world war and the use of atomic weapons we are helpless in terms of getting IN THERE ourselves–- "the Yanks are coming"––-a cry from another world war will not be heard today. So even with all the sanctions the Ukrainians are pretty much on their own. I keep wishing those Russian soldiers would surrender en mass ––-"Ve hear from our mutters to stop fighting and come home." Wouldn't that be a kicker for the sick man on the throne.
PD,
There will be no surrender for Putin’s soldiers. At this point, he has nowhere to go but further down the hole he’s dug for himself. Like Bush and Cheney before him, he badly underestimated his ability to scare the populace into submission and their capacity to fight back. But it would never do for a bare chested, gun toting, horseback riding tough guy strongman like Putin to back down now. That would mean humiliation, and no one humiliates Czar Vlad!
He’s doing fine on his own.
But backing down now would mean, to his thinking, that he was in error, that his plans were stoopid, that his genius was wanting this time out, and like Republicans in this country, he never admits error.
And those darned Ukrainians! Don’t they know that his plan was for them to roll over and agree to be Russian vassals, again? They were supposed to submit within hours, if not days, in order to make him look all powerful, the new czar!
But because they aren’t meekly accepting their role in his grand scheme of restoring the Soviet empire and allowing him to go down as the greatest figure in Russian history, he is now going to make them pay.
He wants everyone to pay for his failures.
Thus, the rattling of his nuclear saber, this weird bullshit about the ISS, bombing hospitals and murdering civilians (all sure to make Ukrainians throw flowers at his feet, another dangerous bit of self deception once envisioned by another snarling bully).
But the West needs to reject making this all about Us v Russia. We have to keep reminding everyone that this is the sole work of a deluded dictator, the poor Ukrainians are going to take a beating. He has nowhere else to go. Someone has to pay for his hubris, and it won’t be him.
Just a thought…
The enormous hike in gas prices, pretty much overnight…this couldn’t possibly be oil companies taking advantage of international chaos due to Putin’s war, could it? I mean that would make these guys opportunistic jackals, right? And all the price gouging going on now? It’s impossible that corporations are using the war and right wing hatred of Biden as a way for them to grab what they can while the grabbing is good, and blame Biden as they run out the door with your mortgage money and little Johnny’s piggy bank.
Isn’t it?
You know, I always wonder about gas price hikes. How is it that we hear about a pipeline leak somewhere or a hurricane that shuts down drilling in in the Gulf of Mexico for eight hours, and next day you’re paying 20% more to fill up your gas tank. Don’t these guys have plenty in reserve? How is it that a storm in the Gulf causes prices to rise the next day?
Oh, I know they have petro-economists who can produce reams of bullshit “studies” detailing why they’re all on the verge of bankruptcy and have no choice. Still, when you see a self-described billionaire grifting his way back to a giant ride in the sky with gold plated toilet seats, it makes you wonder if grifting isn’t in the blood of all these fucking vultures.
Just a thought.
I hope our vaunted Space Force is right now trying to figure out how to keep the ISS up in space. The Russians are having a toddler tantrum if they don't get their way and threatening to destroy the space station and will direct it at others. If they can't do what they want then no one can use it.
Maybe we can send Rudy and the pillow guy to Russia to convince Putin that he has actually already won the war. It was such a massive success and everyone was so impressed by how big and strong Russia is now. His Russian news can tell everyone in Russia how Putie showed the world their strength. Just put it on a loop and everyone can pretend he won. We can even throw in Tucker and Sean and Laura to tell him how great he is. Though I don't know how long the Fox crew would last. They would probably end up in Siberia not too long after getting there for making a few too many suggestions on what Putin should be doing next.
Gas price hikes. I've often wondered (as Akhilleus has) why gas
prices here in West Michigan always go up 20 or 30 cents every
Friday. It's the same gas that was in the storage tank last Thursday.
Is it to take advantage of the weekend tourists coming through here?
We learned years ago to fill up Tuesday through Thursday or pay
the higher price.
That used to be called price gouging. But as trump would say, now
it's just smart business.
RAS,
Great idea! They can convince Putin that he really won but that goldarned NATO stole his war! Fuckers! Now all he has to do is get the UN to demand a recount of all the bodies he’s lined up. “No one kills more than me!” he’ll squeal. Until someone reminds him that that orange dolt, Trump, killed half a million people in the US without leaving his bedroom or putting on his pants. “What?” he’ll shriek…”I can beat that.” Cue up the nukes.
Okay, maybe not such a great idea…