12
   

Monitoring Biden and other Contemporary Events

 
 
snood
 
  1  
Sun 13 Feb, 2022 05:05 pm
https://i.imgur.com/VVRIo5K.jpg

First one that spots it, raise your hand!!
0 Replies
 
hightor
 
  1  
Fri 18 Feb, 2022 08:55 am
Senator Rand Paul's son charged with assaulting flight attendant

Quote:
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - The son of U.S. Sen. Rand Paul is accused of assaulting a flight attendant during a trip from Kentucky to North Carolina.

The Charlotte Observer reported over the weekend that 19-year-old William Paul was charged with misdemeanor assault on a female by aggressive physical force. The paper had previously reported that he also was charged with underage drinking, disorderly conduct and being intoxicated and disruptive.

The newspaper quoted Lt. Shawn Crooks as saying all the charges against Paul were filed the day of the incident, Jan. 5.

Police officials did not immediately return telephone messages from The Associated Press on Monday.

The son of the Republican senator from Kentucky and grandson of former presidential candidate Ron Paul was arrested after his plane landed at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport.

cbs

izzythepush
 
  0  
Fri 18 Feb, 2022 09:24 am
@hightor,
That's the difference between American and European 19 year olds. No European 19 year old would ever dream of underage drinking.
bobsal u1553115
 
  0  
Fri 18 Feb, 2022 09:34 am
@izzythepush,
Another is: no European feels personally permitted to take false conspiracy griefs out on airliner personnel like every right wing twit here in the US does.
izzythepush
 
  -1  
Fri 18 Feb, 2022 09:35 am
@bobsal u1553115,
We have bloody idiots over here too.
bobsal u1553115
 
  0  
Fri 18 Feb, 2022 09:45 am
@izzythepush,
And how. But they aren't attacking stewardesses that we've heard about.

I won't go see Manchester United or Arsenal play - here in the US, 'football' teams provide the violence; in UK or in the rest of Europe it seems the Brit football fans provide it.

Stupid question: I get "American football" as the proper designation, does anyone in Europe use the term 'soccer' for football?
izzythepush
 
  0  
Fri 18 Feb, 2022 10:13 am
@bobsal u1553115,
Although there have been a few blips recently English football isn't a violent place any more.

Action was taken after the worst cases in the 80s. Most perpetrators are banned and have their passports confiscated.

I can't talk about mainland Europe, but if you use the s word over here you're likely to get a punch in the mouth.

The usual abbreviation is footie.

Your observation is as outdated as Foofie quoting My Fair Lady.
0 Replies
 
izzythepush
 
  0  
Fri 18 Feb, 2022 10:19 am
@bobsal u1553115,
Btw, there is no 'British' football team, so no British fans.
0 Replies
 
Region Philbis
 
  1  
Fri 18 Feb, 2022 10:27 am
@hightor,

a real chip off the old block...
0 Replies
 
izzythepush
 
  0  
Fri 18 Feb, 2022 10:41 am
@bobsal u1553115,
I must admit I don't get America football at all.

Over here an American Football team The Nottingham Ceasars found their kit had been destroyed by mice on the day of the Super Bowl.
bobsal u1553115
 
  0  
Fri 18 Feb, 2022 04:13 pm
@izzythepush,
Would that such discerning mice might be here for any given NFL Sunday.
izzythepush
 
  -1  
Fri 18 Feb, 2022 04:14 pm
@bobsal u1553115,
I don't think they did it all in one day. It was in storage over the winter.
0 Replies
 
bobsal u1553115
 
  0  
Fri 18 Feb, 2022 06:41 pm
Russia Planning Post-Invasion Arrest and Assassination Campaign in Ukraine, U.S. Officials Say
Foreign Policy.com
By Amy Mackinnon, Robbie Gramer, and Jack Detsch

The United States has obtained intelligence that Russia may target prominent political opponents, anti-corruption activists, and Belarusian and Russian dissidents living in exile should it move forward with plans to invade Ukraine, as U.S. President Joe Biden warned on Thursday that the threat of a renewed Russian invasion of the country remains “very high” and could take place within the next several days.

Four people familiar with U.S. intelligence said that Russia has drafted lists of Ukrainian political figures and other prominent individuals to be targeted for either arrest or assassination in the event of a Russian assault on Ukraine.

A fifth person, a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the United States has been downgrading its intelligence classification regarding threats to specific groups within Ukraine to share this information with Ukrainian government officials and other partners in the region positioned to help.

A spokesperson for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/02/18/russia-ukraine-arrest-assassination-invasion/
0 Replies
 
hightor
 
  3  
Sat 19 Feb, 2022 04:55 am
HCR wrote:
There are four big stories today.

The first is that the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has confirmed that it found classified documents among those its staff recovered from former president Donald Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago.

David S. Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, wrote in a letter to Representative Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY), chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, that NARA is in the process of inventorying the 15 boxes of material Trump took out of the White House and that it has found “items marked as classified national security information within the boxes.” Because Trump removed classified information from its required security protection, NARA staff have alerted the Department of Justice to that national security breach.

There is more. Ferriero said that NARA has identified social media records that the Trump administration neglected to preserve. NARA “has also learned that some White House staff conducted official business using non-official messaging accounts that were not copied or forwarded into their official electronic messaging accounts,” as the law required. In addition, even after news reports of Trump tearing up records led NARA to remind the White House that records must be preserved, it nonetheless received records that were torn into pieces.

But her emails.

(Sorry. Willfully destroyed records make historians a bit salty.)

Meanwhile, the second story is that John Durham, whose court filing in a case drove the story about Trump’s mishandling of presidential records out of the news this week, has responded to the accusation that he deliberately politicized and exaggerated a story to inflame Trump loyalists. Durham’s filing presented information in such a misleading way that right-wing media and lawmakers have howled incorrectly that it proved Hillary Clinton was spying on Trump both before and after he took office. The defendant in the case asked the court to strike from that filing the inflammatory paragraphs.

Today, Durham responded that “if third parties or members of the media have overstated, understated, or otherwise misinterpreted facts contained in the Government’s Motion, that does not in any way undermine the valid reasons for the Government’s inclusion of this information.” In other words, the right-wing media frenzy misrepresents what happened, but that misinterpretation is not Durham’s problem.

The third story is that U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta rejected Trump’s attempt to dismiss three lawsuits that blame him for inciting the January 6 riot. Eleven members of the House of Representatives (in their personal capacities) and two Capitol Police officers have accused former president Trump, Donald J. Trump Jr., Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Representative Mo Brooks (R-AL), and right-wing militia groups including the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, the Warboys, and so on, of conspiring to prevent them from performing their official duties. This is a federal crime thanks to a law first passed in 1871 to stop Ku Klux Klan members from preventing Black legislators and their Republican allies from doing their jobs.

After reviewing the events of January 6 and the days leading up to it, the judge concluded that those launching the lawsuits “establish a plausible conspiracy involving President Trump.” He noted that the president and others worked together to disrupt Congress and stop the counting of the certified Electoral College ballots on January 6. The president undermined faith in the election, falsely claiming it was stolen, and urged supporters to go to Washington, D.C., on January 6, telling them it would be “wild.” He planned the rally, and at it he gave a barn-burning speech that concluded: ““We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

Trump’s role in a potential conspiracy was “to encourage the use of force, intimidation, or threats to thwart the Certification from proceeding, and organized groups such as the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers would carry out the required acts.” The judge also noted a pattern of “call-and-response” between the president and his militia followers. When he told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by,” for example, one of their leaders tweeted: “Standing by sir.”

The court concluded that it was plausible that Trump was part of a conspiracy to stop the performance of official duties.

The fourth story is that this evening, President Joe Biden addressed the nation to update us on the threat of Russia’s launching another invasion of Ukraine. He emphasized that we and our allies stand behind Ukraine and pledge to continue diplomatic efforts to prevent a war, and yet will deliver “massive costs on Russia should it choose further conflict.” He urged Russia “to de-escalate and return to the negotiating table.”

Political scientist and journalist David Rothkopf tweeted that Biden is speaking as the leader of the free world. “It has been a long time since a U.S. president filled that role. His remarks were concise and pointed...and underscored Western resolve. But the headline: He is convinced [that] Putin has decided… to invade.”

Indeed, that was the big takeaway from the speech: Biden said that intelligence sources think Putin has made his decision. Biden said: “we have reason to believe the Russian forces are planning to and intend to attack Ukraine in the coming week—in the coming days. We believe that they will target Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, a city of 2.8 million innocent people.”

Former director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Chris Krebs pointed out that the advances the United States intelligence community has made in the last few years in counteractive measures have enabled the U.S. to head off plans “before they’re set in motion.” U.S. officials are alerting Putin to the fact there are leaks in his team, putting his plans at risk. This can cause strife and perhaps make leaders rethink their policies. As Krebs tweeted, it “[p]uts some sand in their gears, creates mistrust, and can slow down planning and operations…. The deliberate approach by western gov[ernmen]ts to anticipate Russian disinfo[rmation] & get in front of it is a positive evolution.”

We do not know where the next several days will lead, of course, but it is notable that the solidarity of the countries allied against authoritarianism, strengthened by U.S. diplomacy, is holding strong.

substack
0 Replies
 
snood
 
  3  
Sun 20 Feb, 2022 01:36 pm
I'm confused about sanctions on Putin.

Biden has solemnly promised again and again to respond swiftly and fiercely, should Putin invade the Ukraine. And, since he's been adamant that he will not "have American soldiers fighting on the ground" there, and since he's said outright that he's talking about extreme financial sanctions, we can assume the swift and firce action will be to put a chokehold on the Russian economy.

Okay, fine.
But if the Russians invade, people will die. Maybe hundreds of people. Maybe more.

How are we supposed to view this as a some kind of strong defense of our NATO ally? We do nothing until he invades, THEN we choke his economy (which, just by the way will have the extra added effect of hurting innocent Russian civilians)? How is this a sensible response AFTER people die in battle?

Why wouldn't it make sense to choke Putin's economy BEFORE he invades - just as a response to all the months of threats, escalation and bullying? Wouldn't that limit his strength and capabilities?
Mame
 
  3  
Sun 20 Feb, 2022 01:53 pm
@snood,
You make some good points. The EU and the US have already sanctioned Russia:

Here's from Wikipedia:

European Union-countries that have collectively introduced sanctions
International sanctions have been imposed during the Russo-Ukrainian War by a large number of countries against Russia and Crimea following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began in late February 2014. The sanctions were imposed by the United States, the European Union (EU) and other countries and international organisations against individuals, businesses and officials from Russia and Ukraine.[1] Russia responded with sanctions against a number of countries, including a total ban on food imports from Australia, Canada, Norway, the United States and the European Union.
The sanctions by the European Union and United States continue to be in effect as of February 2022. [2][3] In January 2022, the EU announced the latest extension of sanctions until 31 July 2022.[4]

The sanctions contributed to the collapse of the Russian ruble and the Russian financial crisis.[5] They also caused economic damage to a number of EU countries, with total losses estimated at €100 billion (as of 2015).[6] As of 2014, Russia's Finance Minister announced that the sanctions had cost Russia $40 billion, with another $100 billion loss in 2014 taken due to the decrease in the price of oil the same year driven by the 2010s oil glut.[7] Following the latest sanctions imposed in August 2018, economic losses incurred by Russia amount to some 0.5–1.5% of foregone GDP growth.

In addition to the sanctions, Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused the United States of conspiring with Saudi Arabia to intentionally weaken the Russian economy by decreasing the price of oil.[8] By mid-2016, Russia had lost an estimated $170 billion due to financial sanctions, with another $400 billion in lost revenues from oil and gas.[9]

According to Ukrainian officials,[a] the sanctions forced Russia to change its approach towards Ukraine and undermined the Russian military advances in the region.[10][11] Representatives of these countries say that they will lift sanctions against Russia only after Moscow fulfils the Minsk II agreements.

~~~

As to their effectiveness, there's an article here:

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/the-impact-of-western-sanctions-on-russia/

No country wants to send their people overseas in a war which doesn't involve them, nor should they. This is not our/your war and there shouldn't be any need for a war. At the moment, it's just a threat. Is he testing our resolve and commitment? The list of proposed sanctions is aimed, I think, at making Putin consider exactly what he's doing. There's not been this strong a reaction to his actions before. I hope he reconsiders his dangerous and stupid position. Re your point about imposing these sanctions to prevent him from invading Ukraine, I don't think anyone wants to provoke him into doing something rash.
snood
 
  3  
Sun 20 Feb, 2022 02:01 pm
@Mame,
Thanks, Mame. A lot of stuff there I didn’t know.
Mame
 
  3  
Sun 20 Feb, 2022 02:18 pm
@snood,
Al Jazeera and NYT have great coverage on the situation:

https://www.aljazeera.com/tag/ukraine-russia-crisis/

https://www.nytimes.com

And the BBC:

https://www.bbc.com

I hope you can open those links.
0 Replies
 
Thomastrokan33
 
  1  
Sun 20 Feb, 2022 02:56 pm
So far, Biden has been a conventional president; his Ukraine moment serves to balance the Afghanistan crisis, from 2021
snood
 
  5  
Sun 20 Feb, 2022 03:08 pm
@Thomastrokan33,
How should he have handled Afghanistan differently?
Was there a way that wouldn’t have been messy and fraught?
 

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