Month: May 2024

The Desertion Continues

It is 2024 and Biden and the Dems thought they had a magic bullet to help bring in young voters….the student loan forgiveness.

I wrote about this just last month….

The Young Are The Problem

And the news just keeps getting worse for Biden and the Dems….

With the 2024 election just over six months away, President Biden is working with two big thorns in his side that threaten to damage his reelection bid: Israel’s continued war against Hamas in Gaza, and the subsequent campus protests that are roiling colleges and universities across the US. Axios notes that the commander in chief is routinely heckled now at his various public appearances over these topics, but there’s one group in particular that may prove especially worrisome for Biden: young voters from his own party, with support plummeting at an “increasing pace of concern,” Elise Joshi of Gen-Z for Change tells the Hill. More:

  • Poll I: It’s not great news for Biden on this front. A Harvard Youth Poll from last month showed that 45% of young adults ages 18 to 29 would vote for Biden, with 37% for Trump. For context, at this point in the 2020 election, Biden led Trump 60% to 30%.
  • Poll II: In a CNN poll released last month, Biden trailed Trump by 11 percentage points among voters under the age of 35; the poll does note that “Biden’s deficit with voters in that group is driven largely by those who did not vote in 2020.” Once that group was removed from the equation, it’s Trump 47%, Biden 46%.
  • Tweet warning: The Washington Post calls attention to a tweet this week from the College Democrats of America, the DNC’s college arm, which read, “College Democrats’ votes are not to be taken for granted by the Democratic Party. We reserve the right to criticize our party when it fails to listen to us.” The Post notes that this points out another challenge for Team Biden: “Even young people who are Democrats often aren’t super strong Democrats.”
  • Still: In a lengthier statement cited by the New York Times, the College Democrats stress that they’re “committed to the reelection of President Biden and Democrats across down-ballot races in every corner of our nation.”
  • James Carville: The Democratic strategist concurs that there are red flags. “It’s horrifying our numbers among younger voters, particularly younger Blacks, younger Latinos … younger people of color. Particularly males,” he said in his podcast last month, per the New York Post. “We’re not shedding them—they’re leaving in … droves.”
  • Young progressives: Biden needs them in his corner, per NPR, which takes a look back at how Biden teamed up with former presidential rival Bernie Sanders four years ago, after Sanders dropped out of the race, to draw in voters from the Sanders camp. The outlet suggests he’ll have to work even harder to do so this time around.
  • Voter chat: PBS talked with four young constituents in the expected swing state of Michigan, with only one of them saying they’d cast a vote for Biden. Check out their conversation here.

Does not look good for Biden according to recent polls….but does the Dems and Biden have another ‘magic bullet’ in their bag of whimsy?

I say they do not….for the young are seeing the Dems as no better than Repubs….both are greedy and very corruptible.

This is a very interesting turn of events….and the Dems are too thick to see the problem.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Ukraine Needs Men

It appears that Ukraine is trying to find soldiers to fight the Russians….they have lowered the age of conscription and even terminated consular services to ex-pats living in another country….trying to force them home so they can die in the fray in the East.

A new law passed is dividing the country on several levels…..

A divisive mobilization law in Ukraine came into force on Saturday, as Kyiv struggles to boost troop numbers after Russia launched a new offensive that some fear could close in on Ukraine’s second-largest city. The legislation, which was watered down from its original draft, will make it easier to identify every conscript in the country, per the AP. It also provides incentives to soldiers, such as cash bonuses or money toward buying a house or car, that some analysts say Ukraine can’t afford. Lawmakers dragged their feet for months and only passed the law in mid-April, a week after Ukraine lowered the age for men who can be drafted from 27 to 25.

The measures reflect the growing strain that more than two years of war with Russia has had on Ukraine’s forces, who are trying to hold the front lines in fighting that has sapped the country’s ranks and stores of weapons and ammunition. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also signed two other laws Friday, allowing prisoners to join the army and increasing fines for draft dodgers fivefold. More:

  • Concerns: Oleksii, 68, who runs a car repair shop in Kyiv, worries about his business, as he expects 70% of his workers will be mobilized. “We will have to shut down and stop paying taxes,” he says, adding that it’s very difficult to replace workers because of their specialized skills. Most of them are already in the armed forces, he notes, adding that the law is “unfair” and “unclear.”
  • Volunteers: Rusyn is the head of recruitment for the 3rd Assault Brigade, one of the most popular among Ukrainian volunteers. He says he saw a 15% increase in men joining the brigade, which fights in eastern Ukraine, in the past months. Most recruits are between 23 and 25 years old, he says. For security reasons, he and his recruits asked to be identified by their call signs only.
  • Runaways: Many Ukrainians have fled the country to avoid the draft since Russia’s all-out invasion in February 2022. The nation’s Supreme Court last month said that 930 people were convicted of avoiding mobilization in 2023, a fivefold increase from the previous year. Around 768,000 Ukrainian men ages 18 to 64 had been granted temporary protection in European Union countries as of last November, per data from the bloc’s statistical agency, Eurostat. Kyiv has barred men under 60 from leaving the country since the start of the war, but some are exempt, including those who are disabled or have three or more children. Unable to cross the border legally, some Ukrainian men risk death trying to swim across a river that separates Ukraine from neighboring Romania and Hungary.

More here.

Anything that Ukraine cannot afford will be covered by the US for we have so much extra cash that we can pay the bills for the Ukrainian government.

When will enough be enough?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Judge Has Made His Ruling

Sunday FYI here.

May I see a show of hands?

How many of you think this is a post about Donald the Orange and his legal theater of the absurd?

Sorry to disappoint but I would rather take a foot to the ‘nads than write about that garbage.

No this judge has ruled on an age old question that has been nagging humanity for a very long time……is a taco a sandwich?

Since before the pandemic, Martin Quintana has been trying to get zoning approval in Fort Wayne, Indiana, to open a second location for The Famous Taco, his Mexican-style eatery serving up tacos, burritos, and the like. This week, a judge finally issued a ruling that clears the path for that—with a critical proclamation that tacos are, indeed, sandwiches. More on the case:

  • Initial agreement: In 2019, Quintana first put in his request to open another Famous Taco location, but to get the OK, he had to sign a written deal that his new place would be a “sandwich bar-style” venue serving up “made-to-order” sandwiches, according to court documents cited by the Courier Journal. The argument then became “is a taco a sandwich,” Quintana’s reps said in those docs.
  • Restrictions: Per the Journal Gazette, the written commitment specifically cites examples like Subway or Jimmy John’s as examples of eateries that would be OK under the deal, while other types of fast-food restaurants would not be. Sandwich shops covered by the agreement also can’t have drive-thrus or outdoor seating and can’t serve booze.
  • Suit: Quintana said that the local Covington Creek Association informed him that his plan for the new Famous Taco “ran afoul” of the agreement he’d signed, and so his team offered an amendment to the agreement that would permit him to sell that type of food. In December 2022, he filed a civil lawsuit against the Fort Wayne Plan Commission for rejecting that amendment, per the AP.
  • Decision day: On Monday, Judge Craig Bobay of Allen Superior Court sided with Quintana, ruling that Quintana’s planned eatery actually conformed to the original written commitment and didn’t even need an amendment. “The Court agrees with Quintana that tacos and burritos are Mexican-style sandwiches, and the original Written Commitment does not restrict potential restaurants to only American cuisine-style sandwiches,” Bobay wrote in his decision. He added that restaurants serving “made-to-order Greek gyros, Indian naan wraps, or Vietnamese banh mi” would also fall under this umbrella, as long as they met other spelled-out conditions.
  • Reaction: Quintana, who came to the US from Mexico in 1988 and toiled as a farmworker before getting into the restaurant industry, says he’s thrilled with the decision and plans to open up his new place before the end of the summer. “I’m glad this thing is over. We are happy,” he tells the AP.

Whew!  I am so glad this issue has been settled for it was keeping me up most nights trying to decide for myself.

And now we know!

On a side note….keeping with the FYI thing….the annual report is out for the weather this Summer….

The federal Climate Prediction Center has updated its summer forecast, and it’s hotter and drier than the last one. The predictions show almost every state moving toward a hotter-than-normal June, July, and August, the Hill reports. That would mean this summer could be a lot like summer 2023, which a study has found was the Northern Hemisphere’s hottest in more than 2,000 years. And then there’s La Niña, which looks like it’ll become a factor between July and September. La Niña years can mean drought conditions for the southern half of the country, including Southern California and the Southwest, as well as a stronger hurricane season in the Atlantic.

The best chances of an unusually hot summer are in the West, with Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of Colorado having a 60% to 70% likelihood. At the same time, the region is looking likely to have below-normal precipitation, which could lead to drought conditions there. The Northeast also is looking like it will be hot. Betting is even on a few places, per the Hill. The center gives North Dakota, South Dakota, and parts of Minnesota and Iowa equal chances of having a normal summer, hotter-than-average summer, or cooler-than-average summer.

Not a good prediction for me since I live at the northern end of Hurricane Ally…..the heat prediction is not good either….last year we had a day that topped 120…..those days are very uncomfortable for an old fart like me.

I hope your region has a better forecast than mine.

Sorry to be a bummer….but please enjoy your Sunday…..and as always…..Be Well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

IST Saturday News Dump–18May24

Another marvelous weekend begins and as per my tradition I will write about the news that slipped through the cracks because of the Trump trial (yawn) or the carnage in Gaza or Biden doing the stupid two step trying to walk the line between being the president of the US or a pawn for some other shit hole country.

My first tomatoes are in and they are delicious….the rest of the garden has taken a hit in the passing storms this Spring….oh well better luck in the Fall.

Let’s get to it, shall we?

I enjoy a glass of wine from time to time…..not a big fan of California wine but some of it is passable…..there is some bad news for the industry….

The San Francisco Chronicle is out with a bleak story about the future of the once-flourishing wine industry in California. The boom times, it appears, are over. “A lot of brands are dead but they don’t even know it right now,” says Michael Honig of Honig Vineyard & Winery in Napa Valley, echoing a sentiment repeated throughout the story by Esther Mobley. She writes that “no sector is immune—not the luxury tier, not the big conglomerates, not the upstart natural wines.” For example, Sonoma’s Bedrock Wine Co. is down 10% in sales this year—the first time it’s registered a dip of any kind in 17 years. The story makes clear that its plight is not unique within the state’s $55 billion industry, and it’s a safe bet some wineries will go under. California vintners are feeling the same pain as peers around the world, the story notes, with wine consumption down about 9% in 2023.

“The industry’s had the wind at our back for a long time,” says Jeff O’Neill of O’Neill Vintners and Distillers. “And finally the music has stopped.” The story explores the stew of factors at play, including younger people shifting to beverages such as hard seltzers and a pushback in the medical community against the idea that wine is healthy. The pandemic also complicated things: Sales spiked, prompting hopeful wineries in California to increase production. But that spike has since reversed (“pantry loading” is the culprit here), leaving wineries stuck with unsold cases of wine. Except for the brief pandemic blip, this downward trend has been in place for several years, but things are finally coming to a head, writes Mobley. “It’s become clear in 2024 that the nature of the California wine industry has fundamentally changed.”

Read the full story.

The problem is the young have to have flavored drinks like Hard Ice Tea or lemonade…..stupid stuff like that and the wine industry suffers from the fads of the young.

I have never understood the fad of trying to eat something so spicy that you go into shock…..why?

This story is about one of these crazies…..

It was indeed a high level of the chemical found in spicy chili peppers that killed a 14-year-old Massachusetts boy last year, the state’s medical examiner found. Harris Wolobah ate an ultra-spicy chip branded as the “One Chip Challenge,” made by the company Paqui, at school in September and lost consciousness hours later at home after complaining his stomach hurt. He never recovered. The autopsy, which was completed in February but is only just now making headlines, found that the teen’s cause of death was cardiopulmonary arrest “in the setting of recent ingestion of a food substance with high capsaicin concentration,” according to a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security, the Washington Post reports

The autopsy could not confirm the origin of the capsaicin, but the chips (which were discontinued after Wolobah’s death) were made from some of the world’s hottest chili peppers. The autopsy also found Wolobah had an enlarged heart and a congenital heart defect. His family says they didn’t know about the conditions when Wolobah died, and People, citing the NIH, reports that is not uncommon with enlargement of the heart. Paqui says in a statement that its product was not intended for children or people with underlying health conditions.

Another example of ‘you can’t fix stupid’.

Health experts have been bitching about our addiction to processed food….well here is more bad news….

A diet high in ultraprocessed foods has been linked to cancer, weight gain, and now early death. A new 30-year study of 115,000 people found those who consumed the most ultraprocessed foods (UPFs)—including frozen meals, processed meat like hot dogs, potato chips, sugary breakfast cereals, and artificially sweetened beverages—had a slightly higher risk of early death than those who consumed the least. Researchers found no increased risk of cancer or cardiovascular disease. But participants who consumed an average of seven or more daily servings of UPFs had 4% higher risk of “total deaths” than those who consumed three servings per day on average, and a 9% higher risk of “other deaths,” including an 8% higher risk of death from neurodegenerative diseases, per Global News.

“The association is quite linear. The higher intake of ultraprocessed foods, the higher mortality,” says Harvard researcher Dr. Mingyang Song, lead author of the study published Wednesday in the British Medical Journal. These foods are usually highly manipulated and contain preservatives, emulsifiers, sweeteners, and other additives, but little to no fiber, vitamins, or minerals. They also “account for more than 60% of daily calories in Americans,” Song tells the Washington Post. But some ultraprocessed foods are better than others. Packaged whole-grain bread might be beneficial, according to an editorial accompanying the study. White bread, processed meats, potato chips, ice cream and sweetened beverages, on the other hand, have a strong association with higher mortality.

Previous studies have linked UPFs to various health risks, including early death. But some of these were based on small sample sizes tracked over relatively short periods. This study tracked 75,000 female registered nurses from 11 states from 1984 to 2018 and 40,000 male doctors and health professionals from all 50 states from 1986 to 2018, recording data on their health, lifestyle, and eating habits. The observational study doesn’t make conclusions about cause and effect, and researchers note people who consume high amounts of UPFs often have other unhealthy habits. But the takeaway is that certain types of UPFs should be restricted. “If a person consumes a generally healthy diet and has some amount of ultraprocessed food, [that] wouldn’t be too terrible,” Song says, per Global News.

This will fall on deaf ears for it is too easy to eat this sh*t at the game console.

This is a great food story…..examples of idiots wasting time….

On May 7, Governor Kay Ivey signed a law making it illegal to manufacture, sell, or distribute cell-cultivated meat in Alabama. Earlier this month, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida signed a similar one. These moves should still give all of us a reason to be angry. 

Cell-cultivated meat is meat that’s grown from a culture of cells, meaning it doesn’t require the raising or slaughter of animals. It’s a sector that’s very hot right now, not just in the U.S., but globally, because it could be the answer to some major problems in our current food systems. The livestock industry is responsible for 15% of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, not to mention the transmission of zoonotic diseases, the massive amount of land it requires, and the inherent animal cruelty involved in making factory farmed slop. Cell-cultivated meat provides a possible solution to all of that, as well as an exciting economic opportunity. 

But DeSantis’ take? “We’re not doing that in the state of Florida.” As for Ivey, she hasn’t made a statement yet, perhaps because the internet went bananas over DeSantis’ decision. It doesn’t come as much of a surprise, given that politicians have been working on legislation for months. It’s not just Florida and Alabama. Tennessee isn’t far behind, with a bill to ban the cell-cultured meat industry currently floating through the legislature. Arizona and Texas have laid down incredibly tight restrictions on the kind of language and labeling that cell-cultivated meat companies can use in the marketing and sale of their products. Meanwhile, a senator from Nebraska (a major cattle ranching state) has tried pushing for this at the federal level. Republicans, at least those in the southern half of the country, have made it clear they want nothing to do with slaughter-free meat.

https://www.fastcompany.com/91122445/alabama-and-florida-just-outlawed-this-type-of-meat-its-a-colossally-stupid-move

I agree that lab grown meat does not sound very tasty but did they need a legislative session to ban it?  I told you the South was run by idiots.

I saved the best story for last….since Sue has been fighting cancer for about 4 years now I am always looking for news about treatment and such…..this one is very promising….

Proteomics, meaning the study of proteins, isn’t exactly a household word, but it’s a field of research that could someday save countless lives. Cancer Research UK says a study it funded found that proteins linked to cancer can be found in people’s blood more than seven years before the disease is diagnosed, suggesting cancer could be stopped before it develops. Researchers looked at blood samples from more than 44,000 people in the UK Biobank database, including 4,900 samples from people who were later diagnosed with cancer, the Guardian reports. Cancer Research UK says follow-up research will look at the roles the proteins play in cancer development—and at which drugs can stop them.

Researchers analyzed 1,463 proteins in each blood sample. They found 107 that changed at least seven years before a cancer diagnosis. Another 182 changed at least three years before diagnosis. The proteins were linked to 19 types of cancer, including lung, liver, and colon cancer, as well as blood cancers. “This research brings us closer to being able to prevent cancer with targeted drugs—once thought impossible but now much more attainable,” says researcher Karl Smith-Byrne, a senior molecular epidemiologist at the University of Oxford.

A second study, also funded by Cancer Research UK, looked at data from more than 300,000 cancer cases and identified 40 blood proteins linked to the risk of developing nine types of cancer. Mark Lawler, a leading cancer researcher at Queen’s University Belfast, says that while much research remains to be done, the findings are impressive, the Guardian reports. “Finding evidence of cancer before it has manifested itself clinically provides a critical window of opportunity to treat with a greater chance for success, or even more importantly to achieve the holy grail of preventing cancer before it can even occur,” he says.

Finally something for a little fun…..

What is the longest word in the English language?

Forget antidisestablishmentarianism:

 If you can find a way to work pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis into a conversation, congratulations! You’ve just managed to use the longest defined word you’ll find in any dictionary in everyday chatter. But also: We hope you’re feeling OK, as the 45-letter word is a disease that causes an inflammation of the lungs due to the inhalation of very fine silicate or quartz dust.

At least, that’s what it’s supposed to mean. The word was coined in the 1930s, probably by the president of the National Puzzlers’ League, “in imitation of polysyllabic medical terms,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary, “but occurring only as an instance of a very long word.” In other words, pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis was a word created simply to be long.

That is the dump for this Saturday….I do hope that I informed and/or entertained my readers.

Go outside and enjoy a Spring day and as always….Be well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

More On Those ‘Outside Agitators’

This ought wrinkle a few of the dullards that keep passing on crap as fact about the protests going on across the US…..they will not pay attention for this does not feed their ignorance.

I recently wrote a post about the accusation of those ‘outside agitators’ that conservatives and their lackeys keep trying to convince the nation exist.

For those that could not spare the time before maybe you can find a bit here…..

Those Damn ‘Outside Agitators’!

Groups have been watching these protest besides the media and people looking to start shit with lies….all that violence that is being blamed on ‘outside agitators’ is almost non-existent….that’s right dimwits….these are not violent….

Just over a week after U.S. President Joe Biden defended police crackdowns on dozens of anti-war protests on college campuses by declaring that students don’t have “the right to cause chaos,” a new analysis on Friday showed that nearly all the campus demonstrations have not been violent at all—and many that have descended into violence did so due to police interventions or aggressive counter-protests.

The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) examined 553 campus protests that took place across the U.S. between April 18-May 3 and found that fewer than 20 resulted in serious violence or property damage—meaning that 97% of the protests remained non-violent.

The group categorizes demonstrations as violent only when “physical violence that rises above pushing or shoving” takes place or when property damage includes protesters “breaking a window or worse.”

ACLED’s latest analysis comes after a previous study released May 2, which found 99% of campus protests in the first days of the burgeoning student-led movement against Israel’s assault on Gaza had remained peaceful.

In the latest report, analyzing the 3% of protests that became violent, ACLED found that at half of those students clashed with police who had been sent in to clear the peaceful student encampments—which should have been allowed to proceed unimpeded according to Biden’s speech about the protests on May 2, in which he said, “Peaceful protest is in the best tradition of how Americans respond to controversial issues.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/gaza-peaceful-protests

From the point of view of the protesters…..cops in riot gear would be an outside agitator…..but most are too numb to crap to see what I am talking about.

Educate….Agitate….Organize….

But Wait!

I think we may have identified those ‘outside agitators’ (sarcasm in case you missed it)

VFP members were present at the initial rally of about 200 people at Metropolitan State University of Denver, Auraria Campus, in Colorado on April 25 (photo above right). Since then, at least 40 students arrested. A VFP flag can be glimpsed in this local news clip. Thanks to Tina Jayroe for this report.

Members of VFP Chapter 125 rallied and marched in solidarity with 1500 others on the Emory University campus in Atlanta, Georgia (crowd shown above left) on April 26, the day after Emory President Fenves called in goons from the Atlanta Police and Georgia State Patrol who brutalized students and faculty, arresting over 50 people including the head of the Philosophy department. The next day, chapter members Marcone Canguso and Geoff Sumner appeared on WRFG’s Beyond Borders show to talk about the Emory University protests and unprovoked violence against students and faculty, “and the relevance of waging peace in today’s increasingly dishonest and cowardly environment.”

VFP members Craig Bardo and Tom Grose on Vanderbilt University campus in Nashville, Tennessee, on April 27. The veterans came to support the students who are camping out there.

Washington, D.C. VFP Chapter 16 member Mike Marceau is quoted in the online live encampment coverage posted by the GW Hatchet, an independent student paper serving the George Washington University community. He visited the encampment on May 4, its tenth day. Mike explains, “I told the crowd that I was a Vietnam veteran, that their peaceful action reminded me of the actions in the late ’60s, and that I was proud to stand with them as they spoke out against the Israel genocide and war crimes.” Read the GW Hatchet post HERE.

VFP?  Veterans For Peace.

But not to worry the idiots in the GOP and those that listen to the manure and pass it on as fact will be asking for an investigation…..

A House committee announced it was launching an investigation into 20 groups it claims are behind the campus protests against US support for Israel’s war in Gaza. In a letter to the Treasury Department, the members of Congress requested documents on the organizations while smearing them as antisemitic and pro-Hamas. 

On Tuesday, The Committee on Oversight and Accountability and the Committee on Education sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janey Yellen requesting “All Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) generated in connection to the following organizations, or any known officer or employee thereof.” 

The list of 20 groups includes Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace IfNotNow, Open Society Foundations, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and People’s Forum. Some of the organizations are Jewish-led. 

https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/congressional-committee-targets-pro-palestinian-groups-with-investigation/

I say investigate but make it all sides for instance how much cash flows to those calling for this from AIPAC…..and stop calling the protests pro-HAMAS or antisemitic they are neither.

This will be just another waste of time and taxpayer money….something the GOP is very good at doing with their time in DC…..but this time there will be Dems that go along with the bovine fecal matter.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

More From The Front Lines

Ukraine is still going strong and now the Russians are making a bit of progress in the East….there a few stories that we probably will not see about the backroom BS in this war.

Recently $3 billion was sent to Ukraine from the EU…..here is the response….

A Ukrainian official has said that an EU plan to provide Kyiv with up to 3 billion euros ($3.2 billion) per year for military aid amounts to “almost nothing” in the context of the war.

EU ambassadors agreed to use profits generated by frozen Russian Central Bank assets to purchase up to $3.2 billion worth of weapons for Ukraine annually, but Ukrainian Justice Minister Denys Maliuska told POLITICO last Thursday that Ukraine needs “hundreds” of billions.

“If we are talking about the needs of Ukraine and the needs of the war, military and non-military, 3 billion euros is actually almost nothing— we need hundreds of billions in order to win the war,” Maliuska said. “It’s a good first step.”

(antiwar.com)

What bullsh*t!

Maybe a thank you but it may not help…..would have been a better response.

The recent success that Russia has had in the East according to Zelensky is the fault of ‘the world’…..

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv oblast on Thursday and blamed the Russian offensive in the region on “the world” for not sending enough weapons.

He referred to the delays in Congress passing a $61 billion Ukraine aid package, which was authorized last month. “Brigades are not totally equipped because of the package, which we waited through for eight months,” he told ABC News.

When asked if what’s happening in Kharkiv is America’s fault, Zelensky replied, “It’s the world’s fault. They gave the opportunity for Putin to occupy. But now the world can help.”

…

While Zelensky blamed the Russian success on weapons shortages, Ukrainian soldiers have said there were no proper fortifications despite intelligence that showed Russia was amassing troops on the border of Kharkiv.

“There was no first line of defense. We saw it. The Russians just walked in. They just walked in, without any mined field,” Denys Yaroslavskyi, a commander of a Ukrainian Special Reconnaissance Unit, said earlier this week. “Either it was an act of negligence, or corruption. It wasn’t a failure. It was a betrayal.”

(antiwar.com)

I am sick of this arrogant tool.  Be thankful for any and all help….he is trying to bully the world into what he wants….he can go suck a mule in my book.

Since Zelensky blames us all for his failures he now thinks that NATO should send in troops ‘for training’…..

Ukrainian officials have asked NATO countries to send troops to Ukraine to help train 150,000 new recruits, The New York Times reported on Thursday.

The report said NATO countries are “inching closer” to sending trainers, which would mark a significant escalation and risk direct war with Russia. A small number of NATO special operations forces have been inside Ukraine — 97 as of March 2023 — but an open deployment to train a large number of Ukrainian troops would take things to another level.

The US and NATO had been training Ukrainian troops inside Ukraine before Russia’s February 2022 invasion. Since then, the training has been held in Germany and other parts of Europe, but Kyiv wants to shift it back inside Ukraine so the Ukrainian recruits can be quickly deployed to the frontlines. So far, the US has not agreed to the request, but it appears Washington is considering it.

(antiwar.com)

Okay what happens if NATO troops are attacked in Ukraine?

This sounds like Zelensky is trying to set up a condition that might force NATO into direct conflict with Russia.

In other words Ukraine wants NATO to do their fighting for them.

I say nuts to them…..fight your own goddamn battles!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Court System is ‘Corrupt’

That is the statement made by the Speaker of the House Johnson….

Johnson, who is second in line for the presidency, called the court system “corrupt.”

While I seldom agree with much any Repub has to say these I will admit that I agree with his statement in general terms but do not agree with the substance of his statement.

You can see what I mean….

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson assailed the hush money case against Donald Trump Tuesday as an illegitimate “sham,” becoming the highest-ranking Republican to show up at court, embrace the former president’s claims of political persecution and attack the U.S. system of justice.

It was a remarkable moment in modern American politics: The House speaker amplifying Trump’s defense and turning the Republican Party against the federal and state legal systems that are foundational to the U.S. government and a cornerstone of democracy.

Johnson, who is second in line for the presidency, called the court system “corrupt.”

Outside the New York courthouse, he decried “this ridiculous prosecution that is not about justice.” He said, “It’s all about politics.”

In portraying the case against Trump as politically motivated, the Republicans are also laying the groundwork to dismiss its significance should the jury convict, and for potential challenges to the fall election, a rematch with President Joe Biden, a Democrat

Johnson was a chief architect of Trump’s efforts to challenge the 2020 presidential results ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, mob assault on the U.S. Capitol, and last week he called the hush money trial and the other election-year cases against Trump a “borderline criminal conspiracy.”

(apnews.com)
Recent news from the courts points to rampant corruption with favors showered on the judges….so I agree with Johnson that he court system is corrupt and can be bought.
 
But that is what we get when we allow groups like the Federalists to give us political hacks as judges.
 
Personally Donald the Orange needs to be held accountable for everything he has done as he works against the very democratic foundations of this country.
 
But sadly the court system will remain just as corrupt as it is today or possibly become even more so in the future….time for a change in the system to make it a reliable referee of the federal system…..that is missing in today’s court.
 
I have spoken, It is written, so be it.
 
I Read, I Write, You Know
 
“lego ergo scribo”

Permanent War Footing

Since Biden took office I have been criticizing his war footing that seems to want the US to be on at all times.

His latest antic just reinforces my belief on the statement.

I am talking about the thing about TikTok and the cover it provided to strip out more taxpayer cash for the wars he wants in Ukraine and Israel and the one he stokes with Taiwan and China.

All this just smacks of the US being on a ‘permanent war footing’.

The White House is steering the United States into a budgetary ditch it may not be able to get out of.

The Biden administration is supersizing the defense industry to meet foreign arms obligations instead of making tradeoffs essential to any effective budget. Its new National Defense Industrial Strategy lays out a plan to “catalyze generational change” of the defense industrial base and to “meet the strategic moment” — one rhetorically dominated by competition with China, but punctuated by U.S. support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia and Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

Instead of reevaluating its maximalist national security strategy, the Biden administration is doubling down. It is proposing a generation of investment to expand an arms industry that, overall, fails to meet cost, schedule, and performance standards. And if its strategy is any indication, the administration has no vision for how to eventually reduce U.S. military industrial capacity.

When the Cold War ended, the national security budget shrank. Then-Secretary of Defense Les Aspin and deputy William Perry convened industry leaders to encourage their consolidation in a meeting that later became known as the “Last Supper.” Arms makers were to join forces or go out of business. So they ended up downsizing from over 50 prime contractors to just five. And while contractors needed to pare down their industrial capacity, unchecked consolidation created the monopolistic defense sector we have now — one that depends heavily on government contracts and enjoys significant freedom to set prices.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/biden-war-strategy/

There are risks for the Biden ‘permanent war footing’ thing….and the risks could be catastrophic…..then there his opponent Trump his policies would only make things worse (if that is possible)….

There is no daylight between presidential candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump on the permanent war economy. Both tout the weapons industry as a source of jobs, jobs, jobs for Americans, never mentioning that the billions of government dollars flushed through the military-industrial complex could go for other things. Think universal health care, free higher education or maybe just the green economy – if money spent on what Politico called Bombenomics went to producing solar panels and wind turbines, we’d have jobs AND a planet not heating up at warp speed. Sadly, our two presidential contenders never met a weapon system they didn’t like. And as recent history repeats – if you spend all your cash building tanks, guns and bombs, they’re gonna get used.

Even worse, the U.S. MIC compels other countries to beef up their militaries. Take Russia. Before invading Ukraine, Moscow’s weapons industry puttered along, as did military conscription, but as soon as the Kremlin realized that it had no peace partners in the west or in Ukraine – a revelation that dawned on Moscow when then British prime minister Boris Johnson sabotaged peace talks between the two opponents in spring 2022 – things changed. Russia put itself on a war footing, so that now its industrial military base hums along, churning out tanks, hypersonic missiles (which the West lacks), rockets, guns and don’t forget nuclear bombs. Russia also placed tactical nukes in Belarus.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/03/15/the-evil-of-a-permanent-war-economy/

Let’s get real…..the War Department gets $900 billion and the rest of the country scrambles for the crumbs that the M-IC will allow Congress to give.

This whole scenario is becoming ridiculous!

We do not need more and more war….what we need is to rebuild the Middle Class and tighten up our infrastructure….war will not accomplish anything but wasted lives and money.

I know….some think that it is a hopeless cause to rant on and on…..but to me the only cause that will do the most damage to our country is those that rollover and play dead and do nothing but hide in the shadows.

I want my country to thrive not bogged down in countless misadventures of war.

I have spoken so it is written

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A “Post-Birth Abortion”

WTF?

I would like to point out that there is already on this….it is called murder…..or if you need the official academic term it is infanticide.

A post-birth abortions is murder, right?

This stupidity came out of the mouth of a person who personifies stupid, Ron DeSantis.

Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a recent interview that some states allow abortion after an infant has already been born.

CNN host Jake Tapper asked DeSantis whether he would support a federal abortion ban as president. DeSantis, who signed Florida’s contested six-week abortion ban in April, said he would be a “pro-life president,” but gave no direct answer.

“In some liberal states,” he said, “you actually have post-birth abortions and I think that’s wrong.”

Some on social media thought DeSantis misspoke, but the post-birth abortion claim is something that Republicans and anti-abortion activists have repeated for years, before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.

The claim was wrong then, and it is wrong now: Willfully terminating a newborn’s life is not legal in any state.

…

When asked for evidence to support his claim, a DeSantis campaign aide pointed us to two resources, neither of which established that states sanction killing newborns.

One was a press release outlining Republican support for a bill advocates say would require infants get medical care after attempted abortions. Opponents say the new bill is redundant under the “Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of 2002.“

The other was a webpage from the Charlotte Lozier Institute, an anti-abortion organization, that explored cases in which it said abortion attempts failed and babies were born. But it contained a number of irrelevant or erroneous citations. For example, one 2018 study that it cited referred to second-trimester abortions in Europe, not the U.S., and found that half resulted in live births, with most babies dying within minutes. The study’s authors said the abortions were sought because of anomalies or genetic abnormalities. The gestational age represents a range when many fetuses cannot yet survive independently.

https://www.wlrn.org/government-politics/2023-07-25/desantis-false-claim-post-birth-abortions

What sort of moron believes this shit?

NO one advocates the killing of newborns….NO ONE!

Infanticide is illegal in all 50 states…..in case you are an idiot.

These anti-choice people will make up shit and have it become everyday….this has been picked up by another Floridian, Marco Rubio, another drooling half-wit.

This is pure bullshit….like everything else that comes from the mouth of a Republican. and the supporters that buy into manure.

When characterizing a Repub all I can say is….’ignorance in and stupid out’.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Philippines, Japan, Australia–Oh My

Meanwhile back at the South China Sea.

The US is paranoid about the South China Sea and has set aside billions for Taiwan and the waters around the island.

The US held a meeting and made a new pact…..

The US has been working to increase military cooperation with the Philippines, Japan, and Australia as part of its strategy against China in the Asia Pacific, a grouping Pentagon officials privately call the “Squad,” Bloomberg reported on Friday.

The defense chiefs of the US, the Philippines, Japan, and Australia met in Hawaii on May 2 and issued a joint readout that used harsh rhetoric against China’s claims to the South China Sea and the East China Sea, two areas where the US has vowed to intervene if the maritime disputes turn into shooting wars.

“The Ministers and Secretaries expressed serious concern about the situation in the East and South China Seas,” the readout said. “They strongly objected to the dangerous use of coast guard and maritime militia vessels in the South China Sea. They reiterated serious concern over the PRC’s (People’s Republic of China) repeated obstruction of Philippine vessels’ exercise of high seas freedom of navigation and the disruption of supply lines to Second Thomas Shoal, which constitute dangerous and destabilizing conduct.”

They also vowed to increase military cooperation, including in the South China Sea. “The Ministers and Secretaries discussed opportunities to further advance defense cooperation, including through continued maritime cooperation in the South China Sea, enhanced procedures to enable coordination and information sharing arrangements, as well as strengthening capacity building,” the readout said.

(antiwar.com)

The US has repeatedly vowed that the US-Philippine Mutual Defense Treaty applies to attacks on Philippine vessels in the South China Sea. Similarly, the US has affirmed that the mutual defense portion of the US-Japan Security Treaty would apply to the Senkaku Islands, Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea that are also claimed by China.

I have to ask….does that Mutual Defense thing about Filipino vessels extend to derelicts?

I ask that simple question because of something I read……

Earlier this month, President Biden asserted that US support for the Philippines is “ironclad.” A new story in the Washington Post explains how that promise might be tested in the not-too-distant future thanks to a rusting warship.

  • The ship: The BRP Sierra Madre belongs to the Philippines, which deliberately ran it aground on the Second Thomas Shoal in 1999 in order to stake its claim to an outpost in the disputed South China Sea. The ship is no longer seaworthy, but Philippine military vessels routinely bring supplies out to the Filipino marines aboard.
  • ‘Asia’s next war’: Chinese military ships harass the Filipino supply ships with water cannons, and it’s a dangerous tactic, as videos show. If things escalate, or a Philippine service member is killed, that could trigger a US response under a 1951 mutual defense treaty, per the Post. The story describes the ship as a flashpoint that could lead to “Asia’s next war.”
  • Days numbered: The ship is destined to succumb to the elements, and it could be a matter of months, not years, according to an analysis in the Guardian. China accuses the Philippines of trying to rehab the ship to make it a permanent fixture on the atoll, which the Philippines denies. China maintains an outpost on the nearby Mischief Reef, and would likely try to claim Second Thomas Shoal as part of its ever-expanding dominance of the sea.
  • One proposal: The Philippines and the US should act before the ship disintegrates, writes Blake Herzinger at War on the Rocks. “The Philippines should remove the Sierra Madre and replace it with a permanent structure manned by combined rotational forces from both the Philippines and the U.S. Marine Corps,” he writes. “Such a forward operating base would be a powerful signal of commitment to the alliance for both nations.”

Cool!  We could actually go to war over some piece of junk stranded on an atoll because some country wants to clai8m it as theirs….is that about right?

This is just sick!  Nay it is DISGUSTING!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”