Americans need a hotly be to call for information about their life bed ones in Ukraine.
Saturday, March 19, 2022
I don't want to hear one complaint about the USA by Russia. Ever.
September 27, 2019
By Tim Mak
The National Rifle Association (click here) acted as a "foreign asset" for Russia in the period leading up to the 2016 election, according to a new investigation unveiled Friday by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
Drawing on contemporaneous emails and private interviews, an 18-month probe by the Senate Finance Committee's Democratic staff found that the NRA underwrote political access for Russian nationals Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin more than previously known — even though the two had declared their ties to the Kremlin.
The report, available here, also describes how closely the gun rights group was involved with organizing a 2015 visit by some of its leaders to Moscow.
Then-NRA vice president Pete Brownell, who would later become NRA president, was enticed to visit Russia with the promise of personal business opportunities — and the NRA covered a portion of the trip's costs....
By Tim Mak
The National Rifle Association (click here) acted as a "foreign asset" for Russia in the period leading up to the 2016 election, according to a new investigation unveiled Friday by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
Drawing on contemporaneous emails and private interviews, an 18-month probe by the Senate Finance Committee's Democratic staff found that the NRA underwrote political access for Russian nationals Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin more than previously known — even though the two had declared their ties to the Kremlin.
The report, available here, also describes how closely the gun rights group was involved with organizing a 2015 visit by some of its leaders to Moscow.
Then-NRA vice president Pete Brownell, who would later become NRA president, was enticed to visit Russia with the promise of personal business opportunities — and the NRA covered a portion of the trip's costs....
This is genocide. No one is looking the other way.
By Rick Pearson
In a display of solidarity with Ukraine, (click here) former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton earlier this week left bouquets of sunflowers, the war-torn nation’s national flower, at an iconic church in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village during an unannounced visit.
Both former presidents, who have been outspoken in opposing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, used social media late Friday to post videos of their joint visit to the golden-domed Sts. Volodymyr and Olha Ukrainian Catholic Church, 739 N. Oakley Blvd.
The men, both 75, wore yellow ribbons on their suit lapels as they approached the church, carrying the bouquets of yellow sunflowers tied in a blue ribbon. They left the flowers, which came from a local florist, at a stone cross outside the church....
Both former presidents, who have been outspoken in opposing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, used social media late Friday to post videos of their joint visit to the golden-domed Sts. Volodymyr and Olha Ukrainian Catholic Church, 739 N. Oakley Blvd.
The men, both 75, wore yellow ribbons on their suit lapels as they approached the church, carrying the bouquets of yellow sunflowers tied in a blue ribbon. They left the flowers, which came from a local florist, at a stone cross outside the church....
Their expression of concern and deep sympathy for the loss of so many Ukrainians is necessary to counter the other narrative by the extreme political right wing of the American political spectrum (click here). There is no way any American is sincerely condoning such a war. I refuse to believe there is consent for Putin's war anywhere in the USA.
By Joshua Goodman
Miami - Adrian Kellgren’s family-owned gun company (click here) in Florida was left holding a $200,000 shipment of semi-automatic rifles after a longtime customer in Ukraine suddenly went silent during Vladimir Putin’s invasion of the country.
Fearing the worst, Kellgren and his company KelTec decided to put those stranded 400 guns to use, sending them to Ukraine’s nascent resistance movement to help civilians fight back against a Russian military that has been repeatedly shelling their apartment buildings, schools, hospitals and hiding places.
“The American people want to do something,” said Kellgren, a former U.S. Navy pilot. “We enjoy our freedoms, we cherish those things. And when we see a group of people out there getting hammered like this, it’s heartbreaking.”...
I don't think Vladimir Putin is insane as one of his oligarchs phrased it, he is simply a murderer.
I do not believe Vladimir Putin will talk at all unless it is Ukraine surrending. President Zelensky should not believe that diplomacy has failed, it is that Putin doesn't care about the killing. He has no feelings for killing. To him the end justifies the means. That is why the World Court found him guilty of genocide, because, he is. I do not believe there is a rational way to deal with someone like that. It is going to be interesting to watch the world deal with Putin's Russia in the face of such a ruling.
Vladimir Putin is a killer. I doubt he is going to be willing to talk at any time.
By Steven Erlanger
Brussels - President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine (click here) called publicly on Saturday for direct negotiations with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, but a senior Turkish official said that Mr. Putin was not ready for such talks.
“Zelensky is ready to meet, but Putin thinks that the positions to have this meeting at the leaders’ level are not close enough yet,” Ibrahim Kalin, a chief adviser and spokesman for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, said in an interview....
“Zelensky is ready to meet, but Putin thinks that the positions to have this meeting at the leaders’ level are not close enough yet,” Ibrahim Kalin, a chief adviser and spokesman for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, said in an interview....
I also believe the attack on the Marine sleep quarters in Mariupol is due to intelligence gathering. Ukrainian soldiers and people are better off sleeping under the stars than inside of shelter given the intentional destruction of a theater where children were considered safe.
Russia has intelligence about Mariupol. It is a piece of land that Putin wants. It has been in the news in recent years as a focus of the Russians that took Crimea. So, they have been looking at it for some time. It is probably wise to empty the city of citizens.
No doubt the attack on the children in the theater was justified by Putin as a PRETEND place for children and that was where the Ukrainian military was hiding. So, it is questionable how recent the intelligence was gathered and not an indication that Putin has recent information. When running a campaign of death there is no reason for current circumstances of the people.
I honestly don't know when it will stop for Ukraine. If there were reasonable reactions and the Geneva Conventions were valued by Russia an end could be somewhat more predictable. But, with a killer at the top of the Kremlin that is safe with internal propaganda working for him to a certain degree, there is no clear understanding of when or IF this war will end.
This is his politics at work. Putin had the most perfect DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) in Ukraine under the leadership of President Zelensky. Ukraine wanted NO war and wanted an economic relationship with all countries in the region and abroad. These were young people excited about their country. Europe wasn't going to mess with it. NATO was satisifed without Ukraine as a member. There was no reason to see Ukraine in any way, except, as a peaceful land mass where the citizens were happy. There is no rational reason for this invasion. None. Putin decided to turn the troops involved in war games on the population of Ukraine and he expected it to be a cake walk. There isn't much intelligence in that assessment.
From every stand point that I personally look to for hope or limitations of this war, there is no clear "end game." He is just killing people for what outcome is anyone's guess.
Is he enticing The West to become involved? I don't know. Using his state of the art weaponry on innocent people could bring about concern for the people by The West, but, war with Russia on the land that belongs to Ukraine? I don't see that happening.
It is finally here. The replacement for the Space Shuttle.
NASA's (click here) first Space Launch System, or SLS, rocket and Orion spacecraft roll from the Vehicle Assembly Building toward Launch Complex 39B on Thursday. SLS will be used to launch crews to the moon and beyond in the Agency's Artemis Program.
It is a handsome rocket in that it has a color pattern to it's design. But, each LAUNCH costs over $2 billion. One thing Americans know is that any long term government program such as this has cost overruns.
NASA's $37 billion rocket system (click here) aims to return astronauts to Moon and establish a long-term lunar colony as a precursor to eventual human exploration of Mars....
...Rollout of the 32-storey-tall Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and its Orion crew capsule marks a key milestone in US plans for renewed lunar exploration after years of setbacks, and the public's first glimpse of a space vehicle more than a decade in development.
The process of moving the 5.75-million-pound SLS-Orion spacecraft out of its Kennedy Space Center Vehicle Assembly Building began shortly after 5:30 pm EDT (2130 GMT) under clear skies at Cape Canaveral. A nearly full moon rose about 90 minutes later....
It is considered the most powerful rocket built by NASA.
..."Ladies and gentlemen, the world's most powerful rocket, right here," NASA chief Bill Nelson told the crowd, gesturing toward the spacecraft minutes after the rollout started.
"Humanity will soon embark on a new era of exploration."...
Not to be left out of the limelight is SpaceX' Falcon Heavy (click here) which can be built and operated less expensively than the current NASA system. While some Americans would want to see their space program less costly and hand everything over to private enterprise, I think that is a mistake. This is space exploration and the USA should have it's own program and successes.
I think this clearly defines the issues the world is facing currently with Vladimir Putin.
Putin raped the USA's intelligence under Trump and he believes "the time" to take on The West is now because it is their best window to succeed to victory. Putin is scared if he delays the war of wars time will rob him of this moment.
Russia said it had on Friday (click here) used the Kinzhal (Dagger) high-precision hypersonic missile, which can elude most defence systems, to destroy an arms depot in Deliatyn, a village near the border with Romania.
Ukraine is a wasteland for several reasons, but, one is that Putin sees it as a strategic place to launch invasions into Europe. Under Yanukovych, Putin dismantled the national military and instilled smaller militias that answered to local oligarches. Ukraine, even though it maintained it's own identity and policies, was dominated in it's national defense by Russia. You could say it was a mask of sorts. Ukraine looked benevolent to The West, yet removed from being an ally.
The "Nazis" is the propaganda used to play out the attacks into Ukraine. The demonstrations that preceded the violence in the Maidan in Kyiv in 2014 that lead to Yanukovych exile were due to his unwillingness to sign economic agreements with the EU. No different than most countries there is a group of Neo-Nazis in Ukraine. At least there were at the time of the Maidan. I believe there were 20 men killed in the Maidan and they were mostly Neo-Nazis if not all of them. I believe Yanukovych now in exile in Russia blames that group for his removal. So, while Russia has it's own Neo-Nazis the idea that Nazis removed Yanukovych is why Putin embraces that as his motivation to invade Ukraine. Putin is the saint, you see, Russia has born and raised and he will rid the world of the worst and most deceptive power in that of Ukraine and the President is therefore a Nazi.
Ukraine is far from that and has been the entire time since 2014. President Zelensky is the MOST aggressive president Ukraine has had to remove corruption and return the country to a sincere democracy that is neutral militarily to all other countries.
The issue of the nuclear stuff with Russia is that it is more or less laced with the propaganda that Ukraine is going to develop nuclear weapons and control the world. Ukraine has a significant nuclear history within the Soviet Union but as a free country has never developed nuclear weapons. It has reconstituted it's military for the very reasons of the invasion by Russia that has occurred. It is a matter of fact and Russia knows this, that Ukraine has disarmed from nuclear weapons when it was successful in claiming a democracy. Ukraine did that so Russia would no longer fear it. That didn't work. Putin either continues to fear Ukraine and/or it is a convenient propaganda weapon.
I think that is it in a nutshell. I also believe the world needs to redefine exactly who Russia is and whether global peace is possible with such a bozo as Putin running things. If not, and I am certain the USA would say the same, there are reasons to continually sanction Russia and expect outbursts such as this until Russian leadership changes and a benevolent country results in the long view. For now. I think the world in general has a real problem to face with Putin.
The USA has a strong history of seeking peace. It wasn't always a Superpower.
I think it is time to examine history in relation to the Soviet Union and it's aggression. The then Soviet Union moved against Finland to take land it believed would serve to protect it from Hitler. It was a war of priorities. The Soviet Union has typically taken land and annexed countries when it has plans of a greater war. I remind, Putin himself RECENTLY stated he wanted to take back Alaska. That would provide him a bridge to Canada and sequester the Arctic Ocean entirely to Russian possession, with the exception of Greenland and part of Europe, but, it would provide controlling status.
The ‘Winter War’ of 1939-1940, (click here) also known as the Russo-Finnish War, saw the tiny Finnish Army take on the might of the Soviet Union’s gigantic Red Army....
The United Nations should consider a "convention" of neutrality and define it clearly. Neutral countries are still expected to PATROL it's borders to protect sovereignty. They can also have allies that could intervene should there be a threat.
World War II changed everything. I believe it was President Eisenhower that warned the USA about it's military industrial complex and the temptation to over reach the power that had become the USA.
Senator George W. Norris on the repeal of the
Neutrality Acts, 1939 (click here)
Between 1935 and 1937 Congress passed three "Neutrality Acts" that tried to keep the United States out of war, by making it illegal for Americans to sell or transport arms, or other war materials to belligerent nations. Supporters of neutrality, called "isolationists" by their critics, argued that America should avoid entangling itself in European wars. "Internationalists" rejected the idea that the United States could remain aloof from Europe and held that the nation should aid countries threatened with aggression.
In the spring of 1939, as Germany, Japan, and Italy pursued militaristic policies, President Roosevelt wanted more flexibility to meet the Fascist challenge. FDR suggested amending the act to allow warring nations to purchase munitions if they paid cash and transported the goods on non-American ships, a policy that favored Britain and France. Initially, this proposal failed, but after Germany invaded Poland in September, Congress passed the Neutrality Act of 1939 ending the munitions embargo on a "cash and carry" basis.
The passage of the 1939 Neutrality Act marked the beginning of a congressional shift away from isolationism. Over the next 2 years, Congress took further steps to oppose fascism. One of the most important was the 1941 approval of Lend-Lease, which allowed the United States to transfer arms to nations vital to the national defense.
Neutrality is a very delicate thing no matter how much the people of a country favor it. Neutrality can provide economic incentives and benefits. However, with a world in flux and Russia becoming aggressive, neutrality of most countries that practice it, is being questioned.
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