This Blog is created to stress the importance of Peace as an environmental directive. “I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it’s hell.” – Harry Truman
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She will be a great Supreme Court Justice. I think this is especially nice that Justice Breyer is retiring and able to see a woman that was once a member of his staff become the Justice to fill his vacancy. That is really special.
I want to apologize to Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson for the ill behavior of some Republicans Senators. The worst of the bunch is the US Senator that was proud of the January 6th insurrection. I think his name is Hawley. He always is running at the mouth with political dogma at the center of his inability to be a real human being.
The sex offender and preying on children thing comes directly from the Senator's followers that state Democrats are pedophiles and eat children. It is all political. I am not surprised Hawley was able to work the questions enough to get his points across to the extreme right political wing of the GOP that Senator Grassley thinks is above doing such a thing. Well. They did such a thing.
I am looking forward to her place in the Supreme Court. What a great and humble person she is for placing each case in the heart of the USA Constitution and being certain it is upheld for the depth of freedom it brings to every American. I thank her for her time as a judge to date and for the many hours she will spend in the future.
Putin doesn't even have respect for his own people. He won't tell the truth. He dishonors the soldiers that died for his campaign and he won't even admit they are dead.
A war of attrition. That is the answer in the age of nuclear weapons. The suffering of innocent people at the hand of a genocidal Russian president to what end is undeniably full of grief.
Nearly two centuries of time saw several wars of attrition with Russia. Putin has his country of people primed for such a war. They are after all Russians and the world hates them according to their president. Long suffering may very well be in the Russian genome. If Vladmir Putin doesn't care about Ukrainians as he kills at will whether soldier or citizen what makes anyone believe a war of attrition is going to end this?
Russians don't care about morality, ethics or the truth. They only care about the bottom line.
March 22, 2022 By Matthew Goldstein and David Enrich
In July 2012, a shell company (click here) registered in the British Virgin Islands wired $20 million to an investment vehicle in the Cayman Islands that was controlled by a large American hedge fund firm.
The wire transfer was the culmination of months of work by a small army of handlers and enablers in the United States, Europe and the Caribbean. It was a stealth operation intended, at least in part, to mask the source of the funds: Roman Abramovich.
For two decades, the Russian oligarch has relied on this circuitous investment strategy — deploying a string of shell companies, routing money through a small Austrian bank and tapping the connections of leading Wall Street firms — to quietly place billions of dollars with prominent U.S. hedge funds and private equity firms, according to people with knowledge of the transactions....
When dealing in wealth, the oligarchs are not reliable investors as Putin can remove monies from them for his own priorities whenever he darn well pleases. Now, if Wall Street can't understand OR CARE about whether they have ethical partners, where does anyone think ethics and respect for life is coming from?
In order for a war of attrition to work it requires one thing and that is eventually there is a party that decides the struggle is not worth the bloodshed or the sacrifice. What makes anyone think Russia is going to care about the cost of the war either in human life or the integrity of a country to be able to feed and clothe it's people?
CNN's reporting clearly shows Russia is carrying out propaganda to keep the war out of the minds of Russians.
The report (click here) from the tabloid originally read, "According to the Russian Defense Ministry, during the special operation in Ukraine, the Russian Armed Forces lost 9861 people killed and 16153 wounded."
CNN analyzed the HTML code in the website which indicates that the article was published on Monday at 12:09 a.m. Moscow time.
Seconds after CNN read the original article — at 9:56 p.m. Moscow time according to the HTML code — the story was updated and removed all references to the death count. That update on the outlet's website came shortly after the article began to get attention from social media posts, which referenced the death count.
Some background: Since March 2, Russia has not reported a military death count. The original report from the tabloid is in line with US Department of Defense estimates, which say that there have been up to 10,000 Russian military deaths.
Vladimir Putin is engaged in a genocide of Ukrainians. He has no conscience. He lives in a bubble where life is always perfect for him. If a Russian raises an adverse word about him they receive punishment. He has no idea what the people of his country think of his leadership, if you can call it that.
Vladimir Putin will never understand that a war of attrition will be so devastating to the people that he will have to find the moral compass to end it. That isn't going to happen. He has no moral compass and he will do what he feels necessary to inflict suffering in Ukraine for as long as it takes. He will never concede a loss or believe that he will never win. It will be nothing but a scorched earth outcome and he is fine with that.
The word win doesn't exist in the Russian language except when athletes are denied wins for the motherland because they use drugs not allowed in international sports. That is the only time when win will mean anything because the suffering of the athletes is typical for the way the world treats Russians. That is the national dialogue that creates the idea that Russians will suffer as long as necessary because that is what life perscribes for them.
This genocide by Putin will last years and he doesn't care. He doesn't care how many boys he will lose in combat or the tanks that will be destroyed or the missles that will destroy every inch of Ukraine. Putin has no conscience and he has protected criminals in Russia that have killed for him by poisonings in Europe. Those criminals are national heroes to Putin. That is the level of deranged reality Putin carries out and has for a long time.
War of attrition? Putin says, bring it on. He problably had dinner with Satan every night which is why he is no longer married regardless of the children he brings into the world.
Putin has no conscience. Remember that when talks fail time and again. President Zelensky has been attempting to engage in dialogue with Satan's spawn for two years already.
The Ukrainian people need a solution for their homeland. Anybody have one because a war of attrition is nothing to Putin.
That didn’t stop the tall, lanky 24-year-old from Thousand Oaks, a Los Angeles suburb, from flying to this war-torn capital earlier this month. He joined a new international legion set up to fight Russian forces about 15 miles outside the city.
Adam, sporting camouflage pants, is unfazed by his inexperience in combat. He will rely, he said, on sheer determination — to save Ukraine and protect American values.
“Democracy and freedom are very important to the whole world,” said Adam, seated in the lobby of a Kyiv hotel, along with other foreigners dressed in their new military camouflage who have joined his unit. “What [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is doing is simply wrong. And Ukraine is the underdog, so they need help.”...
There is more to the grit in Ukraine than just patriotic love for country. The alternative must be horrible and intolerable. Russia is losing it's young brain trust.
March 20, 2022 By Jane Arraf
Yerevan, Armenia - At the Lumen cafe (click here) in the Armenian capital, Russians arrive as soon as the doors open, ordering specialty coffees, opening up their sleek Apple laptops and trying to navigate a dwindling array of options for starting their lives over.
The background music and the sunlit interior are calming counterpoints to the frantic departures from their country, where they left behind parents, pets and the sense of home that all but vanished when Russia invaded Ukraine last month....
According to the mayor of Warsaw, Poland, (click here) the arrival of refugees has been 300,000 in three weeks. The city's infrastructure is holding but stretched. He is worried about the continued influx of refugees, many are children and in school in Warsaw. There needs to be a plan in Europe and the USA has to do it's part in accepting refugees from Ukriane. And this is just Warsaw, the rest of Poland is receiving the refugees as well. No one should be turned away.
Between the refugees from Ukraine there is also young Russians arriving in Europe. It is a continuing crisis The West has to decide how best to handle all those leaving to save their own lives and that of their families.
The hospitals are still care for COVID-19 patients. The new variant has spread rapidly in Europe. It is in the USA and spearding here as well. This is a sincere challenge for The West.
This is owned by the American people. The USA legislature needs to make this a permanent monument to the first Moon explorers. The Chinese rover needs to stay on the dark side of the moon.
And it’s completely unprotected under international law.
“Once you blow away the footprint, that’s gone,” said space archeologist Beth O’Leary of New Mexico State University, who is among a growing chorus of experts pleading for formal protection of historic lunar sites and artifacts.
Just as UNESCO protects Egyptian pyramids, China’s Great Wall and other precious World Heritage sites on Earth, it must also protect many historic rockets, rovers, landing sites and memorabilia on the moon, they say....
I am scared for the people of Ukraine. I am not going to leave the subject just yet.
Have a good evening.
Civilians are not the easiest people to motivate to leave. In the USA when the authorities tell the people in the path of a very bad storm to take shelter, regardless of all the information before them, they don't always leave. Some end up dying. This is not as unusal a paradigm as one might think.
They have strong ties to their homes where they feel safe and secure. From the pictures and videos I saw from my laptop the ones with the most incentive to leave are mothers with children. For as much as they love their husbands and want to stay, they recognize the tiny lives in from of them and realize they are the only answer to their survival.
Any civilian that leaves can understand as soon as it is safe they can return. Obviously there is no way of knowing how long it is going to take to move the Russian people to stop their president from killing, but, civilians only have to understand simply that they are safer elsewhere.
March 20, 2022 By Mason Bissada
The Russian Defense Ministry (click here) demanded Ukraine surrender the besieged city of Mariupol on Sunday, stating Ukrainian forces have until 5 a.m. Moscow time Monday (10 p.m. ET Sunday) to lay down arms, after which Russian forces will allow civilians to leave the war-torn city, according to multiple reports based on a Russian state-run news outlet’s release....
This is an excellent opportunity for the civilians to leave Mariupol. Let's hope the brief ceasefire is honored. The Russians don't have to call it a ceasefire, it is and it is a good time for them to leave.
If the shelling by Russia continues without a chance for the people to leave, then the people are being used as hostages to a certain outcome for Putin. Putin cannot win militarily, so he is using the threat of death to empty Ukraine. Putin should be allowing humanitarian corridors no matter the military plans. But, if the people cannot leave until surrender, then this is a strategy to have Ukraine surrender. The killing of civilians is purposeful to Putin's desired outcome.
Surrender or die.
Innocent people defenseless against Russian missiles and children are manipulated to achieve surrender. Putin has completely dehumanized the people of Ukraine to use them as pawns.
Ukraine bomb squads need parameters for bomb removal. No one should be in that house or apartment anyway.
A Ukrainian found an unexploded missile in his kitchen and the bomb squad was not delicate with it.
Every Ukraine civilian needs to leave Mariupol. There is a Russian somewhere with a map of the city and are using it to target buildings. No one is safe. There is no civilian in Mariupol that is safe. They should leave because the missiles are the only weapon Putin is guaranteed to have an effect.
Mr. Qin’s comments, which were aimed at an American audience, presented a softer tone than the one officials in Beijing have used when discussing the war, particularly in domestic settings....
Let me lull you to sleep while I take aim at your country. That is the message I am getting from the Chinese ambassador.
...China’s rhetorical strategy — speaking of peace and de-escalation to an international audience while continuing to support Russia domestically — demonstrates the careful moves Beijing has made in staking out its position on Ukraine....
The Chinese have done nothing but try and sometimes succeeded to steal any corporate secret in the USA. I am sure Putin selectively shared some of the classified information from Trump, too.
China is not helpful if it's ally, Russia, is ignored in it's slaughter of Ukrainians. China needs to criticise Russia for the invasion. Point to the fact there is a court that has declared the war a genocide and have Russia leave. No saving face for the sake of saving face. There are people being slaughtered and there is no saving face anymore. No more gracious comments and eloquent speechs, let's get this done and leave the Ukrainian people to pick up the pieces of their lives and country.
This is a Russian soldier who appears to be a career military. He was lied to about the reasons for the invasion into Ukraine. There is absolutely no reason for China or anyone else to look the other way while Vladimir Putin slaughters innocent people.
I can't believe American generals have not talked to the Russian military leadership to give them a strong dose of reality as to what their missiles are doing.
Russian soldiers wearing sneakers? Braking into an apartment. (click here) They do not know what they are doing.
It looks to me as though they are taking on far less danger than facing Ukraine troops. They are pretending to understand there is danger in the apartment.
They remind me of the Iraqi troops when Gulf War One occurred. The Iraqi men were forced into service wearing shoes (of the moment) which were average every day footwear. Some of the Iraqi soldiers still had their evening shoes on when they went to war from the nightclub. This is crazy. Put a weapon in the hand of a Russian and call it an invasion.
This is disgraceful.
Ukrainians are riped out of their lives, some killed by soldiers that haven't got a clue and this is the way Russia sees the war succeeding.
The Russians are in the elevator. I guess. What do they need to be in an elevator for? When the door opens I hope it is a friendly on the other side.
Like they had to break the camera. That is anger. That is not a soldier in control of his destiny. These guys aren't trained. They are pressed into service as conscription soldiers and they are PO'd they are there in the first place. Putin put numbers of troops in Ukraine and told them to fight. It is a cage match. Russia hasn't got a chance and someone needs to put an end to this genocidal war.
Israel is the homeland for the Jewish people. I think Israel may be worried about falling under attack in the Middle East in ways that would inhibit it's ability to be the Jewish homeland.
The Iron Done or the Patriot Missile System with full capability would end this war. I am fairly confident of that.
March 20, 2022 By Barak Ravid
President Volodymyr Zelensky (click here) on Sunday criticized the Israeli government for not standing unequivocally on the side of Ukraine and against the Russia invasion during a virtual address to Israeli lawmakers.
Why it matters: Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is one of the few leaders who is in contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin and has been passing messages between Putin and Zelensky in an attempt to reach a ceasefire.
Around 110 of the 120 members of the Knesset logged in to watch the speech. It was also broadcasted live on all Israeli TV networks and aired during a big pro-Ukraine rally in Tel Aviv....
Putin is losing his propaganda campaign in Ukraine. It is part of the corruption President Zelensky has been working so hard for to end the corruption that Russians bring to Ukraine.
The decision was taken by the Ukrainian national security and defence council, and although 10 of the 11 were small parties, one - the Opposition Platform for Life - holds 44 of the 450 seats in Ukraine's parliament, according to The Guardian.
At the same time, Zelensky signed a decree on Sunday to merge all national TV channels into a single government-run service - effectively ending the operation of private TV media....
An EU diplomat states, no one should see what he did in Mariupol.
Manolis Androulakis has assisted dozens of Greek nationals and ethnic Greeks to evacuate the ruined city since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He left Mariupol on Tuesday and after a four-day trip through Ukraine he crossed to Romania through Moldavia, along with 10 other Greek nationals....
Every time Putin brags about his military it feeds the USA military industrial complex.
We need a world where countries compete economically providing a good quality of life to it's citizens, not the chronic fear mongering of war. The current war ego is antiquated and destructive. There is no reason for it.
Russia is a mess and out of control. Let's face it. Russian mercinaries numbering 200 were destroyed by USA military. Currently, explosions by terrorists in the way of suicide bombs are lethal and undermining to societies. But, the nuclear threat among the major powers in the world needs to end. The entire concept of Third World countries spending money on it's nuclear weapons rather than it's people is stupid and counter productive to their national need.
The nuclear threat exists primarily between Russia and the USA. It needs to stop. This world is a better place without this idiocy facilitating wars against countries interested in peace. If Russia had no nukes today, it would not be in Ukraine.
The head table of a gala celebrating the tenth anniversary of Russia Today in December of 2015 included Russian President Vladimir Putin and American retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.
Russia's lack of military prowess is why this is an anti-peace dinner. Jill Stein is not a threat to the USA, Flynn is an entirely different issue.
They (click here) were seen weeping as they told the press conference of the goings on in the conflict.20 March 2022 By Gemma Parry
Russian troops (click here) who have been captured by Ukrainian forces have urged their people to rise up against President Vladmir Putin as they tell the world of fellow soldiers being thrown in mass graves.
A group of Russian soldiers spoke out against their government during a press conference with news agency Interfax-Ukraine, telling fellow citizens to not 'look at the zombies.'
Alexei Zheleznyak, Mustafaev Mugsad, Igor Rudenko, Alexander Fomenko and others nearly wept as they told the press conference of their opposition to the Russian invasion, according to The Mirror....
If I had a tank and wanted to kill Russians how would I blend in to do it? The Russian military is incompetent and extremely dangerous. The only thing stopping The West from destroying Russia's military entirely is it's nuclear capacity.
Putin probably had to trick his military into attacking Ukraine because otherwise half of the men would have gone home.
Short of the Russians ending this ideotic ideology of a war, the city of Mariupol needs the Patriot Missile System and anti-aircraft missiles fully deployed with all the bells and whistles. It would give the Ukriane military a chance to defend the people and feed them.
March 20, 2022
Lviv - Ukrainian authorities said Sunday (click here) that Russia's military bombed an art school sheltering some 400 people in the embattled port city of Mariupol, where Ukraine's president said an unrelenting Russian siege would be remembered for centuries to come.
It was the second time in less than a week that city officials reported a public building where residents had taken shelter coming under attack. A bomb hit a Mariupol theater with more than 1,300 believed to be inside on Wednesday, local officials said.
There was no immediate word on casualties from the reported strike on the art school, which The Associated Press could not independently verify. Ukrainian officials have not given an update on the search of the theater since Friday, when they said at least 130 had been rescued....
Now we know why the rebels destroyed a commercial flight with over two hundred passengers. Gross incompetency in the operation of military hardware. The Russians probably lose more conscripts cleaning their guns then in combat.
Russia is a third world country with more human rights violations than China and North Korea put together.
Every NATO country needs to deploy the Patriot System with full compliments of abilities. The fear of Russian war will wane with that missile system installed into all NATO countries. I remind there are short distance missiles in western Russia aimed at Europe with nuclear capacity. The Patriot System will eliminate that threat.
Wall Street needs to realize how completely incompetent Russia is in it's leadership and military. The reality is far different than the myths surrounding this country. Put into perspective the sanctions and the level of pride and politics involved to end the attack into Ukraine. If there were anti-aircraft missiles and the Patriot Missile system deployed with a full compliment of it's ability in Ukraine, there would be no war. And yet, due to his ideology Putin is destroying the Russian economy.
Russia is a very primative country. Investing into that country at this point is a high risk investment even if there was no war. The politics are toxic and ordinary Americans are arrested and jailed for the purpose of the politics. Russia should become an American possession and free the people to live without fear of it's government. Seriously.
The hypersonic missiles may be an issue.
...Experts at MIT and the University of Colorado (click here) say current U.S. defense can detect these new weapons, but do not yet have the ability to strike a hypersonic weapon in mid-course. Working in their favor is that maneuvering the super-fast weapons comes with a price: Any change in course generates drag, greatly reducing the weapons’ range....
In order to get the speed the hypersonics have, they travel hot in the sky. A change in trajectory (if the West could harness it) would cause a destruction of the missle by it's own heat and speed.
The West would not need an interceptor if there was any kind of cyber link connecting the missile to an operator. Force it off course and it would destroy itself.
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....
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....
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.
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 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.
“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.
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.
The Space Shuttle was supposed to lower the cost of the USA's space program with a vehicle that could be used over and over. It was supposed to add "thriftiness" to a program with cutting edge purposes. This program is extremely expensive, but, the USA is looking to take people to the moon and beyond with the next stop Mars.
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.
...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.
