;)
March 19, 2022
Putin's War Crimes, Ctd.
The Washington Post's live updates of developments Saturday in Russia's war against Ukraine are here: "Ukrainian forces continued to put up a defiant defense of their country's cities, limiting Russian ground advances as the Kremlin's invasion entered its 24th day. Major population centers such as Kyiv and Kharkiv remain in Ukrainian hands, and Russia's troops are still 'stalled across the country,' the Pentagon said, even as it cautioned that Moscow retains 90 percent of its assembled combat power.... On Saturday, the Ukrainian military said it has been cut off from the Sea of Azov, immediately south of [Mariupol].... The United Nations said Friday that roughly 9.8 million people have either fled Ukraine or are internally displaced as a result of the fighting, while 12 million are stranded or otherwise face dangerous living conditions. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said early Saturday that Russian forces have committed war crimes by blocking critical aid deliveries to Ukraine's embattled cities.... Vladimir Putin, at a rally in Moscow, celebrated the invasion and again baselessly claimed that he was stopping a genocide. Chinese leader Xi Jinping pledged more humanitarian assistance to Ukraine during his Friday call with President Biden...." ~~~
~~~ The Guardian's live updates for Saturday are here.
Ellen Nakashima, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Biden, in a nearly two-hour video call Friday, warned China's leader, Xi Jinping, that his country would face significant repercussions if it provided aid to Russia.... The call was part of an urgent U.S. effort to head off any Chinese moves to provide economic or military help to Russia as America and its allies try to shut down Moscow's financial lifelines.... There was little indication Friday that Xi was receptive to Biden's entreaties that his country not come to Russia's aid, however.... Administration officials would not say whether Biden explicitly outlined the types of consequences Beijing might face if it should aid Russia in its war on Ukraine.... Most of the discussion between the two leaders was devoted to the Ukraine crisis, the official said.... Biden and Xi on Friday also discussed Taiwan." CNBC's report is here. The White House's readout is here.
John Simpson of BBC News: "On Thursday afternoon..., Vladimir Putin rang the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and told him what Russia's precise demands were for a peace deal with Ukraine.... The Russian demands fall into two categories[, according to Ibrahim Kalin, Mr. Erdogan's leading advisor].... Chief among [those in the first category] is an acceptance by Ukraine that it should be neutral and should not apply to join Nato. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has already conceded this.... Ukraine would have to undergo a disarmament process to ensure it wasn't a threat to Russia. There would have to be protection for the Russian language in Ukraine. And there is something called de-Nazification.... Mr Putin said that it would need face-to-face negotiations between him and President Zelensky before agreement could be reached on [demands in the second category].... Mr Kalin was much less specific about these issues, saying simply that they involved the status of Donbas, in eastern Ukraine, parts of which have already broken away from Ukraine and stressed their Russianness, and the status of Crimea. Although Mr Kalin didn't go into detail, the assumption is that Russia will demand that the Ukrainian government should give up territory in eastern Ukraine." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Nothing is fair in love and war, but I don't think Putin should get a prize for invading Ukraine, killing, maiming & starving Ukrainians & bombing their homes & hospitals. Rather, in any negotiation, Russia should have to give up its occupation of Donbas & Crimea & pay reparations to Ukraine. And it would be nice if Putin were forced to spend the rest of his unnatural life in modest accommodations on a tiny Pacific atoll, one that was not too radioactive. Without a yacht.
Robyn Dixon of the Washington Post: "Thousands of flag-waving Russians crammed into Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium ... during a triumphal celebration Friday of the eighth anniversary of Russia's annexation of Crimea.... Vladimir Putin, breaking from his recent image as a remote figure at the end of a very long table, strode about the stage, extolling the war against Ukraine as testament to Russia's 'Christian values.'... He said Russia took military action to stop 'neo-Nazis and extreme nationalists' in Ukraine committing 'genocide.' But the video feed of his speech abruptly cut off mid-sentence, an interruption that was later described by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as a technical problem. 'Well, or sabotage,' tweeted the exiled Anti-Corruption Foundation of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Russian state television replayed the speech in full.... As usual for such events, some of the attendees were state employees ordered to attend."
Just a Coincidence! AP: "Three Russian cosmonauts have arrived at the International Space Station wearing yellow flight suits with blue accents, colours that match the Ukrainian flag. The men were the first new arrivals on the space station since the start of the Russian war in Ukraine last month.... When the cosmonauts were able to talk to family back on Earth, [Oleg] Artemyev was asked about the suits. He said every crew chose their own. 'It became our turn to pick a colour. But, in fact, we had accumulated a lot of yellow material so we needed to use it,' he said. 'So that's why we had to wear yellow.'"
The New York Times' live updates of developments Friday in Russia's war against Ukraine are here: "At least 130 survivors have escaped the ruins of a theater that was nearly leveled in a Russian attack in the embattled southern city of Mariupol, a Ukrainian official said on Friday, but hundreds remained unaccounted for in the wreckage.... A missile strike on the outskirts of Lviv, a western city that has been a haven for people fleeing areas under siege, rattled the relative peace there on Friday. The strike may have been an attempt to target the abilities of Ukraine's air force because the local news media has reported that a plant at the airport was 'the only enterprise in Ukraine that refurbishes MiG-29s for the Ukrainian Air Force.'" (Also linked yesterday.)
Rachel Lerman & Cat Zakrzewski of the Washington Post: "Elon Musk recently challenged Russian President Vladimir Putin to a one-handed fistfight for the future of Ukraine. But the entrepreneur's real defense of the besieged country is his effort to keep Ukrainians online with shipments of Starlink satellite Internet service. Starlink is a unit of Musk's space company, SpaceX. The service uses terminals that resemble TV dishes equipped with antennas and are usually mounted on roofs to access the Internet via satellite in rural or disconnected areas. When war broke out in Ukraine, the country faced threats of Russian cyberattacks and shelling that had the potential to take down the Internet.... So the country's minister of digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, tweeted a direct plea to Musk urging him to send help. Musk replied just hours later: 'Starlink service is now active in Ukraine. More terminals en route.' Ukraine has already received thousands of antennas from Musk's companies and European allies, which has proved 'very effective,' Fedorov said in an interview with The Washington Post Friday."
John Reinan of the Minneapolis Star Tribune: "Jimmy Hill's last act was gathering food for hospital patients in Ukraine. The Mahtomedi native, 67, was killed Thursday in the northern Ukraine city of Chernihiv when Russian forces attacked people standing in a bread line. He is among several U.S. citizens to die so far in the war that began when Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24."
Michael Luciano of Mediaite recounts an exchange between Sens. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) & Chris Murphy (D-Ct.) in which Sasse in particular seemed to forget he was speaking in the chamber of "the world's greatest deliberative body." Eventually, the presiding officer had to ask the senators to address their remarks to the president of the Senate & not to each other. Luciano notes that Sasse's remarks might include "the first time in history a senator has directly addressed another senator as 'dude' on the floor." Marie: But I find it rather more notable that Sasse used the venue to accuse another senator of verbal masturbation when he asked Murphy, "Do you think a single person that your Twitter self-pleasuring was for ... voted against it because they were against Ukrainian aid?" (Also linked yesterday.)
Melanie Zanona & Manu Raju of CNN: Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-Russia) "infuriated members of his own party this week for calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a 'thug' and the Ukrainian government 'incredibly evil' -- comments that surfaced just days before Zelensky made a passionate plea to Congress on Wednesday for more help in defending Ukraine against Russia's bloody assault on the country.... Cawthorn's latest comments have put GOP leaders in an awkward spot -- just as they're trying to show a unified front against Russia and paint President Joe Biden as weak against ... Vladimir Putin. The remarks from a freshman firebrand with the ear of ... Donald Trump risks undermining their anti-Russia position.... 'Madison is wrong, if there's any thug in this world it's Putin,' House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said at his weekly news conference on Friday, though he said he's still supporting Cawthorn's reelection bid."
Finally, Some Appreciation for Fox "News"' Fair & Balanced Coverage. Joanna Walters of the Guardian: "Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has praised Fox News for its coverage, appearing on the Russian state-controlled RT network to hail the right-leaning US cable channel, whose primetime host Tucker Carlson has played down the invasion. 'We know the manners and the tricks that are being used by the western countries to manipulate media, we understood long ago that there is no such thing as an independent western media,' said Lavrov, speaking in English in a studio interview on Friday. 'If you take the United States, only Fox News is trying to present some alternative point of view.'..."
Ellen Francis & Amy Cheng of the Washington Post: "Four American service members were killed on Friday night after a U.S. military aircraft crashed in Norway while taking part in a NATO exercise, the Norwegian prime minister said.... The U.S. 2nd Marines Expeditionary Force, in a statement, had not specified how many people were in the MV-22B Osprey, which is capable of vertical takeoffs and landings and is primarily used to transport troops and equipment in support of amphibious assaults. Norwegian civilian authorities led search and rescue efforts, the Marines said. The aircraft was assigned to participate in Exercise Cold Response 2022, a 'long-planned and regular' routine that Norway hosts biannually, according to the NATO military alliance. Around 30,000 troops from more than 27 NATO countries have gathered to train in Norway's cold-weather conditions. Norway announced Friday that it would step up defense spending in support of forces near its border with Russia.... NATO stressed that the exercise was not in response [to Russia's war on Ukraine]."
Maria Sachetti of the Washington Post: "Homeland Security's inspector general on Friday called for the immediate evacuation of dozens of immigrants detained at a privately run detention facility in New Mexico, saying it is 'critically understaffed' and has unsanitary conditions such as clogged toilets, moldy sinks and water leaks throughout the facility.... The report drew a highly unusual rebuke from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and CoreCivic, the private company that runs the facility, with both accusing the government watchdog of staging photos and fabricating claims. Filthy sinks and clogged toilets, for instance, were in unoccupied areas undergoing renovations, company officials said. ICE officials signaled the agency would not withdraw the 60 detainees from the facility...."
Felicia Sonmez & Mariana Alfaro of the Washington Post: "The House on Friday passed the Crown Act, legislation that would ban discrimination against individuals based on how they choose to wear their hair. The measure, H.R. 2116 ... passed on a vote of 235 to 189, with 14 Republicans joining all Democrats in supporting the measure. The legislation was introduced by Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) and prohibits discrimination 'based on the individual's hair texture or hairstyle, if that hair texture or that hairstyle is commonly associated with a particular race or national origin.'... The measure's future in the Senate remains uncertain.... The White House has said it strongly supports the House bill.... More than a dozen states have already enacted similar legislation, often with bipartisan support."
Maybe It's Her Hair. Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: "How desperate can you get? This desperate: Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) is pushing the argument that Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson is dangerously soft on sex offenders, child pornographers in particular. 'I've noticed an alarming pattern when it comes to Judge Jackson's treatment of sex offenders, especially those preying on children,' Hawley tweeted. 'I'm concerned that this [is] a record that endangers our children.'" Hawley then takes snippets of Jackson's writings and her rulings way out of context or otherwise misrepresents them to try to make his case. "Douglas Berman, an expert on sentencing policy at Ohio State University, reviewed Jackson's sentences in child pornography cases and pronounced them 'not at all out of the ordinary.'&" ~~~
~~~ Tierney Sneed of CNN digs a little more deeply into Jackson's record & Hawley's "concerns": "Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's writings, remarks and decisions as she wrestled with the highly sensitive issue of child pornography crimes are the focus of a new GOP line of attack on President Joe Biden's pick for the Supreme Court.... But a CNN review of the material in question shows that Jackson has mostly followed the common judicial sentencing practices in these kinds of cases, and that Hawley took some of her comments out of context by suggesting they were opinions, rather than follow-up questions to subject-matter experts." ~~~
Take It Away, Wingers! She's clearly got a very scary history when it comes to pedophilia, or at least handling people who are pedophiles. It's one more drop in the bucket when it comes to dealing with the left and their problem with pedophilia. -- Red State Editor Brandon Morse, on Ketanji Brown Jackson, OAN interview ~~~
~~~ Zachary Pleat of Media Matters: "Following Sen. Josh Hawley's (R-MO) Twitter rant yesterday against Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, a segment on [far-right cable channel] OAN took his unfounded and misleading attacks against her record in a more deranged direction. The host and her guest falsely accused Jackson of being 'kind' to pedophiles, echoing the long-running QAnon conspiracy theory accusing liberal elites of engaging in pedophilia."
Annie Karni of the New York Times: "They were once seatmates in the spare limousine of the White House motorcade, traveling the globe together as part of the president's inner circle. Bonded by the miles they logged on the road and their unique access to power, Pete Souza, the former official White House photographer who took nearly two million photographs of former President Barack Obama, and Representative Ronny Jackson of Texas, the former White House physician who was elected to Congress as a Republican in 2020, were once close friends. Now, they are the most public of enemies on social media, where Mr. Jackson routinely hurls insults and unsubstantiated claims of cognitive decline at President Biden and Mr. Souza responds with bitingly personal, sometimes salacious takedowns of the congressman's character. He often begins them tauntingly with, 'Hey Ronny." MB: All I can say is, "Go Pete!" (Also linked yesterday.)
Maria Cramer of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump's presidential campaign has been ordered to pay more than $300,000 in legal fees and expenses to a former employee who the campaign's lawyers said had violated the terms of a nondisclosure agreement when she accused Mr. Trump of forcibly kissing her in 2016. The award, the culmination of an arbitration claim that was dismissed in November, represents the latest instance of Mr. Trump"s failure to use a nondisclosure agreement successfully against an ex-worker."
Tara Bernard of the New York Times: "Equifax, Experian and TransUnion -- the giant credit-reporting companies that each keep files on roughly 200 million Americans -- said on Friday that they will soon [-- beginning July 1 --] wipe away credit stains created by certain medical debts. The changes -- including removing black marks for people who settled a debt after it went to collections -- were cheered by consumer advocates and reflected a growing acceptance that such debts aren't the best predictor of a consumer's financial behavior. The companies said the changes would eliminate up to 70 percent of the medical debt accounts on consumers' credit reports, which contain reams of data used to calculate the all-important three-digit credit score that is the key to mortgages, car loans, rental agreements and more.... And beginning in the first half of 2023, the credit-reporting companies said, they will exclude unpaid medical collection debts under $500.... But the changes will do little to lift the scores of people with the largest unpaid debts, who are often dealing with catastrophic or costly illnesses that result in high bills even with insurance coverage."
Sooner or Later, It All Comes Down to Racism. Brad Dress of the Hill: "A member of the 'People's Convoy' said that he was going to tar and feather Black Lives Matter Plaza while speaking to a crowd gathered in Washington, D.C.... In a video captured by The Daily Beast, a speaker standing on a stage bearing a sign for 'Freedom Convoy 2022' tells a crowd to 'take back' a street adorned with the slogan 'Black Lives Matter,' which stretches for two blocks on 16th Street NW in D.C." MB: Just as I forgot all about the "People's Convoy," this guy seems to have forgot that the idea of the protest was to fight Covid-19 healthcare protocols.
Robert McFadden of the New York Times: "Don Young, the Alaska congressman who secured pork-barrel billions for his state over nearly a half-century and became the longest-serving Republican in the House of Representatives and the oldest current member of both the House and Senate, died on Friday. He was 88. Mr. Young died while traveling home to Alaska, his office said. His wife, Anne, was with him. In a state whose small population allows for two senators but only one representative, Mr. Young, who cultivated the image of a rugged frontiersman with outsize clout in Washington, was sometimes called Alaska's 'third senator.'... Most Alaskans have had no congressman in their lifetimes but Mr. Young, who was first elected in 1973, during the Nixon administration.... Gruff and irascible, Mr. Young, who survived occasional allegations of shady ethics, was a staunch opponent of environmental causes and a tough defender of Alaska's oil, mineral and logging industries." MB: IOW, a nasty piece of work, may the Fates rest his soul, if he has one.
The Pandemic, Ctd.
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Beyond the Beltway
Alabama. Jonathan Edwards of the Washington Post: So this Alabama gunshop owner named Nathan Kirk thought it would be funny to get a vanity plate that read, "LGBFJB," which signified to Kirk, "Let's Go Brandon. Fuck Joe Biden." After a while, Kirk got a letter from Alabama's motor vehicle officials telling him his plate was an affront to the "peace and dignity of the State of Alabama" and Kirk would have to turn it in. Well, sez Kirk, "I wasn't going to just lay down." He means "lie down," but he's an Alabama Republican, so. Poor Kirk's plight became a right-wing cause célèbre. So the state Motor Vehicle Division reversed itself & told Kirk they were right sorry for any inconvenience that might have caused him. (Also linked yesterday.)
Ohio Senate Race. Craig Howie of Politico: "An onstage standoff erupted between Ohio Republican Senate candidates Josh Mandel and Mike Gibbons at a primary debate Friday evening. In video from the Gahanna debate, former state treasurer Mandel stood up to challenge investment banker Gibbons during a heated discussion over a stock trade as the crowd jeered the confrontation and a debate official sought to separate the two men.... The men repeatedly told each other to back off before standing eye-to-eye for several seconds, while fellow GOP debate participants Matt Dolan, Jane Timken and JD Vance looked on awkwardly. Mandel eventually took his seat. Mandel and Gibbons continued their feud offstage, with Gibbons' team calling Mandel 'unhinged' and Mandel further criticizing Gibbons' investment record. The two candidates have been locked in a tight race for first place in the Republican Senate primary, according to recent polling."
South Carolina. Meg Kinnard of the AP: "South Carolina has given the greenlight to firing-squad executions, a method codified into state law last year after a decade-long pause in carrying out death sentences because of the state's inability to procure lethal injection drugs. The state Corrections Department said Friday that renovations have been completed on the death chamber in Columbia and that the agency had notified Attorney General Alan Wilson that it was able to carry out a firing-squad execution. Lawmakers set about tweaking state law to get around the lethal injection drug situation. Legislation that went into effect in May made the electric chair the state's primary means of execution while giving inmates the option of choosing death by firing squad or lethal injection, if those methods are available."
Way Beyond
A Heat Wave in Antartica. Jason Samenow & Kasha Patel of the Washington Post: "The coldest location on the planet has experienced an episode of warm weather this week unlike any ever observed, with temperatures over the eastern Antarctic ice sheet soaring 50 to 90 degrees above normal. The warmth has smashed records and shocked scientists.... Parts of eastern Antarctica have seen temperatures hover 70 degrees (40 Celsius) above normal for three days and counting, [climate researcher Jonathan] Wille said. He likened the event to the June heat wave in the Pacific Northwest, which scientists concluded would have been 'virtually impossible' without human-caused climate change.
News Lede
New York Times: "At least one person was killed, 50 homes were destroyed and nearly 500 others evacuated in central Texas after a wildfire burned more than 45,000 acres, officials said on Friday. The wildfire, a set of blazes west of the Dallas-Fort Worth area called the Eastland Complex fire, began on Thursday evening. A deputy with the Eastland County Sheriff's Office, Barbara Fenley, died while helping people escape, the authorities said. The blaze was 15 percent contained as of Friday evening, the Texas A&M Forest Service said on Twitter."
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Reader Comments (8)
Another good one from Milbank:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/18/senate-daylight-saving-time-vote-accident/
@Ken Winkes: Thanks. Missed that one. I'll link it up above later. I love the last graf. Sadly, in the 20th & 21st centuries at least, Republicans have always provided us with some version of Sen. Potato Head, not to mention Sen. Foghorn Leghorn. What a sorry bunch. Yeah, RIP, Don Young.
SELF PLEASURING 101:
Cutting away from the horrors of war for a minute, I want to comment on the mini-war on the senate floor. Ben sasses Chris who then pounces back. This all had to do with Murphy listing , on a tweet, all the GOP members who did not vote for a bill that included money for Ukraine. ( posted yesterday and today) Here's part of that exchange:
SASSE: Let me see if I understand what you just said. So eight-tenths of 1% of the bill passed in the middle of the night last week is about Ukrainian aid. Do you believe that the people that voted against it voted against it because they were against Ukrainian aid?
MURPHY: So every one of us approaches a big–
SASSE: I’m asking a really simple question. Do you think a single person that your Twitter self-pleasuring was for, do you think that a single person that voted against it, voted against it because they were against Ukrainian aid?
MURPHY: Absolutely not.
SASSE: So then what’s the point of the tweet?
MURPHY: The point is this. It’s that the only way this place passes legislation is compromise, is voting on pieces of legislation that have in it–
SASSE: Where are the pieces, dude? It’s $1.5 trillion.
PRESIDING OFFICER: Senators. I ask the senators to direct their questioning to the president and give the other senators the decorum to respond.
S0–––it looks to me like Sasse done got his pecker in a pickle––the revealing of names and HIS was on the list. We , of the GOP, he sez, don't want our dirty dealings front and center–-our mission is to screw in secret. If Ukraine doesn't get money, then it's Biden's fault–-we sing a song every morning as we start our day: "whatever they want we say nay cuz that, my friends, is the GOP WAY!"
And these fine folks known as dude, keep stewing in their own specificity. Meanwhile Ukraine burns.
When Putin calls for a face-to-face meeting with Zelensky I assume that includes the 50 feet of table between them so he doesn't have to be in the same zip code as Zelensky.
The pictures of Putin sitting on opposite ends of ridiculously long tables or on the opposite side of some grand ballroom from his military advisors gives credence to the story about Putin being worried about what's in his food.
In the unlikely event that Ukraine comes out on top* in Putin’s War, watch how quickly the pro-Russian, Putin-loving, Ukraine-hating Party of Traitors mouthpieces swear they were always for Zelensky and never said anything about how Putin was right to invade. KKKarlson and the rest of them will blame the “liberal media” for lying about them and taking their words out of context. Or maybe they couldn’t get good cellphone coverage. These liars really need new excuses for being criminally asshole shitheads.
*And by on top, I mean Putin pulls out and gets nothing, even if Ukraine is largely rubble.
Looks like the Great Deliberative Body is the--House.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/03/19/permanent-daylight-saving-time-house/
But we knew that.
I see that Xi Jinping is offering, ahem, “humanitarian assistance” to Ukraine. What’s considered humanitarian assistance in the PRC? A bigger cell? Good news Ukrainians! If you’re captured by the Russians you’ll have more room in the dungeon.
Well done, Marie -- admit that I'm right, play the woe-is-me card, then grab your bully pulpit and flip me off with a full paragraph on your page. That's okay, I'll take a hit for the wolves. And I rather doubt you'll use this long-debunked trope again. Cheers.