Category: Question O’ The Day

Who’s Running America?

Last week the Senate Democrat majority was hospitalized with Senator John Fetterman dispatched to a psych ward and Senator Dianne Feinstein, who doesn’t seem to know where she is, hospitalized for shingles. Fetterman and Feinstein didn’t let being hospitalized slow them down and went right on co-sponsoring bills even though the former had to be hospitalized because he couldn’t take care of himself and the latter no longer recognized colleagues.

Even in the Senate, Fetterman couldn’t understand what was being said and Feinstein wasn’t aware that she had announced her retirement. Despite that there are press releases from their offices and they’re cosponsoring legislation as if they’re functional and able to make decisions.

Senator Feinstein just introduced the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2023 to mandate abortion nationwide while outlawing state restrictions on late-term abortion when babies can feel pain. Considering Feinstein’s own mental capacity may not be that much greater than an unborn child, she might want to reconsider the value of human life even when it can’t articulate its feelings. But Feinstein isn’t really introducing or sponsoring bills, her staffers, who announced her retirement without her knowing about it, are legislating in her name. That’s a coup.

Or what we used to call a coup before it happened and just became how things worked.

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Something like Harry Reid’s ‘mishaps’?

McConnell Being Treated for Concussion After Fall

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is being treated for a concussion after his fall at a hotel in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night, his spokesman said.

McConnell, 81, is expected to remain in the hospital “for a few days” as he receives treatment for injuries sustained by his fall. The Kentucky Senator was attending an evening dinner for the Senate Leadership Fund, a political action committee aligned with him, when he tripped and fell, his office said. The dinner was at the Waldorf Astoria Washington DC, formerly the Trump International Hotel, Washington, D.C.

“Leader McConnell tripped at a dinner event Wednesday evening and has been admitted to the hospital and is being treated for a concussion. He is expected to remain in the hospital for a few days of observation and treatment,” said David Popp, McConnell’s communications director, in an update on Thursday.

BLOOMBERG HOST TO BIDEN ECON. ADVISER: ARE YOU ‘PUTTING THE POLLS BEFORE AMERICA’S ENERGY SECURITY?’
‘You’ve drained the SPR to its lowest level in four decades’

EXCERPT: [which starts at 1:06 in the vid]

FERRO: “You say it’s a prudent use of the asset. Other people are very worried about this. You’ve drained the SPR to its lowest level in four decades. There’s some accusation that you’re using — you’re putting the polls before America’s energy security. Brian, the Saudis themselves said this morning, that the U.S. requested a one month delay to the OPEC+ output. I wonder why that would be? Brian, can you tell me whether you did ask the Saudis for a one month delay to that decision? Are they telling the truth?”
DEESE: “Look, we clearly — we clearly communicated our views to OPEC members that we thought it was short sighted to for them to take the action that they were contemplating and they announced. With respect to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, this was a calibrated decision to address the real issues in the market. We talked to U.S. industry last winter, we identified that there was about a million barrel a day gap between what they were producing this winter and what they said that they could get production to by late this fall. That million barrel gap was what we calibrated to make the decision on the use of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. And people should feel confident that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve continues to be an asset that we can deploy to address our economic and national security needs. That’s always what has dictated the president’s decision making on this and that’s what will dictate his decision making on this going forward.”

Yes.

Is modern environmentalism a pagan religion?

The great Rush Limbaugh used to say that “the modern environmentalists worship the created, not the creator.” I was reminded of that after listening to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi once President Joe Biden signed the fiscally unconscionable $750 billion tax-and-spend Inflation Reduction Act, which gives another $300 billion to the climate change-industrial complex.

Pelosi (D-CA) claimed the wind, solar, and electric subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act would placate an “angry” planet. “Mother Earth gets angry from time to time, and this legislation will help us address all of that,” the speaker said.

This is a highly revealing statement. Do Pelosi and her Democratic colleagues really believe that spending $300 billion on Tesla subsidies (with batteries made in China), windmills (made in China), and solar panels (made in China) is going to save the planet, stop the rise of the oceans, and lower the global temperature?

This is the same gang in Congress that can’t stop the daily drive-by shootings in our cities, can’t secure the U.S.-Mexico border, can’t come anywhere near balancing the budget, and can’t provide the resources our military needs for our national security.

Even if this additional $300 billion were to work as planned, the Wall Street Journal reports that the impact on global temperatures in the coming decades would be to lower them by 0.001%. So, instead of the global temperature being an average of 59 degrees Fahrenheit, it will be 58.999 degrees. Thank God! We are saved from Armageddon.

But as Pelosi’s quote makes clear, this is about symbolism. It is about ruining the economy as a sacrifice to Mother Earth. Marc Morano, the journalist who runs the Climate Depot website, asks: “Will human sacrifices be next to appease the ‘angry’ Earth gods? Actually, this bill will create human sacrifice by imposing even more suffering from energy deprivation, supply chain issues, good shortages, inflation, debt, and bad science.”

He’s right. The suffering that will occur from this assault on American energy security and reliability could be profound — and it will be the lowest-income people who will be hurt the most. Inflation will rise as energy prices soar. The shortages of energy will cause hardship for many consumers, including food shortages. Europe, which got hooked on the green energy fad, is now rationing energy. In Spain, there are new restrictions on using air conditioning to set the temperature of your store or home at less than 80 degrees — during a heat spell. It’s one of those sacrifices to Mother Earth.

One of the great injustices and ironies of the new law is that it purports to give billions of dollars for “environmental justice” grants to low-income communities and inner cities when it is this group of people who will feel the brunt of the anti-fossil fuel policies. The poor spend three to five times more of their incomes on energy than the rich.

The warmest years in North America are not recent years — instead, they occurred during the 1930s amid the Dust Bowl era. This was before 80% of the carbon dioxide was released into the atmosphere. Back then, tens of thousands of U.S. residents died from extreme weather. But now we have, through modern electric power and technological innovation, major ways to reduce death rates from weather events. The way to save the Earth is through more growth, more innovation, and a richer planet.

That is what Mother Earth wants. That is what America wants. Only 1 out of 20 people rate climate change as the No. 1 problem facing our country. The public wants lower inflation and more prosperity. This law delivers neither.

The God that most of us worship wants us to create peace, prosperity, and light. The god of radical environmentalists will deliver darkness, despair, and decline.

Can you make a 40 yard supported shot?

Practice and find out, seriously. If you can’t, you have a goal, worthy of attaining, and a demonstrated, not hypothetical, reason for getting there.

Is this really a question?

Attorney General Garland playing favorites with civil liberties?

When discussing the Second Amendment, one of the conditioning exercises I’ve personally had to go through has to do with language. Many people did and or do have to be conditioned to look at so-called “gun rights” through the correct lens. Friend, fellow contributor at AmmoLand News, and author of the Good Gun Bad Guy book series Dan Wos, often talks about optics and language. One big takeaway I received from him many years ago, is that so-called “gun rights” are civil liberties/rights. So-called “gun control” laws are in fact anti-civil liberty laws. This is an important concept to understand because when the talking heads bring up “civil rights”, they often outright ignore the Second Amendment. It seems this includes Attorney General Garland, the Supreme Court reject and Biden-Harris flunkey.

Recently Garland delivered remarks about the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) new strategic plan going forward.

“The Justice Department was founded exactly 152 years ago, on July 1, 1870. Today, the Department’s urgent mission continues: to uphold the rule of law; to keep our country safe from all threats, foreign and domestic; and to protect civil rights.

“The Strategic Plan we are issuing today reflects that charge. It organizes the Justice Department’s important responsibilities into five areas of focus that will guide our work in the years to come.”

Garland and his ilk loves to bring up that the DOJ was founded to protect civil rights. Let’s take a look at what areas of focus are being zeroed in on to bring equality or make stuff equitable, whatever it is we’re dealing with in 2022 to say “level playing field” (even though equitable is not, and equality is considered a pejorative).

“Our first area of focus is upholding the rule of law, which is the foundation of our democracy. To that end, we will continue to work to uphold the norms and principles that are essential to the fair application of our laws and to the Justice Department’s independence and integrity.

“Our second area of focus is keeping our country safe. The Justice Department will continue to counter both foreign-based and domestic-based threats that endanger our safety and our democracy. These include the threats posed by nation-states, terrorist groups, cyber criminals, and others who seek to undermine our democratic and economic institutions, as well as the threats posed by violent crime, drug-trafficking organizations, and those who target vulnerable populations.

“Our third area of focus is protecting civil rights. We will continue to use every resource at our disposal to reinvigorate civil rights enforcement, including by defending voting rights, deterring and prosecuting hate crimes, advancing environmental justice, and expanding access to justice.

“Our fourth area of focus is ensuring economic opportunity and fairness for all. The Department will continue to strengthen its antitrust and consumer protection efforts; combat fraud, waste, and abuse; and investigate and prosecute corporate crime and the individuals responsible.

“Our final area of focus is administering just court and correctional systems. The Justice Department will continue to work to ensure that our nation’s immigration court system is fairly administered, and that our federal prisons and detention centers are safe, transparent, and effectively managed.”

Those civil rights that Garland mentioned “defending voting rights, deterring and prosecuting hate crimes, advancing environmental justice, and expanding access to justice.” are ripe to be explored. Okay, voting rights and hate crimes are real issues. Giving more access to so-called justice, also a real issue, but I’m sure Garland has a different view on what that means than we do. “Advancing environmental justice” is just another progressive mind game to push environmental terrorism upon the population, and thus control everyone through “green” initiatives and mandates. Digression, thank God the EPA got a spanking from SCOTUS. That may save the Republic in more than one way going forward. I’m talking about you ATF, as well as others.

Looking at the plan for focus 3 on civil rights specifically, we find somewhat parroted sentiments to Garland’s remarks.

STRATEGIC GOAL 3: PROTECT CIVIL RIGHTS

The Justice Department was founded during Reconstruction to protect the civil rights promised by the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments.  This work required confronting the racist conduct of the Ku Klux Klan and others who used terror and violence to keep Black Americans from exercising their rights.

Today, more than 150 years after the Department’s founding, far too many Americans still face discrimination.  Among other things, discrimination persists in voting, housing, and the criminal justice system, and historically underserved communities have disproportionately borne the brunt of the harm caused by pandemic, pollution, and climate change.

We honor the Department’s history by committing to a whole-of-Department approach to protecting civil rights and reducing barriers to equal justice and equal enjoyment of the rights, privileges, and immunities established by the Constitution and laws of the United States.

What other rights did Black Americans have infringements placed on? The right to keep and bear arms. And like today, Black Americans, and or those in underserved communities, still have their Second Amendment rights kept out of reach in many instances due to permitting laws, other regulations, and exorbitant fees.

Garland and the DOJ can’t sit back and brag about how great they are to minorities and protecting civil liberties if they refuse to respect all the fundamental rights. Beyond respecting the fundamental rights, the DOJ should be encouraging citizens to exercise said rights.

Nowhere ever have I seen the DOJ or Garland proclaim that any person, marginalized or not, take up arms should they ever need them in the event of a self-defense situation. If Garland, the DOJ, the Biden-Harris Administration, et.al. really cared about the protection of these communities and said persons’ civil rights, don’t you think they’d also encourage them to pick up the slack where our police and justice system cannot provide the same?

It was just back in May that I pointed out the same hypocrisy coming from Garland:

Pulling a page out of history, let’s look at that Department of Justice and what they were up to from the time of its founding. Two years after the official formation of the DOJ, an April 19, 1872 letter addressed to the House of Representatives noted within Messages and Papers of the Presidents Ulysses S. Grant, Grant addressed some issues that his then Attorney General and others communicated to him:

EXECUTIVE MANSION , April 19 , 1872. To the House of Representatives : …

Most, if not all, of this information, except what I derived from the Attorney – General, came to me orally, and was to the effect that said counties were under the sway of powerful combinations, properly known as “Kuklux Klans,” the objects of which were by force and terror to prevent all political action not in accord with the views of the members; to deprive colored citizens of the right to bear arms and of the right to a free ballot; to suppress schools in which colored children were taught, and to reduce the colored people to a condition closely akin to that of slavery; that these combinations were organized and armed, and had rendered the local laws ineffectual to protect the classes whom they desired to oppress; that they had perpetrated many murders and hundreds of crimes of minor degree, all of which were unpunished; and that witnesses could not safely testify against them unless the more active members were placed under restraint.

Garland, Biden-Harris, the DOJ, and the rest of the anti-freedom caucus members are silent on the deprivation of the right to bear arms. Garland’s July 1st release comes a week and a day after the Supreme Court had to lay down, yet again, the law of the land and make clear that the Second Amendment…

…is not “a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.”

But why should we split hairs over this fact that’s been stated more than once for the digestion of governmental officials? Well, maybe because they talk a big game but really do fail to deliver on their word salad. Garland can get back to us about civil rights when his DOJ looks into all the gross infringements of the Second Amendment in this country, including the topic of executive overreach. This especially needs to be brought up in light of recent events. That EPA ruling is looking better and better by the day! Until then it’s best that Garland stays in his swamp as the Biden-Harris flunkey he is, where he’s thankfully not a Supreme Court Justice.

Question O’ The Day:
Having found out how weak, unprepared and frankly defenseless the Soviet Union was — i.e. driving trucks with long tubes around to pretend to have a lot more missiles — I’ve begun to wonder if anything — any story ever told by international media — was ever true?–Sarah Hoyt

Now the smoke is dissipating, and the mirrors are broken. What comes next?

Former Kremlin mercenary: Russian army was not prepared for a real war; Kremlin propaganda’s Janus face.

I’m traveling for work, with limited internet access. A couple things though:

(a) A former mercenary with the Kremlin-linked Wagner Group, quoted on the Telegraph’s live blog today:

Russian forces were “caught by surprise” by the fierce resistance of the Ukrainian army, according to a former mercenary who fought with the Kremlin-linked Wagner Group.

Marat Gabidullin took part in Wagner Group missions on the Kremlin’s behalf in Syria and in a previous conflict in Ukraine, before quitting the group in 2019.

“They were caught completely by surprise that the Ukrainian army resisted so fiercely and that they faced the actual army,” Mr Gabidullin said about Russia’s setbacks in Ukraine.

He said people he spoke to on the Russian side had told him they expected to face rag-tag militias when they invaded Ukraine, not well-drilled regular troops.

“I told them: ‘Guys, that’s a mistake’,” said Mr Gabidullin, who refused a call from a recruiter inviting him to go back to fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine several months before Russia launched its invasion.

(b) The head of GCHQ, the British equivalent of the NSA (and the successor organization to the GCCS which cracked Enigma) says out loud what has been obvious for weeks: Western SIGINT [signals intelligence .ed] agencies like GCHQ are passing tactically relevant info to Ukraine in real time.

(c) Russian vlogger Roman, who has fled to Georgia, calls himself a “Bernie Bro” in US political terms (most unlike this blogger here — OK, he has the excuse he’s young enough to be my son ;)), and used to think Russian propaganda abroad only panders to “the right-wingers”. Then he discovered that Russian propaganda efforts actually are Janus-faced: different propaganda trolls pander to left-wing and right-wing audiences. The former carp on again Western imperialism, “Palestine”, social “justice”, a… and sandwich their Russian propaganda ham between slices of that; the latter instead put the ham between slices of anti-woke, anti-CRT, pro-nationalism,… bread.

Question O’ The Day

How many U.S. Presidents in modern history have announced ‘food shortages’ before they occurred?

The answer is: Only President Biden.

Quip O’ The Day

At one point I would have dismissed this sort of thing as conspiracy theory. But the conspiracy theorists’ track record isn’t bad, these days . . .

See: Did We **** Up (Again)?
QOTD:
Now we have a new potential issue showing up with severe hepatitis in young people which has no reasonable link to covid vaccines, since in nearly all people of that age they’re not eligible to receive them.  But, ominously, it is linked to an adenovirus that, in the past, has no known causation for hepatitis.

This raises a question: Has co-infection with another adenovirus, along with the vector being introduced to an unwitting person either in the form of the J&J or AstraZeneca vaccines, resulted in reassortment in the body and a transmissible adenovirus that causes liver damage?

11 countries now reporting outbreak of hepatitis in children.

The World Health Organization said it is investigating an outbreak of acute hepatitis among children that now involves 11 countries, including the United States.

Among the 169 reported cases, at least one child has died from this inflammation of the liver and 17 children needed liver transplants, the WHO said Saturday in a statement.

“It is not yet clear if there has been an increase in hepatitis cases, or an increase in awareness of hepatitis cases that occur at the expected rate but go undetected,” the WHO said. “While adenovirus is a possible hypothesis, investigations are ongoing for the causative agent.”

The symptoms “among identified cases is acute hepatitis with markedly elevated liver enzymes,” the statement added.

Hepatitis is typically caused by a virus. Adenoviruses are common, can spread between people and can cause people to be mildly or severely ill. Among these recent infections, adenoviruses have been detected in at least 74 cases, but they typically don’t cause severe hepatitis in healthy people. The common viruses that cause acute viral hepatitis, including hepatitis viruses A, B, C, D and E, have not been detected in any of these cases, according to the WHO.

While most of the children did not have a fever, many reported gastrointestinal symptoms such as abdominal pain, diarrhea and vomiting “preceding presentation with severe acute hepatitis,” as well as increased levels of liver enzymes and jaundice, CNN reported.

Most of the 169 cases were reported in the United Kingdom, which had 114. Nine cases were reported by the Alabama Department of Health last week.

Investigators are also aware of 13 cases in Spain, 12 in Israel, and smaller numbers in Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and Romania. The children are between the ages of 1 month and 16, CNN reported.

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Question O’ The Day
‘If gun control works so well, how does this happen?’

Violent Crimes Up 60% in LA According to Latest LAPD Data Since 2019
There has been an increase in the levels of violence and and firearm use during robberies

During a Los Angeles Board of Police Commission meeting earlier this week, LAPD Chief Michel Moore revealed that violent crimes have risen exponentially in the past year, moving the city closer to San Francisco in terms of the highest crime rates in the country.

According to the LAPD, citywide robberies are up 18% compared to this time last year, and up 5% compared to 2020. City wide robberies with a firearm also went significantly up, climbing 44% from this time last year, 57% from 2020, and 60% compared to 2019. While 36% of robberies and 74% of all robberies as part of the increase from last year used a firearm, the LAPD also got into specifics, such as noting that those who wore expensive jewelry in  public have been targeted more often in armed robberies.

“Over the course of this year, the Department has experienced an increase in robberies taking place in various communities in the City of Los Angeles,” the LAPD said in a press release on Tuesday. “Most concerning is that there has been an increase in the levels of violence used during these robberies and the frequency in which a firearm was used. During the Board of Police Commission meeting on March 22, 2022, Chief Moore discussed citywide robbery statistics, crime prevention techniques, situational awareness, and mitigation.”

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Question O’ The Day

The real question is, did Ukraine hold any back when it “disarmed?”
What would you have done?

Here is Ukraine President Zelensky’s speech
A salient piece

Has the world forgotten its mistakes of the twentieth century? What do attempts at appeasement lead to? As the question ‘Why die for Danzig’ turned into the need to die for Dunkirk and dozens of other cities in Europe and the world. At the cost of tens of millions of lives. These are terrible lessons of history. I just want to make sure you and I read the same books………….

The security system is slow. It crashes again. Because of different things: selfishness, self-confidence, irresponsibility of states at the global level. As a result, we have crimes of some and indifference of others. Indifference that makes you an accomplice. It is symbolic that I am talking about this right here. It was here 15 years ago that Russia announced its intention to challenge global security. What did the world say? Appeasement. Result? At least—the annexation of Crimea and aggression against my state……..

Ukraine has received security guarantees for abandoning the world’s third nuclear capability. We don’t have that weapon. We also have no security. We also do not have part of the territory of our state that is larger in area than Switzerland, the Netherlands or Belgium. And most importantly—we don’t have millions of our citizens. We don’t have all this.

Therefore, we have something. The right to demand a shift from a policy of appeasement to ensuring security and peace guarantees.

Since 2014, Ukraine has tried three times to convene consultations with the guarantor states of the Budapest Memorandum. Three times without success. Today Ukraine will do it for the fourth time. I, as President, will do this for the first time. But both Ukraine and I are doing this for the last time. I am initiating consultations in the framework of the Budapest Memorandum.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs was commissioned to convene them. If they do not happen again or their results do not guarantee security for our country, Ukraine will have every right to believe that the Budapest Memorandum is not working and all the package decisions of 1994 are in doubt.

Ukraine intends to develop its own nuclear weapons, and it is not an empty bravado. Ukraine indeed has Soviet nuclear technologies and delivery systems for such weapons, including aviation and Tochka-U tactical missiles, developed back in the Soviet; their range is over 100 km, but they will develop even longer-range ones, it is only a matter of time. There is groundwork from Soviet era………..

Claire Belinski:

Is it empty bravado? I don’t know. But we know this: For years, leaders around the world in Japan, Germany, South Korea, even Taiwan—have asked themselves this question: Which is safer? If we build the Bomb, we will enter an arms race that encourages our adversaries to obliterate us in a first strike. But if instead we shelter under the American nuclear umbrella, the Americans may not have our back. The NPT has held, more or less, because countries with the technical ability and resources to build the Bomb have considered this question and concluded that on balance, it’s best to trust us.

This is what we really mean when we talk about the “international order” and the “rules-based security system.”
It’s a shame we don’t speak of it plainly, because high school intellects the world around will always pipe up, “What international order?” “What rules-based security system?” They are always pleased with themselves; they always think it a clever thing to say.)

The balance is very fine. France, Israel, India, and Pakistan all considered the matter closely and concluded that however often Americans declared our fealty to the rules-based international order, when push came to shove, we’d forget we’d ever heard of them.

Fair? Unfair? Our record is mixed.

If we allow Ukraine to be gobbled up, in pieces or in whole, it may not change the world. But conversations in defense ministries the world around will surely take this into account. No one wants to be invaded by a bigger, stronger, rapacious neighbor.

There are only two solutions to the problem of a bigger, stronger, rapacious neighbor: a big, strong ally, or Shiva, destroyer of worlds.

The miserable, needless human tragedy engulfing Ukraine matters in its own right. It should matter to any sentient human even if American national security interests weren’t at play. But American national security interests—the security of the whole “rules based international order”—are very much at play, and Putin proposes to destroy that order, which will, ultimately, destroy everything.

Yes, well, this is what happens when the Pax Americana breaks down. And it breaks down when America is weak, and under Biden America isn’t just weak, it’s chosen to be weak.  

Question O’ The Day

Did Biden secretly agree in advance to allow Putin to do this? Or are we to believe this is a coincidence?

What’s next from Russia, Ukraine and the new Cold War?
Putin’s land grab in Ukraine is a grim reminder of a new world order under Biden’s watch

“This is the beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine,” President Biden said on Tuesday in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recognition of Ukraine’s two breakaway regions. Putin’s decision was quickly followed by the movement of thousands of Russian troops to the region to enforce that land grab, a sobering reminder of the emergent new world order.

Moscow’s invasion of eastern Ukraine is déjà vu 2008 with the Republic of Georgia [seizure of Abkhazia and South Ossetia] and Ukraine in 2014 [annexation of Crimea], and if I were in the Baltics [Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania] and the balance of Ukraine, or perhaps even Poland, I’d watch carefully movements to my east. Putin is poised to push west against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to recover lost ground which he considers part of the historic Russian Empire.

Putin’s aggression should alarm westerners who naively cling to NATO’s prowess. Years ago, during the Cold War (1948-1991), the West was much stronger and more able to stand up against Soviet aggression but not so much now. I doubt anyone who truly understands NATO’s capabilities believes the alliance can really defeat the Russian army. The numbers just aren’t there anymore.

Meanwhile, Putin long ago planned to create the pretext to move against Ukraine’s east via misinformation about alleged atrocities. That’s been building now for weeks: hybrid warfare with psychological operations, cyberattacks, and cease-fire violations. Recently the evacuation of civilians into Russia was a clear indication Putin’s plan was falling into place. Those actions remind me of Germany in 1939 and Poland.

Has Putin set his sights on NATO member states?

What now? Putin didn’t need 190,000 troops and a phalanx of tanks, thousands of artillery pieces, and a shipment of plasma to declare the eastern Ukrainian region independent. No, there is much more and this was long ago planned.

Looking into the future, expect Russia to keep large numbers of troops in Belarus, and many thousands inside eastern Ukraine. Also, recall that Putin and Belarus’s President Alexander Lukashenko declared the formation of a reaction force, a key indicator that Russia will hold its ground. Further, expect the geopolitical temperature to rise, subject in part to NATO and the West’s response, if any.

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1
Question O’ The Day
Why is this person speaking in Moscow?
Answer?
She’s just another commie who is pushing a line of propaganda.

2
It is nice of them to self identify like this.

Speaker: Militias not protected by Second Amendment
Law professor Mary McCord tells a Moscow audience why they frequently go unchallenged

MOSCOW — Contrary to widespread beliefs about the right to keep and bear arms, unauthorized paramilitary organizations, also known as militias, are unlawful in every state.

These groups, often dressed in military uniforms and armed with semi-automatic rifles, are not protected by the Second Amendment or its interpretation by the U.S. Supreme Court, according to Mary McCord, a visiting law professor at Georgetown University and executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection.

So why do these groups typically go unchallenged?

During the latest League of Women Voters of Moscow speaker series Wednesday, McCord said the answer lies in the widespread belief that private militias are constitutionally protected.

“There is a misunderstanding, including among law enforcement and even prosecutors, about the scope of the Second Amendment and the scope of the First Amendment,” McCord said. “Sometimes it’s just a misunderstanding, but sometimes it’s because even law enforcement is supportive of militias and has a different view about what the Second Amendment protects. Sometimes I think it’s a misunderstanding about the First Amendment and that some of it protects the expression militias are conveying.”

Despite the misconceptions, militia groups have proliferated across the country.

One year ago, during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, armed militia members traveled from as far as the state of Washington in an attempt to “stop the steal,” in response to Joe Biden’s triumph over Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Other times, militia groups have sought to oppose government policies or protect property at riots.

In Louisville, Ky., heavily armed rival militias faced off at demonstrations following the police shooting of Breonna Taylor.

While these groups have a right to make their views known, they don’t have a right to deploy in public as private armies. According to McCord, the Supreme Court has been very clear — through upholding anti-militia bills and laws — that even conduct with an expressive aspect can be regulated in the interest of public safety.

“The Second Amendment does not protect this activity, but there has been such a mythology that has grown over the last several decades,” she said. “When you’re deploying to protect property or engage in security — that is usurping law enforcement functions.”

These groups decide when and under what circumstances to deploy lethal force against other people, and they’re not accountable to any higher governmental authority.

All of this results in an infringement on other people’s constitutional rights, McCord says.

“This notion that militias are there to be a bulwark against tyranny is very popular in areas that are quite anti-government,” she said. “People even say to me, ‘That goes back way before the founding of the country. That’s exactly why it was put in the Constitution.’ Well, that’s not right.”

While there are comments in the Federalist Papers about state militias being a necessary defense against a tyrannical central government, there are no such comments in the Constitution about private militias doing so.

After the American colonies won their freedom from England, they decided to become states.

The new states decided to work together by forming a weak federal government, leaving most of the power with state governments. At the time, there were fears of a tyrannical central government.

“But nothing there ever said, ‘Private individuals, you don’t like what you’re seeing? Form your own private army and take up arms against your government,’ ” McCord said.

“That was not part of our constitutional history.”

McCord is a former acting assistant attorney general for national security at the Department of Justice and a former principal deputy assistant attorney general for national security.