Putin’s Predictabilities
Posted By: earlybird, 2/24/2022 3:54:42 PM
For all his caginess, dissimulation, and opportunism, Vladimir Putin is more or less predictable. Putin’s aims? The Russian president’s two-decade dilemma has been how to reclaim the prestige and power of the former Soviet Union—(snip) First, Putin moves on neighboring former Soviet republics when the world price of oil is high, and his coffers are full. So he went into Georgia in 2008 and into Eastern Ukraine and Crimea in 2014 (snip) But when the world is awash in oil, prices dip, and the United States reigns as the largest gas and oil producer, he hesitates. So he remained static between 2017 and 2020.
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earlybird"
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Feb. 25 drastically changed a key measure that is used by officials across the country to determine whether or not to require mask-wearing.
The federal agency now says nearly three-quarters of Americans don’t need to wear masks because they live in areas with low or medium community risk from COVID-19.
The dramatic switch comes because the CDC switched from only using COVID-19 cases as a factor and are taking into account other metrics, including hospitalizations.
“This updated approach focuses on directing our prevention efforts toward protecting people at high risk for severe ailments and preventing hospitals and healthcare systems from being overwhelmed,”
Sally Kellerman, an actress known for playing U.S. Army Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan in director Robert Altman’s 1970 film “M*A*S*H,” died on Thursday. She was 84.
The Oscar and Emmy nominated actor died of heart failure at her home in the Woodlands Hills section of Los Angeles,(snip)
she also guest-starred in a number of TV series, including “Star Trek.” She also made appearances in “The Twilight Zone” and the American anthology series “The Outer Limits.”
One of her last roles was in(snip) “Decker”—where she played a parody of former First Lady Hillary Clinton. The veteran award-winning actress had a career of more than 60 years
DeSantis Promises This Is Where He'll
Send Illegal Immigrants If They Keep Being
Brought to Florida 11 replies
Send Illegal Immigrants If They Keep Being
Brought to Florida 11 replies
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) promised if the Biden administration continues facilitating transporting people who illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border to his state, then he will reroute them to President Joe Biden's home state of Deleware.
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday, DeSantis noted he banned sanctuary cities in Florida after becoming governor and he is working with the state legislature to obtain funds to send illegal immigrants brought to Florida to be taken to Deleware.
"We are in the process of getting money from the legislature so that if Joe Biden is dumping illegal aliens in Florida, I'm re-routing them to Delaware... we'll do some in D.C.
A New Age of Barbarism
7 replies
Political leaders in the US, Canada, Germany, and France – all NATO countries – got back on script yesterday. They could not wait to get to the microphones. They all seemed to have new energy and purpose in life. Politicians are made for this moment! They are vastly more talented at dishing out righteous opprobrium directed at foreign beasts, which make far more compelling enemies, than inveighing against invisible viruses.
As Russian bombs rained down on Ukriane, Western leaders – having spent the better part of two years bullying their citizens and quelling protests – spoke in soaring tones about freedom, democracy, peace, and human rights.
Border Agents Asked to Leave Southern
Border, Go to Poland for ‘Operation
Ukraine Support’ 8 replies
Border, Go to Poland for ‘Operation
Ukraine Support’ 8 replies
The Southern border of the United States is in unimaginable crisis. Border agents set a new record for arrests of people trying to enter the country illegally from Mexico: 1.9 million in 2021. And 402,000 of those were released within the United States, with asylum hearings scheduled, for which some will never show up. Biden has vilified and lied about border officials;(snip)Now Biden’s handlers have come up with a new idea for how border agents can keep occupied: they want to send them to Eastern Europe for “Operation Ukraine Support.”
Putin’s Predictabilities
8 replies
For all his caginess, dissimulation, and opportunism, Vladimir Putin is more or less predictable.
Putin’s aims? The Russian president’s two-decade dilemma has been how to reclaim the prestige and power of the former Soviet Union—(snip)
First, Putin moves on neighboring former Soviet republics when the world price of oil is high, and his coffers are full. So he went into Georgia in 2008 and into Eastern Ukraine and Crimea in 2014 (snip)
But when the world is awash in oil, prices dip, and the United States reigns as the largest gas and oil producer, he hesitates. So he remained static between 2017 and 2020.
Update(10:11amET): The potential is rising for greater fallout from the war across Europe, as intense fighting is being reported centered in the Chernobyl area. Ukrainian authorities are sounding the alarm over potentially disastrous scenarios which could ensue in areas of the Chernobyl containment zone, which includes an expansive region surrounding the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant where radioactive contamination is highest, since the April 1986 disaster. Russian troops are reportedly entering the area from Belarus, according to Interfax:
(snip)
Gerashchenko stressed that "if a nuclear waste storage facility is destroyed as a result of enemy artillery strikes, then radioactive dust can cover the territories of Ukraine, Belarus and the EU countries!"
The leaders of two separatist regions in eastern Ukraine have asked Russian President Vladimir Putin for military assistance, said a Kremlin spokesperson on Wednesday, as Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said U.S. intelligence has determined that more military forces have entered the two regions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin “received letters of appeal from the head of the Luhansk People’s Republic Leonid Pasechnik and the head of the Donetsk People’s Republic Denis Pushilin,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov in remarks to state-run media, referring to the names of the breakaway regions.
Peskov alleged that the two heads of the separatist regions believe there are “threats from Kyiv” against citizens in Donetsk and Luhansk.
From Hunter Biden’s laptop to influence peddling to financial dealings, the media has presented a fairly unified front dismissing allegations and blacking out coverage. (snip) The media has largely allowed President Joe Biden to repeat without challenge that that his son did “nothing wrong” . . . despite many of us writing for years that what he did was very wrong indeed. Yet, it is becoming increasingly hard to spin out of this scandal as David Weiss, the U.S. attorney for the District of Delaware, continues to call people before a federal grand jury to testify on Hunter Biden.
For over two years, Weiss has been investigating tax and
As Virginia rounds the corner in its first session of 2022, legislation passed in the state’s pro-life House faces major challenges in the Senate. Although Virginia ushered in a pro-life governor this January, the Senate is still controlled by pro-abortion Democrats.
(snip)The Republican-controlled Virginia House passed HB 304, the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, sponsored by Del. Nick Freitas, R-Culpeper. The bill requires an abortionist to provide life-saving treatment for a child born alive after a failed abortion. It passed 52-48 along party lines.
Enes Kanter Freedom, who was recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and is newly without a team in the NBA, received a warm welcome from Senators on Capitol Hill at an awards ceremony last week for his continued activism against the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) human rights abuses.
When it comes to the NBA, “you can talk about all the social justice, all the injustices happening all around the world. But when it comes to China, you cannot speak up,” Freedom said at a ceremony hosted by advocacy group Committee on Present Danger: China in Washington on Feb. 17. “If you do, then you’d have to face the consequences.”
Miss Alabama Zoe Bethel died about a week after she suffered brain injuries caused by an undisclosed accident, her family confirmed on Monday.(snip)Bethel’s family members previously said online that she sustained “severe damage” to her brain after a Feb. 10 accident before she was placed in a coma. At the time, her family added that doctors were “saying the damage cannot be repaired & that she may not have much time left.”(snip)Other than being Miss Alabama, Bethel was a political commentator for Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN), which often broadcasts former President Donald Trump’s speeches online.
(snip)
also a spokeswoman for Students for Life America and was affiliated with Project Veritas.
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Barack Obama Urges Americans to Unite
Behind Joe Biden and Embrace Economic
Pain for Ukraine 89 replies
Behind Joe Biden and Embrace Economic
Pain for Ukraine 89 replies
Former President Barack Obama issued a message of support for President Joe Biden on Thursday, urging Americans to unite behind economic sanctions against Russia.
“Every American, regardless of party, should support President Biden’s efforts, in coordination with our closest allies, to impose hard-hitting sanctions on Russia,” Obama said in a statement sent to reporters, defending Biden’s sanctions as a serious attempt to put “a real price on Russia’s autocratic elites.”
Obama’s statement of support for Biden follows his own failure to stop Putin from annexing Crimea in 2014 when he was president.
The former president also urged Americans to embrace any economic pain that they would suffer
White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates hammered former President Donald Trump for heaping praise for days on Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'Two nauseating, fearful pigs who hate what America stands for and whose every action is driven by their their own weakness and insecurity, rubbing their snouts together and celebrating as innocent people lose their lives,' Bates tweeted from his official government account Thursday morning. Bates shared an article about Trump telling a crowd at Mar-a-Lago Wednesday night—as Putin began his assault on Ukraine—that the Russian leader was 'pretty smart.'(Snip)Later Tuesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki hit back at Trump.
Russian troops have invaded Ukraine from three directions in an all-out war. Ukrainians have had to rush into full civilian mobilization in an attempt to survive it. At stake is the post-Soviet world order that provided for at least some semblance of diplomatic engagement over use of arms between major powers.Those life-and-death issues aren’t the big priority, at least not to former Secretary of State John Kerry. This morning, he expressed hope on BBC Arabic that Putin will remain a partner with the West on … climate change.
No, seriously:(Snip for tweet) “Massive emissions consequences” from the war that Kerry only lightly acknowledges in this interview?
President Joe Biden will nominate federal Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson on Friday to replace Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, which would make her the first black woman on the high court's bench should she be confirmed by the Senate.
Breyer announced his retirement last month after 28 years on the Supreme Court, effective when the current term ends this summer. That paved the way for Biden to fulfill his 2020 campaign promise of nominating a black woman as a Supreme Court justice.
Failing cable news nets CNN and MSNBC
poised for a bidding war over Psaki as
their ratings savior 37 replies
poised for a bidding war over Psaki as
their ratings savior 37 replies
There is a certain symmetry to the notion that the spokesmouth for the failing Biden administration reportedly is being assiduously courted by the two failing cable news networks, CNN and MSNBC, both of which have endured near-catastrophic ratings declines in the era of Biden. More Biden cowbell… yea, that’s the ticket.
A scoop report by Dylan Byers, formerly of NBC and now the founding partner at media website Puck, gushes over Psaki and the reported talks she or her agent are having with the two networks. (snip) Paski’s job is to make the Biden administration look good and sell its performance to the American public. Let’s see how she’s been doing
The Russian invasion of Ukraine isn’t going as easily as I think Vladimir Putin thought it would go.
As we noted earlier, they are facing some tough fighting from the Ukrainians as well as thousands of protesters in Russia who have come out against the war. That’s quite something, given the oppressive state of Russia and how they would face immediate retribution. Yet, protesters have come out anyway.
Ukraine fought back to recapture an airport the Russians had taken. So, Russia isn’t going to be able to do what they wanted because they haven’t met the goals they were trying to meet by now – which was to seize all
Back in December when longtime broadcast journalist Chris Wallace announced he was leaving Fox News and the coveted anchor perch he had held there for some 18 years, speculation ran high that the “new adventure” he hinted at heading off to involved a stint at CNN, which is Public Enemy Number One as far as Fox News viewers and a growing number of cable news watchers across the country are concerned.Sure enough, not long after Wallace revealed his departure from Fox, a statement was issued noting he would soon be joining CNN+, the paid streaming version of CNN which is expected to debut before the end of March.
On Wednesday’s broadcast of “NBC Nightly News,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the U.S. has hit Russia “hard” with sanctions, he has reason to believe Russia will be engaging in something similar to a full invasion of Ukraine before the end of the night, and “everything is in place for Russia to move forward.”
Host Lester Holt asked, “Do you have reason to believe that, before this night is over, Russian forces will be engaged in something akin to a full invasion of Ukraine?”
Blinken answered, “I do. Unfortunately, Russia has positioned its forces at the final point of readiness across Ukraine’s borders, to the north,
The Secret Service is telling Republican investigators that it cannot find communications related to Hunter Biden’s travels for 2010, 2011, or 2013 — when President Joe Biden was the vice president. Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin sent the Secret Service a letter last month seeking unredacted records tied to Hunter Biden’s travels between January 2009 and January 2017. They asked for full travel records and criticized the agency for years of “inappropriate redactions” — especially related to a controversial Kazakhstan trip in 2014. The senators also lamented that three years of documents seemed to be missing entirely.
Sen. Mitt Romney condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in a statement late Wednesday that also took a shot at both of America’s last two presidents, including a famed line thrown at him by Barack Obama. The Utah Republican blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine on a decade and more of U.S. weakness, also alluding to former President Donald Trump’s foreign-policy slogan.
“Putin’s impunity predictably follows our tepid response to his previous horrors in Georgia and Crimea, our naive efforts at a one-sided ‘reset’ and the shortsightedness of ‘America First,’” he said. Mr. Romney once was ridiculed by Mr. Obama, when the two men faced off
In the wake of the Freedom Convoy in Canada, there’s a convoy of American trucks heading to Washington, D.C. in time for next week’s State of the Union address.
I guess we’ll get a chance to see if the American left can be as tyrannical and authoritarian as Canada’s ruling Liberal Party has been.
The Capitol Police is getting ready to flex its authoritarian muscles already.
“Law enforcement agencies across the National Capital Region are aware of plans for a series of truck convoys arriving in Washington, DC around the time of the State of the Union. As with any demonstration, the USCP will facilitate lawful First Amendment activity,” announced a press release
Putin Officially Launches a Full Invasion
of Ukraine, Lodges Disturbing New Threats
Against the West 28 replies
of Ukraine, Lodges Disturbing New Threats
Against the West 28 replies
As RedState reported earlier, Secretary of State Antony Blinken shared on Wednesday evening that he believed Russia would fully invade Ukraine within hours. That has now been confirmed by none other than Vladimir Putin himself.
Per an announcement from the Russian president, his military forces are moving into greater Ukraine, including Kyiv, in order to “demilitarize” and “denazify” the sovereign nation. None of this is hypothetical anymore. Explosions are being heard in multiple Ukrainian cities. It is clear that a major military attack is underway. Putin also levied some disturbing threats against the west, seeming to suggest he would be willing to use nuclear weapons